4A
EDITORIAL AND OPINION/t[(e Clarlottt
Thursday, August 25, 2005
®l)e Cljarlotte
The Voice of the Black Community
1531 Camden Road Charlotte, N.C. 28203
Gerald O. Johnson ceo/pubusher
Robert L Johnson co-publisher/general manager
Herbert L White editor in chief
OUR VIEW
Bettering schools
requires sacrifice,
money and time
With the start of another academic year in Charlotte-
Mecklenburg comes another set of challenges for students.
However, the annual challenge facing adults — how to improve
the school district - continues to elude us.
The good news is that many of Charlotte’s political, social and
education leaders understand the district is in need of an over
haul. Parents, however, have taken a “not in my back yard”
approach to what ails CMS. Tbo often, we want equity for inner
city schools, but not at the expense of suburban students. We
want nei^iborhood schools, but aren’t prepared to sacrifice com
fort in the name of equality We want the best-qualified teach
ers, but won’t provide enough incentives to attract them to the
schools that need their services most, It’s all about want, and it
needs to stop.
For a community that makes a habit out of what others think
of Charlotte-Mecklenbuig, we’ve done a poor job on the public
schools. Tbst scores have made some improvement, but there’s
little gain on the academic gulf between African Americans and
CMS as a whole. Schools in mostly black and brown sections of
the county still make do with less-experienced teachers and
administrators who struggle to navigate CMS’s bureaucratic
maze. And the school board itself could use a clue or two about
building a consensus when it comes to decision-making.
^th all due respect to Judge Howard Manning, who presides
over the long-running Leandro case, Charlotte-Mecklenburg’s
diflBculties will only worsen imtil parents and taxpayers under
stand that the county’s future and economic stature is in peril
without change. That means finding solutions that, unfortu
nately, win require money Recruiting and retaining qualified
and experienced teachers, especially in the inner city.
Lawmakers need to support pending legislation that would
make it easier for North Carolina to hire qualified teachers fiom
other states. Businesses can join the education community to
put some of their best and brightest in classrooms as mentors, if
not teachers.
Improving public education won’t be easy It won’t be cheap,
either. In the end, though, we don’t have much choice.
LETTERS
True birth control starts with abstinence
I read with interest the edi
torial written by Gerri
Cunningham concerning
parental notification for birth
control (Aug. 4, “Parental
notification will force teens
underground”). And I would
like to submit my viewpoint
for your consideration:
Interesting that abstinence
was not mentioned at all.
Why? It is still an option, isn’t
it?
. When a young ^rson
makes this choicfe, all the
worries (^rri mentioned vir
tually disappear; AIDS,
unwanted pregnancy, abor
tion, STDs, emergency con
traception, etc. Not to men
tion the emotional fallout (a
very real worry NOT men
tioned, by the way).
Abstinence works 100 per
cent of the time, every time.
And, yes, it is realistic. In
fact, more and more young
people are realizing that it’s
liberating.
Sure, the prescribing doctor
examines the young girl
before administering the con
traception. Does he/she also
“examine” her emotional
health and maturity? Does
this doctor discuss the fact
that birth control pills offer
NO protection against deadly
Make CMS culturally uniform
How can we make a change
in Charlotte-Mecklenburg
Schools?
Level the playing field.
CMS is a fdace where many
races and cultures meet.
They come fiom many homes
with different financial back
grounds. Tb simply say fiom
the richest families to the
poorest families they meet at
CMS.
School uniforms can level
the playing field. Dress codes
in the business community
has proven this point. How
we dress affects how we act
and feel about ourselves.
Put unity in CMS - take out
fear
Abigail Adams
Charlotte
Africans as greedy as white folks
White people are greedy (“A
plea to Afiica’s U S. kin,” Aug.
4 Post). 'Ihats what the for
mer UN Ambassador Andrew
Young says in the dted arti
cle. If a white person said
that about Afiican
Americans, we would call
him racist. Mr. Young should
be focusing on the Afiican
leaders who literally allow
their citizens to starve to
death while living in palaces.
Now that’s greed.
Diana R Ross
Charlotte
MATTERS OF OPINION
The Farrakhan leadership challenge
George E.
Curry
diseases? Do you think
he/she mentions that 15 mil
lion Americans become infect
ed with STDs each year?
What other important facts
is the doctor omitting fium
his/her “ecamination’7
Yes, it is “awkward and
fiightening” telling your par
ents ~ there’s a reason for
that. Any parent committed
to their child’s health and
morals would discourage it!
Remember when displeasing
our parents was something to
be dreaded? It’s the way
healthy families are sup
posed to function - it’s a nat
ural deterrent to making
unwise decisions.
Emeigency contraception is
not “medicine” for pregnancy
“sickness.” It is serious busi
ness. And this is NOT a topic
we want to bring in to our
public schools.
Lastly, as a parent, I would
be crazy to “be confident my
child will make the ri^t deci
sion” They won’t! Just like I
didn’t when I was a teenager!
Open and honest communi
cation is the firm foundation
for all healthy relationships.
That’s the “reality”
Sharlene Atkins
Charlotte
Nation of Islam Minister
Louis Farrakhan created a
stir recently wh^ he agreed
with a controversial state
ment made by Mexico’s presi
dent about immigrants tak
ing low-paying jobs that even
Afiican-Americans don’t
want.
Speaking in Milwaukee
earlier this month,
Farrakhan said; “Vincente
Fox was not wrong when he
said the Mexican takes jobs
that even blacks in America
don’t want.”
Jesse Jackson and A1
Sharpton accused Fox of
being insensitive and flew to
Mexico to teU him so in per
son. They met with Fox on
separate days, holding their
own news conference to
recount their conversations
with Fox. Even after the vis
its, Fox did not back down
fiom his original statement.
Subsequently, he supported
the issuance of Mexican
stamps that had stereotypi
cal images of blacls people
that was far more insulting
than his original statement.
Having witnessed first
hand how Farrakhan’s words
have been distorted in the
past, *1 decided to request a
copy of the Mlwaukee speech
Farrakhan
from the Nation of Islam.
They sent me a CD and DVD
of the speedi overnight so I
cofild hear Minister
Farrakhan’s words for
myself
According to a recording of
Farrakhan’s speech, he
asked: “Why are you so fool
ishly s^isitive when some
body is telling the truth?” He
drew laii^ter when he told
the audience,
‘Tou picked
cotton so long,
you don’t want
to see a farm.
Even if you
own it, you get
away fix)m it.”
I, too,
tiiought the
\lcente Fox
incident was overblown and
said so in one of my r^ular
appearances on NPR’s “News
and Notes with Ed (fordon.” I
agree that Fox should have
been more careful in his word
selection. lb say that
Ifispanics were taking jobs
that “even” blacks don’t want,
implied that as far as
Americans go, one couldn’t
get any lower than Afiican-
Americans. If you remove the
word “even,” there’s nothing
to complain about. The truth
is immigrants firom Mexico
are takii^ jobs that neith^
blacks nor whites want.
Having covered civil ri^ts
leaders for more than three
decades, I know that the most
dangerous place on the plan
et is to stand between some of
them and a TV camera. You
take your life into your hands
if you do that. Let’s be honest
and state that the trips by
Jackson and Sharpton to
Mexico were taken, in part, to
gain publicity I don’t doubt
their sincerity, but I also
know their history Most of us
whisper this among our
selves, but unlike Farrakhan,
don’t say it publicly
What botha:^ me about
their trips to Mexico was they
undertook Mission
Impossible just as the battle
over (jeorge Bush’s next nom
inee to the Supreme Court
was heating up. Given the
choice between whether the
president of Mexico used
imprecise language and the
selection to fill a Supreme
C!ourt vacancy Jackson and
Sharpton should have head
ed to Washington, not M«dco
City
This \lncente Fox fiasco
points to a need for a more
balanced stjde of national
lead^’ship. Sedng the walls
of segr^ation crumble in my
hometown of TViscaloosa,
Ala., I am not one to say that
marching or street demon
strations are not still needed.
But we must insist on fewer
publicity giTnTnick.q and more
emphasis on the less glam
orous work, such as educa
tion. We need to not only nar
row the achievement gaps
between blacks and whites,
but between black males and
black fonales. Tb his credit,
Hugh Price tried to steer the
civil rights movement in that
direction during his tenure at
the National Urban League.
Each of the major civil ri^ts
groups has major initiatives
in education, but no group is
doing enough.
Of course, there is the usual
rhetoric about providing the
same accolades for academic
excellence that we as a com
munity provide for athletics.
One of the most effective pro
grams is the NAACP’s ACT-
SO program* created by the
late Vernon Jarrett. My
fii^id Dr. Donald Suggs has
a banquet each year to honor
educational excellence in St.
Louis and many other local
groups have similar pro
grams. But aU of us need to
do more. A report by the
American Coimcil on
Education notes that twice as
many black women as black
men now attend coU^e. That
has enormous implications
for every aspect of our com
munity Concentrating on
keeping our young people in
college and out of the crimi
nal justice trap will be much
more rewarding, in the end,
than rushing to Mexico for a
photo op and press confer
ence.
GEORGE E. CURRY is editor-
in-chief of the National
Newspaper Publishers
Association News Service and
BlackPressUSAjCom. He appears
on National Public Radio as part
of "News and Notes with Ed
Gordon."
How to advance the black agenda
A recent trip to Atianta pro
vided me with mixed experi
ences.! had a great time in
Atlanta at the recent Voting
Rights March.
However, a panel discus
sion at the annual meeting of
the National
Association
of Black
Journalists
left me with
serious con-
are now being written that
assess the Voting Rights Act,
evaluating the necessity of its
reauthorization. Now, that
might have happened if
someone had given a great
speech, written a letter to the
editor, or an op ed pie(» in the
newspapers. I doubt it. It
happened because nearly
30,000 people were mobilized
to come to Atlanta on August
6 and make their witness in
cems.
First, I was
Ron concerned
Walters
should have
been a plenary on the Voting
Ri^ts Act was stuffed into a
comer room of the Hyatt
Hotel in the sub-basement.
But what really concerned
me was something that arose
in the panel discussion, some
thing I had heard several
times before.
ThCTe seems ter be a feeling
that the civil rights move
ment is dead and that the
civil rights leaders should die
with it. The aigument is that
the movement’s methods
that were okay in the ‘60s,
but outdated today
For the record, the dvil
ri^ts movemait is not a‘60s
phenomenon. It is as old as
the black community and it
resurfaces in each generation
to provide the most powerful
challenge to the barriers to
the Black advanc^nent. As a
result of the recoit agitation
of dvil rights leaders, artides
person.
As I write this, a white
woman, Cindy Sheehan, is
camped outside of the sum
mer home of President
(George Bush in Crawford,
Tfexas. She is staging a
protest against the Iraq war
for which she believes her son
died needlessly She has been
joined by others in what has
turned out to be a media
event, with artides being
written daily about ha* agen
da. Such methods of getting
an agenda before the public
are not rel^ated to a certain
era of history, but are used
widely by organized labor
and others seeking to bring
pressure to bear on decision
makers. Should blacks be the
OTily people in America not to
use such pressure tactics?
Second, this tiresomeness
about Ihe role of dvil ri^ts in
our lives, I have come to
think, exists because some
are confused about how pres
sure leads the public to adopt
an agenda. During the *603,
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s
staff was very sensitive to the
ways in which they could use
his presence to make an
impact on tiie media. Indeed,
I could argue that we would
not have the dvil ri^ts laws
today, no matter how elo
quent was Dr. King, if his
exploits and those of others
did not create the pressure
which forced the white press
to write the stories and focus
the cameras on such events.
This is what influenced the
president and members of
Congress, and how they even
tually took up the issues that
were making it hard for them
to deal with anything else. In
that equation, journalists
were central.
Tbday journalists are still
central, and many black jour
nalists have taken the place
of those whites who wrote
about the dvil rights exploits
of the ‘6()s. But the problem
today is that many of our
journalists are playing the
game of their newspapers or
television stations in ordo* to
maintain their jobs, ratho*
than carrying the dvil ri^ts
movement right into the
newsroom. It is much easier
to criticize and caricature
Black leaders and then him-
ker down in the newsroom
with colleagues who are also
afi’aid of the pressure they
might bring, just to get along.
In that soise, it’s all about a
job, about personal fi'eedom,
not the fi’eedom of people who
need it.
From that vantage point,
some of our journalists are
just afi’aid and sew more con
fusion into the modem dvil
ri^ts movement by attempt
ing to be “objective” because
objectivity depends on where
you stand. If a blade journal
ist stands with the
Establishment in their per
spective on black life, many
studies show that they are
likely to perpetuate radst
conceptions. But there is also
an objectivity in the black
mainstream of life that jo\ir-
nalist should reflect, as
Vernon Jarrett so ably
taught.
It’s Ic^cal to wonder what
the politics of confix^ntation is
like in the newsrooms of
America where editors and
producers assign stories
about blacks from the van
tage point of an either dis
torted ©r otherwise unreal
“objectivism.” Except every
now and then, what I read
leads me to the view that
thoe is predous little of the
dvil ri^ts movement inside
media institutions that have
the most important role in
educating Americans about
issues, and influencing tiie
political system to do some
thing about them.
RON WALTERS is director of
the African American Leadership
Institute in the Academy of
Leadership and professor of gov
ernment and politics at the
University of Maryland-College
Park.