The Spelman spotlight. (Atlanta , Georgia) 1957-1980, March 12, 1980, Image 2

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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?