Newspapers / The Charlotte Post (Charlotte, … / Nov. 18, 1976, edition 1 / Page 2
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Icoiioiidis t coimnu Credit Many For Carter’s Victory aa aa a — — — . - I « I • « 1'1 1.L _ uicujiur wuuiu lute uctduac uic new President must still depend on a sometimes-hostile Congress to pass legislation favorable to blacks. Se condly, the “we-blacks”-elected Carter attitude will cause a great increase in the already existing large degree of black political apa- • thy if Mr. Carter does not “deliver the goods” quickly. There is historical evidence to support our viewpoint. Many black big city mayors have experienced a mixed reaction from the black elec torate because they - the electorate - assumed that “their Mayor” had unlimited power to institute quick political, social and economic change. When such mayors were not able to “deliver” quickly because of uncooperating City Councils, state legislatures and sometimes the na tional Congress, black political apa thy occurred and the mayors in question lost a significant part of his political support. This in turn made it more difficult for the mayors to achieve desired goals. Therefore, the POST urges blacks to be patient and realistic in terms of what they expect from President elect Jimmy Carter. He will not, in the first 100 days of his administra tion, be able to rectify the many injustices experienced by black A mericans. However, because he is a man with a proven record of a moral and spiritual commitment to the needs and concerns of blacks, the POST believes that the next four years will bring to America - and particularly black Americans - con siderable improvements in the qua lity of life and unproved social and economic justice. Give Mr. Carter a fare opportunity to be a President of all the people and by so doing help him to help black Americans. Whose Victory? The 11-year old policy of the Plains (Ga.) Baptist Church that excluded “Negroes or other civil rights agita tors” from membership was ended last Sunday as a result of the combined but separate efforts of the church’s most distinguished mem ber, President-elect Jimmy Carter, and the Rev. Clennon King, a political agitator or the tool of unseen anti-Carter political forces. The exclusion policy, opposed by Mr. Carter since its adoption in 1965, received national attention when the Rev. King, a non-Baptist, announced his intentions and sought member ship at the Plains Church on the Sunday just prior to the presidential elections. Unfortunately, the circumstances surrounding the church’s action to end the policy leaves unclear whe ther the action was influenced by a commitment to true Christian bro therhood or simply for jwlitical convenience. The POST' believes it was for the latter reason that the policy was ended by a 120 to 66 vote of the church membership. In other words, Plains, Georgia, and the “New South” did not want to send the white house their “favorite son” with a trace of the mud of the “Old South” on his coat tail. While politics was the winner in Plains, what does the incident mean for this great institution called reli gion - still the most segregated part of American life? Do we need a president-elect in every American church, black and white, in order to allow the force of politics to end the written or unwritten laws that keep God’s houses segregated? If this is the true America religious creed then none of us can expect to visit the Kingdom of Heaven. Think about it! - - , / oy noyie n. marun ar. Post Staff Writer Many - particularly blacks - have given black Americans credit for electing Jimmy Carter president of the United States. This assumption arises from the fact that 6 million blacks or 94 percent of all black voters pulled the lever for the Carter-Mondale ticket. To be more specific, Carter won in 13 southern and border states and _ three vital northeastern industrial states because blacks supported him with 80 to 90 percent voter majori ties. On the other hand, whites £ divided their votes nearly evenly i with Ford getting a slight edge, j: Therefore, the black vote became the voter block that gave Carter the •: margin of victory. Such statistical revelations about the role and impact of the black ? voter is certainly something that | blacks can be proud of. However, it \ is just wishful thinking and a failure j* to be realistic to conclude that i blacks in and of themselves elected : Carter to the Presidency. While it is i true blacks constituted the largest v minority group in the nation and f therefore they can always be the largest voting minority block vote, j: they nevertheless needed the assis tance of trade unionists, urban dwellers, and middle and low income whites to get Mr. Carter the edge over Gerald Ford. More significantly, there are some built-in dangers for blacks catering V to the illusion that they made Carter the President. First, the “we blacks’.’-elected-Carter mentality will cause blacks to assume that significant and quick changes will occur under a Carter administration because of his indebtness to blacks. This will not occur as quickly as THE CHARLOTTE POST “THE PEOPLES NEWSPAPER” Established 1918 Published Every Thursday By The Charlotte Post Publishing Co., Inc. 2806-B West Blvd.-Charlotte, N.C. 28208 Telephones (704) 392-1306,392-1307 Circulation 11,000 57 YEARS OF CONTINUOUS SERVICE Bill Johnson...Editor-Publisher Sidney A. Moore Jr.Advertising Director Rex Hovey.Circulation Manager Gerald O. Johnson.Business Manager By Gerald 0. Johnson The Great American Dream is to own your own property and home. More than ever black people are beginning to realize that dream. Black peo ple are buying homes at a percentage number compara ble with their white counter parts. Unfortunately, neighbor hoods are going to pot because of the record number of blacks seeking homes. Clanton Park, Hidden Valley, Colony Acres, and many, many more have faded in appearence as quality neighborhoods in less than five years. It is no wonder that white flight occurs when blacks move into a previously all white neighborhood. However, there are several all black neighborhoods that are very well preserved. Hyde Park, McCrorey Heights, Northwood Estates are just a few such neighborhoods Consequently, the problem with degrading neighborhoods is not a racial one but an economical one. The difference in a Hyde Park and a Hidden Valley is Second Class Postage Paid at Charlotte, N.C. under the Act of March 3,1878 * Member National Newspaper Publishers Association North Carolina Black Publishers Association ———— Deadline for all news copy and photos is 5 pm. Monday. The Post is not responsible for any photos or news copies submitted for publication. National Advertising Representative Amalgamated Publishers. Inc. 45 W. 5th Suite 1403 2400 S. Michigan Ave. New York, N.Y. 10036 Chicago, 111. 60616 (212) 489-1220 Calumet 5-0200 &LACK-ON'BLACH / CRIMES EXPLODING* \JHYHAVE MURDERS, RAPES, AND ASSAULTS BECOME $0 COMMON V IN BL ACK COMMUNITIES BOTH IN THE FREQUENCY AND PATTERN-THAT 4 THEY HAVE BECOME ROUTINE AND THE ONLY PEOPLE CON CERNED ABOUT THEM ARE THE RELATIVES OF THE VICTIMS0 HOUSTON FORWARD TIMES An Everyday Way Of Life In The Black Community? I EDUCATION By D. Marie Washington . Playing The Dozens The ancient Africans held the belief that the most deadly attack which one could make upon as man’s spirit was to talk negatively about his pa rents, for one’s parents sym bolize the roots of one's being and the source of a person’s life force. In seeking to determine the cause of the problems in edu cation today, we frequently hear the blame placed upon parents, and since the pro blems of the inner city schools are especially acute, Black parents are being attacked with a steady barrage of criti cism which implies that they are the ones who are respon sible for low academic a chievement, discipline pro blems, poor motivation and the rest of the ills which beset inner city schools. Out of this constant attack there has emerged a highly negative image of the Black parent which pictures the pa rent as uncaring, unloving, irresponsible, and a host of other negative characteristics which have a striking resem blance to the old stereotype that was the chalk which drew the lines separating the races. The new stereotype of the Black parent draws a line between those who train the' child in the school and those who train the child in the home, giving school adminis trators and teachers a nega tive picture of their partners in the educational process. This rules out the possibility for positive education, as ne gative images lead to negative behaviors which produce ne gative results. _ The stereotype of the Black parent is particularly danger ous because it compounds the problem of educating Black children. A critical attitude held toward a child’s parents colors the attitudes held to ward the child, for when the child’s parents are considered inferior. It seems to justify regarding the child as an inferior. Thus, the attack on the parent is a double-edged sword. The constant criticism of the Black parent is particularly misleading because it focuses our attention upon the victim and away from the real cause of the problem. The many, problems of the inner city school can hardly stem totally from the relationship between parent and child, because the relationship of Black parents to their children run the full range of parent-child relation ships found everywhere and among all peoples. However, the relationship of the Black parent to the educational sys tem is America has been unique, offering a set of chal lenges to the Black parent which has brought forth a special set of responses. It is the challenge presented to Black parents by the educa tional system which must be considered as the problem, rather than the parents, their children, or their responses to the problem. Parents are people • no more and no less. They are both the professional and the layman; the rich and the poor; the good and the bad. They represent the adult mind of a community and the source of a people’s life force. Paint ing the collective parent in a negative light is simply an exercise in self-castigation, and only serves to direct us away from, rather than to ward solutions to the problems presented by the educational svstem todav wunip uciwrni system today. Black Home Ownership confronted with the unscrupu lous realtor. A realtor will sell a home to anyone who can pay the down payment and secure a loan. This is the major reason for the deterioration of a neigh borhood. A great number o: blacks are misled into buyinf a home they cannot afford They cannot afford it because no one ever tells them that th< maintenance on a home is Jus as costly as the home itself Therefore, people will get inU a home, start making month! payments, and when some sort of problem occurs wit! the home, they realize thai they can’t afford to have H corrected. Consequently, Um home begins to look bad thereby leading to the neigh borhood looking bad. The obvious question that comes to mind is, "Why don't people buy new homes?’’ Th< answers are (1) Coat (2) A vailability. New homes cost more than a used home anc they do not offer as much ai a used home and they do not offer as much initially. By this 1 mean a ready lawn, im provements, and etc. More how Blacks got in them and why Blacks wanted in them. The more established black neighborhoods like Hyde Park were built for Black people Black people bought these homes when thev were built and developed their commu nity into an established neigh borhood. Thus the neighbor hood has a sense of stability; few people moving out, few people moving in. Compare this with a neigh borhood like Hidden Valley that I consider a transient neighborhood. The neighbor hood was built for whites. When blacks moved in the whites moved out. This caused a very unstable condition to exist in the neighborhood. In stead of people developing an appreciation for the neighbor hood they basically inherited a developed neighborhood. Thus, the basic community concern is lost. The situation is quite simi lar to a person earning’ a million dollars and a person inheriting a million dollars. The latter is more apt to squander his million than the Gerald O. Johnson former. Structures of the neighbor hoods tike Hidden Valley and Hyde Park are different. Consider the difference in buying a home in a transient neighborhood and a develop ing neighborhood. When new homes are built the buyer basically buys a home from a developer. I say basically be cause most developers use agencies to handle the selling of their new developments When a buyer buys a home in a transient neighborhood he is s TO BE EQUAL w /# mmm Vernon E. Jordan Jr. Black Vote Elected Carter About two-thirds of registered black citizens voted on Election Day and about 94 percent of them cast their ballots for the Carter-Mondale ticket. e This aspect of the election results deserves a - lot more study and attention than the media have given it. There are major lessons to be drawn from the black turnout. The first of these is that black votes decide the winner of any Presidential election that’s not a runaway for one of the candidates. Nationally, Carter won by less than two million votes, but got over six million black votes. w Even if Carter had lost the popular vote, black votes would have swung enough key states for him to win in the Electoral College. The Carter ticket won because it put together eastern industrial states and an almost solid bloc of southern and border states. In most of them, victory depended on black votes. This is most striking when you look at the South. The media stressed Carter’s ability to hold his home region and attributed it to regional loyalties. Southerners supposedly voted for another southerner. Carter was hailed for putting together the old Democratic Solid South. | But how true is this? Carter’s ‘‘Solid South” wasn’t solid at all. What happened was that white voters favored the Ford ticket but black southerners gave Carter nearly all their votes. The Carter ticket squeaked through a narrow victory in Mississippi only because it got 134,000 black votes. In many southern and border states Carter’s victory margins were less than over whelming and they could have wound up in the Ford column without that kind of black support n — i v it. i a.. . ■ xu uic uctpiLdi uuuiiiy oi ms nome state, Georgia, Carter barely beat Ford among ~~ white voters, but blacks gave him almost 98 percent of their votes. Another lesson of the election is that the black commitment to the democratic process is strong. Despite predictions of light black voting, black “^8 ttw*r political strength Jo .defeat policies that halted the civil rights revolution. The high black turnout is a tribute to non-political and non-partisan black institutions whose efforts to educate citizens were so successful. The black press and the church, along with such splendid groups as the Joint Center for Political Studies, the Voter Education Project, the NAACP, the Urban League and others went all out to get people registered and concerned. Their success, in the face of limited funds and disinterest from traditional foundation support ers, helped encourage the sophistication of black voting results. Despite the overwhelming pro Carter vote, blacks did not vote as a bloc for offices below the Presidency. Split-ticket voting was common whenever Republican candidates were seen as being favorable to black interests. This contains an important lesson for the Republican Party. Shamefully, the party of Lincoln has ignored or fought many of the things black people are committed to. Had the Republi cans been able to hang onto the black vote that was theirs up to the Depression, they would be nearly unbeatable. over, new nomes are not as' available today as they were 10 years ago. The problem with deteriora ting neighborhoods is easily remedied by realtors exercis ing some sort of code of ethics. Realtors should be well aware of the financial situation of their clients. By being honest with clients and telling them the pitfalls of home ownership the problem will remedy it self. But if you are looking for a r home and your realtor is not leveling with you, you can do the following: 1) Never buy a home that coat more than twice your yearly income. Example: If you earn $14,000a year you can afford a >20,000 home. 2) Never use both husband’s and wife's income to deter mine if you can afford a home or not. If you do you are asking for trouble. Example husband earns 14,000 and wife earns 10,000 yearly; the combined , family income Is >24,000 a year. It would seem that the family could afford a >40,000 home. Not true. Never become dependent on a wife’s income A safe way to determine home affordability in this case is to take the husband's income and y« to of the wife’s income and add them up. Double this figure and that will give you how much you can pay for a house. In the example given above we can re-calculate and get; hus band’s income - $14,000 -Mi of wife’s income • $5,000 gives total income of $19,000. Double this and you get the home affordability figure of $30,000. Using this type of planning not only will enable you to afford the mortgage on your home but also to afford the maintenance on your home. The stability of a neighbor hood is dependent upon each P«rson in that neighborhood buying what he can afford to upkeep a black realtor that is more concerned with the buck rather than other blacks is a disgrace to his people. For a list of just such black realtors, please write to me in care of this newspaper Tip For The Week: Listen to channel nine's editorial com ments by Paul Harvey. Then do just the opposite of what he suggests You can’t go wrong. <
The Charlotte Post (Charlotte, N.C.)
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Nov. 18, 1976, edition 1
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