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| Editorials & Comments Black Leaders Should Rise! A reoccuring theme in this column has been the need for a viable cadre of black leaders to arise for specific events impact ing upon black people. We noted recently (June 12) that it was Police Chief J.C. Goodman who convened a meet ing of about 20 "black leaders” in an effort to find out some concerns of the black community in order to avoid a Miami-type racial conflict in Charlotte. The so-called black leaders at this meeting offered a number of suggestions. Most had been dis cussed in previous or similar meetings on how to prevent an outbreak of racial violence. We wondered, and asked the ques tion as to why, if the black leadership was really concerned and alert to conditions around : them did they wait for a white police officer, probably encour aged by public officials, to get them together to address black people’s concerns? Earlier this week Mayor Eddie Knox and Assistant City Man ager Don Steger made a special effort to get black business and community leaders to employ low-income family teenagers in jobs for the remainder of the summer. This effort came after the city’s earlier attempts to find jobs for poor teenagers through 1,600 area business leaders who had met with little success. Businessman Malachi Green told the group, “It’s time for us to seize this opportunity.” Again we ask, why did these black community and business leaders wait for someone else (the city) to convene them to explore jod needs for poor youth? Why is it that at this late date only 15 to 20 jobs for poor youth have been committed by black leaders? These questions remind us again of a recent New York Times’ front page story that questioned the ability of the nation’s black leadership to deal with the issues of economic and social injustice and racism. Rev. Jesse Jackson reacted to the article by saying “the charge (by white news media) that there is a new disillusionment with black leadership is inac curate.” Maybe Jackson is wrong, at least at the local level. We need to take a closer look and ask when will the black leader ship, if such leadership exists, arise and begin to assert itself on behalf of the larger black com munity. Making Of The President In “The Making of the Presi dent i960,” Theodore H. White notes, “The transaction in power by which a president is chosen is so yastly complicated that even those most intimately involved in it...can never know more than a fragment of it. For it is the nature of politics that men must always act on the basis of uncertain fact...” This was evident in the recent Republican National Convention when Ronald 'Reagan nearly committed the unconstitutional act of negotiating away the powers of the presidency in exchange for the vice presiden tial running mate of his choice. It is happening also in the Billy Carter-Libyan controversial goodwill fiasco that has caused, in the word of NEWSWEEK, “a political hurricane that threaten ed his brother’s already pre carious White House perch.” That statement relates to “un certain fact” statements be cause it demonstrates how little we know and understand the fragments of the American poli tical system. More significantly. “First bro ther” Billy’s outspoken, unpre dictable, beer-drinking and be lated registration as an agent for a foreign government could in fluence the course of history by possibly being the primary rea son for Jimmy not being re elected. This can happen if the panic stricken paranoid, schizophrenic of the “dump Carter, open con vention” Democrats are allowed to prevail. We are talking about a group of political, weaklings who want to ride to re-election on the coattail of a popular Presi dent but are ready to abandon that President at the first sign of trouble or a real political fight. President Jimmy Carter ca$ no more be held accountable for4 the action of his brother than can the late Sen. Robert Kennedy for the arrest of his son David on a “driving under the influence” arrest recently. If the Democrats really want to assure Ronald Reagan a presi dential victory in November, all they need to do is abandon Jimmy Carter over the inept acts of his brother. No man, president, truck driver, or priest should be held responsible or considered guilty of the mere fact of blood relationship. After all, there are allegations too that Ronald Reagan’s daugh ter has a male live-in roommate. Does that in and of itself make him any less moral or qualified for the presidency? We think not. Be mature about your political beliefs whatever they may be; and don’t let the emotional heat of family or relative behavior in the headlines unduly influence your vote. ■ - ii —. Make Tlie Sdewalk W 19 A Health Hazard For ChUren As I See It Athletes And The Hardship Cases oy ueraia u. jonnson Post Columnist I am sure many of you read about the hardships a great athlete is now facing. I am talking about the bankruptcy Joe Caldwell, former Carolina Cougar Stand out, experienced. Al though the entire situation is bad there is some good that can come out of Joe's hardships. The good is the lesson to be learned from all of this. The circumstances that surround Joe’s downfall, two points stand out in my mind. First, Joe left college as a hardship case thereby never completing his edu cation. Second, Joe is no longer a young man. These two points are the reasons Joe is in the trou ble he is in. To the aspiring young ouucic, it u> iiupurumi iu realize that athletic ability is a temporary asset. Its intrinsic value depreciates as your age appreciates. Therefore, it is not enough to be athletically inclined to be successful in our society. You must have someUiing else to offer to society once your athletic ability is valueless. That something else more often than not can be gained through a college education. With a degree you can reshape your life style and still make it. Joe Caldwell has no de gree. It is obvious that he could at least make a valuable contribution to a school’s athletic program. But he can’t get a degree. He is a wasted resource. Ironically, it is his own fault. It is cases like Joe’s that cause me to be opposed to the hardship draft. The hardship draft ex ploits the poverty situation a hardship athlete has been exposed to. A poverty stricken youth sees the opportunity to Gerald O. Johnson leave the ghetto environ ment through athletics. He will play a few years in college, and wait to be drafted as a hardship case. Overnight he finds that he has become a rich man. More often than not his mental maturity has not grown as rapidly as his wealth. Consequently, his wealth vanishes almost as rapidly as it appeared. Some people have suggest ed that if they were in this situation, that they would go wun me hardship case and return to finish their education later. Not a bad idea, but one that the facts will not bear out. Once a hardship athlete starts drawing a paycheck, that’s it. He feels that since he is making more money than most people make with a degree, why bother. Moreover, he is spending too much time living the life of glamour. Conse quently, he will never re turn. Yet year after year athletes continue to file bankruptcy. A single calculation can show that being a great athlete will leave you no thing but memories if you can’t carry on in some thing else. Let us take an athlete at age 18 and bar ring any injuries of the like, let us say he will last until 38; two unlikely hypo theses. Let us further as sume that through this 20 year career that our ath lete averages $100,000 a year; another unlikely hy potheses. If our athlete lives to be 65 he would have made enough money to have an average yearly income of $42,553.20. Not bad! But it is not bad if our athlete realizes this and lives 20-year career based on a yearly income of $42,553.20. Instead, making $100,000 a year he will live like a king on a yearly leased income of $100,000. Consequently, when he reaches age 40 his glamor years are over and so is his financial stability. Note, that our example was ex tremely generous. Most athletes will last only io years at most. Most will not earn $100,000 a year. There fore, our figures will change drastically. On a 10-year career leaving everything else constant our athlete will earn $21,276.60 a year based on age 65. Lou Hudson of the At lanta Hawks said it best when teammates ridiculed him about being cheap. Lou replied, “I live a lifestyle that I can sustain and maintain." Lou lives in a modest home, drives sim ple cars, and dressed mo destly. Lou is an intelligent athlete. Hence, if you are a young aspiring athlete and you are going to use your ath letic ability to lift you out of the poverty stricken en vironment you are now in, remembers these points: 1) Atnietic ability is not forever; 2) A college education is forever; 3) Budget your earnings while being an athlete on age 65; > 4) Hire a good firm to manage your money. J 1 Action tfime “To Touch That Dia S • By Gerald C. Horne. ESQ. Special To The Post 1AVIV O « TTUOV OVA TWJ OO Ct VUlllUUld' tion babysitter, narcotic and mind-polluter? All those who said television advance to the bead df the class. The “boob tube” pri marily a post-World War II phenomenon, has been blamed for lessening reading skills, increasing passivity and inducing all forms of negative behavior. Those who see our youth in fighting Kung Fu postures hying to kick the groin of their playmates recognize that is the influence of the old David Carradine show. Those who eaves drop on our youth’s conversations during recess and before school, know that infre quently are books discussed but more likely the previous evening’s TV shows. And what is it that we see when we flick the magic dial? This was the main topic at the recent conference on “Black Families and the Medium of Television” held at the University of Michigan. Their conclusion: a huge, domineering mother (the “Mammy” image revisited), an ineffectual or absentee father, a swarm of bickering children. This is ABC’s, CBS’s, and NBC’a ingredients for the few “Black” shows allowed on the air. “That’s My Mama” and “Good Times’We the prototypes. ‘The Jeffersons” presents the Black businessman as a buffoon, making one wonder how he stays out of red ink. “Sanford and Son” would lead one to believe that quarreling and antagonism is the leitmotif of the Black community. And make no mistake - given the rampant segregation in this nation in housing, schooling, employment, etc. - what Blacks and whites know of each other often is limited to what’s on the screen. _1__ __ . wiicu ouuwa aic pi ebtnieu trial seem to have promise and steer away from the more egregious stereotypes, they are usually dropped. Witness “Harris and Company” or “Paris” or “Lazarus Syn drome” (featuring a Black physician) or “Palmerstown U.S.A.” (a joint venture of Alex Haley and Norman Lear). Keep in mind that is the same industry that kept Blacks off the air - except “Amos and Andy” type insults; this is the same industry that capitulated to insidious pres sure when white racists protested Nat King Cole’s presence on the air; this is the same industry that when it finally introduced on the air a Black who could “walk and chew gum at the same time,” (Bill Cosby in “I Spy”) had the audacity to have him play that most odious of figures - a CIA ag^t - and hand-maiden to a white cretin tennis player. And this is the same industry, viz. NBC, that is trying to palm off on the viewers a typical racist “Moonlights and Magnolia” version of Reconstruction - “Beaulah Land” - which the NAACP, following in the steps of the W.E.B. DuBois protest against “Birth of a Nation” and its allies have managed to keep from the screen thus far. Complicating the situation is the Federal Communication^ Commission (FCC) which is supposed to regulate the airwaves in the public interest. Anne Jones, the only woman on the seven-member agency, re cently blasted the FCC’s affirmative action policies. Though only nine of the FCC’s staff of 2,200 works in this area (representing a commitment of one-half of l percent of the agency work force), Ms. Jones sess this as a misaUocation of a “substantial portion” of resources! THE CHARLOTTE POST Second Class Postage No. 965500 “THE PEOPLE’S NEWSPAPER” Established 1918 Published Every Thursday by The Charlotte Post Publishing Co., Inc. 1524 West Blvd. -Charlotte. NC 28208 Telephone (704 ) 378-0496 Circulation -9,200 82 Years of Continuous Service BILL JOHNSON...Editor. Publisher __^_--!^^^BIMtEEVES^Cenera^1anagei^^i^^ Second Class Postage No. 965500 Paid At Charlotte, N.C. under the Act of March 3,1878 Member National Newspaper Publishers Association ■Noi th 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. rwLM^,hirAve 45 W. 5th St., Suite 1403 Chicago, III. 60616 York N Y 10036 From Capitol Hill U.S. Foreign Policy Violates Funding Principles By Alfreds L. Madison Special To The Poat Former Attorney Ge neral Ramsey Clark, whom President Carter is prosecutingfor his re cent trip to Iran held a news conference. He stated that the 80s will be a difficult period because there is a growth of ter rorism in the world. Clark said the dynamics that cause it must be under stood. The facts that are responsible for terrorism must be known, and that a response to it requires in telligent, rational action. About Iran, Mr. Clark said the people are disturb ed; that there is no govern ment in control. The Iran ian public being furious •over the Shah’s ruthless treatment of power by force, and that the United States' actions have in creased tension President Carter’s threat of force and *snotions, in trying to sub due the Iranians into sub mission won't work, be cause the present Iran mentality won’t readily yield to military force. The Iranian people realize that fflreda L. Madison we are concerned about S3 people, while we show “a don't care” attitude about 70,000 Iranians who have lost family members, per manently injured people and widows and fatherless children caused by the Shah’s repressive treat ment and that he was put into power and kept there by the United States. Clark emphasized that in November of 1979, the United States blocked the United Nations' efforts to seek dialogue with the Iranians. He stated that p dialogue is necessary so that the truth can be known. He said, “we did wrong and that we should apologize.” The Attorney General said President Carter is not telling the American people the full truth about the hostage situation, and that con gress is not dealing fairly with the American people by not holding hearings on the Iran question. Clark strongly emphasized that our leaders got some of the American people so unjust ly riled that they mistreat ed the Iranian students who are matriculating in this country. He said Iranian students were no more responsible for the hostage taking than our hostages were for our government's actions in supporting the Shah Ramsey Clark stated that the United States’ foreign policy violates every principle for which this country was founded. We preach democracy while supporting dictator ship; a policy that is doomed to fail. He said con gress must grapple with this problem; that con gress lets the war policy slip through its fingers. We must learn that respect for the rights of others is the only way to bring about real peace. The Attorney General eluded to our Cu ban policy; that we sup ported Baptists, whose re pressive actions created Castro, but by our lack of trade with Cuba, we drove Castro into Soviet camp. Clark suggested that con gress must control the acts of its agencies. It must do something about the eco nomic blockade of Iran because our actions are doing no one a favor but they can serve to drive Iran to identification with the East We must understand that soon Iran will be strug gling with a new govern ment; that we should in vite some of their new legislators to some type of a summit meeting. He said it is the duty of our leader ship to tell the American people the truth. Mr. Clark said that if the President’s attempted rescue mission had gone according to the Administration’s plan, "it would have coat the loss of many lives, and that a constitutional government does not allow a chief exe cutive to institute military action to satisfy his own whims. The Attorney Genera] stated that while he did not see any of the hostages, he was assured that they were all right. He feels that a dialogue with the Iranians will cause the release of the hostages. The Iranians ad mit that retention of the Americans is costly. Clark feels that through proper court actions, Iranian money that is held in this country should be re turned. ^ When questflRed about the prospects of being punished for his trip, Clark stated that he had violated no laws and that it’s not a good policy for a country to threaten people’s freedoms. wjt Making A Lot Of Noise wear traitor: The GOP is making a lot of noise, but about the only thing that I heard that I really agree with is letting the states set their own speed limit. I don’t think that we need any more defense spending. A look a history would show that we didn't need the last draft if the Joint Chiefs of Staff had showed one bit of common sense when it came to picking the terrain our ‘ troops were to fight on. Must our armies always fight either in the moun tains or in the jungles where nothing but infan can go? As for our present cession, just why can’t have some . public w projects? Our auto would go smoother if rail roads were either passed with ad under or an over P.«S1 Rill .1 1
The Charlotte Post (Charlotte, N.C.)
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July 31, 1980, edition 1
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