Friends And Foes
UN1TA leader Jonas Savimbi’s
checkered past, his ongoing
alliance with apartheid South
Africa, and his record of human
rights abuses, reveal a man far
different from the heroic, pro
American democrat portrayed by
the Reagan administration.
Savimbi’s 13-year alliance with
South Ai/ica was pre-figured by
an earlier secret deal with the
Portuguese colonial authorities
during Angola’s independence
struggle.
Savimbi’s history has included
support from Mao’s China in the
mid-’60s, outspoken anti
Americanism at the time, and
ruthlessness toward Angolan
civilians and even those followers
considered disloyal.
In order to build support for
American interests in that sector
and other similar areas of the
world, the United States must find
and establish relations with per
sonalities with a less clouded
background and a different track
record
The legendary account of “The
Ugly American” appears to be
repeated when the United States
is associated with elements that
are suspect.
Connections with oppression,
suppression and dalliances with
other groups and nations who
themselves do not have a reputa
tion for democratic principles do
our own nation a disservice.
It is true that we need friends in
every hemisphere to help protect
our national interests. It is pro
bably more beneficial that we
search out and encourage these
friends who will prove beneficial
and not at a later date embarrass
ing or counterproductive.
Ferdinand Marcos is an examle
of the wrong player on the right
team.
It is also contended that Savim
bi is another case of the same.
As is often said, with friends
like this, who needs enemies?
We believe our cause is great
enough to find more and other
friends.
America's Fragile Foundations
BY REP. AUGUSTUS F.
HAWKINS
Guest Editorial
The quality of a nation’s in
frastructure (system of public
facilities and transportation) is a
critical index of its economic
strength. Reliable transportation,
clean water, and a safe disposal of
wastes are basic elements of a
productive society. Yet after two
years of study, the National Coun
cil on Public Works Im
provements has found convincing
evidence that the quality of
America’s infrastructure is bare
ly adequate to fulfill current re
quirements, and insufficient to
meet the demands of future
economic growth and develop
ment.
One of the problems with delay
ing action on repairing streets,
sewage systems, bridges, etc., is
that the cost escalates if you allow
them to fail without maintenance,
then you are tripling or quadrupl
ing the cost. It is sort of like that
television commercial for Fram
air filters: “You can pay me now,
or pay me later.”
The investment needed in our
nation can take many forms:
repair, maintenance and even
public education. For example, in
Madison, Wis., a $40,000 public
education campaign convinced
many residents to shift their
water use away from the 6 p.m.
peak. The relatively modest in
vestment averted the construc
tion of a new well system once
thought necessary to meet peak
demands. Savings to the com
munity were at least $750,000 in
new well construction, plus some
$60,000 a year in operating costs.
Not only can we save money by
investing in our infrastructure,
but we would be creating needed
jobs and providing services. In
our cities this would translate into
recreation centers, child care
facilities, affordable public tran
sit and new schools. All this
should and can be done without
displacing people from their
homes. But investment in public
works has slowed in the last two
decades in relation to demands of
growth and environmental con
cerns.
How do we pursue an invest
ment in this problem? State and
local governments should con
tinue to play their traditional
leadership roles in the construc
tion and management of the na
tion’s infrastructure. But the
federal government must act as a
full and responsible partner on a
long-term basis in the national ef
fort to increase and sustain public
capital investment.
Funds such as the Community
Development Block Grant, the
Urban Development Action
Grant, and the Highway Bill (the
Congress overrode the president’s
veto of this act) are examples of
the federal government’s role in
this partnership. Certainly, much
more is needed. Unfortunately
this investment strategy is not en
dorsed by some elected officials
who believe that we should not
spend any new money because of
our budget deficit. But in some
priority areas such as health,
education and public works, the
lack of spending on the front end
only means you pay considerably
more on the back end.
Complete maternity care for a
pregnant woman, including
prenatal care, delivery, and
postpartum care, costs about
$3,000. For every dollar spent on
such care we save more than $3 in
costs to society during infancy
alone by reducing the need for ex
pensive hospital care, and $11
over the child’s lifetime by
avoiding the medical, social and
educational costs associated with
preventable lifelong disabilities.
Likewise, investment in educa
tion, particularly preschool, reaps
human dividends in future years.
Investment in people is a dynamic
never fully grasped by the
Reagan team during the past
sight years. It is a dynamic that
we must recapture once again.
Smarter
Low-income neighborhoods
either get worse as a result of
overcrowding and lack of
maintenance or better through
rehabilitation. Either way, there
is a reduction in housing available
to low-income families.
Are there any imaginative
schemes deployed in Southeast
Raleigh for real rehabilitation or
to answer pressing housing pro
blems? Is there a revolving fund
out of which low-interest home
improvement loans are made?
The North Carolina Housing
Finance Agency is making an ef
fort to address the state’s housing
needs. More than 1,000 lower
income familitiw tram across the
state will receive |4 million worth
: improvements during the
the new
and Hous
Incentive Pro
The program will provide fun
lousing
ling to organizations making coii
lervation and housing rehabilita
ion improvements to rental units
tnd owner-occupied houses for
rery low, low and moderate in
:ome residents.
Application workshops being
leld July 6-8 (application deadline
s July 15) precede the awarding
>f the funds in August.
The program is designed to in
:rease the supply of decent, affor
lable housing and is to help solve
he housing needs of lower-income
amllies.
The funds may be used for ip
mlation, storm windows and
loons, furnace and boiler replace
nent or modification,
veatherstripping, caulking,
vater heater repair or replace
ment and energy-related struc
ural repair work.
A manned rocket reaches
of England in a stagecoac
NNPA FEATURE
oy
Dr. CharlM W. Faulicner
BY DR. CHARLES W. FAULKNER
HOW TO AVOID “BIG” MARITAL
PROBLEMS
Last week I printed excerpts of a letter
that I received from a young lady who
wanted to marry a man with whom she
had spent only two weeks. She had ex
changed letters with him for two months.
The primary reason she wanted to marry
him was so that she could have a baby.
In last week’s column, I told her to get
the answers to these questions:
Are the two of you emotionally compati
ble?
Are you professionally compatible?
Are you educationally compatible?
Do either of you have a personal pro
blem?
Here is a continuation of questions that
anyone who is contemplating marriage
should be able to answer before the mar
riage takes place:
Are your ideas about religion compati
ble? An atheist would find the views of a
Roman Catholic intolerable and would
have many serious, destructive
philosophical disagreements.
Do both of you have compatible ideas
about sex? A person who has been
previously promiscuous will probably be
unhappy with a person who is conservative
and desires to have sex but once a week or
twice a month. The more active party will
probably seek sexual satisfaction outside
of the marriage. Don’t forget about AIDS.
Have you met Ms family? Does his fami
ly seem like the kind of family you would
enjoy being associated with? Does he have
problems with his family? If he does, he
might eventually have similar problems
Other Viewpoints
WHAT COLOR IS YOUR GOD
.1 have traveled to several cities in North CArolina lately and noticed the
same sign in front of many of the churches, advertising bible school. I have
since learned that the signs are provided to the churches by the Southern
Baptist Convention.
I don’t have anything against bible school. As a matter of fact, I attended
bible school myself during my youth. I do think however, that our youth
should be taught to love themselves and the people they worship should be in
their own image. I believe those signs in front of the black churches were
damaging because on them was a picture of a big white man (Jesus) with a
red beard. What was even more damaging was that all the little children
running behind him were also white. It occurred to me that bible school is
where I first began to visualize a supreme being with blue eyes and blond
hair. This is an awful thing to do to our children.
I attended Sunday morning worship services at my church on Fathers Day
and there was a leaflet inserted in the program with a picture of a white man
and his son depicting the ideal loving father. I thought, there must have been
a picture of a beautiful Mack man and his son available that could have been
used to show our Mack children what a loving father is Hke. I understand
Southern Baptist Convention does not have a variety of black material, never
theless we (black churches) still deal with them.
Now I know y’all say God don’t know no color and everybody is the same in
God’s sight. If this is true, then place an insert in a program in a church with
an all white congregation picturing a black man and hie son, on Fathers day
or any day, and see if it matters. Put a big sign with a black man (Jesus) in
front of a white church and see if it matters. The mere fact that we have black
churches and white churches means it matters. It doesn't seem to matter
with black people, however, because we don’t really love ourselves and our
race as do most others. We are always eager to miscegetiste;
If Jesus was white, it should bother black people who have never gotten a
fair shake from white people. If Jesus was a Jew, it should bother black
people because through tout history, Jews have been for Jews, exclusively.
Ask any Palestinian. They are people of color like us and are being brutalized
daily by Jews. Ask Secretary of State Schultz. They ignored him the last
five times he went to Israel to talk peace.
I can’t blame white people for placing those signs in tooiit of our churches
because they didn’t put them there. Perhaps they did theinitialhrainwashing
and now we are running on automatic. We automatically choose or accept
posters picturing white people, to show to our black children. We have no
problem buying post cards with white people on
oppressed so long that it is no longer necessary for
to us. We do it to ourselves. When you love your
you want to be like him, then you are truly i_
children see positive white images on television ( „
They see negative black images on television...clowns and
HuxtaUe, George Jefferson, Fred Sanford) to name a few.
We must show our people positive Mack 1
church...especially in the church. When a Mack man
gives all btockpeople a sense of pride
Mo
We have been
todo Anything
so much that
about it. Our
k lovers).
(Dr.
in the
for president, it
important
father
re a God in
Can you
as white all of
Faison, Jr.
W. Lee Street
N.C.
it took to travel the length
with you.
Do you (both) have the preseat finaacia
means to support yourselves in a manna
that would make you happy? After mar
riage, you will live together and aee a lot o!
each other. You should have a home 01
apartment that provides enough space foi
you to get away from each other. Or, you
are certain to get on each other’s nerves
Also, financial problems are the single big
gest cause of marital disharmony and
breakup. ,
Why do both of you want to get married?
You said that you want to have a child
while you can. If you select the wrong per
son to marry you might And life to be a
"living hell” for both you and the child.
Also, there is no guarantee that you will
have a child even though you want one.
Hopefully, you have better reasons than
that to get married. Many mature women
adopt children. Why dees he want to marry
you? Is it merely for “love” or are there
other reasons that you do not know about?
Is he telling you the truth about Ms Hfo and
objectives? Are you telling him die truth?
It is urgent for you to obtain information
that will provide Mowers to all of these
questions. The emotional and physical
sacrifices involved in marriage are too
great to leave to chance. It is foolish to get
married on a whim.
If you have not obtained answers to
these questions, you need to start doing
your homework. There may be many,
many unattractive things about your
friend that you do not know about now and
that you may be sorry about after you get
married. Don’t be afraid to delay the mar
riage while you investigate.
©dlBILI
He that dweUeth in the secret place of the M«t High
■h»n abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I wUl say of
the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him
will I trust. Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of
the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover
thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: •
his truth shall be thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be
afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth
by day; nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor
for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.
.Psai^ia 01:14
Tony ®oraiwi*Wr®.
(BoDqdm
18 “THE WHITE GIRL” R BECAUSE SHE’S BLACK?
This McLean, Va. resident, Larry Yates, wanted me tt
understand that he was his own man: “I am by no means
an uncritical disciple of yours. For one thing, you usually
have very little to say to non-Afro
“But I guess the real burden of
What I am trying to say, and what
you often say, is that we don’t all
have to agree, or to know
everything. Sometimes, even if we
are the Motion Picture Association
of America, we have to recognize
that there are other people who
know more about a certain situa
tion than we do, and trust their
judgment. Particularly when that
situation is a matter of life and
death to those people. Afro
Americans are trying to mobilize
against drugs and related crime in
their communities,” he observes.
“I am writing to support your appeal of the R rating of
your movie ’The White Girl.’ I write because I am a white
person who is struggling against the disease of racism, and
who has seen the impact of drug abuse in an Afro
American community, and because of that perspective,
feel the Rating Board’s decision is clearly wrong.”
Yates is referring, of course, to my battle over the R
rating given to my anti-drug film by the MPAA’s Rating
Board.
“I have not seen the movie,” he said. “However, I am
very familiar with your integrity and consistency, even
though I by no means always agree with your positions.
After several years of regularly reading your column and
occasionally watching your TV program, it is clear that
you stick to your principles.
“It is dear to me that it is incredibly difficult, if not im
possible, for a white-dominated group to objectively
evaluate the impact of an Afro-American effort to change
the Afro-American community. For one thing, almost all
white Americans are simply unfamiliar with how situa
tions are seen by Afro-Americans. I have spent most of the
. last eight years working on a daily basis with Afro
Americans in situations where racial attitudes and issues
are often openly discussed, and have worked hard on my
own racism.
“Still, I would not set myself up to judge the moral or
social impact of ‘The White Girl' on Afro-Americans,
especially Afro-American children and adolescents. And
that is clearly what the Appeals Board is doing.”
If Mr. Yates’ letter was not enough to get me to question
the Rating Board’s motives, the MPAA’s own actiooa did.
Just consider how the MPAA rated “Arthur II: On the
Rocks” vis a vis “The White Girl.”
“The White Girl” has no explicit sex, no obscenity and is
not violent. Moreover, it is an anti-drug film which shows
the destructive forces of cocaine use. The MPAA gave Ran
R for “restricted”—unsafe for teenagers.
“Arthur II: On the Rocks” (you get it? "on the rocks?”)
is about a man who finds happiness and wealth in a bottk
(as in whiskey).
“Somewhow, watching Dudley Moore play a disgusting,
childish, irresponsible drunk is not too amusing,” wrote Liz
Smith in the New York Daily News.
“Nothing Funny About Alcoholism” was the headline
for Marilyn Beck’s column. She talked about “the ‘flak’
over the fact that Moore perpetuated his ‘Arthur’ image as
a lovable drunk.”
For glorifying a chemical dependency problem
(alcoholism), the Rating Board awarded “Arthur” a PG
rating!
The MPAA’s own written guidelines forbid giving a PG
if there is any “drug use content” and a mandatory PG-13
if there is “any drug use content.” A poll of student
delegates to the National Association of Student Council
convention last week identified alcohol as “the biggest pro
blem in schools” (63 percent drink, 25 percent use mari
juana; and nine percent use cocaine).
Does the MPAA know that alcohol is a drug? If so, how
could “Arthur” get a PG? And how could an anti-drug film
like “The White Girt” get an R?
Whether Yates’ next point is correct or not, we will find
out once the movie is released in theaters to the public next
year, following the community fundraisers this year.
Yates said, “‘The White Girl,’ like all your work, is not
(See TONY BROWN>. S).
BY DIANE PRUCHN1K
WHO DARE8 TO EXERCISE IN THE GRUELING
HEAT OP SUMMERY
Are you the “briak walker” who la axerdsisg to Im
prove your overall health? It la important to supply the
body with enough flulda when exerdahM hi the W!MMI'
heat. Severe fluid loaa can lead to heat anhwatton or heat'
atroke.
One ahould not wait untU he foela thirsty before coneum
ing flulda. Thirst signifies that the body la already
dehydrated. -
Plain odd water («B*F-M*F) la a good source of Odd
replacement as It is economical, and quickly absorbed by
the body.
The body loses electrolytes, such as sodium and
potassium, through sweat. Fortunately, an individual’s
diet usually contains enough of those electrolytes to com
pensate for the loss. f
Sodium fat present In nearly all foods. Americans tend to
mhmm an excessive amount of sodium.
Potassium Is found most often In fruits and vegetables.
Some potassium-rich food sources are raisins, bananas,
peaches, oranges, and potatoes.
Alcoholic beverages and caffeine-containing drinks
such as coffee, tea, and cola cause Increased urination.
They Increase the risk of dehydration and should not be us
ad 11 fluid reDlacements.
At least six to eight cups of fluid should be consumed
during the day. About a half-cup of water at 10- to lg-minute
intervals during the exercise event is appropriate.
Be smart when exercising in the summer heat Con
sume foods from all four food groups and drink plenty of
fluids. Exercise in the early morning or evening, when the
temperature is at its lowest. Exercising withTpartner is
recommended: it can be more safe and more fun than exer