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The Spelman Spotlight
Along the color line ... Continued from pg. 2
steel at home - ARMCO,
Allegheny Ludlum, U.S. Steel,
Phelps Dodge, and others - have
invested millions into
apartheid’s industries. Recently,
Chicago’s Southworks steel
plant, owned by U.S. Steel, laid
off several thousands workers,
on the rationale that U.S.
workers weren’t sufficiently
productive and that the plant
wasn’t making profits. Then local
steelworkers learned that the
steel beams used to build a new
state office building in Chicago
had been imported from South
Africa - despite the fact that
Southworks produces the iden
tical steel beams. Even more
outrageous was the fact that
Continental Illinois Bank has
loaned money to ISCOR, which
had produced these beams. In
short, Chicago laborers were
given their hard-earned wages to
a local bank, which in turn
financed a competitor which was
stealing their jobs!
There are dozens of similar
examples. The Phelps Dodge
copper mining corporation has a
poor record on domestic labor
relations, and has called for wage
cuts from its workers. But in its
mine in South Africa, Blacks earn
under 40 cents an hour, and
labor 60 hours per week. Invest
ment in apartheid not only buoys
the racist regime, and oppresses
African workers- it also destroys
jobs and neighborhoods inside
the U.S. Wage labor cannot
compete with slave iabor. We
have a direct moral and
economic interest in cutting the
corporate cords between the
U.S. and apartheid.
Part Two
South Africa is not simply a
police state which denies
democratic rights to the
overwhelming majority of its
people. It is not just a racially
segregated society, in which 3
million Black children suffer
from malnutrition, and in which
infant mortality rates per thou
sand live births are 13 for whites
and 90 for Africans. It is not solely
a place where percapita spen
ding on education in $1,115 for
whites and $170 for Blacks; and
where doctor/patient ratios are
1:330 for whites and 1:19,000 for
Africans. It represents in its
totality a renegade, fascist state, a
government lacking in basic
human decency, a regime which
views all people of color as
permanently inferior. Its grotes
que character and Hitlerian
social system would hardly seem
the place in which historically
oppressed people would find
any reason to cooperate, much
less gain profits from.
And yet the great irony is that
the one nation which maintains
the closest ties with the political
economy of apartheid, other
than the U.S. and the United
Kingdom, is the state of Israel.
The February, 1985 issue of Israeli
Foreign Affairs documents an
extra-ordinari I y close
relationship between Tel Avis
and Pretoria. Jane Hunter, a
Jewish progressive, notes that
Israel’s claim of $83 million in
exports to South Africa does not
include “polished diamonds,
Israel’s top export at $1 billion a
year, which are imported from
DeBeer’s Central Selling
Organization,”; "military tran
sactions, probably several hun
dred million dollars annually”;
joint undertakings such as
Iskoor, "a marriage of the South
African Steel Corporation and
Koor, a corporation owned by
Israel’s Histadrut that conducts
much trade with South Africa.”
Conversely, South African firms
provide 35 percent of all non-
U.S. foreign investment in Israel.
The military links between
Israel and apartheid are even
more striking according to
Hunter. South Africa has
purchased Israeli attack boats
"equipped with ship-to-ship
Gabriel missies, Dabur Coastal
patrol boats and Kfir jet fighters,
radar stations, electronic fences,
infiltration alarm systems, night
vision apparatus.” South Africa is
instrumental in the defense
posture of the Israeli state as
well. Apartheid firms help Israel
to improve its own modest steel
industry; they are helping to
bankrole “development of
Israel’s fighter bomber for the
1990’s, the Lavi.” Such extensive
ties help to explain why some
American Jewish leaders were
reluctant to become involved in
the Free South Africa Movement
demonstration this winter. But
the fact that “Israelis have train
ed South Africans in everything
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March 1985
from naval construction to
counterinsurgency techniques"
must be addressed by Americans
who maintain unquestioned
support for Israeli's policies,
while at the same moment offer
moral condemnations of the
brutalities of the apartheid
regime.
Black Americans are not im
mune from criticism on these
grounds. For nearly a decade,
the Reverend Leon Sullivan has
pushed the so-called "Sullivan
Principles” concept, which sets
racial standards for U.S. firms
doing business with apartheid. In
theory, the signatories of the
Sullivan Principles attempt to
humanize the barbarism of the
system by promoting
desegregated workplace
facilities, mandated equal pay for
jobs, and training non-whites for
“supervisory, administrative,
clerical and technical jobs.” But
according to Sullivan’s own
annual reports, progress along
such lines is at best marginal. In
the 1983 report, it was noted that
white employees filled 94 per
cent of all new managerial posts,
and that nonwhite workers "lost
ground steadily in clerical-
administrative programs over
the last three years.” About three
fourths of all unskilled workers
in the firms signing the Sullivan
Principles were Africans, while
only 0.3 percent were white. Two
percent of all managers were
Black, 97 percent were white.
Clearly, the strategy of reform-
from-within makes about as
much sense as trying to convince
Hitler passively to give up
fascism.
There are also hundreds of
Afro-American artists and
athletes who have performed in
South Africa during the past
decade, obtaining huge fees to
entertain white audiences. Their
presence legitimates the regime,
providing tactical support and
comfort to the opponents of
Black freedom. Just a short list of
these entertainers includes: Tina
Turner, Aretha Franklin, Eartha
Kitt, Johnny Mathis, Stephanie
Mills, Della Reese, Betty Wright,
the Staple Singers, Ray Charles,
and Nikki Giovanni. Throughout
the U.S., Blacks have organized
to boycott the performances and
records of all artists - Black and
white - who have profited from
apartheid. The system of tyranny
in South Africa is crumbling, and
within the next decade will fall
before the forces of democracy.
What we do inside the U.S. can
speed up that inevitable process.
Dr. Manning Marable teaches
political sociology at Colgate
University, Hamilton, New York.
"Along the Color Line” appears
in over 140 newspapers inter
nationally.
N.Y. Times reporter
challenges students
by Jasmine Williams
News Editor
A journalist from the National
Minority Affairs Committee,
Wednesday, February 20,
challenged Clark College jour
nalism students to saturate the
entire new industry.
“Make your presence known
and make your presence felt,”
said Reginald Stuart, a reporter
from the New York Times.
Stuart, who works for the
Washington Bureau of the Times
is also chairman of the NMAC.
He said the purpose of the
challenge is to become a
"meaningful participant” in the
news media.
“You want to be there,” he
said. “Not as a number or head
count or in case of an emergen
cy.”
Stuart said that minorities
make up less than 6% in
newspapers and 61% of the
major dailies in the United States
employ no minorities at all. He
also added that minorities make
9% in executive positions.
He said black journalists
should bring their experiences
to a forum. "There are no two
worlds,” he added. He said that a
certain "degree of intelligence
and a unique alliance with the
black community, together with
a special sensitivity” is what
white editors need.
Stuart said that white editors
are usually apprehensive about
hiring black journalist because of
"bad experiences with
minorities early on” or "will not
hire because of education.”
He urged the aspiring jour
nalist to go out to small papers,
knock on their doors and say, “I
want to work at this paper."
Because, he added, “If you are
there, they cannot ignore you.”
He also added that effective
February 15, a toll-free nation
wide number will provide infor
mation to those students in
terested in journalism as a
career.
“Desegregrate the entire news
meaia,” he said, "and jet that
remain your goal on your agenda
for the entire year."
correction
In our last issue there was a Davis was misquoted on a
price newsprint in the article publisher price. The price should
“Book prices at CWB cause have read$16.95 instead of $6.95.
tension.” In (he article Debra ,