5A
OPINIONS/ QTie Calotte $00
Thursday May 6, 2004
Redefining U.S.
environmental
movement
Julian Bond
In 1970, Webster’s
Dictionary defined the word
“environment” as “that
which surrounds you.” In
1970, what surrounded peo
ple living in urban neighbor
hoods were contaminated
rivers that caught on fire, air
pollution that prevented peo
ple from seeing across a
street, crumbling tenements
and skyrocketing infant
mortality rates. That year,
fueled by collective outrage
and anger, 25 million people
joined Earth Day actions
around the country to
defnand a safer, cleaner and
healthier world, starting
with the deplorable condi
tion of many of their own
neighborhoods.
That fall, environmental
ists defeated seven of a “dirty
dozen” of Congressmen with
the worst environmental
records. Quickly, the
Environmental Protection
Agency was created, the
Clean Air and Clean Water
Acts were passed, and for
the next twenty years, the
environment was a political
priority. Then, slowly, the
momentum was lost. Now
every scientific improvement
or higher environmental
standard meets unrelenting
resistance from corporate
interests and sometimes
even our government.
Thirty-four years after the
first Earth Day, the reality is
that most of America’s urban
and working poor are strug
gling with the impacts of
environmental factors that
are no longer a funding or
policy priority. Those factors,
the result of social and eco
nomic neglect, have created
new, and frightening envi
ronmental, health and social
problems - especially for peo
ple of color, urban dwellers,
and children.
For example, rates of asth
ma attacks among city resi
dents, especially children,
are skyrocketing. The
American Limg Association
reports that asthma is now
the leading chronic illness
among children, and that by
2020, it will affect 1 in 14
Americans. Those who live
in low-income areas are
much more at risk; pollu
tants and other toxins are
more common in low-income
neighborhoods and commu
nities of color where pollut
ing industries are poorly
monitored, lead paint is
prevalent and schools are
poorly maintained due to
lack of funds.
The average U.S. public
school is 42 years old, and
over 60 percent report at-
least one serious mainte
nance problem. Many
schools are in such desperate
need of repair that they ai’e
an actual threat to our chil
dren’s health. Shrinking
school budgets mean build
ings are cleaned less fre
quently, leading to dust and
mold build up, triggering
asthma and contributing to
poor air quality. Many
schools in low-income com
munities are built near pol
luting industries, causing
additional health problems
in children.
These are just some of the
examples of how low-income
and communities of color are
affected by their environ
ment, but there are others:
The low-income family that
cannot find safe, affordable
housing, the mother that
lives in a neighborhood with
out parks for her children;
the man who needs better
public transportation to
travel to the suburbs for
work because most employ
ers don’t locate in the inner-
city.
Now is the time to redefine
the environmental move
ment and develop a para
digm that combines environ
mental justice with civil
rights and community devel
opment activism. It will be
by demanding equal rights,
that we create environmen
tal equality among all com
munities in our country.
As we near the November
election, it is time to mobilize
to protect and improve our
surroundings and choose
politicians whose job it is to
implement laws and pro
grams in keeping with those
goals. Yet, the belief that
one’s vote does not matter is
most prevalent in communi
ties of color, where people see
little connection between
their day-to-day life and the
vote they may or may not
cast in an election.
Just ask the individuals
who reach out to the urban
poor and communities of
color to register them to vote
or sign a petition or ask for
support for a candidate.
People in these neighbor
hoods want to know what
you are going to do about the
abandoned lot that is a mag
net for drug dealers or the
run-down public housing or
the lack of parks and trans
portation in their neighbor
hood. That is what they
want to talk about - their
environment.
This year, NAACP
National Voter Fund is join
ing with Earth Day Network
and a consortium of non-
environmental partners to
launch “Campaign for
Communities.” This coali
tion is made up of a broad
range of partners that are
working for safe schools,
more parks, cleaner drink
ing water, affordable hous
ing, living wage jobs and suf
ficient public transportation,
etc. The campaign will also
register and mobilize one
million voters in the
November election.
JULIAN BOND is national
chairman of the National
Association for the Advancement
of Colored People.
POSTSCRIPTS
Black athletes leave
HBCUs on bench
Angela Lindsay
Historically Black Colleges and
Universities (HBCUs) have bestowed upon
us some of our community’s most notable
citizens.
Famed attorney Willie Gary’s alma
maters are Shaw University and North
Carolina Central University’s School of
Law. National joumahst Ed Bradley, of the
news program “60 Minutes,” graduated
from Cheyney State College in
Pennsylvania, and clothing designer to the
stars Cary Mitchell attended Johnson C.
Smith University. Yet, with a dispropor
tionate percentage of African American
athletes dominating the world of profes
sional sports today, so few of them are
products of these schools.
So, why is it that HBCUs seem to pro
duce professionals in every other arena but
sports?
Steve McNair, quarterback for the NTL’s
Ttetmessee Titans, attended Alcorn State
University. Ben Wallace of the NBA’s
Detroit Pistons attended Virginia Union
University. But for every McNair or
Wallace, there are 10 other athletes hke
Donovan McNabb, who attended Syracuse
University and is currently quarterback
for tbe Philadelphia Eagles, or Vince
Carter, star of the Tbronto Raptors and a
UNC-Chapel HiU alum. Even in North
Carohna, which ranks number one in the
nation with the largest number of HBCUs,
Charlotte’s own Antawn Jamison of the
Dallas Mavericks and Jeff Mclnnis of the
Cleveland Cavaliers are routinely
snatched up by Division I schools Hke
Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill.
Some experts say that unless these ath
letes are highly recruited and choose to
attend an HBCU, most of which are
Division II schools, they risk sacrificing the
higher level of exposure to sports scouts
and “TV time” available at Division I
schools and could ultimately compromise
their draft pick placement.
'The theory is that while an athlete from
an HBCU may have had an impressive col
lege record with stratospheric statistics,
scouts may determine that because be/she
only played against Division II opponents,
generally assumed to be of a lesser athlet
ic caliber, be/she will not be able to ade
quately compete in the “big leagues”
against other athletes who were trained at
Division I schools. Consequently, athletes
who choose to attend HBCUs could stand
to endure a longer, more twisted path to
becoming a member of a professional
team.
While I understand these politics associ
ated with professional sports and laude
any athlete for even considering college as
an option in these days of baby bailers, it
seems improbable to me that an athlete’s
skills would be any less super simply
because of the school they attend. Their
athletic prowess should still be outstand
ing enough to attract the requisite atten
tion. Therefore, the duty would be on these
athletes to choose to attend an HBCU,
then perhaps an effective, albeit, slow,
trend would emerge in which the face of
professional athletics would be reflective of
the schools that generate its members.
In speaking with other sports fans. I’ve
heard it said that “black” schools cannot
“afford” these athletes like top tier Division
I schools can. Then, that begs the question
exactly what are these schools “paying”
these athletes? Is it the promise of cars,
money, and academic ease that these
school can offer-perks which should not be
given to them anyway and is exactly what
got basketball phenomenon LeBron James
in trouble as a heavily recruited high
school star?
Understandably, the lure of such freebies
are incredibly enticing to these athletes,
many of whom come from impoverished
conditions and are using sports as a way to
“get out of the hood.” Black folk are an
instant gratification kind of people. So,
indeed, if these types of bonuses are
thrown into the huddle of America’s top
high school athletes, HBCUs may not be
able to compete. But they will at least have
the comfort of knowing that they are
accepted on more than one level rather
than the one-dimensional chance that got
them enrolled at the previously segregated
Division I schools which would have, affir
mative action aside, likely rejected them
unless their academic scores were not just
up to, but over par.
I know that a sweeping change in the
way top black athletes are recruited and
the schools they choose to attend is not
Hkely to occur any time soon, or at all for
that matter. But if it did, it would result in
a slam dunk for HBCUs across the board.
ANGELA LINDSAY is a graduate of historical-
ly-black N.C. Central University and a Charlotte
attorney. E-mail her at
lindsaylaw00@yahoo.com.
Lured In part by the
prospect of national
television and being
seen by professional
scouts, top flight
black athletes like
Charlotte’s Antawn
Jamison enroll at
large, predominantly
white Division I col
leges instead of his
torically black
schools. Jameson
played college bas
ketball at UNC
Chapel Hill and plays
professionally for the
NBA Dallas
Mavericks.
Segregated
schools in
2004
By Eric Wcarne
SPECIAL TO THE POST
In 1953, right before the
decision in Brown v. Board of
Education, Atlanta Public
Schools consisted of 600
schools serving 18,664 stu
dents.
Black and white students
were kept apart by the gov
ernment. Fifty years after
Brown, APS consists of 96
much larger schools sei*ving
55,812 students of all races,
and more than three quar
ters of them are still in
schools where one race has a
90 percent majority.
Atlanta’s private schools
today draw students from
the same basic geographic
area as APS, yet they are sig
nificantly less segregated
than are the public schools.
How can this be? Aren’t
schools of choice supposed to
be the ones that foster
“balkanization” and increase
racial segregation? Indeed,
National Center for
Education Statistics data
show that almost 60 percent
of Atlanta’s 53 private
schools have single-race
majorities of 90 percent or
higher. But 79 percent of
Atlanta’s public schools are
that segregated.
Usually, students are
assigned to public schools
based on where they live, so,
absent choice, housing pat
terns are reproduced in
those schools. A kid’s
address in large part deter
mines the quality of school
he will be allowed to attend.
It is hard to imagine a sys
tem that would be much
more capable of keeping our
public schools segregated
than that. If wealthier par
ents become dissatisfied
with their children’s schools,
they can pay to send them to
private schools, or at least
move ipto a district with a
better public school system.
Middle- and upper-class
families for years have been
able to choose their chil
dren’s schools based on acad
emic reputation, safety, loca
tion and special programs.
Poor parents are forced to
take what they’re given,
unless they live close enough
to a charter school or can
take advantage of a private
scholarship program.
Increased spending itself
doesn’t do much to improve
schools. And while spending
is not irrelevant, the idea
that high-achieving districts
do well simply because of
money is a myth.
Clearly, simply spending
more money will not by itself
create better schools. The
combination of poverty, the
false hope that higher (and
still inefficient) spending can
be a panacea, and a lack of
educational options within
the city itself, however, is a
sure way to keep poor urban
children in the failing public
schools to which they have
been forcibly assigned.
ERIC WEARNE contributed a
chapter on Atlanta's public
schools for the book,
“Educational Freedom in Urban
America: Brown v. Board after
Half a Century” (Cato Institute,
2004).
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