The Spelman spotlight. (Atlanta , Georgia) 1957-1980, March 12, 1980, Image 2
Spelman Spotlight March 12, 1980
Page 2
THE VOICE OF BLACK WOMANHOOD
Edltorin-Chief - Rolonda G. Watts
Associate Editor - Pamela Denise Moore
Editors
Advertising Manager - Phyllis Sawyer
Art Editor- Ellen Robinson
Business Manager- Trevonia Brown
Angela Nickerson
Circulation Manager - La vita J ohnson
News Editor - Kiron Kanina Skinner
Photography Editors - Kirby Ayres
Pamela Scott
Public Relations Manager - Sheron Covington
Religion Editor - Angela Benson
Literary Editor- Michelle Dacus
Photographers - J oe Louis
Ruth Cauthen
Kirby Ayres
Rise Up Blacks!
By Christopher M. Hamlin
To be the bottom of anything
to a certain extent is not good. In
our society, many people are at
the bottom. But the time has
come for Black Americans to
elevate themselves and rise up.
It is true that our world is
plagued with many problems.
Some we will never find a
solution for, but we should not
become nor accept a nonchalant
attitude towards them. We
should strive to solve our
problems and create a more
pleasurable and livable society
for all men. We must rise up and
be determined to change the ills
that we see in our homes, schools
and other major institutions.
Truly in a world where the
mass media paints a picture of
the ability to live a “high” and
carefree life, it is easy to become
satisfied with the way various
situations are or should remain.
Dr. Benjamin E. Mays in his book
Disturbed About Man stated that
“If we ever reach the goal and
become satisfied, stagnation sets
in and we cease to grow. And
when satisfaction settles upon us,
we have nothing challenging to
spur us on.” In our world today,
the Black college student as well
as the non-student can not afford
to become satisfied with the way
things are. Doing so would be a
form of suicide.
Our generation has proved to
the world that we are a different
breed with new ideas, higher
goals and better standards. It is
left up to us to live up to those
goals and standards. For we too
must elevate ourselves and rise
up. We must strive harder than
we have ever striven before. We
can not accept the way things are
in our world. We must attempt to
change and transform. The future
of the world is in our hands if we
would only rise up.
To Be Young, Black, Female —
And Afraid To Go To War
by Pamela Denise Moore
Associate Editor
As a member of the NOW
generation and a product of the
progress of the sixties, I had
believed that the sky was my only
limit when it came to my personal
and career development.
Although I was born and raised
in the heart of cotton country in
the Mississippi Delta—where
slavery used to be king—I was
never reallly exposed to the kind
of life my parents and my parent’s
parents knew. Thus, I never knew
what it was really like to be
limited from achieving simply
because of color or sex.
As a matter of fact (without
bragging), I think that I have
been pretty good at achieving the
things that I have wanted.
What's more, I have been led
to believe that because I’m
black and female, there are more
opportunities available to me
than ever before.
However, with the recent ad
vent of the Iranian and
Afghanistan crisis—and all of
President Carter’s talk about the
registration of women for the
draft, I am slowly learning that I
may not be the only one who con
trols my destiny.
It has been said that the actual
chance of women being drafted
are slim; however, the mere talk
of it is enough to send one
through changes.
Now don’t get me wrong—1
have no problems with fighting,
that is, physically fighting in a
war. I believe that women should
fight and defend their country
along with men.
Curiously enough, it is the
possibility of having to stand and
defend my ideological principles
that is most frightening to me.
When women in Third World
countries fight, at least they know
or feel that their cause is a just
cause. In this particular situation,
I am a Third World descendant
but I will possibly have to fight on
behalf of the side that most of the
world brands as the enemy. Fur
thermore, in the case of the
Iranians, why should I be forced
to participate in a war
precipitated by the U.S.’s refusal
to turnover a murderer and thief
to the justice he deserves? And in
respect to the Afghanistan
situation, does it really make a
difference for black America if
we are ruled by whites in the U.S.
or whites in Russia? And in terms
of the impact of war on the black
community, can we really survive
another conflict that will deprive
us of more men as well as women,
which in essence could be
another genocidal attempt on our
race?
To tell the truth, I do not have
the answers to these questions,
even though t am still searching
for them. But if mv guest for
truth reveals harsh and un
pleasant realities, I may have to
take a stand that will put me—a
small, little, black lady—against
the might and will of the entire
United States, and my ambitions,
dreams—my entire future would
thus be destroyed by the cruel
consequences of such a stand.
But, in the final analysis, it
may make no difference in the
world whether I fight to live or
die in order to not fight, for I
am just a cog in the Great
Wheel of Life. History goes
on—with or without me—and it
is the threat of War that has
frightened me to the reality of
this fact.
A Review of the Past Decade
Basic Issues In Black Education
By Manning Marable
One of the decisive bat
tlegrounds between black people
and the American government
has been in the field of education.
At the beginning of the modem
Civil Rights Movement, activists
in Little Rock, Arkansas and
other Southern towns challenged
the legitimacy of segregation and
white supremacy by attacking the
existence of Jim Crow public
schools. For many blacks,
desegregated education became
the vehicle through which some
of their broader political deman
ds against racism could be
achieved. By the late 1960s,
however, the demensions of the
black critique of American
education had shifted significan
tly. Astute observers within the
black movement began to
recognize the limitations of the
demand for desegregation which
public schools, and the very
bankrupt and backward con
dition of the entire educational
establishment which whites had
created for themselves.
In Education and Black
Struggle, edited by the Institute
of the Black World, Grace Boggs
observed that “the individualist,
opportunist, orientation, of
American education has been
ruinous to the American com
munity and most obviously, of
course, to the black community.”
Children are “isolated” from one
another; the “natural relationship
between theory and practice” is
reversed “in order to keep kids
off the labor market. The natural
way to learn is to be interested
first and then to develop the skill
to pursue your interest.”
Dissatisfaction with the
educational status quo, combined
with a desire to advance the sub
merged traditions of black
ethnicity, culture and history
within a structural form, led to a
revolution in black thinking and
practice in the arena of
educati*-'"
By the mid-1970s, the grounds
for educational struggle had shif
ted still further away from the
clear-cut demands for “in-
tergration within white
educational institutions.”
Generally, the major issues in
volving education which con
fronted blacks during the period
were the following:
1) Desegregation. Broad
elements of the political New
Right had taken the question of
“school busing for racial balance”
and turned it into a platform for
white supremacy. Should blacks
continue to support in principle
the desegregation of public
educational institutions,
especially through the use of
“busing”? Were all-black public
schools, as the N.A.A.C.P. main
tained, “inferior”?
2) Traditional Black Colleges
and Universities. The
desegregation of American civil
society and the limited reforms
granted by the Johnson Ad
ministration had accelerated
black enrollments at traditionally
white universities and colleges.
What should happen to
traditional black colleges?
Should they be merged with
“white-sister institutions”, or
gradually “integrated” by white
students, faculty and ad
ministrators?
3) Black Studies. Alter tlJLC
boom period of the late 1960s,
Black Studies Department ex
perienced drastic cutbacks and
attacks from white universities.
What was the philosophical basis
for Black Studies in the era of ex
panding desegregation? What
was the relationship, if any, bet
ween the general white Reaction
in culture and politics during the
1970s and the decline of Black
Studies during the period?
4) The issue of community
controlled public schools and
other educational institutions
within black neighborhoods. The
principle of community control
of schools must be explored as an
important process for
educational improvement and ac
countability. Major cities like
New York, which has had com
munity school districts for the
past decade, have never really
had community control per se.
Local school boards have few of
ficial powers, and the state
legislature carefully cir
cumscribed the authority of local
school administrators. Real com
munity control, where the final
educational authority actually
resides within the black com
munity, would mean the begin
ning of a healthier, more produc
tive and challenging atmosphere
in our public schools.
Community-controlled schools,
progressive black adminis
trators, plus massive, new fed
eral expenditures in the form
of outright grants and low in
terest loans to such schools,
could produce an educational ex
perience for black children
superior in most respects to a sur-
burban, white school. The choice
of setting linguistic and ethnic
curriculum standards would
remain in our own hands, as
would our children’s futures. Will
a move towards this kind of
educational alternative occur in
the 1980s?