Newspapers / The Carolina Times (Durham, … / Dec. 25, 1982, edition 1 / Page 14
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14-THE CAROLINA TIMES-SATURDAY, DECEMBER 25, 1982 Editorials N.C. 2000: We Blew It Again From all indications, while some black folks here were locked in a heated battle about the past, some white folks slipped discus sions about the future right by them. , , , Earlier this year, black politicians and other activists locked horns with city officials and other white power brokers over the relationship between a proposed downtown civic center and redevelopment of the Hayti area. At about the same time, some folks charged with the respon sibility of getting Durham County citizens involved with discuss ing concerns and hopes for the future in Governor Jim Hunt s N.C. 2000 project, lateralled the ball right past the black com- munity. . r-,, ■ u As we reported in our edition last week, Mrs. Angie Elkins, the N.C. 2000 county chairman, who was supposed to call coun tywide meetings to get Durham County input, apparently never called such meetings. But she did file a Durham County N.C. 2000 “report”. Mrs. Elkins cannot be totally blamed for the fact that Durham's black community has not had much, if any, input into this discussion of the state’s future. In another article in our edition last week, we also reported that several blacks in leadership positions in this community had in formation about the project, but apparently did not push the issue of holding county-wide meetings. While Mrs. Elkins might have fumbled the ball, it also seems that the black community defense against mishaps such as this broke down at about the same time. This is not to suggest that the fight over Hayti was unimpor tant. Neither are we accusing the leaders of negligence. But it does seem to us that we need to be better organized so that we can deal effectively with more than one issue at a time. All is not lost. Between now and the middle of January, black organizations here, pulling from all available expertise, should conduct a series of county-wide meetings, open to all, in which we consider the year 2000 and our place in it. We should produce a report, give it to our representative in the governor’s office — Mr. Benjamin Ruffin — and ask him to see that our hopes and concerns are in cluded in the executive summary Hunt is scheduled to get in March. The Carolina Times '82 As another twelve months rapidly become the fleeting memories of ups and downs, victories and losses, gladness and pain, we would like to take a moment to look backward and for ward. This has been an eventful year for The^Carolina Times. We ■ have attempted to produce the very best newspaper in this area, specializing in giving our readers the in-depth, comprehensive, hard-hitting story behind the story. We think we’ve kept the faith you, our readers, have had in us down through the years. We think we’ve done well, though there were times when we felt it necessary to publicly battle with some of our most impor tant black institutions. Those battles were not vicious attempts to discredit, but honest disagreements between people of integrity. And as we’ve said before, there will be times when our perception of doing out job well will conflict with others’ perceptions of do ing their jobs well. Hopefully, those times will always be rare. But the bottom line is very simple. The Carolina Times is YOUR newspaper. We are here to serve you. Committed as we are to the fact that black people not only can and should aspire to excellence, but must do so if we are to survive the rigors of com ing years, we will continue our quest to be the best. We will also continue our encouragement of the black community to rise higher as well. In retrospect, 1982 was a good year. Looking ahead, 1983 will be better. We have plans to improve your newspaper even more in the coming year than we have this year. For example, we are planning to expand the entertainment section to give broader and more in- depth coverage of area happenings. We will continue and expand our Special Sections program, and later in ‘83 will institute com prehensive business coverage as well. That’s not all, but maybe that’s enough to whet your appetite. So don’t miss a single issue of YOUR newspaper. The Carolina Times ‘83. FIELDS Born in slavery in TENNESSEE AROUND 1832; SHE WAS A TOUGH STAGE COACH DRIVEI^ WEIGHING OVER 200 LBS,-armED WITH A .38 SMITH a WES SO ON A as. MAIL ROUTE IN MONTANA /I Busiu 2SS In The Black A Pain in the Foot Election Results By Charles E. B There are twenty reasons why black Americans can cheer the mid-term na tional elections. Everybody usually has ten fingers and ten toes. They tingle, trickle and take messages to the body. Before you dismiss them you will feel pain. People in the good old- U.S. of A. are aware of the pendulum’s swing back to the basic party of the country. Con gress is once again a Democratic stronghold. Senators recently aligned with the White house are walking an indepen dent path, putting the Republican con trolled Senate on the defense. Democrats dominated the election of new governors, getting an additional seven and gaining 26 more seats in the House. Having complete control of the House of Representatives by Democrats could benefit black Americans. A five per cent representation for 12'/297o of the nation’s population may not appear on the surface to be big news. Nevertheless, coupled with the sensitivity of other congressional districts, the Con gressional Black Caucus could become a lower of strength. There are at least 70 other congressional districts in which black Americans make up twenty per cent or more of the district’s charge of black Americans in the 1980s. Every politician will play ball for a voting base of twenty per cent or more from-the first ballot. Believing black Americans can make a political difference in the charge of the twenty voting members of the Congres sional Black Causus. Considering that ninety “black pepper districts’’ constitute twenty per cent for the House in gress, gains in black American p( and economic power is food fc future. From a seemingly small lead cadre of twenty Black Caucus me plus the now nine Hispanic memb the Congress, coalition politics c poor should start to play a role j shaping of America’s society. Son dividuals survive in a society with hand or foot. Few survive withou fingers or toes. Twenty black Arne can cause pain and agony to the politic. Pushing and pulling for economic power for black Americai pie is the most positive act the elected and re-elected Black C members can make for all ol American people. To Be Equal A Hard Christmas By John E. Jacob Executive Director, National Urban i This Christmas season finds our nation and the world in a sorry state. Economic depression engulfs the globe. The threat of a nuclear holocaust just a pushbutton away creates a pall of gloom that’s not removed by the President’s renaming the 'MX missile the “Peacekeeper”. And the season of good will and brotherhood is defaced by the growing bitterness caused by the scramble to get a piece of the shrinking national pie, a bit terness that often descends to plain old meanness. If there’s a parable for this Christmas it might be in the story of the many thousands of Americans, perhaps hun dreds of thousands, who have left their Depression-ridden home towns and hit the road in search of jobs in the growth areas o^ the nation. From California to Florida, the new migrants find themselves cut off from family and friends, without work, without the basic survival services that would allow them to get by. For many, stranded between long-term joblessness up north and the lack of ex pected job opportunities in the Sunbelt, despair is deepened by hostility. Sure, there are plenty who go out of their way to help, who are active in church relief groups and other sources of aid for the destitute. But some people have forgotten the golden rule that says do un to others as you would have them do unto you. For example, take this letter to the editor of an Arizona newspaper com plaining about the transients in town looking for work: “If a stray dog is found wandering the streets, it is picked up and put to sleep. Unfortunately, we cannot put these ‘human animals’ to sleep but we surely should not support and encourage their way of life.” It is easy to pin the label of “sick” to anyone who holds such ugly sentiments. But those views, while not typical, are hardly rare these days. That letter-writer demonstrates the meanness bred of fear that animates too many Americans. And it is a mood of meanness that is en couraged by national policies that tear holes in the social safety net, that en courage racial and class divisions, that dismiss the plight of the jobless and the poor as secondary. Such meanness has to be confronted in this Christmas season for it goes against the grain of what Christmas is all about. Christmas has always been a time when Americans reach out to the less fortunate and to those4n need. Meanness, selfishness and hard heartedness contradict everything Chirstmas stands for. Christmas celebrates life and the inner life of spiritual values and concerns. Social meanness represents the death of spirit, a retreat into uncivilized selfishness. If we can’t care about people who are homelsss, jobless, and hungry, then our humanity is diminished. The ethical teachings of all of the world’s religions have been concerned wit obligation to share and to care. So it is the height of hypocrisy fo: pie who don’t share and who reft care, to celebrate the coming intt world of the message of brotherly and. of the mandate to do right ar right. I suppose this is a plea to Christmas seriously, to look beyon externals — the family dinner, the Santa Claus — and search for the \ that give this celebration its true mea This isn’t the first Christmas tha found milliofis of Americans trapp despair, but we can resolve to make last. That means committing ourselvi personal involvement to make our munities better, but also to the 1 social issues. We have to get away the false notion that personally volm ing to help another individual is the way we can act in accordance witl values we celebrate this season. That personal element is important it must be joined by larger, nat policies if it is to succeed. That met national commitment to full employ and to measures that finally wipe racism and poverty. By enlisting in th my of the concerned we can help r ours a society that truly practices “p on earth and goodwill to all mankini Recycling the Unemployed Because we live in a consumer culture, we are constantly, acquiring things, using them and when they have served their pur pose, we discard them. This applies to any number of items from pens and pencils to automobiles. In certain instances the things we have discarded come back to haunt us, particularly when we think of such things as the eyesore created by an auto junkyard. Each week on the ap pointed day, we assemble all of the week’s trash and place it on the curb to be taken away. For most of us that is the very last we think of things we have discarded. However, over the last few decades, Americans have increasingly become adapted to the ideas of recycling and the reclamation of items once thought to have outlived their usefulness. Old, junked cars are stripped of useful parts and com ponents which can be refurbished and resold to live yet another life as a replace ment part in an otherwise operational vehicle. The remaining shell of the junked car is crushed to a compact size and carted off to a steel mill where it is reprocessed and subsequently comes to life again as a washing machine, a household appliance or even a new car. Many businesses have sprung up and become quite successful in the recycling business. They find that the costs of their inventories are greatly reduced becau.se the items have no value to anyone at that point. Grass clippings are used to mulch out door plants in order to enhance the delivery of nutrients and water to the root systems of the plants. Thrift stores and the Salvation Army collect discarded household Jtems which are not totally destroyed and resell them to the many who come through their doors. People, young and old are flocking to such stores to get any number of items from toasters and televisions to winter coats and shoes. The idea of recycling, though relatively new to our awareness, is very much a part of nature. Water evaporates from the sur face of the ocean, rises to form clouds and been abandoned. We need to tra unemployed in areas which have a and which will enable them to su themselves. And we need to use v (Continued on Page 16) Che Car^a Cimei L.E. AUSTIN Editor-Publisher 1927-1971 (USPS 091-3801 (Mrs.) Vivian Austin Edmonds Editor-Publisher Kenneth W. Edmonds General Manager Milton Jordan Executive Editor By Congressman Augustus F. Hav lected and reused to beautify our lawns. Old, battered homes across the nation are bought and lovingly refurbished, thus regaining the usefulness and in some cases the splendor of bygone days. Unfortunately, however, the idea of recycling human beings is a concept to which we have not given the proper atten tion. This is an innovative concept which deserves further exploration. At the present time, over eleven million Americans find themselves without employment. Most of these Americans are willing to work, but in some instances they have little or no skills, while in other cases the skills they possess are no longer in demand. The unemployed is not one large mass of lazy goldbrickers. There are the high school dropouts with few, if any, skills on the one hand and the person who finds that after many years on the job, their industry is in trouble and there is no demand for the skills they do have. For the purposes of discussion though, the one thing these people have in common is that they have nothing which makes them attractive to an employer. Though some companies make at tempts at outplacement ol the soon to be unemployed by providing counseling and limited financial assistance, for the most part, the soon to be unemployed and the unemployed find themselves out of jobs and if lucky, in receipt of some son of assistance. The recession is dragging on, but even in better economic limes, such individuals would still have difficulty in obtaining employment. Are we as a coun try going to simply abandon the.se people to a human junkyard?^ The answer must be an emphatic “NO!” On the corners of many of our city streets we see unemployed individuals engaged in unproductive activities somewhat reminding us of the crushed, stripped and abandoned shells in auto graveyards. 1 suggest that we adopt a national policy of “recycling” the unemployed by nroviding assessment, counseling C. Warren Massenburg Advertising Director L.M. Austin Production Supervisor Curtis T. Perkins | Contributing Editor-Foreign Affairs, Published every Thursday (dated Saturday the week following Christmas) in Durham. United Publishers, Incorporated. Mailing P.O. Box 3825, Durham, N.C. 2 7 7 02-382 located at 923 Old Fayetteville Street, Durli^ 27701. Second Class Postage paid at Durhaj Carolina 27702. Volume 60. Number 51. POSTMASTER: Send address changes! CAROLINA TIMES, P.O. Box 3825. DurM 27702-3825. SUBSCRIPTION RATES: One year. $12 48i sales tax for North Carolina residents) copy 30c. Postal regulations REQUIRE adva' ment on subscriptions. Address all commui arid make alt checks payable to: THE C TIMES. and NATIONAL ADVERTISING REPRESEij Amalgamated Publishers. Inc., 45 West 451 New York, New York 10036. Member: United Press International P National Newspaper Publishers Associatiei Carolina Black Publishers Association. Opinions expressed by columnists newspaper do not necessarily represent tha
The Carolina Times (Durham, N.C.)
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Dec. 25, 1982, edition 1
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