I
Page 4-1 he Chronicle, Saturday, January 31, W8I
fflfl J
' "" ^ ? ?wr._,,?. LrnesT H. PITT
< Ira Member North C arollna
Blatk Publisher'. AteocUllon L(ilU>r f llbJls/h'*
1 _ . NCPA S>c>m'Sor
||| N.C. Press Association
By Clifton Graves
a
C/S i?etf/?s Wh
Lest 1 be misunderstood, let me state at the outset that
^ A concur in the opinion that the seizure of the U.S.
Embassy by the Iranian students was in violation of 1
international law. Further, 1 do not condone any alleged
mistreatment the so-called "hostages" endured.
However, now that the 52 Americans have returned
home and are reunited with their families, it si time to
put the entire episode in its proper perspective ...
On last Sunday, Rev. Elder - the minister of my
church, Middlefork Christian Church - preached a
beautiful sermon on the subject, "You Reap What You
Sow". Upon reflection, I felt that a more appropriate
description of what transpired in Iran these past 450 days ]
would be difficult to find. ]
For it should be clear to all of us by now that America i
was only reaping the seeds of Iranian anger that had
been sown over the course of nearly a half-century of i
U.S. support for repressive Iranian governments.
Specifically, the Iranians were venting their frustration
over the U.S.' blind allegiance to Shah Muhammed
Pavlavi - no doubt one of hte most brutal dictators in world
history!!
Personally, Iffel we are indebted to the Iranians for
forcing this country to face up to the errors of its past
indiscretions in foreign policy. For were it not for the
Iranian seizure of the embassy and holding of the 1
"hostages", most Americans would still be ignorant of <
the following facts: i
r X _J
1 / TKo* ^ too A :? -
m mai iiu7^j /America s central intelligence Agency \
(CIA) helped depose Iran's democratically-elected, but i
anti-U.S. President, Muhammed Mossadegh, and \
replaced him with the more sympathetic Shah avlavi - 1
whose father had earlier (1930's & 1940's) ruled from i
Iran's "Peacock Throne"; 1
2) That in order to protect U.S. strategic (Iran borders
*_ the Soviet Union) and economic (oil) interests, six (6)
Presidents -Eisenhower. Kennedy, Johnson. Nixon.
Ford and Carter - gave the Shah "carte blanche" to the
11
~ H
The ongoing war between the states ? the Sunbelt vs. ,
the Snowbelt - got a boost several weeks ago when a
draft report of a Presidential Commission leaked to the
press with some controversial suggestions about shifting
urban policies.
The report suggested that instead of trying to stem the
decline of older industrial cities, the government ought to
assist people to leave them and look for jobs and opportunities
in the Sunbelt.
Cities CrOW and rtf?rlinf? thf? rpnorf imJiar *"1"
? w? .. ? wiv i vpwi i iiii^uvs, auu yvju
can't alter the process. But the drafters of that report
overlook the reasons why cities grow and decline, and a
major reason is federal policy.
After World War 11 the government embarked on a
number of vast programs, ranging from road building to
subsidized home mortgages, that encouraged the flow of
people and jobs out of central cities.
So it is absurd to simply assume that the decline of major
industrial cities is the unhampered result of market
forces alone. Nor can we accept the assumption that
because some of the industries that arc economically important
to older cities are in decline, oth^r industries cannot
take their place. <
In a dynamic economy otjgfH k> 4>e enough
economic growth and new job creation to satisfy the
needs of people in all regions. Growth in one region I
should not mean decline in another. The new regionalism
pits one region against the other, when we all should be I
pulling together for our mutual good. I
It would be economically disastrous to abandon our |
older cities. Aside from the human misery such a policy
s, would engender, cities in the old industrial belt represent
a massive investment in productive facilities and in an
economic infrastructure that no society can afford to
write off.
While there is nothing inherently wrong with policies
that grant assistance to people to help them get a new t
start in regions where jobs may be more plentiful, such
policies do not constitute an urban policy. And we need
an urban policy a lot more than we need a migration
policy. -
If we start with some basics ? that existing industrial
cities represent many hundreds of billions of dollars of
f - - - -
nxca invcsimeni; mat they continue to house millions of 3
people who constitute a skilled and willing workforce, t
and that their decline is temporary -- we can go a long I
way toward developing rational policies. I
Cities can be recycled and economic decline can be (
replaced by fresh growth. Policies that arc carefully r
Member S
Do n na ET Old ham ^ji*Pvy |||
Elaine L. Pitt Audit Bureau ||
Office Manager of Circulations 11
at CIA Sows
/
O f
U.S. treasury, enabling the Shah to build a sizable
military arsenal as well as bolster his family's bank
accounts; ? .
3) that a large percentage of the Shah's "stolen"
wealth was deposited in the coffers of David Rockefeller's
Chase Manhattan Banks which explains why
Rockefeller and his buddy, Henry Kissinger, were so
adamant about letting the Shah enter the U.S. after the
Khomeini Revolution in 1980; and, ^
4) That in order to maintain "goodTelations" with the
Shah, the American government literally closed its eyes
to the blatant corrupiton and gross repression of hte
Pavlavi regime; and moreover, instructed the CIA and
FBI to train SAVAK teh Shah's notorious secret police
which was primarily responsible for the torture and
mutilation of hundreds of thousands of Iranians ...
Clearly, America's hands were stained with the blood of
Iran's people ...
Concedely, two wrongs do not make a right - but
neither does one wrong. Yet, 'I suppose it is arguable
whether the aforementioned "crimes of America"
jsutified Iran's "crimes against America". No doubt
Iranians and Americans will debate this point for years to
come.
But the question before us is: Where do we go from
here? For not only has th e"hostage" situation
enlightened us as to the subversion of U.S. - Iranian
relations, but moreover, has called into question nearly
100 years of imperialistic foreign policy initiatives
inrlprtalfon V?. > 1 J ~ r
. uy (.ma iianuu. i niru wona peoples lti~
\frica, Asia, Latin and South America are all too familiar
jvith the United State's Shah-like support for repressive
egimes on their respective continents. In fact, at this
yery hour, billions of dollars of our tax monies are going
to bolster the corrupt dictatorships of Augusto Pinochet
in chile, Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, Peter
Botha of South Africa - as w$U as right-wing demagogues
in El S&jvadot7 South Korea, Zaire, and^ves, Isreah All
See page 5
The New Regionalism * ; '
* ' *
jL *
designed and sharply targeted can result in balanced
growth for all regions, and a more rational use of national
resources.
But it would be simplistic to assume that the Sunbelt's
growth benefits all its inhabitants. The region's new
growth has largely bypassed southern blacks, as unguided
potential future growth may bypass northern minorities.
A Southern Regional Council study of racial economic
differences in the South recently found that little has"
changed in the past thirty years. In 1950, black men in the
region had an income only 58 percent of that for white
men. But in 1975, the black median tncome figure had
dropped to 57 percent of the white male income figure.
The study found that although black family income
rose - from 56 percent to 62 percent of white family income
- that gain amounts to less than a fourth of a
percentage point each year.
So those "rich" states are still marked by black -- and
white ? poverty. Meanwhile, declining industrial states
are marked by mass joblessness among minorities and
growing numbers of urban poor.
Blacks and poor people arc getting the lion's share of
economic decline and are frozen out of new economic
growth. Continuation of unbalanced development and
untargetcd national resources will just make that situation
worse.
In Highest Esteem
To The Editor: We hope and pray that we
can continue to have the
We are very pleased to in- success in business that we
form you that we enjoyed have had with the help of
he creativity that your your newspaper. "We pray
lewspaper has extended to that through our goods and
js through your advertising your creativity and perlepartment.
The service, sonalized service, We shall
he professionalism was ex- all prosper!"
:ellent. We will always hold Thanks again for your
^ou and the Chronicle in services and cooperation,
he highest esteem. You
lave indeed made my
lusiness less complicated in Sincerely,
)ur effort to reach the total
narket area that you reach. W. Stevens
V
V
( NANCY..? I "THOUGHT WE HAD M 01
\ -iSTANOfNfe - I'D KEEP MY
? T BACK 6N THE &RCH Z. AND YOC
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Teachers of low-income children may be programming
them for failure?stunting their intellectual development
under the illusion thai they are doing what is best for
them.
The possibility is raised in a recently published study
.that looks at the differing assumptions, attitudes and
teaching styles that teachers of low- and high-income
students bring to their classrooms.
Behavior that teachers find quite acceptable in middleclass
children is often described as disruptive in lowincome
children, the study found, with the result that
"discipline problems" occupy a disproportionate
amount of the teachers' time and attention.
~ The report, published in the October, I9$0, issue of Ur ?
barTEducation, is based on research done ten years ago
by Mary R. Harvey.
Her findings call into question the common assumption
that tow-income children-particularly low-income
black children-^requife additional structure in their formal
education because their home environments tend to
be unstructured. u v
. , [ \ % k % \ \ \ 4
- HaWys now wiTtTTtie National Ceiikf foi ^
Professions here, examined the leaching styles of secondgrade
teachers in eight Portland, Ore., schools. The differences
she observed were striking.
"Teachers in low-income classrooms perceived their
pupils as less capable and more in need of behavioral
imanagement and structured curriculum than did teachers
in high-income classrooms." she found. "They
developed highly structured, skills-oriented curricula and
classroom routines characterized by strict rules of pupil
'conduct and high levels of teacher directiveness and conUQLI
Most fascinating, however, were the differences in[
perceptions with regard to the children's physical
behavior. Teachers in the low-income classrooms were
far more likely to describe their pupils as "hyperactive,"
4Moo^active," "unable TO sit still," or "ttw mobfle.-'
These same teachers were far more likely than the
teachers of upper-income children to describe their pupils
If
I Trinir Rrnurt
I ?
Too many Blacks believe that if we can just engineer
society to a racial fine-tune, the concept of White
supremacy cannot survive in such an integrated setting.
This philosophy, of course, ignores the fact that racism
is fundamentally a pathological" condition -- and once
society has created the racist, the condition per sc needs
to perpetuate itself more than it needs to reverse the
regressive state. In other words, racism ? or perhaps the
result of racism ? is a neurosis. And the neurotic needs to
T)e sick, therefore self-destruct tve, more than he needs to
be healthy and productive.
Take Harvard University as an example ? and by implication
the Black people who worship it because it is the
epitome of the best educational institution that White
culture can produce and not because it is an excellent
school that can best serve their needs. And speaking of
the later, consider the latest in a long history of a racist
tradition at Harvard.
A few months ago, a racial controversy erupted there
when a report by one of the president's assistants was
deliberately and mysteriously "leaked," if that's the correct
word for more than 30 copies, to the nation's major
news outlets. Robert Klitgaard's report charged that
Blacks were intellectually unfit for Harvard and were
simply displacing good Jewish students.
"If elite universities did not compete so heavily for
Blacks, these students might attend slightly lesser institutions
where they might compete as intellectual equals.
Conceptually, one might even imagine a ripple effect,
where Blacks would end up academically equal to Whites
at all but the very bottom institutions as a result of not
being admitted at institutions where they were not equally
capable," the study said of the Afro-Americans' alleged
intellectual ineptitude.
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?me -Low Standards I
^1
as emotionally immature or unable to cooperate.
In tact, the direct observations of Harvey and her
research aides revealed hardly any differences in the
physical behavior nf fhn 0,1,1
i ...... ... ...v i.'i.-inv\'iiiv ciiivi Iiiiuuivr-v.iu? M.'*
concl graders.
The differences in the teachers' perceptions, however,
seemed to lead to differences in their reactions to the selfsame
behavior. For instance, while low-income and highincome
children were given similar amounts of positive
and negative feedback (praise and discouragement), they
were not praised or blamed for the same things.
?1?The picture that emerges," Harvey reports, "is one
of teachers in high-income classrooms providing their
-lOiidiHiis^wiih clear and congruent information about
what is- appropriate and what is inappropriate in the
classroom setting. Teachers in the low-income classrooms
were giving positive feedback to pupils for neutral and inappropriate
as well as for appropriate behaviors, blurring
the distinction between these behaviors and giving encouragement
to pupil behaviors which are predictive of
future school failure?
J ille.'VbjerVers ftp ledTreqpjftt instlances in
which teachers in the low-income classrooms praised
essentially nonatlentive children for 'being quiet.'
Similarly, instances were described in which children
seeking to volunteer answers or information were criticized
for their active enthusiasm and told by the teacher to
'sit down,' 'stop showing off,' or 'be quiet.'
"Behaviors which were 'appropriate but active' seem
_to hav e been likely targets of teacher criticism in low income
classrooms, and behaviors which were 'inappropriate
but passive' likely targets of teacher praise."
The low-income children, in short, were being taught
to be passive, teacher-dependent and uncrcativc.
The reason. Harvey believes, is that both black and
white teachers are taught?by teachers' colleges and by .
the society at large-to take a "clinical" approach toward
low-income children, to "treat" them for their supposed
-vutoural deficits. _____
"Nobody seems to have tested the kids-arc^kids
hypothesis," she said.
A
Ts Journal J
Then a rumor surfaced claiming that the findings were
based on an analysis of test scores of Blacks and Whites
which proved that Blacks did not perform academically
as well as their test scores predicted and Jewish students
performed better than their test scores predicted.
I investigated the entire matter for a television
documentary, "Trouble In Paradise," and found that
the study was fabricated. Based on the admissions office
records, the overall grade performance of Blacks compares
wtfh the geoefal uudeni body. Kliigiiard never
received current data from the admissions office and, according
to David Evans, senior admissions officer, Harvard
doesn't even identify its Jewish students.
It appears that the report itself is a deliberate fabrication
to actonlt V-> ? ~ ' : I:.. r
~ u.^aun 11iv iiiciiidi agimy ot an blacks al Harvard
and elsewhere and to sow seeds of dissension between
Jews and Blacks in the process. "1 would say that that
clearly falls in line with a general attempt to create or exploit
some conflict between Jews and Blacks," commented
Harvard's Dr. Richard Lewontin, a world
famous expert on genetics who is also Jewish.
Harvard, the mccca of White liberalism, has not
tenured one Black professor since 1969 and has only I?
Blacks out of 669 faculty members, 7 of whom are in
Black studies. T his educational "paradise"^ has turned
out to be not the collegiate Utopia that its Black students
had hoped for, but an elusive mirage.
"I just think it's naive to assume that White people
here arc any different frt>m the rest of their community. 1
think they've been raised that way. We come here and we
somehow assume that thK is some sort of fantasyland,"
explained Alan Jackson, an 18-year-old freshman from
Chicago.
'