4A
EDITORIAL AND OPINION/ He C>arlattt $o«t
Thursday, January 12, 2006
®l)c CFjarlotte
The Voire of the Hlark Community
1531 Camden Road Charlotte, NJO. 2X203
(ierald (). Johnson CEO/PUBI.isher
Robert L Johnson capuBLISHER/GENERAL MANAGEiR
Herbert H White editor in chief
EDITORIALS
iMnk bigger
for Gtiailoiie
Mbuie ID civil
rights icon
Ttiere are more than 700 streets and thoroughfares named
after Martin Lutiier King Jr, but none in Charlotte. City council
appears ready to change that, but just can’t decide how just yet.
Monday's 7-4 vote to study the fx)88ibility of naming a street
after tlie slam civil rights leader erased the possibility of a quick
resolution in time foi* the national celebration of MLK Day on
Monday But that won’t be the end of the story
City council member James Mitcliell, who backs the renaming
of Stonewall Street to Martin Luther King Boulevard, makes a
good argument for such a move. Stonewall has few residents
who would be impacted by a change, in terms of new addresses
for drivers’ licenses or stationery, for instance. But the city would
also incur costs as well, such as changing street signs. That,
however, isn’t such a big deal, since streets undergo such
clianges on a fairly consistent baas.
There are concerns that although no one knows how Stonewall
came to be, there’s a pc»sibility that the street was named after
Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, whose widow lived here.
That argimient may be dubious at best, but let’s not nit-pick.
Another option may be renaming a portion of Interstate 485
after Dr. King. Nice, but it’s been done before.
Instead of naming a street after Dr. King, we encourage city
coimdl to think outside the box for a grander gesture. Charlotte
business leaders like Bill Lee, John Relk or former Gov Jim
Martin have those honors, which are fitting for local folks. Even
Rosa Parks, who defied 1950s southern apartheid to spark the
Montgomery Bus Boycott that lifted King to national status,
has a street naiued in her honor here. But Dr. King’s contribu
tions went beyond Charlotte’s city limits to impact a nation and
indeed all humankind, and as such deserves a grander honor.
As an international symbol of human rights and justice, we
think naming Cliarlotte’s most international asset - the airport
— would be fitting. Willie Ratchford, executive director of the
Community Relations Committee, put it best; “I don’t see him
as a black hero. I see him as an American hero.”
Stonewall is an attractive option for a King Boulevard, with
the lure of uptown attractions such as Bank of America Stadium
jmd a possible NASCAR Hall of Fame. Independence Boulevard,
another potential site, would be OK, too. But no one else in
America has a King Airport, and for a city that aspires to great
ness. Charlotte should explore the possibilities. Changing the
name doesn’t impact any residents, the airport is owned by the
dty, so the process is simple. Well bet that go^ng with Martin
Luther King International Airport has a nice ring to it.
Hip hop finally growing out
of its baggy exploitation era
Hip hop. as anyone who follows the music and culture will
acknowledge, is the most powerftil force in American popular
ailture. From rappers like Curtis Jackson, also known as 50
Cent to Sean ‘TDiddy” Combs and Lil’ Kim, hip hop is. as the kids
say “blazm’ ” But who benefits most fix)m the music and images
that Idds gravitate toward and parents are repulsed by? It isn’t
Afiican Americans who invented the music and the lifestyle but
don’t control the money Like anything else that
becomes big business, corporahons make the
money and rules.
Althougli artists like Ice Cube, Will Smith and
Ice-T have have transitioned fiom rappers to mul
timedia stars, the people who own the record com
panies and sell the apparel often don’t look like
them Consider this; Hip hop/rap is the top-selling
genre of music in the US., but only 30 percent of
it is sold to Afiican Americans. Who’s buying the
rest? Middle class white kids.
Same with apparel Frcxn FUBU sweatshirts to Tlmberiand
shoes, the proceeds fixxn urban wear isn’t going to the hood, it’s
going to corporate headquarters, where top managers and CEOs
reap the rewards. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out
that the top commodity in the hip-hop game is street credibility,
which is what young Afiican Americans provide. Without that,
RocaWear is just scHuething to wear and Kangol is a hat fca* old
guys.
Why bring this up? VShen an image g[ young black folks is
(^ered to the worid as the standard of their wtalh, it’s unsettling
to have it linked to the bottom line. Young peojde may be attract
ed to baggy’ clothes or platinum jewelry because their favortite
rapper actordou^ guy rocks it. but we should take care to
acknowledge that is only an image Heck if Diddy Fitty and
Jay-Z are dressing more like CEOs than street thugs, surely
they understand the power in grown-up appwirel. As trends go.
Fogey Nation c£in only hope and jH’ay that their f(^owers can
learn something fivmi it.
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50 Cent
Judge Alito’s record on civil wrongs
George E.
Curry
As the Senate Judiciary
Committee examines the fit
ness of U.S. Appeals Court
Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. to
replace
Sandra Day
O’Connor on
the Supreme
Court, it
would be easy
to presume
that dvil
rights groups
are opposing
Alito’s nomi
nation simply because he is a
conservative.
However, a careful reading
of spedal reports compiled by
the NAACP Legal Defense
and Educational Fund (LDF),
the Leadership Conference
on Civil Ri^ts (LCCR) and
the Alliance for Justice shows
that they have legitimate
concerns about Alito’s
staunch opposition to dvil
rights and his eagerness to
limit the power Congress has
to remedy radal discrimina
tion.
“Judge Alito’s 1985 applica
tion to be the Reagan admin
istration’s Deputy Assistant
Attorney General in the
Office of Legal Counsel
reveals the b^innings of his
ideology and siibsequent judi-
dal philosophy” the LCCR
report observes. “In that
application, he strongly
embraces the conservative
ideology of the Reagan
administration, singling out
his work to restrict affirma
tive action and limit the
remedies available to victims
of discrimination as areas
that he was ‘particularly
proud.”’
The LDF report quotes
Alito’s comments in more
detail; “Most recently, it has
been an honor and source of
personal satisfaction for me
to serve in the office of the
Solidtor General during
President Reagan’s adminis
tration and to help advance
legal positions in which I per
sonally believe very strongly
I am particularly proud of my
contributions in recent cases
in which the government has
argued in the Supreme Court
that radal and ethnic quotas
should not be allowed.”
His opponents were not
seeking quotas, which had
been forbidden by the execu
tive order creating affirma
tive action.
LDF discovered that, “As a
lawyer in the Solidtor
General’s office, Alito partid-
pated in three mqjor affirma
tive action cases before the
Supreme Court....he argued
against court-ordered affir
mative action as a remedy for
violations of Title Vn of the
Civil Rights Act of
1964... against voluntary
affirmative action under Title
Vn...and against voluntary
affirmative action under the
Constitution... ”
In his 1985 application,
LCCR noted, Alito wrote; Tn
college, I developed a deep
interest in constitutional law,
motivated in laige part by
disagreement with Warren
Court decisions, particularly
in the areas of criminal proce
dure, the Establishment
Clause and reapportionr
ment.”
LCRR observes, “At the
time of his statement, nearly
everyone accepted the legiti
macy of the Warren Court’s
20-year old rufings on reap
portionment - Baker v. Carr,
which said for the first time,
that the federal courts had a
role to play in making sure
that all Americans have a
right to equal representation;
Wesberry v. Sanders, in
which the Court ruled that
Congressional districts have
to be roughly equal in popula
tion; and Reynolds v. Sims, in
which the Court held that
state legislative districts had
to be equal in population,
according to the principle of
‘one f)erson, one vote.”’
On the bench, Alito dissent
ed fium the majority’s deci
sion that a Black employee
had supplied enoi^i infor
mation for her racial discrim
ination case to be heard by a
jury In Bray v. Marriott
Hotds, Alito favored a very
narrow reading of Title VII of
the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
the section barring employ
ment discrimination. The
majority said that if Alito’s
intCTpretation of the law had
been accepted, “Title VII
would be eviscerated” and
that his view would “immu
nize employers fi’om the
reach of Title VH” in certain
circumstances.
The majority also took Alito
to task for his dissent in Riley
V. Taylor, a case about
whether the prosecutor had
used racially-motivated
peremptory strikes to exclude
Afiican-Americans fi'om a
jury LDF said Alito equated
that action to the statistical
oddity of five of the last six
U.S. presidents being left-
handed. The judg^ in the
majority rebuked Alito,
accusing him of minimizing
“the history of discrimination
against potential black jurors
and black defendants.”
The Alliance for Justice
Report noted, “University of
Chicago law professor Cas
Sunstein examined Judge
Alito’s approximately 65 dis
sents on the theory that
‘when a judge bothers to dis
sent fix)m a majority is a good
due to what the judge cares
most about.’ What Sunstein
found was ‘stunning. Ninety-
one perc^t of Alito’s dissents
take positions more conserva
tive than his colleagues on
the appeals court, induding
colleagues appointed by
Presidents Bush and
Reagan... ”
Clearly, Alito is to the ri^t
of right-wingers.
GEORGE E. CURRY is editor-
in-chief of the National
Newspaper Publishers
Association News Service and
BlackPressUSAjCom. He appears
on Naiional Public Radio as part
of "News and Notes with Ed
Gordon." To contact Curry or to
book him for a speaking engage
ment, go to his Web site,
www.georgecurryx'om.
President protected by raw, naked power
Ron
Walters
The more perspective we
get on the Impeachment of
Bill Clinton,
the more we
understand
that it was an
exercise in
raw, naked
political
power by the
Republicans
who had the
opportunity
to do it, at a time when they
were in power. The acts of
Geoige Bush in prosecuting
the Iraq war pale in compari
son to the so-called ‘’high
crimes and misdemeanors”
assodated with Clinton’s
lying to a grand jury about
consensual sex.
Republicans, still in power,
will now use their raw, naked
political power to allow the
fimdamental change in the
Supr^ne Court’s decisions on
dvil ri^ts, no doubt affect
the ri^ts of women to control
their own bodies through
obtaining abortions, and
swing the balance mco^ in
the direction of corporate
power
But most important, they
are using their raw, naked
power to shield the president
fixHn the kind cfjustice meted
out to Bill Clinton by the his
torical embarrassment of
impeachment We have a
president in power at this
moment, who intended to
pursue a war in Iraq that was
conceived at the moment he
sat down in the White House,
not on September 11, 2001;
he went to war without the
sanction of the United
Nations Security Council and
therefore, could be construed
to have committed a crime
under int^national law; he
distorted intelligence related
to Iraq’s possession of
weapons of mass destruction
and therefore, Hed to the
American people about the
threat Iraq pOsed to
American security as a pre
text for war, he changed the
law of war to permit torture,
and now we find that he has
been spying on the American
people in violation of the
charter of the National
Security Agency euid the
Constitution of the United
States. What more do you
want? What more constitutes
a ‘high crime?”
Consider this. Bush has
committed a crime under
international law by violating
the Nuremberg Principles, a
treaty signed by the United
States in 1950 and which
ostensibly is the law of the
land For example;
Principle El says that "the
fact that a person who com
mitted an act which consti
tutes a crime under interna
tional law acted as a head of
state or responslHe govern
ment official does not relieve
him finm responsibility
under international law...”
Principle VI defines the
nature of the crimes. The first
is ‘’Crimes Against Peace,”
defined as ‘’{banning, pr^)a-
ration, initiation or waging of
a war of aggression car a war
in violation of international
treaties, agreements or
assurances....” Second, ‘’par
ticipation in a conspiracy for
the accomplishment of any of
the acts mentioned..”
Then there are ‘War
Crimes” which entail ‘’viola
tion of the laws or customs of
war” including such things
as, ‘’murder or ill-treatment
of prisoners of war...”
The Bush administration
has, by these principles, com
mitted crimes much more
important than tilling a lie to
a grand jury about sex. But
where are those who would
uphold the treaties signed by
the United States? More
important, where are those
who uphold the lessons
learned by the international
community in correcting for
all times, the cam^e waged
by the Hitler regime against
other nations and human
beings. In oth^ words, who
will prosecute the crimes?
By the use of raw power, the
lack of action by the
Republican leadership
reduces the Nuremberg prin
ciples, won by the blood
spilled by millions of people,
to a hollow, momentary state
ment in history, not a set of
humanitarian principles that
should guide the conduct of
nations toward each other for
some time to come.
The adoption of a policy of
poe^nptive war against any
nation is tricky, because it
rest ultimately on the quality
o£ the intelligence at the dis
posal of the war-makers. But
there is evidence in the
British intelligence docu
ments that this war was
intentional, therefore, even
more of a crime against
humanity a high crime which
is more than a misdemeanor,
a felony in the eyes of the
international community
Americans are shielded
fix)m this crime by the raw,
naked power of politicians
who hold the control of the
reigns of government at this
moment. This shield has
allowed the administration
and those who support it to
pursue a naked fiction — that
the Iroq war was a response
to the terrorism that was the
basic tactic of 9-11. And so,
the administration has been
allowed to get away with call
ing the war in Iraq, a ‘’war
against terror” that includes
what happened here.
The real crime now is the
cover-up, the protection of the
moral bankruptcy that cor
rupts the politics and the
image of the United States
before the worid At some
point, the American people
will have to decide how to
cleanse this stain fiom the
Constitution and fiom the
conduct of the presidency.
But for now, it is the use of
raw, naked power that pro
tects this corruption, making
that power itsdf corrupt.
RON WALTERS is director of
the Aifrican American Leadership
Institute, Professor of
Government and Politics at the
University of Maryland College
Park.