Newspapers / The Charlotte Post (Charlotte, … / Nov. 17, 1983, edition 1 / Page 2
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editorials < & comments Gantt Faces Strong Challenges The day following his historic election as mayor of the nation’s 47th largest city. Harvey Gantt said,_* 'Throughout my term as vour "maynr qiraltty-wttt — be the watchword. I want to enhance our quality of life, our quality of jobs, our quality of neighborhoods...and the quality of our relationships with one another.” While probably not aware of Mr. Gantt’s comment, yet re flecting a part of the challenge the new mayor faces, a resident of Earle Village said, “I don’t need a better job.T-need a job. Is Harvey Gantt going to do any thing?” This is a question that will undoubtedly be in the minds of many black Charlotteans. The reason behind such thinking is the unrealistic assumption that simply because the City now has a mayor who is black that he can and should suddenly change the quality and opportunity in their lives. While Mayor-elect Gantt, as might any other mayor whose election enhances the prestige of his city and his vision encour-. ages the in-migration of business and industry, will mean new jobs for some, few will have the preception to relate such jobs to the personal efforts of the mayor. Ironically, -too, it is doubtful that any of the new jobs would oe within the skill level ot the citizen asking what will Harvey Gantt do. Nevertheless, since local go vernment can and does impact upon the daily lives of its citi zens, a mayor, and quite possibly a black mayor, can heavily in fluence how government touches their lives. Gantt’s challenge is a signal to the citizens of our city that working, playing and cooperat ing together we can collectively improve the quality of life within our city for all citizens to some — degree This too poSes a challenged Mr. Gantt because elected of ficials tend to give their ener gies and support issues of those most responsible for electing him to office. In this regard, the black community cast very few 'votes for two of the three at large Republican City Council members. Mayor-elect Gantt should not be expected to over —come—this—challpngp alnpp Members of the black commun ity must offer vocal support and by their presence at City Coun cil meetings let it be known to the full City Council what their concerns and desires are. In Mayor-elect Gantt’s com mitment to “quality” as his watchword, he offers himself a challenge in stating a goal to be the kind of mayor who can bring the diverse elements of the city together in order to promote “quality.” This is indeed a chal lenge considering the variety of interests and levels of empha sis that may occur among and between the rich and poor, young and old, Republican and Demo crats, neighborhoods and de velopers, and blacks and whites. We have made these observ ations in the aftermath of the .hoopla surrounding the excite ment in Harvey Gantt’s election in an effort to remind us that the work, the challenge, the oppor tunity and the pitfalls of the Gantt Administration must be shared by all citizens if we hope to continue the effort in moving Charlotte from being a good city to a great city. Black Caucus Needs Policy Direction we were dismayed to learn that four days before the No • - vember-fr generaf-eleetions-that the 50-odd member Black Political Caucus had not reached a decision on who or whether the group should endorse candi dates. The issue underlying the delay was involved with whether to endorse an all-black slate, a slate with black and white can didates, Republicans and Demo crats or no candidates at all. It appears to us that the divi sion along these lines that de layed the eventual endorsements demonstrates that the Caucus does not have a clearly defined policy on endorsements. If the Caucus expects to be ascenaea 10 me level oi a dy namic political force in the --Political fiommunity..Jn..genfirai_. and the black political com munity in particular, it needs to pause now to develop a policy on endorsements. - We might add that any policy that proposes to endorse only black candidates or only Democratic candidates will render the Caucus a useless, bigoted, narrow-minded organ ization that has out-lived its use fulness in the City of Charlotte. It is past time for the Black Political Caucus to reassess its mission and to begin to offer some meaningful, non-partisan political leadership on an on going basis. THE CHARLOTTE POST “THE PEOPLE’S NEWSPAPER” Established 1918 Published Every Thursday by The Charlotte Post Publishing Co., Inc. Subscription Rate $17.68 Per Year Second Class Postage No. 965500 Postmaster Send 3579s To: 1531 Camden Rd., Charlotte, N.C. 28203 Telephone: 704-376-0496 Circulation 11,023 r • 106 Years of Continuous Service Bill Johnson Editor, Publisher Bernard Reeves General Manager Fran Farrer Advertising Director Dannette Gaither Office Manager Second Class Postage No. 965500 Paid at ' Charlotte, North Carolina 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 p.m. Monday. All photos and copy submitted become the property of fh«; Post and will not be returned. National Advertising Representative Amalgamated Publishers. Inc. 24M S. Michigan Ave. 45 W. 454h St.. Suite 14*3 - Chlcago. III. «MI« New York. New Yerk IUN Column 5-0200 212-4*0-1220 i From Capitol Hill "IF THE GOVERNMENT WILL NOT PROTECT US AND THE POLICE CANNOT, IT FOLLOWS THAT BLACK CITIZENS MUST PROTECT THEMSELVES." ME CANNOT WAIT UNTIL 1 DISCRIMINATION ENDS BEFORE WE RID OUR —7 COMMUNITIES OF CRIME. \ ME CAN NO LONGER * _ EXCUSE CRIME BECAUSE J OF SOCIETY'S INEQUITIES,. \ WE STAND MENACED BY OUR OMN KITH AND KIN IT IS INCONCEIVABLE TO ME THAT WE WHO HAVE [ PREVAILED IN SPITE OF J THE BARBARISM OF WHITE] PEOPLE SHOULD, IN THE ' LAST QUARTER OF THE _CENTURY, STAND AS MUtESPECTATORS TO OUR DOOMM ORDE COOMBS H.Y./M46AZ/H£ BLACK'S DESTINY IN OWN HANDS. Optimists To Hear Donald Hand Donald J. Hand of San Antonio, TX, President of Optimist International will visit the newly established North Carolina Central District Friday night, No vember 18. A practicing attorney, Hand has been a member of the Optimist Club of San Antonio for 20 years, and has served as a Represent ative to the Texas Legis lature. President Hand will be officially representing Optimist International, an organization of more than 3,700 men’s civic service clubs in North America. Now in its 65th year, the organization membership totals more than 145,000 men. The North Carolina Cen tral District of Optimist International is governed by Charlotte Attorney Ralph Dougherty. The Dis trict is comprised of 54 clubs located in a band that ■stretches—from" ■Charhjtte and Rockingham north ward to the Greensboro and Winston-Salem area. Included in this number are six black clubs in the city of Charlotte. These clubs and their presidents are: East Char lotte ( Gordon Boulware), Hidden Valley (Odel Wi therspoon), Hornets Nest (James Davidson), North east Charlotte) Roderick Lewis), Southwest Char lotte (Alvin Woods) and West Charlotte (Frank Pharr). The Weddington Club in Waxhaw, NC is a mixed club with a black president, Eddie Wallace. Local optimist clubs sponsor activities such as the Carolinas Golden Gloves, Mecklenburg County Pop Warner Foot ball League, Oratorical Contests, Youth Appre^'" tion Week, and numerous other youth and commun ity service projects. Contact Jasper D. Forbes, 704-597-1502, West Mecklenburg Optimist Club, for further details. Davidson Participates In Southeastern Meeting Davidson, NC - Three Davidson College faculty members and 12 students and recent graduates par ticipated in the 35th South eastern Regional Meeting of the American Chemical Society held last week at the Civic Center and Radis son Plaza Hotel in Char lotte. Davidson’s faculty and students were among 580 persons invited to present research papers at the week-long meeting, which attracted more than 1,200 “parficipanU^""-' Faculty members who presented papers are Dr. Felix A. Carroll and Dr. Merlyn Shuh, both as sociate professors of chem istry, and former visiting assistant professor of chemistry Dr. John A. Mackay III. Participating students were David M. ’ Lincoln, Lynmarie A. Posey, J. Rene Herlong and Jeffrey R. Knudson. Recent graduates in cluded Kevin R. Pressley, Carie K. Nunn, Michael S. Ameen, Warren F. Beck, Kenneth S. Manning, Eli nos A. Whitlock, David K. Green, and Joseph C. Sloop. Dr. James M. Frederick son, chemistry professor and chairman of David son’s premedical depart ment, served as. general chairman of the regional meeting and Dr. Carroll served as program chair man. Ruth Easterling . .Raleigh - Representative Ruth M. Easterling of Mecklenburg County has •Beefrapptrttitetf Ur Honse Speaker Liston B. Ramsey as co-chairman of a con tinuing study of the pro blems and needs of women in North Carolina. The Legislative Re search Commission study will continue the work done earlier by a study group created in 1981. It will ex amine “the entire range of the economic, social and legal problems and needs of the women of North Carolina.” Mrs. Easterling, a Char lotte businesswoman, is chairman of the House Go vernmental Ethics Com mittee. News Suppression Wrong For Rida •Mireaa l,. roaaison Special To The Pdit The Reagan Administra tion appears greatly in need of psychological treatment, to rid it of its Soviet hysteria, which is translated into ‘‘gunboat" foreign policy. All internal and external problems of foreign countries around the world, this Administra tion attributes to commun ist intervention. This causes our nation to im mediately find some rea son for military support. We are rapidly becoming a heartless, inhumane blood bathing country. we are exposing our boys to wide open fire, without any protection in Lebanon. In Grenada, they are ac cidently killing our own Marines, firing on hospi tals, and killing the sick. Then the President talks about their heroism. Does killing one’s own fellow soldiers and bombing hos pitals make a soldier a hero? The President needs to fire either the command ers in both Lebanon and Grenada for allowing these incidents to occur. Also Se cretary of Defense Wetn berger should be called into question by both the Pre sident and Congress to give full account of the atro cious acts. Our boys are being taught that life is only valuable unless it's one's own. Speakes, a Marine wounded in Grena da said that he found being Alfred* L. Madison m the battles In Grenada adventurous. He says that he is anxious to return so he can gat in his battle time. Perhaps the street mur derers find killing adven turous also. Condemnation , of Russia’s Afghanistan inva sion and its suppression of the press have been great ly criticized by this country and the President. Yet, we are doing the same thing. All news about the Grenada invasion, for the first days, came from the Administration. The press, for the first time in Ame rican history, was prevent ed from going along with the armed forces to cover the news. The purpose of the press is to correctly report happenings to the public. The public has a right to know the truth. The Administration comes up with the phony idea of pro tecting the press. The real truth Is protecting the American people from the opportunity to get the facts These actions have the white House forrespofia-" ents fighting mad, be cause they are supposed to get true information from the White House press, in stead they are getting im correct Information or trumped up excuses. The Reagan Adminis tration gave two reasons for the invasion: 1) request from the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS). However, two of the states abstained and four strongly condemned the invasion, 2) to protect AiDeriSML Students. The President ignored assur ance by the New Grenadian government, to the Chan cellor and Vice Chancellor of the Medical University that the students would be in no danger. Cftnada had offered to get the students out of Grenada. Jamaica, Dominca and the other OECS countries that asked the United States to invade Grenada, received greater portions of the Caribbean Basin ap propriations than the other OECS countries. In all like lihood, their support was bought. When Prime Minister Eugenia Charles of the 200,000 inhabitant Island of Dominica met with the Congressional Black Cau cus, some of the members didn’t show up, and of that number, three walked out The Prime Minister said she didn’t know blacks had any problem with Presi ""cienr Reagan. 'RepresenT” ative Gus Savage, said on the House floor in speaking of Eugenia Charles, “I felt insulted by her deliberate misinterpretation in re ferring to article! 8 oTlhe OECS charter as giving legal authority for the U.S. invasion. That citation only confers the powers to co ordinate the efforts of member states for collec tive defense and the pre servation of peace and se curity against external ag gression.” Savage said the Prime Minister, “repre sents Aunt Jeminism in geopolitics.” < President Reagan gave misinformation to the American public, when he said on national television that the Grenada airport was being built by Cuba and Russia for military purpose, where Russian military planes will land and Cuban military planes can take off for Angola. He ignored the fact that some U.S. corporations, Euro pean countries and Canda, all contributed money for construction of the airport. General Crist, who served as a liaison person in the Caribbean, admitted that he was unable to say whe ther the airport could be used for military or tour ism. Grenada is a beauti ful country and many tour ists go there. TWnHTo Continue Towards • • Greater Sexual Freedom? By Loretta Manago Post Staff Writer “What do the coming decades hold for us in the realm of intimacy between boy and girl, man and woman? “In the first place the trend toward greater free dom in sexual relation chipa, in aHnl«wpnt*_ and adults is likely to continue, whether this direction frightens u« nr nnt. “By the year 2000 it will be quite ieasiDle to insure that there will be no children in a union. Also by that time computerized matching of prospective partners will be far more sophisticated than it is today and will be of great help to an indivi dual in finding a congenial companion for the op -posite sex. “Some of the temporary unions, thus formed, may be legalized as a type of marriage - with no per manent commitment, with no children - no legal accusations, no necessity for showing legal cause and no alimony. “It is becoming increas ingly clear that a man woman relationship will have permanence only to the degree to which it satisfies the emotional, psychological, intellectual and physical needs of the partners ’’ Certainly the above view expressed by noted psy chotherapist, Carl Rogers, author of Becoming Part ners: Marriage And Its Alternative presents a ra dical deviation from mar . riage as it now exists. in ngm ot Rogers luture diagnosis of marriage, the conventional marriage that involves a man and women who unite because of common interests such as sex, economics, child rearing, security, com panionship, love, or social pressure will be placed under a strenuous test. According to Dr. Law rence Casler, professor of Psychology at the State University of New York and the author of Is Marriage Necessary, con ventional marriages are facing this test, not some time in the distant future, but now! — '■>TBec5use' oT'fFTe“exten sive changes between now and an earlier day in near ly every aspect of life - widespread industrializ ation, reliable contracep tives, increased lifespans, compulsory education, changes in residential pat terns... marriage appears to be losing its grip.” Although not totally sup portive of Casler’s state ments the statistics on marriage licenses issued in Mecklenburg Co. standing at 2,579 do lean in that direction. According to Debra Martin of the Re gisters and Deeds office that number represents a decline in the number of marriage licenses that were granted the same time last year. What has contributed to “the breakdown of the idea of the picture-book mar riage in our society Kn5~^f come from institutional de mands such as child-rear ing and economics, but rather from a breakdown of the centered relation ship people have come fo expect to be at the heart of a marriage." Completing this premise David Sammons, a minister of St. John's Unitarian Church in Cincinnati and author of The Marriage Option, asserted, “in a society which places such a high value on love and romance and which now tolerates alternatives to lifelong monogamy, it is not sur prising that merely the functional responsibilities of marriages are no long er able to keep many families together.” These “alternatives” to lifelong matrimony are being sought by people who find the conventional mo nogamy relationship too rigid or outmoded Casler discussed two of these “alternatives.” They are I) modified monogamy and 2) non monogamous matrimony. Under the ca tegory of modified mono gamy there are several types - the first of which is the non-exclusive mono gamy. In this arrangement a man and a woman are married to each other, but are under no obligation to refrain from sexual (or %fc>Pff&irhip8 with Next is cmia-tree mono gamy. This marital situa tion is similar to the con ventional marriage, but minus the child-rearing function. In the contracTuaTmoho gamy the marriage is re cognized 'as a civil con tract. As such the rela tionship could be termin able without recourse In complicated legal or reli gious procedures, or un seeming accusations. Trial marriage, com- . monly known as "shack ing,” involves a couple liv ing together for as long as they wished, or for a sti pulated period of time, after which they either se parate or become mar ried in the conventional sense. Also included in non exclusive—monogamy—is_ quarternary marriage. This set-up involves two married couples and thpir offspring living togeq^r with the goals of com pan sionship and division of labor. Mate swapping may or may not occur. Last to be mentioned under this non-exclusive monogamy are the three generation family which includes a married couple, their offspring and the couple’s parents. In non-monogamous matrimony polygamy, group marriages and com munes are representative of this type. It may be thought that with so many options available to marriage the “sacred institution" may be considerably damaged. On the contrary Sammons interjected this idea: “The existence of all of these other options, how ever does not diminish the value and worth of mar riage. in fact since no one has to be married to be accepted in_ society, the option of marriage becomes more accepted in society; the option of mar riage becomes more mean ingful than ever. ..References: Casler. Lawrence: “Is Marriage Necessary?”, New York: Human Science Press, 1974. ..Rogers, Carl R.: “Be coming Partners: Mar riageandits Alternatives " -+ New York:’ Delacorte Press, 1972. ^ ..Sammons, Davis: “The Marriag Option,” Boston: Beacon Press, 1977. House Of Charles Continued From Page 1A which the company prac tically dominated at one time. Presently, the adminis trators at The House of Charles are more interest ed in franchising. “We’re more interested ^Ithyfran chising to help otherftew»*-» pie who are interested in starting this type of busi ness,’’ Williams acknow ledged. Besides business in terests, however, Williams believes in supporting the community with efforts such as the Achievement Awards Banquet. “We hear all the time blacks do not support black businesses. Ninety-nine percent of my business is black and through this banquet I want the people to recognize the positive aspects. The House of Charles also con tributes scholarships. City Of Charlotte Continued From Page IA With approval of the bonds, there will probably be more City projects than there have been in the past years. Wallace, who has co-^ ordinated the program foiA 2'* years stated he has seen some improvement in soliciting minority con tractors; however, the numbers are still relatively low. A conference for bid ders on City construction projects was held today.
The Charlotte Post (Charlotte, N.C.)
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Nov. 17, 1983, edition 1
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