Newspaper Page Text
Page 2 - THE MAROON TIGER APRIL 1981
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iMaroon ©tger
"77if I oirr Of Irrrdom
[volume #1. Number j
Mor.houve C oHefte 'iSP&UtJ'
Editor In-Chief
Chief Associate Editor..
Associate Editor
Saiquel Bacote II
Our
View...
There is no room for
argument when we say that Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. has
touched all of our lives, in one
{way or another. There is no
doubt in anyone’s mind why he
was killed. However, every so
often in the continuing struggle
for our freedom, Black people
have to sit down and
realistically assess the value of
the legacy left behind -- and be
able to grow and prosper out of
that legacy. We must begin to
I ask ourselves some serious
questions about to the path we!
'have followed for thirteen years
since the deatfl^ of Dr. King,
|and how we got.bn this path. |
There is an'old saying that)
states, “He who controls your
leaders, controls you.V White
America legitimized Martin]'
Luther King, Jr., allowed
Martin Luther King to becomel
' the spokesperson for Blacks in{
America, and it was white)
America who toe* him away.
• Yes, there were minor
concessions made to Blacks;
during his reign as ‘ King of
Black America,” but who is tej
say that these concessions
wouldn’t have been made!
anyway, considering that Blacks
have been fighting for justice
i'- 'and equality even before the
lend of slavery?
Dr. King was used as a
| pacifier to quell the ever
increasing tensions of Black
America. His non-violent
( philosophy may have been good
for Ghandi in India, but to take
, an idea out of it’s historical
i ' setting and to try and apply if
to a people with an entirely
, different historical. make-up can
! be detrimental
Dr. King believed that
“peaceful integration would
solve the problems of the
Black race, and solved this
ideaology. Why didn’t he see
that the American Indians were
the original owners of this land,
j and were much closer racially to
' white people than even the
V average mulatto, and yet he
I was never allowed to integrate
M into America. And even though
there has been pro-integration
{publicity throughout the mass
media for a number of years,
j today we still find that the
masses of Black people are not*
jfighting for integration, and the
majority of white folks don’t
want it. If self-determination
had half of the amount of
publicity (with accurate
reporting) that the “civil riters”
have been given, then those
members of the race who
honestly desire a solution for
comm cm problems would look in
terms erf making Africa into a
natual base of eternal Black,
security!
The bottom line is that the
masses of Black people will
never oe successfully
integrated into the mainstream
erf America. Abraham Lincoln
knew this, and stated his
position clearly on several
.different occasions. He said :
that, “Nature, habit and opinion
jhave drawn indelible lines that ,
will forever restrict the two
Iraces from living equally free in
jthe same society.”
1 With this in mind, we have
to begin to question the time
and energy used each year to |
{keep King’s Dream alive. We
can’t forget that King’s dream
jwould have been different at
the time of his death.-—He
was, in fact, just coming to the
realization that it was going to
take more than “civil rights,”
more than “marching in the
street,” more than a “Dream,”
to get Black people free. It was
because of this realization that
ihe was killed . If he had been
allowed to live, maybe he could
have actualized this new found
understanding, and maybe he
would have been truly, without
{question, more representative erf
the feelings of Blacks in
America, the traditional factors
necessary before you are
elevated to the position of
jleader. This is not say that Dr.
King wasn’t a good man -- he
was. But in reality, he was just
>a man, and it doesn't make
{sense to worship his memory
instead of trying to make his
; new-found dream come alive
t.
*!
! J AH editorials which appear fat this space are the ex-
J pressed views of the editorial board which coaslst of
• students who are appointed by the editor. Anyone
l wishing to respond to this editorial or any other article
• on this page are asked to address their concerns tox The
i« Editor
• P.O.Box 418
• Morehouse College
• Atlanta, Georgia, 30314
•
e
e
e
a
e.
Our most precious resource
By Julian Bond
A black child still lacks a fair chance to live, learn, thrive
and contribute in America.
So asserts the Children’s Defense Fund, a Washington-based
advocacy group, in a new report titled “Portrait of Inequality:
Black and White Children in America.” Here are some of its
findings:
— Millions of black children do not receive even minimal
health care. As a result, they die needlessly or develop lifelong
handicaps that could have been prevented.
— Blacks are twice as likely as whites to die in their first
year of life, twice as likely to drop out of school and three
times as likely to be unemployed as adults.
— One out of every two black children is bom in poverty.
One in four lives in substandard housing, one in three has
never seen a dentist and one in seven lacks a regular source of
health care. Two out of five of those who live in central cities
are not immunized against polio.
This pathology is compound^ by the common but mistaken
assumption that the gap between white America and black
America was closed during the 1960s and 1970s.
“Millions of black children were left behind when the prog
ress began in the 1960s and leveled off or declined in the ’70s,”
says Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children’s
Defense Fun. “Unless immediate, targeted action is taken to
meet black children’s heeds, we will risk creating a perma
nent underclass in the next generation.
“This is not only unfair to the children but costly and dan
gerous for every American.”
Why don’t these statistics provoke more outrage? Why did
the media lose interest in the fund’s report just one day after
its release?
America’s preoccupation with the purse — rather than with
the person ~r accounts for some of the disinterest.
And part of it stems from children’s impotence. They have
no power. They don’t vote; if they are poor, their parents prob
ably don’t vote either.
Carl Holman, president of the National Urban Coalition,
attributes the neglect of black children to white indifference
“based in part on ignorance or black apathy or failing energy
or declining hope.”
“Blacks must be reminded that if we don’t care for our own
children, why would anyone else,” says Holman. “Go back in
history and see that what blacks accomplished we did for
ourselves. We cannot expect government and schools to do
what we will not do.”
Mrs. Edelman shares this belief that black America can be
its own worst enemy. “We need to take responsibility for our
own,” she says.
“The mood of white America is more sympathetic to self-
help than to an appeal to conscience,” agrees Holman. “The
tendency now is away from a national focus and toward ‘doing
it at home.’” *
In the belief that the most work needs to be done at the
local level, the Children’s Defense Fund report lists a series of
simple but effective methods by which civil-rights groups,
churches, PTAs and individuals can monitor the success of
programs for children and protect those programs' currently
under attack. *
Appropriately to the Reagan era, Mrs. Edelman asserts that
her proposals can actually save money over the long run. That
is because the success of existing programs may well prevent
the development of new problems requiring costlier solutions.
“Portrait of Inequality” is more than a research blockbus
ter. It is an action plan for saving black America’s most preci
ous resource — our children.
(NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISE ASSN.)
LETTER TO THE EDITOR:
“Peace Corps Helped Me
Reassess My Priorities”
....“Peace Corps helped
me as a person- helped me
reassess my value struc
ture,” said Joan Tarpley
Winn of Dallas, Texas. Ms.
Winn, who served as one of
the nation's first elected
black women judges, in the
191st District Court of
Dallas County from 1978 to
1980, commented on her
Peace Corps volunteer
service In Nigeria during an
interview in Washington,
D.C.
....Ms. Winn, who
currently runs her own
political consniting-real
estate development firm In
Dallas, was in the nation’s
capital for a meeting of the
Peace Corps Advisory
Council, of which she is an
appointed member.
....“I taught at an all-
male teacher training
college in an Islamic area
of Nigeria,” recalled Winn.
“During the evenings I
spent a lot of time reading
by kerosene lamp or simply
gazing at the stars,” she
said. “I had time to
reassess my value struc
ture.”
....“When one lives in a
country where life goes on
at a much slower pace,”
Winn continued, “and
where the people take time
to enjoy nature in its most
basic sense, one grows to
determine that typically
western notions of what’s
important - big cars, big
houses, the luxuries we
strive so hard to get » are
not of great value.”
.... Winn noted that as a
result of her Peace Corps
experience, she began to
“really question whether
we are the ’developed’
nation or whether some
countries that don’t have
the industrial technology we
have are not perhaps better
’developed.'”
Craig Marberry Responds To Ebony Article
I am responding in part to
the article in Ebony magazine
by Chris Benson “Do Black]
Women Set Their Standards For
Marriages Too High?” (Jan.
’81). The greater question]
addressed herein, however, is
(exclusive to females, as the
Ebony article irresponsibly]
suggests.
I was disturbed by the 1
Spelmanites’ responses that
reduced a mate to a hunk of
flesh garnished with the niceties
whether these described 1
standards should be standards;
at all -- for both Black women
and Black men.
As a student in the Atlanta
University Center, I take a‘
special interest in the apparent
misguided values of some of the
women at neighboring Spelraan
College, who were repeatedly
quoted throughout the article.
(Might I add that Spelman, now
entering its second century of
operation, has gained too many
laudable distinctions to be
described in Ebony as “the
school that Black women
attended to meet men from
neighboring Morehouse
College.") At the same time,
however, I realize that these
misguided values are not
This is indeed a value system
based not on character, not on
substance, but on ‘things’ and'
the appearance of ‘things.’
However, I was also
disturbed by the remarks of
T.C. - the bus company
supervisor interviewed in the
article - who exemplifies the
fact that these poor values are
not exclusive to Black women.
The author discribes T.C. as
being sensitive to others,
intelligent, and socially flexible.
T.C., on the otherhand, lists his
nice car, his good money, and
his house as the basis of his
attractiveness.
Indeed, the issue of
misguided values is larger than
both Spelman students and
Black women. And, moreover,
this issue goes far beyond tjig
{question erf standards of
; marriage because it affects all
of us - male and female -- all
of the time. t: 4-
Because our values are
rooted in illusory status ranking
that says that sensitivity is
subordinate to position, we
believe that a ’laborer’ is a
failure and a ’professional’ is a
-success-regardless to their
degree of humanity, com
mitment to our race, etc. Dr.
Richard Tyson hit the crux of
the problem when he said that
we should abandon the white
criteria of excellence.
Not the economy, not
Black-an Black crime, not.
racism but assimilation is the
greatest threat to Blades, to
African-Americans who are
slowly becoming mere
‘American* than we are
remaining ‘African.’