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Thursday, December 2,1993 - THE CHARLOTTE POST Page 5A. —^ s - ^ OPINION Reggie Hubbard did the city proud I would like to add my congratulations to the many other congrats, that Mr. Reginald Hubbard has received for being on "America's Black Forum" this past Sunday. To those few that do not rise at 7 a.m. every Sunday morn ing to watch the positive sides of African America and to hear opinions of and on African Americans by positive African Americans (WSOC), you really missed a most exciting weekly news show. The show is hosted by Julian Bond and other talented African American re porters. After all the years' of watching "America's Black Forum" and seeing the great things going on throughout African America it was really great to see Charlotte on the show. It was nice to see Charlotte in a positive light and not addressing anything negative. But Grier we know what the dark side of doing busi ness in Charlotte is, ask the many thou sands of us that have been blatantly discriminated against, per the MWBE disparity study done by D. J. Miller for our model city, the Queen City. The vast disparity in the South, between the haves and have nots was even a feature story on "Good Morning America." So they are talking about us na tionally. Charlotte, North Carolina and the South is report ed to be producing economic prosperity. The Sunday "America's Black Forum" was very recently done, they even discussed the Panthers NFL football team and the growing city that Hubbard and Metrolina Dodge is located In. "America's Black Forum" highlights the ideas that we need to see going on in our city. Even if we couldn't bring all of those ideas to Charlotte, if we could bring one or two, then others can follow. As we say and know, it takes a whole village to raise a child aod it is going to take a whole united people with quality, brave leaders that have not sold out and are not bought out to turn things around In Char lotte's African American business community. This is uni ty that is needed to provide economic enhancement to Afri can American people, families, communities and overflow to our churches. In the meantime, we have business leaders such as Mr. Hubbard and Metrolina Dodge keeping us on the map. Many, many congratulations I want to add to those Mr. Hub bard and Metrolina Dodge is receiving. We can see hard work and opportunity will get us success in the business community. We. African Americans, are not asking for any handout, only opportunity. Having worked in the automotive field of corporate Ameri ca, I never thought I would consider a Dodge automobile, but isn't is great how knowledge and awareness of another per son's success can change how we think. Congratulations, Mr. Hubbard, your success is encourage ment to the many of us, struggling entrepreneurs as myself that hard work and sticking to doing the right thing and providing quality service will bring us success. SYLVIA L. GRIER Charlotte Remember the sisters Marian Edelman In last week's column, I wrote about black males in crisis, our brothers who are spiritually, physically, eco nomically and morally drowning and calling to us for a lifeline. But. we can't describe the plight of black males without talking about black girls and women. While our brothers are facing many serious challenges, they are not alone. Our sis ters are in trouble, too. A black girl today has less than a 1 in 21,000 chance of receiving a Ph.D. in mathematics, engineering or physical sciences. She has a 1 in 891 chance of becoming a physician and a 1 in 356 chance of becoming a lawyer. At the same time, that black girl has a 1 in 21 chance of being the victim of a violent crime during her teen years, a 1 in 7 chance of dropping out of school before graduation and a 1 in 6 chance of having a child before her 20th birthday. On any given day in America, 827 black teenage girls get pregnant, 448 black infants are bom to teen mothers, 220 black Infants are bom to mothers who received late or no prenatal care and 133 black infants are bom to mothers who already have a child. Starting at age 20, the ratio of black men to black women drops sharply, reflecting the steady loss of black men to vi olence and early death, incarceration and hopelessness. This contributes to the growing number of out-of-wedlock births and the declining rate of marriage in the black com munity. New, even more alarming trends are emerging today. Young black and Latino women are joining gangs and com mitting violent crimes at a much higher rate than before. Just like young black men, they are fmstrated by cmmbling family stmctures, inadequate education and lack of job op portunities. 'The gangs act as surrogate families, providing a sense of community and protection in unstable, often vio lent. environments. Low self-esteem - at the root of many of these crises - is epidemic, whether from abuses suffered in childhood or ad olescence or the lack of positive role models, options or por trayals in the media and popular culture. The movies, mu sic and television shows that our young people consume so hungrily nearly always depicts them in stereotyped and negative ways. In the black community and throughout America, we have to do better than this! We owe it to ourselves, our families and - most of all - our children. We must take positive ac tion now! MARIAN EDELMAN. a native of Bennettsvaie, S.C., president of the Children's Defense Fund. is Adouble standard on Haiti Blacks called George Bush a racist for his Haitian immi gration policy. Bill Clinton made massive campaign promises that as president he would give Haitians the same treatment we give other immigrants and Implied that Bush was a racist for not doing so. Since Clinton's campaign strategy of sucking up to the white middle class with lies about no taxes and intimi dating blacks (the Jesse Jackson-Sister Souljah eth nic spanking) succeeded in getting him into the White House, no further pretense is necessary. Clinton has openly and lamely adopted the very same immigration policy (keep blacks out) that Bush advocated. The policy under Clinton, in fact, has grown an even uglier racist dimen sion. For example, Clinton's im migration pattern allows Cu ban refugees (3,000 this year already) to enter the U.S. for economic reasons and refus es to admit Haitians who are T«iy , ' clearly fleeing political per secution. If you recall, U.S. policy is designed to provide sanctu ary for those fleeing political persecution in their native land, but not to allow immi gration to become an eco nomic jobs program. That policy was strongly defended as long as the polit ically persecuted were white and the economically de prived were black. Clinton's whites-only policy is just an other of his deceptive acts. A recent episode is an ex ample of this stark contrast. Thirteen Cubans stole a plane to get to Miami. They received a hero's welcome. A group of Haitians who came by boat were Immediately hustled away to a Florida de tention camp. This is bad enough, but an Independent study reported that thousands of Haitians, especially babies, are dying as the result of the U.S.- led trade embargo. Not only is our foreign poli cy a blatant double standard based on race, it is genocidal in its effect. Where are the blacks in Congress and the "black lead ers" during this crisis? Help ing Clinton plan an invasion that will murder more Hai tians. These black politicians re sisted the Gulf War where the threat to American interests was clear and Imminent. But they want a war against pen niless, starving people who are black. TONY BROWN ts a syndicat ed columnist and host of "Tony Brown's Journal" Sun days at 5 p.m. on WTVl (chan nel 42). The GOP is a party full of deceit By James Strong SPECIAL TO THE POST I usually define a Republi can as an insatiable liar with an amazing ability to fabricate truth. Of course, this definition can also ap ply to Democrats and Liber tarians and neo-nazis and most other public and pri vate organizations. But with the Republicans, lying has become an art form - a combination of cans, pipes, faucets and tire rims collected from every trash bln in America and melted into tin for display in the museums of politics, religion and any other forum for un suspecting Americans to im itate, explore and dissect. Who can forget Richard Nixon lying about Watergate or Ronald Reagan lying about the Iran-Contra affair or Clarence Thomas lying about Anita Hill during his Supreme Court nomination hearings. Now Ed Rollins, former Re publican political consul tant for New Jersey Gov.- elect Christine Whitman, has added an unusual piece to the museum. In 295 pages of sworn testimony, Rollins said he lied when he told re porters that the Whitman campaign spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to sup press the black vote. Rollins said he fabricated the story to heap Insult upon Insult on James Carville, the principal campaign consul tant for Democratic New Jer sey Gov. Jim Florio, whom Whitman defeated. Rollins explained that Carville "made my life miserable for weeks. I was trying to make his life miserable for a few weeks." In a public apology pub lished in several newspapers nationwide, Rollins said, "for reasons I cannot fully explain, even to myself, I gave a false - there's no other word - account of what went on. I spun myself out of con trol. . . I made up stories about things that did not oc cur." But if Rollins says he lied to a group of reporters about suppressing the New Jersey black vote, why should we believe he's telling the truth? When Whitman was 25 per cent behind Florio in the polls, whom did she call on for help? She called on Ed Rollins. She wanted someone with a diabolical reputation, some one with a perverse ambition that hesitates at nothing, a maniacal purpose insensi tive to humanity, an obses sion for victory that disre gards the law, an Insane desire to manipulate public opinion, a criminal con science willing to pay off the opposition, a power-hungry lunatic who could bribe pres idents, a professional liar who could smear priests. So, she called on Ed Rollins. Moreover, to dump more horse manure on Rollins's recantation, reports are sur facing that seem to substan tiate his initial black vote- suppression statements. The Rev. Keith Owens of Kalghns Avenue Baptist Church in Camden, New Jer sey, said several members of the Black Ministers Council of New Jersey described of fers they had received from people identifying them selves as Republicans consis tent with Rollins's descrip tion of the campaign tactic. The Asbury Park Press re ported that Cullen Banks, a deacon at the Shiloh Baptist Church in Trenton, New Jer sey, said three poll workers told him Republicans had paid them to refrain from getting out the vote. They were told to "just stand on the street and look like you're doing something -- but not do anything,” he said. So our question is: Who's telling the truth, the first Ed Rollins or the second Ed Flol- ims? Both are plump with Republican dishonesty. In fact, Rollins's morality ap pears to rest on a premise common to most political consultants. The entire episode damns Republican politics as swine. It characterizes Republican ism as a schizophrenic lack ing the spiritual ability to imitate the divine, as a blind man incapable of appreciat ing moral beauty. Republicanism so confuses and distorts truth that, un der its influence, Christians may call evil good and good evil, scientists may mistake a thermometer for a bottle and a bottle for a thermome ter and doctors may pre scribe vitamins instead of aspirin and aspirin instead vitamins. Hence, we have no reason but to believe that Rollins lied in his deposition, a lie that will eventually hurt him more than his willing ness to suppress the New Jer sey black vote. Make no mistake about it, Rollins is a limb of dirty tricks: and when he dies, his obituary may conclude with these words: He rose from wealth to poverty, from strength to weakness, from power to disintegration. JAMES STRONG is a syndi cated columnist. The death of the civil rights era By Joe Williams SPECIAL 'TO THE POST The reason for the lack of growth and devel opment in the African American community is that the civil rights movement is dead. Until we admit that there is no real move ment. that there is no effective leadership or vision, we will remain in this present state of ambivalence and confusion. The African American civil rights move ment is dead. It is not dying - it is already dead. This is our dilemma. This is the reality we must accept in order to move forward. Many black writers, including myself, have criticized the Rev. Jesse Jackson for his vac illation and political opportunism. But Rev. Jackson isn't really the problem. Many, many of the civil rights leaders have fallen into the pit of ineffectiveness since the 60s. The real problem is that America, and the world, have changed so drastically in recent years that civil rights ideologies, tactics and strategies have become outdated. This is hard for many to accept. It is hard because people have become secure with what has worked in the past. Leaders and activists have literally given their whole lives to the "struggle." How ever, it is time for us to understand the old ad age, "The only thing permanent is change." We must not only understand that, but we must accept it and move on. We must move past the stage of bickering with each other about failed programs, marches, demonstra tions and policies. The future demands that we change. We must accept our new challenge; we must assume new roles. The black community is not the homogene ous community it once was during the '60s. We have developed various classes of black people with different agendas. We now see black faces in positions where there were once only the faces of white oppressors. We have blacks in the establishment who are quite willing to suppress and contain other black people. The hard fact is that for many of our people, times are harder now than they were in the '60s. 'The problem is that there are no leaders or organizations raising holy hell about the situation. JOE WILLIAMS is a columnist with the Na tional Newspaper Publishers Association. WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND? Write The Charlotte Post P.O. Box 30144 Charlotte, N.C. 28230 or FAX (704) 342-2160. We edit for brevity, grammar and clarity when applicable. Please leave a daytime phone number and your name. Assumed names and unsigned letters will be rejected. All correspondence becomes property of The Charlotte Post. Why we bash the president ^Well, if Clinton is going to be in charge, we've got to flg-^ ure out how to make the best of it." I was eavesdropping on.A: conversation that took place just the other day. But it took me and my memories right back to the early '60s. _ The conversation I over heard was probably typical of what you'd hear from semi-successful, young, white, businessmen these days. Listen to them for a minute. You'll find out that they don't care for our PresiV dent, or his wife, or his daughter, or any of his ap pointees. Nor do their cori; versatlons show any hiqt that the President's policies are good for this country. The talk is of the stupldit'y of taxing business more. It is of back-breaking goverii- ment intervention anr^ regu lation. It is of go\ neht spending gone wild. And there is always more. Health care reform is said tB be a cover for socialization of medicine. There is talk jbf sellouts - to labor, to blacks, to gays, to "liberals" of eveiy variety. And there are insults abo^). his military record, his sCx life, and on and on. How could such convers^'^ tions take me back to th^ early 1960s when the Jol¥n Kennedy was President? 'y^ Back then such talk abouit the President had more Irri^ pact on me. After all, I h^ grown up during the Eisen hower years. And though there was disagreement wim President Eisenhower ari^ questions about his leader ship, I don't remember muip disrespect or rneannes|i creeping into the convers^ tions about him. I had the notion that y^ gave the President the berier fit of the doubt and that you steered away from crltlcizil^j, his person. I remember tfti awful shock of the meatf- spirited criticism aimed .at President Kennedy. Disrespectful talk about$^ president is less a surprife these days - post Vietnam, post Watergate, and post Bea- vis and Butt-Head. But It.i^" still unpleasant. . y During the past few weel^ we passed the same marker.” ■' Like him or not, it is hard to imagine our country with? out Clinton as president. : ; How did it happen? Why?, ;• The passage of time is ,a part of it. It always takes :a little time to get used to nexy leaders. New ministers, new school principals, new heacjs of businesses, new coaches, they all have to serve for ai time under the shadow (If comparison with their pres decessors. \ Another part of It though is* that Clinton earned it - by being different from his pre-» decessors in ways that make a difference for the country,-.. A D.C. MARTIN is vice presk dent for public affairs for tbe , University of North CarolUj | na system. ] . ” . r •
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