Newspapers / The Charlotte Post (Charlotte, … / Nov. 13, 1975, edition 1 / Page 2
Part of The Charlotte Post (Charlotte, N.C.) / About this page
This page has errors
The date, title, or page description is wrong
This page has harmful content
This page contains sensitive or offensive material
cmm commcnu Give Crime Victims A Break! mi • : r-« incic is uu uuuui inaimosi Amer icans regard crime as the most significant problem facing the coun try today. Recent public opinion polls have indicated that millions of Americans art* even more concern ed about crime than they are about the economy. By the same token, the most serious aspect of the crime problem is the hard-core repeater. A recent study has shown that about 90 per cent of all adults imprisoned for serious crimes have been jailed at least once before. - Time Magazine in a recent cover story on crime pointed out that many repeat offenders are on parole or probation at the time of re-arrest. “One man in Houston,” Time stated, “was arrested for theft and released 11 times in 18 months without ever going to trial.” Another study show ed that 627 out of 10,000 young people in Philadelphia became chronic offenders, responsible for two-thirds of all violent crimes committed in the city by those 10,000 persons over an eight-year period. How is this problem to be solved? Obviously, both the problem and the solution are extremely complicated and cannot be covered in a brief editorial. Nevertheless, U. S. Sen. Birch Bayh (D-Ind.) recently intro duced a comprehensive piece of legislation-S. 1880 (the Violent ■ Crime and Repeat Offender Act of _ 1975)- which could provide some of the answer. Alliung utliei tltinge tho— bill includes the following provi sions : -It limits the availability of small, easily hidden handgung. -It provides mandatory penalities for the commission of crimes invol - ving itUBBt._ -It provides mandatory penalties for the illegal purchase of guns by - persons with criminal records. -ii mciuues mandatory sentences for gun dealers who knowingly sell guns to convicted felons. -It provides that licensed gun dis tributors or sellers must report all gun thefts. -It provides mandatory penalties for the sale of firearms for illicit interstate purposes. -It requires mandatory prison sentences for the manufacture, dis tribution or sale of heroin and mor phine. -It establishes as a Federal crime the robbery of a drug store for the purpose of obtaining dangerous, addictive drugs. Once upon a time, such a Bill might have been severely criticized by white liberals and Blacks as a “law and order” attempt to punish poverty-stricken youths with no attempt to rehabilitate them. How ever, more and more people, both Black and white, "are coming to realize that the victims of these youths are also poverty-stricken in dividuals who are entitled to a great deal more protection and considera tion than they have received up to now. Speaking about the Birch Bayh bill, former preisdent judge of Common Pleas Court D. Donald Jamieson recently said, “Uniform ity and cerainty of punishment for the repeat offender and for the robber who risks another’s life by .using a gun, is what the public wants. It is also right. The public is entitled to be protected from the multiple and would-be violent offen der by taking such individuals off the street.” Giving such multiple-offenders a “slap on the wrist” is merely to encourage them to commit more crimes. It’s about time the victims of crime got a break. Guest editorial - The Philadelphia Tribune Too Many Crimes Committed By Blacks Against Blacks Recent reports from the Charlotte Police Department cited the high - degree of crime against persons and properties in the Black communi ties. According to the report, these * crimes were committed by Blacks against Blacks. Since it is not a problem caused by someone or something outside the Black com munity, the cause must be within the Black community. The Post believe that cause to be fear, along with a lack of concern for fellow community members. A cri minal cannot exist within a commu nity whose members have decided to be without crime. A criminal can exist within a community only when he is allowed to do so. Each member of the Black com munity must be made aware of the fact that when the average commu nity member is afraid to check, or question another community mem ber. then criminal activity will have a high rate of occurrence also when the average community mem ber is not concerned with the well being of his neighbors, then his well being is also in jeopardy. Criminals, therefore, exist in the black commu nity only because they are allowed to exist because of our fear of one another and our lack of concern for one another. To end criminal activity within our neighbors, we must begin imme diately working more closely with one another. Each community mem ber must be willing and committed to aiding his fellow community members. We, a people who have suffered long, must not commit crimes again st ourselves. We can end criminal activity in our neighborhoods by making our neighborhoods our homes, and when we realize that crimes against our communities are crimes against each of us, we will then be moving toward our goal of crime-free neighborhoods. However, for any given commu nity to move progressively, its .young must be progressive. BLACK COMMUK/TIES THAT CARE ABOUT THE BLACK FUTURE, SHOULD HELP IMPOSE ORDER WHERE NEEDED. Working Together Can Get The Job Done Dues Owed Black Press By Benjamin L. Hooks FCC Commissioner Special To The Post One of the more significant cpanphnc rp^pnlly in respect to the importance of the Black Press working in harmony with the black community was that of Carlton B. Goodlett’s before a workshop media panel of the Congressional Black Caucus. Dr. Goodlett, who is publisher of the San'Francisco Sun-Reporter and . ..president of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA>, a consortium of black newspapers, stressed the historic importance of the role played by the Black Press in keeping alive a sense of community among America’s oppressed blacks. But Dr. Goodlett was not content to rest his case on history. His aim was far more aggressive and bold. He laid down a challenge to the Con gressionai tsiacK caucus and black political officials everywhere in the U. S., that it is, indeed, ‘‘time for black officials to pay their dues” to black people an their communica tions instrument, the Black Press. ‘‘If they fail to pay these dues, and the black community should band together and rid the community of these black officials who play the safe rules of the game by not rocking the boat and following orders of their white masters.” Said he: ‘‘From this day on, the NNPA is going to demand that its member papers start telling it like it is without fear or favor. The Black Press has been a light in the dark ness for years and now that a few selected blacks are getting a little coverage in white papers and on radio and television, let’s not get cocky and turn our backs on the Black Press.” One of my constant themes in talks to grouDS. voune and old. male and female, is: “Don’t forget from whence you came.” Indeed, I have taken a vow that I would not permit Potomac Fever (ambition for power and the good life of Washington, D.Cj to (ildliU my vision, muto my - efforts for or stay my hand in the round-the-clock struggle for equality and justice for blacks and other minorities. In short, I will never forget from whence I came. Mrs. Coretta Scott King, widow of our beloved martyr, Dr. Martin r-. Luthe^jting Jr., recently, observed thaTthere are some folks Who ser iously believe that a politician can not be both moral and a politician. She says she does not subscribe to that view and points to Rep. Walter Fauntroy of Washington, D. C., and Rep. Andrew Young of Georgia as cases in point, and adds there are others. To say that both are ministers is to beg the question. For both are politi cians as well and, as Bill Strickland a fellow of the Institute of the Black World said recenlty in Black World Magazine, “Blacks....have a differ ent legacy. We belong to the tradition of America’s victims, a tradition which has given us a particular angle of vision largley at odds with America, a tradition which has led to the repudiation, ridicule, exile and assassination of our prophets by a society determined to deny the val idity of their vision and the truth of our history.” He adds, however, that this “black vision has survived. It has sustained us throughout the years, anchoring us in a reality far differ ent from Dick and Jane’s, and pro tecting us, when we have let it, from the most dangerous fantasies America has had about ” TO BE EQUAL VKHSON K. JUKI) \\ JH. Amnesty Still An Issue The Presidential Clemency Board, created a year ago to help Vietnam war resisters clear their records, is no longer in existence. My experience as a member of that Board had a great influence on my thnking about how best to heal the scars left by the war in Vietnam. When I was appointed to the Board, I agreed with its basic mission-to sift the records of war resisters, deserters and others and recommend alternate civilian service to earn Presidential clemency. It didn’t take too many weeks of service for me to see that there was a lot more to it. The conventional image of the spoiled rich kid who ran away to Canada to beat the draft ji+st didn’t_ hold true for most cases. The great majority of cases before the Board involved young people who were denied their rights as conscientious objectors, who deserted for compelling personal reasons unrecognized by their superior officers, or who simply should never have been drafted to begin with. The typical case involved someone who was poor, not rich; who was victimized by arbitrary and unfair rulings by his officer, or who could not articulate the views that got other, better educated young men, deferments. Most were individuals who were helplessly _ caught up in the snares of a giant bureaucracy and, ngntly or wNingly, iliuse lei tjiupi tliui'i_ situation in ways that the law defined as illegal. Not a few cases involved men who had served at the front and only after returning to the U S nr Europe, deserted for personal reasons. And we only got a fraction of the cases still on the books. Many men just didn’t belieVe their resistance to an immoral war was wrong, and ' refused to apply for clemency. Others resented havingifo db alternaWserviee, feeling they’d already paid their dues by being forced under ground for such ? long time. So while the Board is no longer in existence, amnesty is still a hot issue; the hovering in the background of the discussions about clemency is the universal realization that the War was wrong. It s time to finally end the war by declaring complete, immediate, universal and uncondi tional amnesty. In my year on the Board I learned that the case-by-case treatment just won’t work. Let’s wipe the slate clean and end the war still being waged against the draft resisters and offenders. While most of the public’s attention has been focused on 50,000 or so war resisters, total amnesty should include the more than 200,000 Vietnam-era veterans who hold less than honor able discharges, which amount to lifetime penal ties keeping them from government arid many private sector jobs, and from rights and benefits enjoyed by other veterans. Bad discharges carry penalties absurdly in appropriate to the real or imagined offenses, often minor, that have sometimes been imposed for racially-inspired reasons. They continue to dog the lives of men who did serve and who risked their lives only to be busted out of the service for a host of reasons that would earn no penalty at all in a civilian setting. The system is rigged against these men from the start. The discharge process is shot through with abuses of servicemen’s rights and many bad discharges are given unfniriv THE CHARLOTTE POST “THE PEOPLES NEWSPAPER” Established 1918 By A. M. Houston Published Every Thursday By The Charlotte Post Publishing Co., Inc. 9139 Trinity Road - Charlotte, N. C. 28216 Telephones (704 ) 392-1306 - 392-1307 Circulation 11,000 57 YEARS OF CONTINUOUS SERVICE Bill Johnson .Editor - Publisher Gerald O. Johnson .Business Manager Robert L. Johnson.Circulation Manager Second Class Postage Paid at Charlotte. N. C under the Act of March 3,1878 ^_ ♦ Member National Newspaper Publishers Association National Advertising Representative Amalgamated Publishers, Inc. 0 45 W. 5th, Suite 1403 2400 S Michigan Ave New York, N Y 10036 Chicago, 111. 60616 48®*1220 , . Calumet 5-0200 .. — * I Smiles, Talk, Much Money Lure Black Voters By Sidney Moore Jr. Post Staff Writer Many smiles, much taik an< a lot of money was used to trj to lure black voters to the poll) during recently held city eiec tions. Those voters that cam* must feel some sense of ac complishment as their votes played a great part in the election of Harvey Gantt tc city council and John Belk (c the office of mayor. Apparently, these votera feel candidate Robert "Bob' Walton has got to pay hit political dues before they allow him the honor of their vote So when the time comes, no doubt he to will bask in the lime light of political success. So now that the big show is over, the black voter will pro bably forget about politics until the next time they see the many smiles, much talk and results of the lot of money politicians will use in the next contest For black folks, it would seem, politics is like Sunday I afternoon football. It is a spectator sport between i superstars played in the arena of public consiousness. Being young, I imagine there was a time when there was no National Football Lea gue. There was probably no television and the word spectator was very seldom used It would seem to me that in such an environment, people found many ways to entertain themselves. Most people at that time probably found ways to enjoy working, since most of their time was likely spent doing ordinary common everyday chores. It is apparently an indica tion of how things change when you note that a word like chore, which was once used very often is now seldom used and that word spectator is now used constantly Maybe this language thing would tell us much more about ourselves Sidney Moore Jr. and each other if we really took the time to listen. But listening and reading and communicating are sports that must be participated in to be enjoyable So before we get involved in things that will make us have to work or understand to enjoy, we would rather find some means to be entertained. That way we can enjoy life.as a spectator as we imagine the rich folks do While we occupy our senses with rubish, the rich and the powerful, smile, talk much and spend money to tell us that we are able to enjoy our spectacular lives because we ’ have the right to vote for those who will represent us in government They tell us constantly of our democratic rights, so much so until we begin to think that we are doing our parts by simply watching what they do in the powerful seats of business, commerce industry and government In fact, we think our only politi cal actions in life are to vote We fail to realize that our every action--in our homes, churches, schools, wherever - is political. For politics is a means by which we enable ourselves to keep order within groups The kind of group does not matter. Chances are if you know church politics you can successfully speak about public policy issues. The prin ciples of politics are universal in their use although styles are different. Mankind developed politics to enable himself to do things an individual could not do alone. Such things and hunting for large animals to feed a tribe is an example A sport like football is polit ical. Two teams vie for terri tory (yardage) under a set of rules The process by which physical actions in football were allowed or disallowed was political. In each game, the acceptance of the author ity of the referees to call the play is recognized because of the political process under which the rules of the game were written. • So even as a Spectator, one cannot escape the workings of politics in our society We can imagine that as individuals and groups that the everyday burdens of survival can be left to someone else to decide but sooner or later we will feel the effect of that otiier person’s decisions. Watergate, recently CIA re velations and the many other complexities our society now faces is an example of what happens when someone else is allowed to decide the future So between now and the next time, it would seem the black voter in Charlotte and else where has his job cut out foe* him. ^ The next time we see the smiles, hear the talk and are exposed to the effects of elec tion money, maybe we will know what to do 'tote I would like to extend ny personal thanks to the nany people who said they fnjoyed last week’s column
The Charlotte Post (Charlotte, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Nov. 13, 1975, edition 1
2
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75