Newspapers / The Charlotte Post (Charlotte, … / March 6, 1980, edition 1 / Page 2
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Editorials & Comments The “White Shadow” Syndrome A recent front page story in the Charlotte Observer indicated that West Charlotte High School, once a presumed shining ex ample of successful integration is now faced with a "waning -unage.Ironically r 4he focus ul the story is based on the opinion of one white parent who says she’s reluctant to speak out for — fear of being labeled a racist, yet her racist tbrrgwrflapson. The mother of a 12th grader at West Charlotte reportedly-said, “I guess we just want a more white school,” and “I guess we’re just feeling like maybe we’re not the big dogs over there...” She is apparently upset that the school is projecting a black image because the princi pal, the basketball and football head coaches are all black as are most of the athletic team mem bers and the vast majority of the school’s marching band. Signifi cantly, however, this lady was apparently not critical of the school’s academic, program. In fact the PTA president was quoted as saying, “The faculty and staff are excellent.” The bottom line of all this is that she dislikes West Charlotte High School for no appardht reason other than that she thinks white folks must run everything. As tragic as this is and as pathetic as her views are, we need to understand that she, as many other whites and some blacks, are caught in the “White Shadow” syndrome that shows • white as the masterminds behind everything. ut course, we are all aware of the television,hero Ken Howard, the ‘‘White Shadow” who coach es at an inner-city school of a largely black youth basketball team. He is coach, counselor, substitute father and brains be hind a sometimes renegade band of high school athletes. A part of the hidden agenda of this tele vision show is the alleged -superiority of the white man. It is in fact actedmirarthousands ol high schools, colleges and universities daily as black youth dominate the basketball court but always with a white head coach. A case in point was that of Lacy Smith who, despite two state football championships, three undefeated teams, and 37 years of "experience, he was repeatedly ignored as a can didate for the head coaching job at Logan High School in West Virginia until a circuit court ruled in his favor. Thn + ^ „ U » > _ — <>>uvv uuuuu v> ojrll” drome, a part of the new racism, is not limited to the world of sports. Thousands of black men and women are denied pro motions, discriminated against in hiring offices, and are the last to be hired and the first to be fired despite all the civil rights laws, ordinances and court de cisions over the past two de cades.. This is evident by the fact that blocks earn only 57 percent (down from 61 percent in 1970) of that of whites, black unemploy ment is twice that of whites and black youth joblessness has nearly reached 40 percent. When blacks have to struggle against these odds and still achieve some success in the job market or other endeavors, then we get a “White Shadow” syndrome thinking person who thinks white should, by nature, head-up and lead everything. This is racism, pure and simple. A limely Conference An as yet unknown number oi black labor, religious, political and community, leaders met for , four days through last weekend in Richmond, Virginia to try and agree on a national agenda designed to influence those insti tutions-from the ghetto school to the White House-that touch the ) lives of black people. The history meeting, billed as a “National Conference for a = black Agenda for the Eighties” appears to be adequately broad enough to address the vital is sues of housing, jobs, health, education and livable urban communities. Undoubtedly, there are skep tics who will contend that no thing of any consequence has emerged from the conference because blacks have held similar meeting before with little lasting results, if any. However, with a conference focus on realistic goals that define issues within the political process that affect black people, state house to presidential candidates will have to respond to black voter concerns. THE CHARLOTTE POST Second Class Postage No. 965500 “THE PEOPLES NEWSPAPER” Established 1918 Published Every Thursday By The Charlotte Post Publishing Co., Inc. 1524 West Blv Charlotte , N.C 28208 ! . Telephone (704) 376-0496 Circulation, 9,915 ' " 61 Yearn Of (.ontiniioun Service BILL JOHNSON ..Editor Publisher BERNARD REEVES . General Manager j Second Class Postage No. 965500 Paid At Charlotte, N C. under the Act of March 3,1878 Member National Newspaper Publishers _ Association North Carolina Black Publishers Association Deadline for all news copy and photos is 5 p.m. Monday All photos and copy submitted become the property of the POST, and will not be returned. National Advertising Representative Amalgamated Publishers. Inc. ♦5 W. 5th Suite 1403 - 2400 S. Michigan Ave kNew York. N Y. 10036 Chicago. Ill606,6 5-0700 Nevertheless, significant to making any of the conference’s goal a reality will be the actions of black voters, community leaders and families, particular ly with regard to registering to vite and voting. The Richmond conference was planned by the Black Leadership Forum - a coalition of 17 of the oldest and largest national black organizations in the United States. Therefore, its outcome and impact direction should be significant. ' With white dominated America caught in the jaws of massive inflation, a faultering foreign policy, a declining urban policy and an overkill defense mechanism, one has to ask the question - what’s the way out? The answer might be that while whites have been “exulting in the work ethic, (and have) al ways seen the black man as the pre-industrial post; it never oc curred to them that he could be the post-industrial future,” says historian William I. Thompson in his book AT THE EDGE OF HISTORY. * BLACK* MUST REALIZE, UHEN THEY FAIL TO BE COUNTED IN CENSUS, THEY LOSE POLITICAL REPRESENTATIVES ALPERNEN, ADEQUATE POVERTY FUND ALLOCATIONSAND PLANNING FOR SCHOOLS, ETC." |_ Count Us In The 1980 Census | As I See It Pride Lacking Among Blacks By Gerald Johnson I have noticed a lack in black professionalism in black business in Char lotte. Those businesses ca tering to a black clientele seems to be nonchalant about how they present their product to the cus tomer. Let me give you an example When I first moved to Charlotte I bought a house. I wanted the sun room on the house remodeled. I called a black construction company to ‘give me an estimate. The owner came out, looked over what I wanted done and said he would write up an estimate and get back in contact with me. Three years and one room ad dition later and I haven’t heard from him yet. I called a white remodeling agency that came in and did the job. Ironically enougn tne white agency subcontracted the job to a black carpenter who did an excellent job. The point here is that blacks are undoubtedly qualified to do a professional job, yet they lack the professional di plomacy to contract jobs. It is inexcusable for any busi ness to ignore a potential customer My wife started seeing a black gynecologist for her medical services, but switched after feeling that the doctor was too insen sitive. She was not the only defector. Overhearing con versations my wife would have with friends it be *came apparent that many felt the same way. professional diplo macy overshadowed pro fessional ability. Club, restaurants, insur ance agencies, and the like all lack the professional air Therefore the mood of skepticism about doing business with blacks is real. But how real is it? As blacks needing services rendered, we help add to the unprofessionalism of black businesses It is a fact we, as black custom ers, give black business a hard way to go. Black workers produce less when working for blacks. Black customers are less willing to pay black collectors, black customers are less willing to pay a black com pany for services rendered the same price that they would pay a white com pany for the same services. Taking all this into con sideration and realizing that a black businessman’s primary clientele is the black public, whereas the white businessman’s clien tele knows no color, the black business is hurting. Moreover, jealousy plays a dominant role in black business and black cus tomer relationships. A lot of blacks refrain from help ing black businesses be cause they don’t want blacks to get ahead. In other words there are those who purposely anchor black businesses. The rea son for this is my theory of "Failure Rationalization." It works like this: These blacks can rationalize their failings simply by using race as the reason. By saying that whites have had all the opportunities, they can relax with their shortcomings. But as more blacks succeed in business it begins to put the reasons for failure where it be longs; in the lap of the individual. ii is uuviuus inai oiacK | capitalism suffers because of the skepticism between black business and black ’ customers. With a limited customer base, a black business has to be under staffed. The necessary revenue is not forth com ing. This causes a situation whereby the owner of the business is likely to be the salesman, the worker, the bookkeeper, etc. This ob viously limits a person's ability at diplomacy. All small businesses lack pro fessionalism for this rea son. As members of the black community we all should try to help build pride and professionalism in our community. As businessmen, we should not use the lack of personnel as an excuse for not giving customers the very best service we can offer. As black laborers for black businesses we should do our jobs the best we know how and not try to take advantage of the busi ness because it is black. As consumers of services rendered by black busi nesses we should try to give our support With support, hard work, and pride in ourselves as a community, we could turn mountains. —Vernon E. Jordan, TO BE EQUAL Slate Of Black America The National Urban League re<^ntly released its annual report, The State of Black America. As in past years, it presented a grim picture of black dis advantage. -- The past decade saw a widening of the yawning gap between blacks and whites. Black family income fell from over 60 percent of white family income at the beginning of the decade to barely 57 percent at the end of the seventies. Over a half million more black people were poor in 1979 than in 1970. many apparent oiack gains in the seven ties fail to withstand close scrutiny. The increased number of blacks attending col lege in the ten years since 1970 for example, masks the fact that disproportionate num bers are in community colleges or other institutions that do not grant BA or BS degrees. The growth of the numbers of blacks in professional and managerial jobs leads some to assume that these higher status positions mean middle class incomes. But the report finds that three-fourths of black professionals and managers earn LESS than the national median family income. The same holds for the much-vaunted shift to white collar jobs. The bulk of the increase took place in lower-rung clerical jobs, and half 'of black sales and clerical workers earn poverty-level incomes or less. The report finds the outlook for the eighties bleak. Blacks never recovered from the recessions of the seventies, and another recession this year will further widen the black-white gap. crowing competition tor jobs is another threat. Between 1974 and 1977 blacks obtained only five percent of the new jobs in private industry. Black men suffered a net loss of jobs. Other emerging groups, es pecially white women, made gaihs while black workers lost out. Black gains in the eighties will be largely dependent on new job opportunities for female heads of families. Over a third of black tamilies are headed by women arid most are poor because of the Tailur^to provide full-time employfnent, a situation likely to continue and even worsen in the 'decade ahead. If the seventies were a decade of benign neglect, the eighties .threaten to render black people, their needs and their aspir ations, irivisible. Closing the black-white gap has been a matter of national indifference for over a decade, and current national obsessions indicate the issue may virtually disappear from national debate. The President’s State of the Union ad dress, in sharp contrast to the State of Black America report, ignored the continuing disadvantage of America’s largest minor ity. candidates in both parties refuse to address issues of black-white disparity, poverty, and a new deal for the nation’s disadvantaged. Instead, a deteriorating international situation has resulted in calls for a renewed cold war and increased military spending. Such measures would also benefit the nation as a whole, improve the lives of all its citizens, and heal the wounds that weaken our nation domestically and internationally. brom The While House lnumph And Disaster Are The President’s Campaign Cover? Hy Alfreds I.. Madison Special To The Post President Carter gave the American United States Olympic hockey team and some of the U S Olympic medalists an elaborate White House wel come. He flew them from Lake Placid to Washington and he had also flown a crowd to the South Lawn to cheer them. The President flanked by the First Lady, congratulated and hugged the athletes. He said he hopes to have a summer competition for them, since he has said that Americans will not participate in the Moscow Olympics, because Russia did not bow to his demand of complete with drawal from Afghanistan by February 20 Mr. Carter certainly sounds like an Imperial President when he gives another country a deadline and then says to American athletes, ‘Til not allow you to pursue the course for which you have spent years of training .” These people trained for world Olympics and not just some trumped-up, side-stepped competition Gerald O. Johnson AJfreda L. Madison Mr Carter said he stopped work on foreign and domestic problems to watch the hockey game Yet, he can't take time from those problems to debate the issues so the American people can get answers to questions on how and why we got into this deep trouble and how and when he plans to get out of it Surety the Presi dent took advantage of this Olympic triumph to cam paign. just as he is using the Fran and Afghanistan tragedies to stay in the White House, make hun dreds of telephone calls to individuals soliciting votes, but fails to appear where he can be questioned about the spiraling cost of living and unemployment. It ap pears that he is resting on both triumph and disaster for his political gain. Representative Lois Stokes announced support for Senator Kennedy, stat ing that, ‘‘it is obvious that the Administration did not - and still does not have an alternative plan to deal with increased energy costs, food, housing and health care prices.’' Stokes continues, “risking nuclear war appears to be this Administration's suggest ed solution to protect the oil companies supplies in the Middle East and keep us from realizing how we are really being gouged to death by high prices and taxes ” congressman John Con yers has called for "Wage and price control as the only decent alternative to escalation in unemploy ment and the conventional Klicyt of fighting inflation boosting interest rates and sacrificing economic growth and jobs.” Conyers stated that wage and price control worked'in 1971 when inflation was only 4 8 percent and after three months, it has been re duced to 1.9 percent. Now with inflation at 18 percent, controls appear highly ne cessary. Senator Kennedy has also called for wage and price controls and there is an ever growing sentiment around the coun try for it. Yet, the Presi dent is saying that such is out. When he met, recently, with top economic and energy advisors, being alarmed over inflation, cutting non-defense spend ing was given high priority The defense spending de serves a hard look, es pecially since the Presi dent is offering countries around the world military weapons, which are man ufactured at a huge cost ti American citizens and sol< to foreign countries by th< big corporations who maki a huge profit Both th< Persian Gulf protection and military build-up seem a ploy for the big compan ies to get rich at the ex pense of the poor. Presi dent Carter needs to be questioned about the tactics. Macks bee Job Bias Revival * corn, from Page l Nearly a majority of Blacks, 47 percent, report that equal employment op portunity affirmative act ion (EEO-AAl programs treat Blacks worse than whites, and 55 percent state that there have been no real changes in hiring as a result of EEO-AA The only exceptions to the latter findings are those who apparently have ex perienced the worst dis crimination: Blacks over 50, those from the .South, and those with less than a , high school education Moreover, Blacks per ceive their own problems to be different from those of the U.S. as a whole Over half, 55 percent, cite un employment as one of the two or three most import ant problems facing Blacks, while only 27 per cent cite it as a problem for the U.S Thirty-six percent men tion discrimination as a pro blem for Blacks, whereas 13 percent mention it in connection with the U S Similarly, 24 percent cite education as a problem Sfacing Blacks, wile only four percent mention it as a problem for the U S More over, those with the most recent and most extensive experience in the educa tional system (younger re spondents and college graduates) are among the most likely to cite it as a problem, for Blacks READ THE POST r ■■ ■ 1
The Charlotte Post (Charlotte, N.C.)
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