2 THE CAROLINA TIMES SAT.. MAY 8, 1976
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A Sad Day
April 29, 1976 will be remembered
as a senseless, tragic day in Durham.
For on the evening of that day an
officer with Durham City Police Depart
ment, while in the performance of his
duties, was fatally wounded. The death
of Officer Larry Bullock was even more
tragic in light of the situation in which it
occurred.
One senseless act, during a simply
drug raid, has resulted in the loss of one
life and the drastic altering of the lives
of several others. The lives of those who
were caught up in this situation will
never be the same.
The parents and family of the victim
as well as those of the accused, will .carry,
a heavy burden for a very long period of
time. It is a burden they should not
have to bear.
It is sadly ironic that this useless
slaying would occur just two days before
this nation paused to observe 200 years
of Liberty and Law.
Yet this tragic occasion may become
the spark that ignites new enthusiasm in
our homes, schools, universities and
colleges, churches, and the entire comm
unity to carry the message that there is
no liberty except under the law.
Every social' institution of the comm
unity must redouble its efforts in .
supporting the idea of the supremacy of
the rule of law.
The day has long since past when
each person must sit with his back to
the wall, and each person's right to
life ends where the muzzel of another's
six shooter begins.
As we laud the many fine tributes
paid to Police Officer Larry D. Bullock,
for his "Supreme Sacrifice" in the line
of duty, let us also be reminded this
offers us the opportunity to continue
to work diligently to build a better
community.
Job Opportunities For Female
College Grads Changing
Graduating female
college students in the class of 1976
will find many changes
in the available jobs that have
been customarily filled by them,
according to recent finds, and for
entering female college students
in their choice of program studies.
Four patterns of career outlook
emerge from the job market study
by the research finding of the
Southern Regional Education Board.
Those jobs where there is high
demands for graduates of both
sexes and in which' women are
currently -underrepresented (such as
most major medical professions);
those fields where there is high
demand for all graduates and where
women are now overrepresented
(nursing), the fields where women
are underrepresented, but where
supply exceeds demand (law) and
those occupations where women
are overrepresented and supply ex
ceeds demand (teaching).
The teaching category
is particularly gloomy
when returnees to the job market
are considered, since they are most
likely to be women.
By 1980, if present enrollment
patterns continue, almost three
fifths of college women will major
in those areas where employment
opportunities are diminishing, such
as education, fine arts, foreign
languages, psychology and letters.
Unless they also have or possess
saleable skills such as accounting,
computer sciences,
statistics or personnel
many will have difficulties in ob
taining professional, techinical or
managerial employment.
In some fields where women
are currently overrepresented,
opportunities may vary according
to the specialities. An example,
may be, with Home Economics
graduates with training specific
to management of hotels and
restaurants will have
more opportunities than those
prepared to teach home economics
in secondary schools. Likewise,
those with a background in early
childhood development will face
a better job market than women
prepared in home management and
equipment.
Areas in which professionals
of both sexes are scarce such as
business administration, engineering,
and medicine, produce a particularly
favorable atmosphere for female
employment. The influence of equal
opportunity or affirmative action
programs is more likely here than
in areas where women are already
well-represented.
It is expected that there will
be some shifts by women among
fields as employment pressures
increase and occupational
attitudes change.
TO BE EQUAL
Desegregating Suburbia
By YUKON L JORDAN
bua&n Hrtdor Nafoul
The Supreme Court's recent decision giving a
reluctant Department of Housing and Urban
Development authority to develop regional plans
that would place low-income housing in the
suburbs is a landmark step toward reducing
suburban apartheid policies.
HUD was found to have violated constitutional
rights by placing its public housing projects in
Chicago's ghetto neighborhoods, thus increasing
inner-city segregation.
The ruling doesn't mean the suburbs' wall of
exclusion will definitely be breached; it does,
however, take HUD out of its traditional role as
accessory to discriminatroy practices.
And it is likely that a new round of court cases
will be set off by this ruling, since the suburbs are
likely to hide behind zoning and land-use
restrictions to squirm out of any federal
scatter-site housing plans.
But the Court's action opens the door to
metropolitan-wide solutions to housing segregation
and it weakens its ruling in the 1974 Detroit
school busing case that appeared to limit such
metropolitan remedies. Further, there are other
cases in the docket that challenge patterns of
housing segregation and promise to help break the
white noose that strangles inner-cities through
denying blacks and poor people access to housing
near new jobs in the suburbs.
One such suit was brought by the Justice
Department and charges national real estate
appraisers and lending institutions with
discriminatory standards in assessing homes and
making loans to homeowners in integrated areas.
Lower values are assigned to homes in integrated
areas and higher ones in "racially homogeneous
areas." At least there's no double-talk about
"ethnic heritage" here.
That appraisers and lenders have been
"redlining" integrated and black neighborhoods
for years is common knowledge and has been
documented at length. Why it took the
government so long to finally move against such
practices is a good question, but now that it has,
the courts have a chance to make the law more
than an empty promise.
Another suit is in New Jersey, where citizens
and some local officials charge real estate brokers
with perpetuating racial segregation by steering
potential black home-buyers to areas of black
settlement and whites to white areas.
Enough evidence has been accumulated to show
that such devices by brokers effectively keep the
races apart, and the pleas of the brokers that
they're just trapped by potential white clients'
fears just won't wash. They're licensed by the state
and have to comply with the law, not with the
racial hysteria of white suburbanites.
In New Jersey's Bergen County, one town of
38,000 people has just 64 blacks. The
conventional response is that it's probably an
expensive place and most blacks can't afford to
live there.'
If that's so, how can we explain the fact that a
middle income town of 20,000 has only 35
blacks?Or that a blue collar suburb of 23,000
residents has a grand total of seven blacks?
At the same time those communities arc kept
lily white, towns in the County with significant
integration are targets for funneling in new black
residents, raising the danger that they'll eventually
become predominately black islands in a white sea,
duplicating center-city experience.
In Connecticut, the City of Hartford has been
able to get a court order holding up federal funds
to seven suburban townships until the suburbs
make plans for housing low and moderate income
families.
The crux of the Hartford case is that poor
people are concentrated in the inner-city because
the suburbs refuse to plan for low-income housing.
The federal money due those suburbs from HUD is
supposed to be for development of low-income
housing and economically viable communities, not
for gilding the lily in already affluent towns.
Despite all the pious nonsense about keeping
out "ethnic heritage," the real issue is
the constitutiona' one of denying equal
opportunities to housing on racial grounds and the
courts now have the opportunity to affirm our
basic constitutional heritage by positive rulings.
Congressman Hawkins' Column
Shopping For A President
During the 1948 presidential campaign, the
overwhelming edge was supposed to be held by
Thomas Dewey, against Harry Truman (who
succeeded to the presidency in 1945 upon the
death of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt).
All the polls gave the race to Dewey by a
landslide victory, because it appeared that the
divided Democrats couldn't win and because
Dewey looked like the people's choice. What the
polls neglected to forecast was the weight of the
undecided voters, and the fickle-finger of those
who changed their vote, once they entered the
privacy of the election booth. The pollsters also
failed to correctly assess Truman's guts and his
leadership abilities. i
Some major newapapers, sure of Dewey's
win, went ahead and headlined "DEWEY WINS!"
before all the votes were counted.
When the last vote was tabulated, lo and
behold, Harry Truman, the under-dog, was the
new president of the United States.
Truman then went on to become one of
America's best president.
There should be a lesson in this, but it all
happened so long ago. 1 am sure that its ex
cellent moral teaching remains dusty and
forgotten.
I raise the issue, because of the current
presidential campaign, and because our next
president may be as much of a surprise to us in
November, as Truman, was to America in
1948.
With the background however, I hope that
as America goes to the polls in November, they
will vote on the basis of what a candidate stands
for, on what a candidate has positively accomplish
ed, and not on what he cleverly says (which some
speech-writer has written for him anyway!)
I also hope that America will take into
account some basic characteristics that all
presidential candidates should possess.
Firstly, the next President of the United
States should be a leader, and not a follower,
He should be a man of sensible ideas, willing
to push for, and provide the leadership for,
programs and policies that foster these ideas.
He should also be the first one to admit the
fallacy of an idea and or a program, if it proves
to be unworkable.
The ability to give America creative
leadership, is, in my book, basic to some of the
following traits.
We need a presidential leader who is intell
igent. In other words, he ought to be brainy;
a kind of smart-alec (with wit and charm). Since
any American President must deal with very
intricate and subtle subjects, he really needs to
be able to sift through a lot of garbage, in order
to get to the heart of the matter. This ability
requires a high degree of intelligence; we ought
not be afraid of an egg-head president. In
fact an egg-head president would be a welcome
relief-right about now!
Another quality America needs in a president
is honesty. I realize that this is a self-evident
quality, in light of Watergate. But we need to say
it. And we need to pursue it.
Our next president ought to be above the
compromising, smoke-filled room, where all
manner of quick and immoral deeds and commit
ments are made.
Every political promise, should be negotiated
in the sunshine.
This is not to tie the President's hand, because
politics is the art of the possible, the art of the
compromise, he ought to be willing, however, to
deal in front, so that the honesty of negotiation is
in full view, and can be discussed in that kind of
atmosphere.
The next President should be dedicated and
especially to those who least have the ability to
protect themselves against poverty, racial and sex
discrimination, poor education, mental illness,
physical illness, and inadequate housing.
He should be fair and fearless; a kind of
moder-day Robin Hood, out to assist all
in their puruit of the good life.
Lastley, he should have a record of solid
achievements, in meeting the needs of the
American peoplerich and poor alike, business
man and worker, old and young, male and fe
male. If it seems that we are looking for the im
possible, that's right we are.
What's better than going up!
Is "The Right To Know" An Adoptee's Right?
By Mona Bryant
Times Staff Writer
Adoptees have the right to know who
their natural parents are. For years,
millions of adoptees have been denied
the right to know who their parents were
at birth. Many adoptees view this as
unjust and harmful to everyone involved.
Traditional standards, set up by such
groups as the Child Welfare League of
America, protect the rights of the
adoptive parents-who feel the aura of
secrecy surrounding adoptions is
beneficial to both them and adoptees by
insuring the promise of lifelong security.
Adoptees argue that the secrecy of
adoptions is detrimental to their
emotional development. Many adoptees
compare themselves with amnesia
victims-the part of their lives before the
adoption is missing.
The custom of sealing adoption
records is estimated to affect more than
10 million people-including the
adoptees, adoptive parents, and natural
parents. Adoption records are normally
sealed forever unless proper legal action
is taken. The grounds for such legal
action is usually related to medical
reasons.
Adoption laws have remained
unchanged since the early 1 940's. Many
adoption agencies regard the natural
.mother as emotionally unstable-not
able to raise a child. The promise of
secrecy is also a promise intended to
protect the natural mother from the
burden of a child she could not handle at
the time of the child's birth and the life
she has constructed for herself since.
The third benefactor of the promise
of secrecy, according to traditional
adoption practices, is the adoptee. He is
prevented from developing split loyalties
and aided in forming an identity with
the adoptive parents. Many psychiatrists
feel there would be no question of
loyalties or identity formation if the
natural parents were made known to
curious adoptees. Adoptive parents are
the true psychological parents because of
the basic nuturing foundation absent in
parent-child relationships of adoptees
and the natural parents.
Adoptees argue that they have a right
to know not only who their parents at
birth were but also the factors
surrounding their adoption. Agencies
and social workers usually give only
enough favorable information for the
adoptive parents to form a positive
identification with their baby. In the
process, the adoptee loses that part of
his or her self identity that many feel is
essential.
Many adoptees throughout the nation
have begun to search for their natural
parents for medical reasons, an interest
in geneologvpr curiousity. Few adoptees
search for meir natural parents to seek
love or affection. Most of the searchers
have been females, experiencing a major
change in their lives-marriage,
pregnancy or the birth of a child. All
searchers appeared to lack a sense of
"generation continuity."
Some of the reunions between
searching adoptees and natural parents
have been disappointing to adoptees
while others have been extremely
rewarding. Adoptees tend to fantacize
that their natural parents are rich or
famous but many of them are from
lower socioeconomic classes than the
adoptees, who are generally raised in
middle- or upper-class homes.
One reunited adoptee found her
natural mother to be very receptive and
warm. The reunion was a success and the
natural mother and adoptee formed a
lasting friendship.
At the other extreme, a not too
pleasant reunion between an adoptee
and her natural mother, proved to be
very painful and embarrassing. The
adoptee had been raised in an
upper-middle class home and had earned
a Ph.D. Her natural mother was poverty
striken and uneducated. Although the
reunion was unpleasant, it was
successful. The adoptee says, "At least 1
know where 1 cam from -who 1 look
like."
Much' research remains to be done on
the effects of the reuniting of natural
parents and curious adoptees but from
all available studies, the present practices
of adoption agencies need revision.
Three revisions are the replacement of
secrecy surrounding adoptions with
honesty, the privilege for all adult
adoptees to view original birth records
and the availability of family counciling
for adoptees, adoptive parents and
natural parents.