4A
EDITORIALS/The Charlotte Post
January 16,1997'
Clje Cljarlotte ^osft
Published weekly by the Charlotte Post Publishing Co.
1531 Camden Road Charlotte, N.C. 28203
Gerald O. Johnson
CEO/PUBLISHER
Robert Johnson
CO-PUBLISHER/
GENERAL MANAGER
Herbert L. White
EDITOR IN CfflEF
Exploiting
America’s
working poor
Corporations get rich through the
spiteful treatment of labor
By Carol Driscoll
SPECIAL TO THE POST
When I learned that the courageous workers at the Tyson Chicken
plant in Cleveland, Miss., voted to be represented by the Retail,
Wholesale and Department Store Workers Union — despite a fero
cious anti-union campaign - I felt this was a great ethical victory.
The conditions at the Cleveland plant are revolting: workers get only
one seven minute bathroom break a day; injured and bleeding work
ers are forced to return to the processing line, and earned sick pay is
denied to people.
Fm a union member and I'm proud that some years ago, after learn
ing about the brutality lyson workers are subjected to, I stopped buy
ing their chickens. As an Aesthetic Realism consultant, I passionately
want the people of Charlotte, including workers at TVson’s plant in
Monroe, to know what I am so grateful to have learned about the
economy from Aesthetic Realism, the education founded in 1941 by
the great American educator and economist, Eli Siegel, and taught
today at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation, a not-for-profit education
al foundation in New York City.
In 1970, Mr. Siegel explained this tremendous fact: that a way of
economics that had gone on for centuries - the profit system - had
failed because its basis is contempt for people. Contempt, “the lessen
ing of what is different finm oneself as a means or self-increase as one
sees it,” is, I learned, as ordinary as not listening to a person, or mak
ing fun of the way someone dresses. It is also the cause of aU econom
ic injustice, including working conditions that are dehumanizing and
dangerous; that exist to make profit or Tyson stockholders who do not
work f9r j:heir dividend checks and never give a thought to the per
sons who are doing the work. ; -rt-
The brutal exploitation of workers in America today, including the
attempt to destroy unions, is happening because compemies can no
longer make the profit they once did. Mr. Siegel stated: “There will be
no economic recovery in the world until economics itself, the making
of money, the having of jobs, becomes ethical; is based on good will
rather than on the iU will that lias been predominant for centuries.”
And in the international journal, “The Right of Aesthetic Realism to
Be Known,” EUen Reiss, the Class Chairman of Aesthetic Realism,
explained compassionately:
‘T'lever before in American histoiy was there such iU nature and
just plain anger in the workplaces of this land. The iU nature and
anger are about ethics. A person at a computer in Salt Lake City; a
man cutting metal in a Pennsylvania factory; a woman packaging
chicken parts in a South Carolina plant, working on an assembly
line, at a freezing temperature, with dangerous equipment, for little
pay, with her body aching - these people are desperate for the pay-
check they get, but also feel humiliated, outraged, profoundly kicked
aroimd...The American people are furious—more overtly, flaifingly,
permeatingly furious than ever before-at being treated unethically.
They want, with American blood beating in their veins, an ethical
economy!”
The ethical economy the American people want and have a com
plete right to; where people are seen with respect, are paid weU, and
treated with dignity, wUl occur when persons throughout our nation-
including government officials, economists and labor leaders, are ask
ing emd honestly emswering the emergent and kind question Mr.
Siegel asked: “What does a person deserve by being a person?”
CAROL DRISCOLL is a consultant at the Aesthetic Realism
Foundation in New York City.
Pertinent facts about Ebonics
By Joe Madison
NATIONAL NEWSPAPER
PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION
Give a gold star to whoever
first sounded the warning that
you should never believe every
thing you hear or read. That
saying has been put to the test
with the media’s coverage of the
Oakland, Calif., school board's
resolution seeking recognition of
Ebonics as an effective tool to
teach black yoimgsters standard
English.
But if you let the media teU it,
the Oakland school officials
voted to proclaim “Black
English” as an official, separate
language and would seek gov
ernment funds to help instruc
tors teach this foreign tongue to
our children. Wrong. In fact, the
media left such a thick, con
fused doud over this story that
many of us easily drew the
wrong conclusions.
What the school board actual
ly said was that by recognizing
Ebonics- a word derived by the
combination of Ebony (black)
and phonics (sound) - as a legit
imate teaching technique, more
Black students could learn to
speak and write standard
English at levels greater than
they are now.
And they have the proof to
support their contentions. A few
years ago, the same Oakland
school district carried out a trial
program with about 100 teach
ers who used language exercises
to smooth over the transition
from “Black English” to stan
dard English. School officials
there said the program worked
so well that it troosted language
test scores.
So, instead of lobbing insults
at the Oakland school board
when this story broke, I invit
ed Professor Robert Williams
of Washington University in
St. Louis to come on my radio
show to field questions on this
issue. Professor Williams, who
first coined the term “Ebonics”
close to 30 ye£us £igo, was one
of my teachers at Washington
University. He was an early
advocate of using Ebonics as a
method to help our children
better understand the differ
ences in how they may nor
mally speak among family and
fidends, as opposed to how they
should speak in a more public
setting. He said that the mere
use of “Black English” has
always been seen by the rest of
society as a knock against the
black communify. He also said
that the self-esteem of black
children has suffered from
years of being put down by
teachers who scold our kids,
sometimes in a most humiliat
ing fashion.
“Ebonics is a bridge finm the
language that is familiar and
already spoken by the child to
one that is unfamiliar,”
Professor Williams said.
You can even draw a parallel
from this controversy that
would remind us of our whole
experience as Afiican descen
dants. When our ancestors
were snatched from Afidca into
slavery, they were forced to
forget their familiar language
and learn English, Spanish,
French, or whatever tongue
the slave owners spoke. Then,
we had the Boer invasion of
South Africa and part of their
domination strategy was to
cram the Afrikaans language
down the throats of the black
South African school children,
vmtil they could take no more.
Tha’'s what the grisly Soweto
Massacre was about.
But what is amazing to me in
this controversy is the rapid
response of Richard W. Riley,
the secretary of Education. Look
how fast he came out to say that
“elevating Black English” to the,
status of a language is not the'
way to raise standards of
achievement. He even shot
down the notion of the Ebonics
program receiving federal dol
lars even before the Education
Department received an official
request, which incidentally it
didn’t get anyway, because it
was never the intention of the
Oakland resolution to do so.
And Kweisi Mfume of the
NAACP, Jesse Jackson and oth
ers quickly denounced the
Oakland vote, without even
reading the resolution.
But we haven’t heard from
Riley about what he's going to
do about the outdated textbooks
being used in black school dis
tricts, or the appalling lack of
computers in the classrooms.
Mfume and Jackson have been
awfully silent while there is a
scary increase in the number of
violent attacks in public schools,
especially in Washington, D.C.
Aren’t these bigger threats to
the welfare of our children?
Ebonics is no different finm the
dialects used by southern
whites, or whites in the North
for that matter.
Lately we’ve seen explained in
the media that one characteris
tic of Ebonics in the dropping of
the “ing” on words. But how
many whites who speak with a
Southern accent drop their
“ings” too? It all boils down to
patterns of speech that are com
monly spoken by groups of peo
ple. And wherever you turn.
you’ll find someone stra3dng
from the rules of strict, standard
English.
I am a true believer that black
youth are more than capable of.
mastering the “King’s English.’^
As it turns out, the Oakland
school board deserves the
biggest gold star for its bold step
forward teaching black students
with an even hand of sensitivity
and respect.
In case you missed it, the
Dallas Morning News, a few
weeks ago, confirmed the
charges made by Celerind
Castillo, a former Drug
Enforcement Administration-
agent, that our government ha4
knowledge that cocaine was.
being flown into the U. S. dur
ing the mid-’80s, but did noth
ing about it. A team of Morning
News reporters went to El
Salvador, where Castillo was
stationed at that time, and
interviewed several informants
who reported their findings to
Castillo.
Castillo sent that information
— which tied the cocaine ship
ments to Oliver North and the
effort to finance the Nicaraguan
Contra rebels, who were orga
nized by the CIA - to DEA
headquarters in Washington.
Today, his records remain clas
sified and the DEA refuses to
release the information. Jan. 1,
1997, was the 76th day of my
hunger strike to get Congress to
pass a Records Act that would
force the DEA, CIA and the rest
of the government to come
clean. Stay tuned.
JOE MADISON is a radio
talk show host in Washington;
D. C. Visit his Internet site at;
http: II WWW. paltech:
comimadison)
Genocide and African Americans’ right for redress
By Conrad Worrill
SPECIAL TO THE POST
Since our Oct. 25 announce
ment of a campaign charging
the United States government
with genocide, the National
Black United FVont has circulat
ed petitions throughout the
coimtry and thousands of people
are beginning to sign them.
It is our goal to obtain 1 mil
lion signatures in our petition
drive declaring that for over 400
years, the United States govern
ment has committed innumer
able acts of genocide against
black pyeople.
These petitions will be formal
ly submitted to the United
Nations on May 6, as part of the
annual African Liberation Day
activities celebrated throughout
the African world community.
NBUF chapters are beginning
to hold forums on the issue of
genocide in various cities
around the country. On Dec. 6,
over 200 people attended a
forum, sponsored by the NBUF,
Chicago Chapter, on the CIA,
Crack Cocaine and genocide.
The following day, I flew to New
York City and participated in a
similar forum sponsored by the
Metropolitan New York
Chapter of NBUF. It was a very
good fonun and the word of our
campaign is spreading in New
York and on the Eastern
Seaboard.
Before I left New York, Jitu
Weusi, one of the major archi
tects of NBUF and a longtime
activist and organizer, and I
attended church service at the
renowned House of The Lord
Church in Brookljm where the
Rev Herbert Daughtry is the
pastor. Rev. Daughtiy was the
founding Chairman of NBUF
and served in that capacity frnm
1980 to 1985. For over 30 years
he has also distinguished him
self as one of the leading activist
ministers in the country.
Rev. Daughtry gave both
Brother Jitu and I an opportimi-
ty to speak to the congregation,
which responded enthusiastical
ly to our genocide campaign and
petition drive.
According to Funk and
Wagnalls Dictionary “Genocide
(is) the systematic extermina
tion of racial and national
groups. [The] term [was] first
used in [the] indictment of
German criminals after World
War n. The term was coinpd by
Raphael Lemkin in 1944.”
Brother Olomenji, one of the
foimders of the Chicago Chapter
of NBUF, wrote a book in 1984
titled, “White Genocide, Black
Obsolescence? The Question of
Black Survival in White
America.” This book was an out
growth of NBUF's first National
Unity Genocide Campaign.
Brother Olomenji pointed out
that “Genocide is a relatively
recent addition to the vocabu
lary of the West. It was invent
ed to describe the government
sanctioned mass murders of
European Jews during World
War II. Although a term origi
nally applied to Jews, genocide
may accurately be applied to the
deliberate and systematic
destruction of black people by
white American socio-economic
and cultural forces.”
Continuing, Brother Olomenji
explained that “Black people in
the United States are caught in
a genocidal system comparable
to the Jews of Nazi Germany.
The situations are not identical,
however. Each rises out of a
unique seedbed of historical fact
and crdtural nuance. But there
are enough essential similari
ties in the two cases to warrant
our watchful attention and
ready action.”
NBUF has kept a watchfiil eye
on the genocidal trends and
developments and their impact
on the African community in
America since 1981. According
to Bob Brown an orgemizer with
the All African Peoples
Revolutionary Party, NBUF is
following a long tradition of
international appeals concern
ing the condition of Afiican peo
ple in this country. Brother Bob
will be the hook editor of our
historic complaint and petition
drive.
Brother Bob has been
researching the over 70 years of
international appeals on behalf
of the Afiican Community in the
United States. Bob informs us
that since the Paris Peace
Conference (1918), and the
founding of the League of
Nations (1920) £md the United
Nations (1945), several historic
and precedent setting appeals,
petitions and complaints have
been submitted to the interna
tional commrmity speaking for
people of Afiican descent in the
United States.
There have been numerous
appeals on behalf of the Afiican
Community to the United
Nations from a variety of black
organizations since 1947.
Finally Bob Brown explained
that our campaign will differ
from previous complaints and
petition “because it will be a
product of a mass, nationwide
organizing campaign and mobi
lization effort.”
CONRAD WORRILL is
National Chairman of the
National Black United Front in
Chicago.