Newspapers / The Charlotte Post (Charlotte, … / Jan. 11, 1996, edition 1 / Page 4
Part of The Charlotte Post (Charlotte, N.C.) / About this page
This page has errors
The date, title, or page description is wrong
This page has harmful content
This page contains sensitive or offensive material
4A EDITORIALS/ The Charlotte Post January 11, 1996 CI)arIotte ^osit Gerald O. Johnson Publisher Robert Johnson Co-Publisher/ General Manager Herbert L. White Editor Butterfly preserved slave culture By James Alsbrook SPECIAL TO THE POST The death of Butterfly McQueen stirs contradictory feelings among many black people who long ago advocated dignity, self- respect and race loyalty. One of these was Rev. D.A. Holmes, long-time minister and NAACP advocate in the Greater Kansas City area. He associated black dignity with Christianity perma nently as twin powers propelling his people toward "a respectable seat at the table of American justice." Rev. Holmes urged black people to "Pay your church dues first and pay your NAACP dues next." He said the two payments were inseparable from the sur vival and progress of black people. Rev. Holmes did not endorse performers like Bert Williams, the black comedian who long ago used makeup to blacken his face even more, and applied white makeup to make his lips appear bigger and wider and spoke so-called "Negro" dialect. Nor did he applaud performances of songs like "When Malinda Sings" and recitals like "Liza, Liza, Bless De Lawd," a monologue created by Paul Lawrence Dunbar. Black people suffered enough degrada tion from white people and did not need to self-impose expres sions of ignorance, he explained. The Rev. Mr. Holmes looked upon "Amos and Andy" as racial insults despite the number of church members who said they saw nothing wrong with "a little bit of self-humor." He wanted to know how “Amos and Andy^ would add respect and employment to the black community. The race-conscious minister seemed to associate well-known performers like Stepin Fetchit with immoral behavior when he rhetorically asked congregations to be careful where they placed their values. He among others referred to Psalms 84:10 from which he read, "I would rather be a doorkeeper in the House of my God than to dwell in tents of wickedness." The "tents of wickedness" seemed to be movies and other public performances that violated the dignity of black people or cast them as negative stereotypes. Did Butterfly McQueen violate the dignity of her race when she acted the humiliating role of an ignorant maid in "Gone With the Wind" back in 1939? This picture is considered to be a classic by some v/ho revel in the so-called "glory" of an immoral but glamor ized and somewhat "cleansed" slave culture that advocated white supremacy and approved imaginary black ignorance. The legacy of Butterfly McQueen and similar others is a pre vailing slave culture that has caused intellectual dishonesty in education and stereotypical behavior in some blacks. For exam ple, not long ago a doctoral candidate from a Confederate state worked long and hard for her degree. But she also went to her white advisor's home and insisted on doing menial "maid" house work for his wife. When she went "down home," she returned with fhiit, vegetables, baked food and other "goodies" sent by her parents. The professor and his wife were very embarrassed and really tried to stop the gifts. Receiving gifts violated these white recipi ents' personal integrity and the university's code of professional ethics. When I met and spoke with the woman's parents, her father said black people must "take low" and "go with the flow." But somehow I believe Rev. Holmes would smile if he were here today. He did not live to see the "Cosby Show" with its eight-year, main-event run that began in 1984, lasted until 1992, and still is shown in reruns. The show portrayed blacks in respectable role- model situations and successes. White people who colonized this nation used the Cosby-style emphasis on upward mobility and positive role models effectively ever since they arrived here in America. The admirable idea of portraying educated black women instead of repulsive chamber maid stereotypes is dis played in "Waiting to Exhale," now being shown in various cities. JAMES ALSBROOK is professor emeritus at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. flie4NW/Hlie BAck IN H15 SAFeHA\«N.« s.^ I- a..j7 % I’fiAFlJAlPT/iATiF we m sLAifft WlfLP ^ rm mvt Lime AICJT... AMt> we atiT fiA\ie TfiAT y Gingrich’s latest insult to blacks Lenora Fulani Like many conservative politicians. Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich makes a big show of criticizing pro grams that provide public funding for campaigns, such as the Presidential Primary Matching Funds program. He and his colleagues in the Senate regularly denounce these taxpayer funded pro grams as "welfare for politi cians," even as their own par ty's presidential candidates - Dole, Gramm, and the rest - stuff their already bloated campaign war chests with tens of millions of these matching dollars. Last month Gingrich once again denounced the matching funds program, this time adding racism to his hypocrisy. In testimony before the House Oversight Committee (the committee in charge of campaign finance reform), Gingrich used me, the first and only African American woman to ever qual ify for matching funds, as a prime example of why the pro gram is so flawed. Referring to me as exem plary of a "nut class of poli tics," Gingrich said that I had figured out how to "get enough people to support her to be eli gible for tax-paid funds so she can earn a living getting tax- paid funds." According to Gingrich, I know how to "get on the dole" and I run a "ter rific racket." Keep in mind that in the 20 years since the Presidential Primary Matching Funds pro gram was instituted as a cam paign finance reform, the ben eficiaries of this program have been almost exclusively white men. Hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars have poured into the campaign coffers of the likes of Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Bill Clinton, Paul Tsongas, Pat Robertson, and others who "have figured out how to get enough people to support [them] to be eligi ble." A modest amount of these dollars have helped Rev. Jesse Jackson and Gov. Doug Wilder in their presidential efforts. And approximately 3 million of those matching funds have contributed to my two presidential runs. In 1988 I became the first African American woman to ever fulfill the rigorous eligi bility requirements necessary to qualify for matching funds. I received a little over $900,000 for my first presi dential campaign. These funds matched tens of thousands of small checks—many as small as $1—contributed by Americans around the country who supported my efforts to open up the, electoral process to independent candidates and voters. If the purpose of the matching fund program is to encourage Americans of modest means to get involved in the process, and give small Referring to me as exemplary of a "nut class of politics," Gingrich said that I had figured out how to "get enough people to support her to be eligi ble for tax-paid funds so she can earn a liv- ing getting tax-paid funds." amounts to the candidate of their choice, then my two cam paigns - to which over 150,000 Americans have contributed an average amount of under $25 - more than fufilled that public policy goal. Unlike Mr. Gingrich himself, who appears to have benefit- ted considerably from the indi rect financing and support of his notorious GOPAC political action committee, my cam paigns depended on honest, face-to-face contact and con versations between my cam paign workers and the tens of thousands of individual American voters who support ed me. We didn't rely on politi cal action committees, "inde pendent expenditures," or the "soft money" from political parties that the so-called reformers—Republicans and Democrats alike—pretend to oppose. My two presidential cam paigns, which broke through many of the legal and institu tional barriers that discrimi nate against independent can didates, set important legal precedents that can now be used by the Perot movement's Reform Party, the Natural Law Party; the Green Party, and other independent efforts. My appearance on the scene of presidential politics - a good ol' boys club if there ever was one - was an achievement of which the African American community was very proud. Gingrich's racist attack on me, with its conscious invocation of numerous racist stereotypes about African Americans, is an attack on our community and on the broad and inclu sive practice of democracy that Black America - and all America - desperately needs. LENORA FULANI is a New York political and social activist and former presiden tial candidate. Stalemated state of the most uncertain union By Mike Feinsilber THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON - President Clinton gave the longest State of the Union address in histo ry a year ago. It ran 81 min utes. Duration may have been its most memorable aspect. If he wants to avoid the trouble of writing a new address, he can give it again this year. Much would still apply. The president laid out his agenda in that speech and the Republicans, in charge of Congress for the first time in 40 years and consequently full of energy, laid out theirs in the "Contract With America.” Not much of either became law. In a sense, they canceled each other. The Republican Congress and the Democratic administration got bogged down in a debate over what kind of government the American people asked for - and whether they want to pay ■ for it, or charge it. January is a time of new resolve and new promise, and it would be nice to report that 1996 promises to resolve some of the quarrels of 1995, but that would be optimism bor dering on folly. What 1995 did was to fine tune the choices the people will confront in 1996. The election messages from 1992, which produced Clinton, and 1994, which neutralized him, were contradictory. The people seemed to be opt ing for impossible goals: smaller government but no fewer benefits from it; lower taxes but a balanced budget; greater state and local control, but a federal safety net. In 1996, they’ll speak again. At the end of the year, the Republicans wrapped up their reading of the people’s will in a single bill, the balanced budget act, and when Clinton vetoed it, much of the government was left without the authority or the wherewithal to operate. The Republican Congress could have passed another stopgap spending bill to keep the government running while negotiations continued toward a compromise. But the Republicans - especially the mission-driven Republican freshmen - saw compromise as the enemy, not the goal. In the choice, between status-quo government and no govern ment, they pre ferred the latter. The freshmen are House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s spear- carriers. He needs them. He is not the first leader ever to race to keep in front of his troops. The result was more govern mental stalemate, which most politicians agreed was what the citizens least wanted. Another result was greater public dismay with Washington. The people’s disgust is a phenomenon that had helped send both Clinton and the Republicans to Washington, but now it can work against both. Each is an occupant now of the USS Incumbency, a boat neither wishes to rock to excess. From all this, incumbent Clinton seems to benefit the most politically. He emerges as a counterweight to Republicans he has managed to portray as zealots. He emerges, too, as the pro tector of government services people are not ready to give up, especially Medicare, the answer to every adult child’s worry about his parents, and its forerunner, Social Security. Except for Steve Forbes, who would privatize it for younger workers, the Republicans are not proposing to tamper with Social Security. But it is built on the same payroll tax foun dation as Medicare, whose growth Republicans do pro pose to curtail in the interest of controlling deficits. That’s why Clinton could be safe in dusting off last year’s State of the Union address, the theme of which was, "Too many of our people are still working harder and harder for less and less.” That speech was a Clinton- lite version of his 1993 propos als, which even the Democrats had balked at enacting. He called for health reform, wel fare reform, a middle-class tax cut and an increase in the minimum wage. Even if that program doesn’t pass, it is something he can run on. He knows that. He ran on it four years ago. MIKE FEINSILBER has covered events in Washington since 1968.
The Charlotte Post (Charlotte, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Jan. 11, 1996, edition 1
4
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75