wmm
5A
OPINIONS/ C^ilotte $at
Thursday April 8, 2004
There’s always a
chance for
redemption
D.G. Martin
takes on such an assignment
deserves our thanks and
Sometimes, when I am dis
couraged about the possibili
ties of “solving” some of our
country’s toughest problems,
I remember two of my heroes
in Charlotte, Mary Carol
and George Michie. They
taught me that our responsi
bility to serve others does not
end just because we cannot
find a quick and simple
“solution.”
A few months ago, I wrote
about them in Our State
magazine. Just in case you
are in need of a little inspira
tion, I am going to share part
of that story with you now.
About the same time that
Mary Carol and George,
together with their three
young children, moved to
Charlotte in 1967, Martin
Luther King was assassinat
ed. They were anxious about
relationships—race relation
ships. Mary Carol says, ‘We
wanted to do something pos
itive to make a difference,”
As Presbyterians, they
wanted to join an integrated
Presb5d^rian congregation, if
they could find one. They
found just one in Charlotte -
Seigle Avenue Presbyterian.
Actually Seigle Avenue
was a white church that had
served Piedmont Courts, a
white public housing project.
But civil rights laws had
forced Piedmont Courts to
integrate. When the church
opened its doors to blacks,
many of its white members
left.
When the Michies visited
the church, Mary Carol sat
beside one of the few blacks
attending the service. “I
remember taking commu
nion with her and thinking
that this is the way it ought
to be.”
Within a few months, the
Michies were mainstays of
the struggling church. Their
first project, and the one that
Mary Carol treasures the
most, was a program for the
teenagers who lived in
Piedmont Courts and the
nearby neighborhoods.
First, George and Mary
Carol took charge of the
“Noble Knights,” a group of
teenage boys. Then they took
on the “Cloud 9” girls club.
Each group had about 10
regular members, and soon
they were a part of the
extended Michie family.
They were taking camping
trips, organizing sports
teams, cooking meals, doing
service projects—and mak
ing waves.
Mary Carol and George
Michie are not the only peo
ple to volunteer to mentor a
group of teenagers in a poor
neighborhood. Tbenagers in
public housing projects may
be our country’s toughest
challenge—theirs may be
the hardest broken lives to
mend. So everyone who
praise.
What may set the Michies
apart is their willingness to
stay on task for so long. They
have never stopped their
work with the members of
the Noble Knights and
Cloud 9.
More than thirty years
after they were teenagers,
the club members are stdl in
touch with each other and
the Michies.
“At weddings and funer
als,” Mary Carol says, “they
will all be there, sitting
together on the front row.”
Most of these club mem
bers have built good lives—
with families and solid jobs.
Some have struggled. Some
are still struggling. But
Mary Carol and George
never give up on any of
them.
Almost twenty years ago, a
man, who had been a
favorite of Mary Carol’s
when he was a child, broke
her heart when she learned
that he had been arrested for
murder.
As Mary Carol left the jail
after her first painful visit
she remembers thinking, “Is
this the same child who
came to church early on
Saturday morning to help
me clean? The same child
who quietly came into wor
ship the Sunday before
Christmas to give me a gift?
The same young man, who
as a youth, spoke so elo
quently about the meaning
of Christmas? Who once
talked about his own far
away dream to be a youth
worker? I remember his
occasional temper and mood
iness and his difficulty in
completing tasks, but my
mind cannot fathom his get
ting a gun and blovdng
someone away.”
This tragedy led to another
avenue of service. Still
deeply disappointed, Mary
Carol continued to visit him
regularly. She went to his
trial and after his sentencing
kept in touch. This experi
ence prompted Mary Carol
and another church member,
Ann Bradley, to organize a
church group to correspond
with prisoners. The mem
bers of the prison mission
group meet once a month.
The members agree only to
do two things: write a pris
oner regularly, and pray for
that prisoner regularly.
At meetings, the group
spends about half the time in
Bible study and prayer.
Then they report to each
other about “their prison
ers.” The outward journey of
reaching out to the prison
ers, gives the participants an
inner spiritual underpin
ning.
The “success” with prison
ers is hard to measure. Some
will never leave prison. Not
aU who do gain freedom -will
be able to keep their lives
turned around.
D.G. MARTIN hosts "North
Carolina Bookwatch” on UNC-
TV.
POSTSCRIPTS
We’re losing legacy of
personal achievement
Angela Lindsay
If you went to high school in America,
chances are that at some point during your
academic career, perhaps in history or
civics class, you learned of the Brown vs.
Board of Education case. If you went to
high school in Charlotte during the 70s,
chances are you felt a direct impact of this
case via Swann vs. Board of Education.
And if you don’t recall any of this, here’s
a recap: in 1954, a Supreme Court decision
in Brown ordered that public schools be
integrated “with all deliberate speed”. In
1971“ the Swann case mandated race-
based busing when it became apparent
that the speed at which Charlotte-
Mecklenburg schools were becoming ade
quately integrated wasn’t deliberate
enough.
For decades. Brown and its residual
cases such as Swann were hailed for their
pivotal roles in rectifying the -wrongs of the
“separate but equal” standard in public
schools. While many hoped Brown would
be an impetus for eradicating racial dis
parity in our educational systems by pre
senting black youth the opportunity to
learn and subsequently compete on a level
equal to that of their white counterparts, I
am of the opinion that today, fifty years
later, it has not.
It seems to me that though the condi
tions of hlack schools and the materials
black teachers had at their disposal to
teach black children during segregation
may have been substandard compared to
those at white schools, the integrity and
pride associated with even being able to
get an education was very much intact in
the hearts and minds of students. That
feeling seems to have seeped through the
cracks.
The feeling of community upon which
black schools and neighborhoods thrived
decades ago is all but gone, mere skeletons
now after decades of neglect, urban sprawl
and apathy. Such reality brings to mind
the old adage: you can’t miss what you
never had. Many black youth today never
experienced the strength of black commu
nities. They never had a reason to respect
the tradition of black schools. Education
has becomes an afterthought.
Once upon a time it was commendable, a
“personal uplift” I once heard it called, to
be studious and proud of it. Nowadays,
finding a black child’s nose in a book gar
ners atypical praise (and quite possibly a
plethora of ugly names from his peers).
The struggle of black youth today is a
much different one from yesterday - lunch
counter sit-ins and boycotts replaced by
gang violence and teen pregnancy. But
when so many young black lives are
plagued by lack of boundaries, lack of dis
cipline, and lack of morale, are we sur
prised when an ultimate lack of respect for
education ensues?
Inadequate foundations in the personal
lives of black youth coupled with the insti
tutionalized harshness of the real world
can, and do eat away at the fabric of would-
be well-adjusted black youth like so many
moths to wool. In many instances, it allows
our youth to sit idly by v^dth said wool
pulled over their eyes, peering wishfully
out of moth-ridden holes only big enough
for them to see the mirage of a “bling,
bling” rap career or the elusive promise of
professional athletics. Case in point: Dom
Perignon and Acura Legend. (Generally,
these two phrases bring to mind relatively
luxurious tastes in champagne and auto
mobiles, respectively. Imagine my dismay
when, while attending a birthday party at
a friend’s house years ago, I was informed
that the aforementioned luxury items
were, in fact, the government names of two
Afncan-American boys playing in the cor
ner.
Undoubtedly, the young mother had, at
least subconsciously, given her adorable
children those horrible names as a testa
ment to the “finer things in life” to which
she aspired while the boys’ father sat in
jail. I wondered about the future of these
two boys because, as much as I like to
believe that society has finally accepted
vdth equality and respect the ever-growing
melting pot that is its racial composition, I
am not at all convinced that we are color
blind.
In 20 years, when a job recruiter sees lit
tle Dom Perignon’s name at the top of a
resume, I can only imagine the restraint
that recruiter will have to exercise in order
to keep from busting at his seams with
laughter as he chucks little Dom
Perignon’s resume into the nearest trash
can. He -wiU correctly assume that Dom is
a black male and may be less likely to
judge him based on his credentials. Like it
or not, it is the world in which we live, and
some things haven’t changed. Now, am I
declaring a war on “eccentric” baby names?
No. But some things just make sense, and
we don’t have to make things harder on
ourselves or the next generation.
ANGELA LINDSAY is a Charlotte attorney.
The Social
Security
time bomb
By Michael Tanner
SPECIAL TO THE POST
A few weeks ago,
Washington went into one of
its periodic spasms of shock
and indignation because of
Federal Reserve Chairman
Alan Greenspan’s comments
that Social Security cannot
continue to pay its promised
level of benefits with its cur
rently projected levels of rev
enue. Greenspan was not
saying anything new. But
politicians of every stripe
reacted as if he had
announced that the sun was
about to stand still in the
sky.
Now, the Social Security
system’s trustees have
released their latest report
on the program’s finances
and once more reaffirmed
the truth of Greenspan’s
statements. In doing so, the
trustees offer us another
opportunity for an honest
debate about how to reform
Social Security and ensure
that our children and grand
children will have the oppor
tunity for a safe, secure
retirement.
The Trustees confirm that
Social Security will begin to
run a deficit by 2018, just 14
years from now, and the
same date as in last year’s
report. Thus, while politi
cians dithered and tried to
pretend the issue would go
away, we moved another
year closer to disaster. But
the truly fnghtening num
bers are found further into
the report, and make clear
the magnitude of the fiscal
train wreck awaiting us.
The figure most cited in
the media is the “present
value” of Social Security’s
unfounded liabilities, $3.7
trillion, which represents the
amount needed to cover
shortfalls after the Trust
Fund is exhausted in 2042.
An additional $1.5 trillion
would be needed to redeem
the bonds in the trust fund,
for a total unfounded liabili
ty of $5.2 trillion, on a pre
sent value basis. Present
value calculations are an
important number for econo
mists and actuaries-they
show the amount the gov
ernment would have to set
aside today (assuming it
earned standard interest
rates) to pay all promised
benefits in the future. But,
of course, the government
cannot set aside $5.2 trillion
today. That would be nearly
half of our Gross Domestic
Product.
Therefore, a better mea
sure of Social Security’s
financial crisis is its actual
cash deficit: the total
amount that its expendi
tures will exceed its revenue
from 2018 on. Measured in
constant 2004 dollars, that
shortfall is an astounding
$26 trillion -
$26,000,000,000,000.00.
Ib put this in context, in
2018, the first year that
Social Security will run a
cash deficit, that shortfall
will be approximately $16
billion, or roughly the equiv
alent of the current budgets
for Head Start and the WIC
nutritional program. In
another two years. Social
Security’s shortfalls will
nearly exceed those two pro
grams, plus the
Departments of Education,
Commerce, Interior, and the
Environmental Protection
Agency. By 2030 or so, you
can throw in the
Departments of Energy,
Housing and Urban
Development, and Veterans
Affairs. And the biggest
deficits would be still to
come.
MICHAEL TANNER is direc
tor of the Project on Social
Security Choice at the Cato
Institute, www.cato.oi^.