6A
NEWS / The Charlotte Post
Thursday, November 13, 19?7.
Bill likely to tackle affirmative action
Continued from page 1A
national consensus will only be
seen as political and divisive,”
said Gekas, who led the move
to table H.R. 1909.
The federal government sup
ports two types of affirmative
action. One policy requires pri
vate companies doing business
with the government to display
a good-faith effort in employing
a diverse work force that mir
rors the region’s workers.
Federal agencies also seek to
award 5 to 10 percent of con
tracts to minority- and woman-
owned firms.
The Republicans’ defection
could signal, at least on the
House committee, a change of
attitudes regarding affirmative
action. Watt said. With race-
and gender-neutral laws reduc
ing opportunities in California
and Texas, more politicians are
taking a hard look at the rami
fications.
“What it suggests is that some
people on the Republican side
see it’s going to be detrimental
to the Republican Party’s inter
ests or the country’s interests,”
Watt said. “As long as we can
get some Republicans to break
off from the far right, we can
hold this action off a lot longer.”
Centuries of publicly-sanc
tioned discrimination require
government to take a leader
ship role in establishing proac
tive policies. Watt said.
Ultimately, however, affirma
tive action supporters will have
to educate more people about
the need for specific programs.
“It’s not about whether people
want to be color blind,” Watt
said.
“The question is how you
achieve that objective on a
short-term and long-term
basis.”
GM program biased against blacks
By Linn Washington Jr.
NATIONAL NEWSPAPER
PUBUSHERS ASSOCIATION
A white accounting supervi
sor for General Motors walked
into a Kansas City GM dealer
ship, then owned by Richard
Wallace and boldly declared
that this “nigger won’t be
around much longer.”
Wallace no longer owns the
GM dealership and he blames
discriminatory practices by
officials at America’s largest
automobile manufacturer for
the demise of his business.
Dan Barnes had owned a
Ford automobile dealership
when he headed off to Detroit a
few years ago with high hopes
of fulfilling his dream of land
ing a General Motors auto deal
ership.
With the experience in retail
car sales management and
available cash required for
GM’s Minority Dealer
Development Program, Barnes
seemed like a qualified candi
date.
But during his Motor City
meeting, Barnes said he was
“cursed out and shouted at” by
a top GM executive who con
stantly referred to “you peo
ple...”
Dan Barnes was denied a
dealership, yet he is lucky that
he was just verbally assaulted.
One black GM executive was
beaten bloody by a white GM
counterpart a few years ago
after he objected to racist treat
ment meted out to a black deal
er. This beating took place in
the back seat of a car as three
GM executives, including the
black man, were returning
from a corporate meeting.
Other blacks who have partic
ipated in GM’s Minority Dealer
Development Program have
been driven into bankruptcy by
what they contend is GM’s dis
criminatory financing support
and racist consumer credit
practices.
“This is a story about racism.
intimidation, coercion and
abuse,” notes Richard Wallace,
a leading critic of GM’s
Minority Dealer Development
Program.
“GM puts black dealers in
poor locations with too much
debt and you're bound to fail,”
continued Wallace, in a recent
NNPA interview. “GM is a
vicious beast...what they do to
us is immoral at best.”
However, GM spokesperson
Ed Lechtzin stresses that the
company has a number of “suc
cessful [black] dealers wbo are
comfortable with the program.”
GM was the first auto maker
to institute a Minority Dealer
Development Program, yet a
recent article published in a
Gannett-owned newspaper
notes that GM has the smallest
percentage of black dealerships
among the Big Three manufac
turers that include Ford and
Chrysler.
Only 1.3 percent of GM’s
8,234 dealerships are Black-
owned.
Problems with GM’s 25-year
old Minority Dealer
Development Program were
detailed in the investigative
article published by Gannett
Suburban newspapers in West
Chester County, N.Y.
The article described top GM
executives liberally using the
N-word and treating many
black GM dealers in a discrimi
natory manner that included
“an uneven level of financial
support.”
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Va. man goes to trial
THE CHARLOTTE POST
INDEPENDENCE, Va. - One
of two white men accused of
burning alive a black acquain
tance and then beheading the
victim will go on trial April 1 on
a capital murder charge.
Grayson County Circuit
Judge J. Colin Campbell set the
trial date Thursday for Louis J.
Ceparano, 42, who also faces a
charge of robbing Garnett P.
Johnson.
Campbell allowed three days
for jury selection and scheduled
opening statements for April 6.
The gruesome killing July 25
has received extensive national
publicity, and the Justice
Department is investigating
whether it was a racially moti
vated hate crime.
Jimmy Turk, Ceparano’s
attorney, has said he plans to
ask Campbell to move the trial
because most people in this
small, southwest Virginia
mountain county on the North
Carolina border know about
the crime.
No trial date has been set for
the other defendant, Emmett
Cressell Jr., who is accused of
aiding Ceparano. Cressell, 36,
faces charges of robbery and
first-degree murder.
According to police, Ceparano
and Cressell, their girlfriends
and Johnson had been drinking
heavily during an all-night
party at Ceparano’s trailer
when Johnson was attacked.
The two defendants allegedly
removed the 40-year-old vic
tim's watch, carried him out
side the trailer and set him on
fire. Cressell and his girlfriend
left soon thereafter to notify
sheriffs deputies.
A deputy testified that when
he arrived at the trailer, he
found Johnson’s body still smol
dering and his head lying in a
hole that had been dug nearby.
Authorities believe Ceparano
cut off Johnson’s head after
Cressell and his girlfriend left.
A medical examiner testified
at a hearing in October that
Johnson was doused with fuel
and burned alive.
Ceparano could get a death
sentence if convicted. Cressell
faces a maximum life in prison.
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Calif, city bans tobacco
and alcohol billboards
NATIONAL NEWSPAPER
PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION
Compton City Council has
passed an ordinance banning
alcohol and tobacco advertising
in most publicly visible locations,
making it tbe first city in
California to take such an action.
Seven other communities,
including Long Beach, Inglewood
and the county of Los Angeles,
have either passed or are consid
ering passage of less restrictive
ordinances which limited outdoor
ads to within 500 to 1,500 feet of
schools and churches.
Compton’s ordinance is the first
to foUow Baltimore and Chicago's
action in actually banning such
billboard advertising. Studies
conducted by the Washington,
D.C.-based Center for Science in
the Public Interest show that the
tobacco and alcohol industries
not only target African-American
and Latino communities, but the
ads are more provocative and
there are more of them than in
white communities.
The Black Women's Media
Project launched the campaign to
restrict the billboards in April
1996. It included several presen
tations to the Compton City-
Council, organizing a letter writ
ing campaign with allied
women's organizations, working
with community volunteers and
through churches to collect 500
letters of support from citizens. -
Redesigned U.S. $50 bill
The Federal Reserve has start
ed issuing redesigned Series
1996 $50 notes.
The new bills, which will be
widely available in banks and
other depository institutions
around the world in the coming
weeks, incorporate new features '
to protect against counterfeiting"
and make U.S. currency easily'
identifiable to people with lovV'
■vision. The Series 1996 $50 note
follow the March 1996 introduc-''
tion of the redesigned $100 note/
and is part of an ongoing pro
gram to maintain the security of
the nation’s currency.
See PENNY on page 7A '
PHOTO/BUICK MOTOR DIVISON
General Motors Corp., which manufactures Buick and other major automobiles and trucks, may have
been biased against African American dealers according to a newspaper in New York.
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