Augusta focus. ([Augusta, Ga.) 198?-current, March 21, 1996, Image 9

Augusta focus., March 21, 1996, Page 9, Image 9

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Newspaper Page TextMixed-race individuals often must choose one race over another; often the implications are political. By Martha Waggoner Associated Press Writer DURHAM, N.C. Mitzi Carter was in the fifth grade when she realized she was expected to live a lie. Herteacher asked the students toraise their hands as she called out various races: white, black, Asian, Indian, etc. The daughter of a black man and a Japanese woman, Carter raised her hand twice — once for black and once for Asian. “She stopped and said, ‘Mitzi, vou can’t raise your hand for both,” recalls Carter, 22, a se nior at Duke University. The class laughed. “I felt like anidiot,” Carter says. “It shaped how I identified myself through middle school and high school.” The identity she assumed in those years growing up in Hous ton was black. More recently, she has begun identifying her self as both black and Japanese — a choice that defies some gov ernment forms, including the U.S. Census. That idea — that people who have more than one race in their ancestry can identify themselves that way — sounds simple enough. But even people like Carter, who insist on a multira cialidentification socially, aren’t sure when it comes to the Cen sus. The Census now offers these racial choices: white, black, American Indian, Asian or Pa cificlslander or other. The Office of Management and Budget, which decides on race choices on U.S. government forms, is pre paring test forms for the 2000 Census, some of which include a multiracial choice. Supporters of such a choice plan a July 20 march in Wash ington, D.C. A multiracial identification “is a step toward doing away with the whole concept of race,” says Business Blacks hold steady in takeover, buyout and merger business world. By Winslow Mason Jr. PHILADELPHIA NEWS OBSERVER In spite of the merger, takeover, buy-out environment of today’s business world, Black businesses still are gaining ground in both sales and size of business, said Alfred Edmond Jr., executive ed itor of Black Enterprise Maga zine. BE’s Black 100, a listing of the 100 top Black businesses in the country, all have shown steady growth in sales and in size of company, Edmond said, indicat ing that Blacks still are gaining ground in the U.S. marketplace. This news is in contrast to in dustry trendsthat predicted Black businesses would suffer from lack of competitiveness as white-owned businesses marry (merge) and become stronger. “Every environment has an op portunity,” Edmond said. “You could look at the mergers and say it’s a bad thing. But when you look at the opportunities that areopeningup...itcancreate new opportunities for Black business es,” Edmond said. Philadelphia’s Wade Cablevision, previously owned by African-American businessman James N. Wade and now part of Time Warner, is a perfect exam ple, said Diane Hannah-Wilson, director of human resources, gov ernment and community relations for Wade. “Wehavebeen acquiredand are merged under Time Warner as of Jan. 4, 1996. The purpose of re maining competitive in the cable environment was one of the rea Race If dad is black and mom is white what race is the child? A new racial designation may give the child the option of choosing multiracial on official forms. march organizer Charles Michael Byrd of New York City, the 43- year-old son of a uvlack woman and a white man. Response to march plans has been good, but not overwhelm ing, says Byrd, who has pub lished “Interracial Voice” on the Internet since September 1995. The Office of Management and Budget is in charge of deciding what racial choices are listed on government forms, and already has sought comment on trial forms for the 2000 census that include a multiracial choice. One problem with devising new Census forms is that existing laws setting up benefits or pro tections require certain racial data, “and the definition of mul tiracial could blur some of those enforcement issues,” OMB spokeswoman Sally Katzen said Sunday. “We have learned, not surpris ingly, that is much more compli cated than a simple yes orno,” she said in a telephone interview. OMB hopes to make a decision on whether to use the new forms by early 1997, Katzen said. Jennifer Calloway of Raleigh, the mother of three racially mixed children, wants more in formation before .deciding whether to attend the march. She adamantly supports the multiracial choice on the Census because it would help multira cial children. “Children in healthy, happy homes sometimes feel like they’re choosingmomordad,” when they sons for the merger. And it was a very promising move,” she said. “It’s too new to put our finger on what’s been going on since the merger ... but the merger does offer a lot of future opportunities as well as employment and devel opment for our employees. “We are now part of a much larger company. We now have the opportunity to have growth op portunities. It has been very good. All of the employees here are very happy about being a part of Time Warner,” she said. But while the marriage of Wade Cablevision and Time Warner has created euphoria among employ ees, Black business and entrepre neursdoechoconcernsabout stay ing competitive in the market place. “What we may seeisthat a lot of Black businesses will find it easi er to get into business, and then find themselves having to be bought out or to accept a deal they can’t refuse,” said Ron Wilson, president and CEO of Philadel phia’s Coca-Cola bottling fran chise, one of the largest Black owned businesses in the country. That could have an effect on the number of Black-owned business esand thelongevity of Black-busi ness ownership, he said. “For us, it’s not a concern,” Wil son said, adding that any take over or buyout of the business is unlikely because of its size. Black businesses, bothlargeand small, are in a sink-or-swim envi ronment because of the emphasis ongrowth and size in the business industry, Wilson noted. The current environment will Closer Look choose one racial identity over another, she says. “They feel like they’re rejecting a parent.” Some blacks and multiracials say there could be a backlash from a multiracial checkoff on Census forms. For example, if fewer people identify themselves as black, the government could use those lower numbers to cut back on affirmative action and other pro grams that help minorities. Stephanie Mason, 24, of Chapel Hill shares those fears. Mason, the daughter of a white mother and a black father, considers herself black. “I'm a little afraid there are people that could use a shift in those numbers to make them selves look very gracious and egalitarian and also to diminish the voice of black America,” Ma son says. She says she looks “at race not as a biological concept, but more as asocial, political, cultural con cept. I identify in those ways with the African-American ex perience.” Kelly Brewington of Pelham, N.Y., sometimes identifies her self as black on forms “because that seems to make the most sense politically because blacks are under-represented.” The daughter ofablack woman and a white man, Brewington identifies socially with both races. Through marriage and remar riage, her own family includes threeblack siblings and one white sibling. separatethe “pure” entrepreneurs from regular entrepreneurs, said Edmond. “We're looking at the second generation of African Americans who are buying businesses,” he said, calling them pure entrepre neurs, or business owners who create a business, gain wealth, sell the business and then buy other businesses. “That’sthe way you accumulate wealth,” he said. The first generation of Black business owners are mainly fam ily-owned business, which grew over a period of fifty years,” he said. “There will be more Blacks who buy business, mainly Lecause they don’t have fifty years to build a business from the ground up,” he said. i There are concerns about merg ers going on but, so far, Black businesses are remaining steady, Edmond said. As mergers and buyouts are made more companies will be sell ing off divisions and other hold ings of their companies, creating more opportunities for Blacks to buy, he said. Mark David Norris, 35, is seiz ing those opportunities. Norris, who runs Urban De signs Inc., specializes in product management and creative design services. His small company has done market research for For tune 500 companies and has done everything from getting corpo rate development contracts to de signing logos for local compa nies. He employs only 13 people and “My parents taught me never to have to choose, to be what I reallyam —both African-Ameri can and white,” she says. Still, she’s not sure she would choose multiracial on the 2000 Census. “I'’know I won’t choose white, though,” says Brewington, 19, a sophomore at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “First and foremost, I am a per son of color.” She used to wish very strongly for a multiracial box on forms but wonders now about the po litical consequence for blacks.' It “would, in effect, create a new race,” says Jon Michael Spencer, a music and American studies professor at the Univer sity of Richmond. “Once the government creates anewrace, it can create a kind of snowball effect that’s not in tended,” says Spencer, who has written a book comparing col ored people in South Africa to multiracial people in the United States. Spencer used to advocate that people with any black heritage identify themselves as black be cause that is how society will treat them. He now believes they should be able to check all the boxes that reflect their racial makeup. Despite her childhood experi ence, even Carter has mixed feel ings about how to describe her self on the Census. Carter says she would be interested in at tending the march except she will be on the West Coast. She saysshe is worried about the loss of black political power but with reservations,.,, Sometimes she feels like “the black community wants every body who’s mixed with black to become part of the black commu nity” for political reasons. In other situations, “you feel left out. They tell you ‘you’re not re ally black, you're mixed.” expects to make more than sl3 million in revenue this year. Norris credits include produc ing a television commercial for Mercy Health Plan, and creating the new log for the Philadelphia International Airport, as well as launching a new greeting card company, Send Inc. One of the down sides of the merger atmosphere, however, is that there may be fewer Black owned businesses, competition will increase among that small number and Black businesses, among all businesses, will have to find new ways to increase their competitiveness in the market place. “There are strengths and weak nesses in any business,” Edmond said. Big business can offer more products and services and com pete globally to keep costs low for customers. Small and middle-sized busi nesses can better cater to their customers’ needs and give them the attention and specialized ser vices big businesses often over look, he said. “It's not a matter of bigger being better. We've seen that biggerisn’t better. Many companies get too big and then are forced to lay off employees,” he said, citing the recent layoff of 4,000 workers at AT&T. Survival depends on the busi nessowner’s approach and ability to capitalize on all opportunities, Edmond stressed. Originallyappeared in the Phil adelphia New Observer, Febru ary 7, 1996 issue. AUGUSTA FOCUS March 21, 1996 Food and Drug Administration takes on the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments By Nate Stewart National Center for Public Policy Research Staff Writer Backed by the Clinton Admin istration, the Food and Drug Administration is waging its lat est crusade against tobacco. The FDA eeks to finger nicotine as a drug, cigarettes as a drug-deliv ery device and, despite the re cent increase in illegal drug use by teens, tobacco companies as drug lords number one. In previ ous battles in the tobacco wars, the actual tobacco product or ambient emissions of the prod uct weresingled out as “culprits,” but now, local neighborhood zon ing rights, advertisers, retail store owners and, seemingly, the Constitutionitselfhave made the FDA’s Most Wanted List. The FDA'’s recent long-armed proposal would impose a pletho raofunconstitutional provisions. Among other things, the propos al would bar outright any tobac co advertisements within 1,000 feet of any school or playground. The ban includes signs, clocks, self-service displays, bus adver tising, and anything else that might conceivably fall under the umbrella of “advertising.” Never mind the First Amendment. Nev ermindthe disadvantage caused to store owners unwittingly lo cated near a playground. Never mind that neither the Founders nor the current Congress believes that what essentially are local zoning decisions should be dic tated from Washington. The FDA would have us be lieve that federal agencies can regulate billboard advertising in local neighborhoods through the commerce clause —the part of the Constitution that gives the federal government the right to regulate interstate commerce. Since schools are engaged in training children to participate in U.S. commerce, the FDA rea sons, the federal government should be able to regulate any thing near a school. To the FDA, it’s elementary. Notso fast. The Supreme Court recently ruled against another federal statute based on this rea soning. In the United States vs. Lopez, the Supreme Court in 1995 struck down the federal government’s claim that the 1,000-foot perimeter of a school ground may be federally regu lated (in the Lopez case, to ban guns) under the theory that school zones engage in commerce. In the opinion of the Court, Chief Justice Rehnquist argued that, “Under the theories that the gov ernment presents ... itis difficult to perceive any limitation on fed eral power... we[would be] hard pressed to posit any activity by any individual that Congress is without power to regulate.” Under Lopez reasoning then, the FDA’s tobacco proposal is unconstitutional. Itisjust as well. If the FDA’s reasoning were to prevail, what other “advertise ments” might our government one day condemn as unhealthy forourchildren’s viewing? Could a billboard advertisement for a church or synagogue near a pub Women’s History Month luncheon at NCO Club Fort Gordon observes Nation al Women’s History Month with a luncheon on Tuesday, March 26, 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Fort Gordon Officer’s Club. News Channel 6 co-anchor Deaiddra Griffin is the guest speaker. This event is sponsored by Fort Gordon’s Equal Employment Op portunity (EEO) office and is open to the public. Reservations and payment are required by March 22. For more information and reservations, call the EEO office 1 Do you have somthing to buy or to sell? FOCUS your ad on this page. E Call 724-7855 to arrange it. lic school — which students are, after all, compelled to attend — not conceivably be said to violate the so-called separation of church and state? When it comes to the FDA, Justice Rehnquist’s diagnosis of the federal government’s tenden cy toexpand its power is remark ably germane. Not only do the new FDA restrictions ban the aforementioned signs, clocks, posters and other non-tobacco products, but the FDA seeks to make cigarette manufacturers liable for any violations of its tobaccoreguiations by retail store owners. The FDA says it can make to bacco companies liable for the actions of retail store owners because the FDA seeks to depu tizetobacco companies asdefacto law enforcement agents. The FDA proposes toempower tobac co companies to inspect retail stores for violations of the tobac co regulations. Evidently the FDA forgot about the Fourth and Fifth amend ments. According to the Consti tution, a person’s property may be taken only after a warrant is obtained for its seizure and per manently held only after due process of law. Tobacco compa nies don’t have the constitution al power to inspect or confiscate the property of retail stores. Even if its motives are pure, the FDA cannot compel tobacco compa nies to violate the basic rights of other Americans. There are, of course, other in triguing queries one might pose to the FDA. Such as, why do the new regulations impose a feder al agerestriction of 18 on tobacco purchases when all 50 states al ready currently enforce theiden tical age requirement? Why should the federal government require that all tobacco be hid den behind retail counters when a consumer must be 18 to pur chase the product anyway? Why label nicotine a drug un der law when the provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act can easily be construed to give “drug addicts” like smokers employment protection rights not available to nonsmokers? Wouldn’t this be counterproduc tive, if the FDA’s intent is to discourage smoking? And should the FDA take on the daunting new responsibility of regulating the massive tobacco industry when a 1995 General Account ing Office’s report found that the FDA now takes twice as long to approve new medical devices as it did in 1989? Wouldn’t more lives be saved by speeding the approval of new drugs and med ical devicesthat by banning some billboards and products like hats and clocks and T-shirts bearing the names of tobacco products? And, if nicotine is as addictive as the FDA claims, how did 43.4 million Americans manage to quit smoking? * These are questions and con cerns that one hopes the FDA and Congress will consider be fore Lopez and the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments go up in smoke. at 791-4551. National Women’s History Month is observed March Ist through March 31st. This obser vance was established in 1987 by Public Law 100-9 to recognize the many contributions women have made throughout our nation’s his tory. This year’s theme, “See His tory in a New Way,” defines wom en’slives and accomplishments as an essential part of our national history because history looks dif ferent when the contributions of women are included. 9