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PAGE 4
THE TOIBtlNAL AID
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 9, 1975
EDITORIALS
*You're A Part Of The Solution, Or You’re A Part Of The Problem
TIE tns IF m IIIIEI'S UE Ml UMTS «!« If HE MKI’l
Point
by Albert A. Campbell
"LAW AND ORDER’’...?
Most people, both Black and white, agree that there it a
definite need for the existence of this newspaper as well as the
other Black newspapers. It is generally believed that since the
daily newspapers fail to respond completely to the needs of Black
people, there must be another source that will. Althoogli this Is i
multi ethnic society,-which is as it should be- often certain
segments of this society are forgotten, or just completely ignored.
For this reason then, the news media must have more than one
source of disbursement. When one fails to respond to the needs of
all, the other must serve the neglected areas. Believe it or not, the
Black community is not completely served by other newspapers.
Some may refuse to acknowledge it, whBe others actualOy faB
to recognize it, the truth remains the same-most ethnic groups
ate ignored by the daily press., most especially Blacks. Examples
are many. Compare for yourself the many articles and stories
published in this and other Black newspapers that are never
printed in the dailies. Information found in these papers will
never be printed by the other media. If a Black does something
good, that incklent will get little or no cover^e from the other
tnedia. On the other hand when a Black commits a wrong, that
news is splashed throughout the media serving that particulaf
area. Contrary, Black newspapers print the news of Blacks
regardless, from the national level down to the local level. That’i
what we’re all about.
These and other unmentions clearly demonstrate the need for
the existence and continuation of the Black prera.
As is the case of any other business venture, publications cost
money, and this particular one is no exception. Tlie largest source
of revenue for this and any other newspaper is advertisement.
Without advertisement, there could be no newspaper, especiaOy
this one. This fact is recognized by merchants from the giant
chains down to the comer general store. Their purchasing
advertising space in any publication supports and sustains the
security of that particular publication. In return, the merdiant’a
dlq>lay attracts the attention of the readers, thereby influencing
the readers to patronize that merchant. In essence, die advertiser
ciptiallzes on the coverage of the publicatkin, because it reaches
more people than the merchant himself could ever visit and taBc
to. Results; the merchant attracts more customers; the customeis
Vnow exactly where to find what they want, and the newspaper is
iOowed to publish the news as it happens without restrictions or
intimidations.
Recognizing this then, it is only fair to all concerned to
support those who support you. If a merchant advertises hi a
puUication, he is in fact supporting that publication’s concept of
existence. In other words he approves of its need to the
community. Tn return for him, hegalns more customers and eiMs
more money. But the trade doesn’t stop there. The publicatk>n
owes the merchants and the reai^ers obligations. To the
merchants, he owes a wide circulation of readers plus a handsome
display. To the readers, he owes the news unaltered, and a bit of
entertainment. How«ver, there is die third and last party of this
triangle, die readers.
If the readers enjoy the publication and wants it to continue,
then they must show their support, and their support is that of
patronizing the merchants who advertise in that favorite
puMicatktn. Regardless of the color of the merchants, they need
your support in order to support you. “The right hand washes the
left.”
If a merchant advertises in one puUicatron, but refuses to
advertise in another THK TOIBUNAI. AIDhe is refusing to
provide you with your publication. While on the other hand, if a
■f^er enjoys a publkation, but refuses to patronize its
advertisers, he too is turning his back. In today’s specialized and
blunt society, there is no nutural ground. “Eitheryou’re a part of
the solution, or you’re a part of the problem.”
In calling on many of the merchants throughout the trinity
area, I hive found some who recognize this fact and contribute to
the support of this newspaper, as evulence by their advertising.
However, there are those who refuse to support our effort and
plainly state that they will not advertise in this publication. They
want your (the readers) money, and only that. They could care
less if you never read anything except what is published in the
daSies. I don’t think they need my money, what about yours?
ALlHaUGH THE EDITORIALS WHITTEN
BY ME AWE NOT INTENUED TO BE THE
ONLY ANSWER TO THE PROBLEMS AND
CONDmONS EXPRESSED, SOME PgR-
SONS STELL MAY DISAGREE WITH MY
THOUGHTS. BECAUSE OF HDS, I WOULD
T^ntF TP EXTEND AN INVITATION TO ANY
iSESPONSIBLE PERSON WHO WISHES TO
SEFtJTE MY EXPRESSIONS, FREE AND
JEQUAL SPACE IN THIS NEWSPAPER, IN
WmCH TO DO SO.
yaaeaa eni»e»g>ocnaoeK»ooooocaBCiq
THE TRIBUNAL AID |
1228 Montlieu Avenue |
Post Office Box 921 Phone [919] 885-6519 {
High Point, N. L. 27261 j
Published Every Wednesday ^
by Triad JPublicatlons, Inc. |
Mailed Subscription Rate $5.00 Per Year
Albert A. Campbell Managing Editor I
Jean M. White Secretary |
John Williams Advertising |
NewYorit j
HAR0HAT5 BATTL£
COPS OVER JOBS
Black Perspectives
BY CARL
WASHINGTON -- In my last column I
quoted a Cleveland, Ohio, psychiatrist's
arguments that psychiatry offers no hope
of rehabilitation for those who murder,
rape, rob and go to prison, and then come
out to commit the same crimes again and
again.
Okay. So how about this as a solution?
There is abundant statistical evidence to
show that poor, poorly-educated minority
group males aged 17 to 24 commit most of
the "high-fear" crimes in this country.
Why don't we just lock up in preventive
detention camps all the poor, uneducated
minority-group people for all of those
young years when they are deemed to be
high crime risks.
You think I've lost my mmd? The idea
is not original with me. Political scientist
E.C. Banfield, in his book "The
Unheavenly City." advocates putting
entire ghetto youth populations in penal
colonies before they have committed any
crimes.
‘if abridging the freedom of persons
who have not committed crimes is
incompatible with the principles of free
society, so, also, is the presence in such
society of persons who, if their freedom is
not abridged, w'ould use it to inflict
serious injuries on others," Banfield
argues. "If some people's freedom is not
abridged by law enforcemenl agencies,
that of others will be abridged by
lawbreakers,"
Psychiatrist Richard A, Schwartz cited
the Banfield proposal in a paper delivered
before the American Psychiatric
Association's annual meeting last year as
evidence of what w'ill happen in this
country if judges continue to embrace the
idea that imprisonment of perpetrators of
serious crimes is both useless and
harmful.
Schwartz says a growing number of
judges are deciding to grant probation,
even to second and third time offenders,
on the assumption that, since our prisons
are such failures, a criminal left within
society has a better chance of
rehabilitation than one hwo is locked up.
Schwartz warns that "since a
disproportionate amount of crime is
committed by the poor and members of
minority groups, the present high crimc
rates breed resentment across social class
and racial lines, greatly impeding the
development of social justice...Another
iSIGHTi
by Miller Carter, Jr.
I
T. ROWAN
danger of advocating complacent
acceptance of high rates of serious crimc
is that the public might eventually
become so outraged that it will be willing
to tolerate increasing infringements on
basic civil liberties and freedoms."
We already have disturbing evidence
of this. Richard Nixon's cry for legislation
restoring the death penalty for ccrlain
crimes has been taken up in numerous
state legislatures. Vice President Nelson
Rockefeller once advocated nuindatory
life imprisonment w ithout parole for drug
pushers.
And Schwartz, for all his supposed
concern about civil liberties and freedom,
wound up his paper with a crime
"solution" which, while not so berefil of
"due process" as the Banfield proposal
to lock up ghetto youth, is most certainly
repressive.
Schwartz says we ought to pay more
attention to the fact lhal "most crimcs
arc committed by young men in their
teens and tw'cnties...by the lime a man
reaches age 40 his criminal career is
essentially over."
Schwartz proposes, then, that is an
18-year-old robs a liquor store, statistical
logic requires that he be imprisoned until
he is 40. He argues;
"Although it may seem at first glance
c.xcessively cruel to imprison a convicted
18-year-old rapist or armed robber for 22
years, the statistical likelihood of such a
first offender committing at le;isl one
additional serious crime is so high it is
ccrtainly arguable that it is even more
cruel to the potential victim of a
subsequent violent crime not to remove
the offender from society until the aging
process has diminished his criminal
drives. Emerging from prison ai age 40,
the released offender would still be a
relatively young man and could expect to
have ample years available to him to
rebuild his life and pursue vocational or
family goals,"
Schwartz didn't say what leads him
even to dream that the "aging process"
during 22 years in prison would turn an
"anti-social" 18-year-old into a responsi
ble, law-abiding 40-year-old.
Schwartz' bottom-line "cure" is
probably his most persuasive evidence
that even psychiatrists do not have the
answer to crime.
The things that we do are always
measured. Measured by the means of
how much, how little, how good or how
bad.
How good we do the job depends
greatly upon our aptitude. Our aptitude is,
our ability to do a certain task and the
degree or intensity to which it is done.
Aptitude is one quality by which everyone
is chosen to qualify for a certain task; but
there is another quality that is more
important.
This quality sounds like aptitude but it
is not to be confused with aptitude. This
quality is our attitude. Our attitude is also
an important quality that everyone is
judged by. Without good attitude, we
might never get a chance to test or use
our aptitude, A poor attitude can knock us
out of a lot of things that we have the
aptitude for.
Let me use one of my experiences as an
example and maybe you can get a clearer
picture of what I’m talking about; I drove
a school bus for Andrews High School
and considered myself one of the better
drivers, I had never had an accident or
ticket or even got stopped by a police
officer but because of a little
disagreement with the bus supervisor I
got fired. The disagreement had nothing
to do with my ability or "aptitude" to
drive a bus but in the supervisor’s
opinion I took a bad "attitude" as far as
the disagreement went. My attitude
caused me to lose my bus driving job.
After looking back on the situation, I
thpught that maybe I was at fault. So a
few days later, giving us both time to
cool off, I went back to apologize to my
supervisor and ask for my bus back. It
didn't do me any good in getting my bus
driving job back but I felt good for
apologizing. In my opinion, that was
more than my supervisor would do if he
were in my shoes.
There are two other means by which
our work is measured. These two means
are quality and quantity. The most
important of these two, 1 feel, is quality.
The quality counts very high in most work
areas. Let me give you another personal
example; One day I went up to THE
TRIBUNAL AID office to turn in the
manuscript for my article. On that
particular week I had written a fairly
lengthy article. Mr. Albert Campbell (the
editor) commented that he was glad to
see me write my article a little longer.
Then 1 commented in a few well known
quotes; "big things come in small
packages", and ‘‘quality is more
important than quantity," These quotes
simply mean that "it’s not how much
work you do but how well you do it."
If we take time to think, we will see that
these four characteristics (attitude,
aptitude, quality and quantity) work hand
in hand in as high as we can set our goals.
Thought for This Week: The great man
is he who does not lose his child's heart.
TO BE EQUAL
by Vermm E. Jordan, Jr.
Executive Director of lilt Natioaal Urban League
The Black
Economic Depression
OBSERVATION
ASHEBORO—Vanessa Cross 625-4950
EAST SPENCER Edy Banks 279-7016
GBERNSBORO Lulla Jessup 299-4402
KESNERSVILLE Mozelle Warren 993-4657
LEXINGTON— ——Jessie Wood 246-6521
BEtUSVOLE Sandra HIU 349-5229
SAUSBUSY—^ev. Theodore Walker 633-4349
STOKESDALE SheUa King 643^3237
THOMASVaXE KeUy Ueover 476-7472
WINSTON-SALEM——Vehna Hopldns 725-1442
Much controversy has
risen over the Joann Little
case. The question most
often asked seems to be
whether Ms. Little attacked
Beaufort County jailer
Clarence Alligood in self-
defense as he attempted to
attack her or whether she
was using sex as a bait to
entice Alligood into her cell
as part of an escape plan.
Regardless of which of
these are found to be true,
one thing that remains fact
By SANDRA HILL
is that for a jailer to be
lured, enticed, or moved by
the possibility of sex with a
female inmate is complete
ly beyond and out of line
with his call of duty. I’m
sure that no where in the
list of his duties was it
noted that he was to engage
in sexual relationships with
the prisoners, or be
obligated to respond to any
adv/ances made by a
prisoner.
Any suggestion that
Alligood's reputation is
being "carried through the
mud" must be met with the
fact that whether he was to
engage sexually with Ms.
Little by force or by
invitation, his action was
completely out of line v\ ith
his supposed duties as a
jailer.
Or is it asking too much
to expect high moral and
ethical standards of govern
ment officials?
Statisticians have discovered a
remarkable way to move people in and
out of the labor force. They call it
"seasonal adjustment." And one way to
make the unemployment figures lower is
not to count people as unemployed if
they're given up looking for work in a job
market where no employment opportuni
ties exist.
The Labor Department's February
unemployment figures show'ed a rate of
8.2 percent, or about 7,5 million people
out of work. Those are seasonally
adjusted figures, theoretical constructs to
account for shifts in work patterns fthat
occur from month to month.
But when real people are counted -
bodies, not theoretical constructs - the
picture changes somewhat. Then we have
an unemployment rate of 9.1 percent and
8.3 million workers - real people with
bills to pay and families to feed -- out of
work.
And even these figures are grossly
misleading. In February, some 580,000
workers gave up looking for jobs. So long
as they registered each week that they
were actively looking for work, they were
counted as unemployed. In February,
after weeks of fruitless job-hunting and
no leads or interview possibilities they
gave up the search. They thus became, in
the official statistics, non-persons, no
longer part of the labor force and no
longer counted as unemployed.
Seen from the vantage point of a
person who wants to work in a society
that has no work for him, these statistical
exercises become a sort of shell-game
deceiving the public, legislators and the
Administration about the seriousness of
the Depression.
I'm not calling it a recession any more,
because we are currently living through
an economic Depression. For black
people, there isn't the faintest doubt
about this.
One of the biggest barriers to getting
the kind of federal action to end this
Depression is the public's ignorance of
the seriousness of the situation. The
National Urban League's Research
Department just released its quarterly
economic report on the black worker,
and, along with up-dating to cover the
last month or so, it presents a devastating
picture of the black economic Depression,
It estimates true black unemployment
including those out of work, working
part-time w'hen they want full-time work,
and those who have given up trying to
find jobs, at about 25 per cent, one out of
every four black workers!
For black teenagers, the official rate is
over 40 percent. In some urban ghettos,
up to half the people are without full-time
jobs they want.
And that’s not all. There are as many
blacks out of work today as in the darkest
days of the Great Depression. About a
quarter of the black unemployed have
been out of work for at least four months.
About 700,000 of the black unemployed
are not eligible for unemployment
compensation benefits, because their
unemployment did not result from direct
job lay-offs, a requirement for such
benefits.
And one striking finding is that blacks,
who comprise 12 percent of local
government employees, make up almost
half of all local government workers who
were unemployed, offering striking
testimony to the disproportionate lay-offs
of blacks by local governments,
de'monstrating lessened commitment to
affirmative action.
Some peopke, noticing the concentra
tion of black workers in the laggard auto
industry, think that alone accounts for
high black jobless rates. Not true. Far
more blacks have lost jobs in the
construction and food processing
industries.
And this Depression is not confided to
blacks, it cuts across the board. High
white unemployment is also hidden by
the official numbers game. In addition to
the 6.9 million white workers officially
counted as unemployed in February, add
another 6.9 million disccmraged workers,
and people in part-time jobs who want
full-tirne work and you've got a grand
total of close to 14 million white peoplke
out of work today.
No amount of fudging can hide the fact
that this n^^ion is in a real Depression.
It’s time to stop haggling over what to call
it and get to the business of ending it.