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May 30, 1996 AUGUSTA FOCUS
GOING PLACES By J. Philip Waring
Stand for Children rally
in D.C. on Saturday
he urgency and importance of
I the forthcoming Saturday, June
Ist national Stand for Children
rally in Washington D.C. displaces an
intended review of a gala 40th wedding
anniversary present to two retired Au
gusta principals from their seven very
successful children.
So let’s continue with Marian Wright
Edelman’s Childwatch column in the
May 10 edition of the Columbia, S.C.
Black Media, and get back with the
anniversary celebration at a later time.
Getinvolved in the siand for chil
dren
Every 45 seconds, a black child drops
out of school. Every 50 seconds, a Black
child is arrested. Every two minutes, a
Black baby is born in poverty. Every six
minutes, a Black baby is born at low
birthweight. Every nine minutes a Black
baby is born to a mother who received
late or no prenatal care Every 46 min
utes a baby dies. Every four hours a
Black child is killed by firearms.
And the list of chilling statistics goes
on and on.
The question is, “How long will we
listen to this long list of sad realities
before we say, “Enough”? I think it’s
time to stand together as a community
and as a nation to declare an end to the
outrageous neglect, poverty and death
of our children. That’s why the Chil
dren’s Defense Fund has made a call to
every adult to come together and Stand
For Children at the Lincoln Memorial
on June 1.
Stand for Children Day is a national
day of commitment to children. It is
about spiritual and community renew
al. It is about taking responsibility for
our future. June lis atime when we will
FOCUS IN SOUTH CAROLINA By L. E. Harrison
Legislative results
he South Carolina 1996 legisla-
I tive session had a focus on educa
tional, economic and human im
provement. Election-year politics, how
ever, widen the gap between hopes and
reality. South Carolina has no monopo
ly on such results. Political actions and
reactions are all around us.
Education programs for children
should not become bogged down in po
litical rhetoric or attempts to pander to
extremes. For a state so far down on the
education ladder, full-day kindergar
ten for its young children is not only
prudent, itis a necessity. One end of our
improvement efforts does not have to
suffer if we invest in the other end. The
framework should be there, butit should
not become an avenue for “vouchers” or
any other code word for dismantling
public education. Children should not
be used as pawns or held hostage by our
social shortcomings. We need to be be
yond that now.
We also fall short, still, in funding for
programs and facilities of learning and
improvement. Tax relief need not be a
political ploy for votes. It has become a
contest between property owners and
those they perceive as not being proper
ty owners. The perception is not only
often wrong, it is mainly a matter of
reducing one form oftaxation and, soon
er or later, making up the lost revenue
in another form. You would think the
nugustalFOCUS
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Jjoin together as parents, grandparents,
aunts, uncles, big brothers and sisters,
students and educators, nurturers and
providers and Americans — not Repub
licans or Democrats, Baptists or Meth
odists, Blacks or Whites or Latinos, poor
or middle class — in the common goal of
improving the quality of life for all of
America’s children.
This is not a partisan day. It is a day
to draw a moral line in America’s polit
ical, economic and cultural sand of do
ing no harm to children.
What can you do to get involved?
*Spread the Word: Tell everybody you
know to stand with us for children on
June lat the Lincoln Memorial in Wash
ington D.C. We need to send a clear
message that we are reclaiming the
lives of our children. Tell at least 10 of
your friends, and tell them to let 10 of
their friends know. We can provide you
with posters and fliers for the stores
where you shop, barber shops, hair
dressers and coffee shops. Put an an
nouncement in your congregation’s bul
letin, a school or organization newslet
ter and the local paper. .
*Bring a busload to Stand for Chil
dren: Begin now to organize a bus, van
or car convoy to bring your family,
friends, neighbors, co-workers and con
gregation to Washington D.C. My staff
will send you a Bus Captain’s Guide if
you call. Every Black church in America
ought to send at least one busload to
Washington on June 1. What a mighty
moral witness for our children it would
be if just half of the Black churches sent
a busload.
Our Black children desperately need
Black adults to stand up and fight for
them. Will you?
electing public was more aware, but we
are still subject to the politics of separa
tion, distortion and scapegoating —
though we certainly cannot afford to be.
That same brand of politics tells us
prison and correction facilitiesare where
we should be spending our effort and
money. That is where the “bad” people
are. We want to vote for the candidate
and party that said they would restore
“law and order.” They have not done
such a good job. It tells us society is not
to blame, but that only part of society is
to blame. It tells us one side of law
enforcement is too soft, the other side
too strict and encroaching on “rights.”
Our political system is only as good as
the people, ideas and morals that form
it. Enlightenment and full participa
tion are two key components in the
formation we should and must have.
The national political scene mirrors
the one we know locally and regionally.
Itisabattle ofideas but, more than that,
a battle of how we see ourselves as
groups of one nationality, particularly
American. We can understand Dole’s
actions or not; we can like Clinton or
not; we can make judgements about
how and why our resources are limited,
but there will remain the one question.
Itis of our past, present and future. The
question is, how can America be Amer
ica to all of its citizens? This is a good
year to seek the answer.
Charles W. Walker
Publisher
Frederick Benjamin
Managing Editor
Dot T. Ealy
Marketing Director
Rhonda Jones
Copy Editor
Timmy Cox
News Correspondent
Derick Wells
Art Director
Sheila Jones
Office Manager
Lillian Wan
Layout Artist
Editorial
CIVIL RIGHTS JOURNAL By Bernice Powell Jackson
Immigration and race
suggest that we respectfully retire
I Emma Lazarus’ poem. Let’seraseit
from the base of the Statue of Liber
ty. If we don’t mean it, let’s not pretend
anymore. A central part of our history is
now dead.
The United States no longer has a
welcome mat out for immigrants, legal or
illegal, documented or undocumented.
We nolonger can say, “Give me your tired
and your poor, your huddled masses
yearning to be free, the wretched refuse
of your teeming shore,” as Ms. Lazarus
wrote so eloquently.
After two centuries of accepting starv
ing immigrants from Italy and Ireland,
prisoners from England and parts of Eu
rope, political exiles from Eastern Eu
rope and other parts of the world who
wanted desperately to come to this coun
try and enslaved people from many parts
of Africa who did not, it seems we no
longer want to be known as a country of
opportunities for immigrants.
This anti-immigrant wave of feeling
sweeping the country can be seen in sev
eral differont ways. Public perception is
that immigrants, legal and illegal, are on
the public dole. The reality is that only
about five percent of working-age legal
immigrantsreceive public assistance and
undocumented immigrants are not eligi
ble toreceive Aid to Families with Depen
dent Children, food stamps, Medicaid,
THIS WAY FOR BLACK EMPOWERMENT By Dr. Lenora Fulani
An alliance between the
overtaxed and underserved
s an independent political leader
Awho is not tied to the old, failed
Democratic and Republican par
ties, I have been working to forge a
common ground between white Middle
America and the African-American com
munity for many years to create a new
party.
When Ross Perot ran for president in
1992 and I saw Middle America begin
ning to come together to say, “America
is our country and we want our country
back,” I recognized an opportunity to
bring my people, the African-American
people, together with these angry and
outspoken white people. We all want to
take our country back from the profes
sional politicians and special interests
who are running it into the ground.
I just completed a run for governor of
New York in the Democratic primary
against the 12-year incumbent, Mario
Cuomo. It was an election in which the
coming-into-being alliance between the
white center and the Black electorate
got to flex its political muscle for the
first time.
This was my first run for office in New
York as a Democrat. As an activist
committed to building a major third
party in America, I had always run for
office as an independent. This year,
however, I ran as a Democrat for a very
specific reason. It was part of a gamble.
The first part of my gamble was that
African Americans’ anger and dissatis
faction with the Democratic Party would
manifest itself through my candidacy.
The second part was that the white
center —the Perot voters of 1992 —
would vote for a radically independent
Black woman. Both parts of the gamble
paid off.
I shocked the political pundits when 1
polled 21 percent of the statewide vote,
shocked them even further when I polled
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INFLATE DEFENSE SPENDING.
Medicare or Supplemental Security In
come. Public perception is that our coun
try is being overrun with immigrants,
documented and undocumented. The re
ality is that, in 1910, 16 percent of the
U.S. population were foreign-born while
only 7.9 percent were foreign-born in
1990. Public perception is that immi
grants are taking jobs from Americans;
the reality is that many of those jobs are
leaving this country and that many of the
jobs which immigrants take would go
unfilled otherwise.
Responding tothe anti-immigrant feel
ing, the U.S. Congress hasrecently passed
bills which would tighten U.S. borders
and make it more difficult for undocu
mented workers to get jobs. The House
bill even denies education to children of
undocumented workers. The Senate bill
restricts public benefits not only to un
documented persons, but also to those in
this country legally. During this political
year, it is no coincidence that 70 percent
ofthe estimated four million documented
and undocumented immigrants live in
six voter-rich states.
Some have asked how the anti-immi
grant feelings are associated with race.
One has only to look at the history of
immigration in our nation to see that the
color of the immigrants has changed over
the past two decades and one must won
der how much that has impacted the
between 30 - 35 percent of the vote in
key African-American districts, and to
tally baffled them when I polled over 40
percent of the vote in six overwhelming
ly white, rural upstate counties —the
very counties where Ross Perot had run
most strongly in 1992.
As the election results show, there is
already in place the beginnings of an
electoral alliance between the white
“radical Center” and the African-Amer
ican community. Of course, there are a
lot of people who say we don’t belong
together. Professional politicians, party
hacks, and political pundits maintain
that our interests are too divergent and
our agendas mutually exclusive. Dem
ocratic Party liberals warn us that the
white independents are “racist.” . Re
publican Party conservatives warn the
white center that the Black community
is too “militant.” i
But they miss the point. What we all
want — white and Black — is a democ
racy in which we, the people, determine
government policy for our benefit and
not for the benefit of an entrenched
political elite. If we can put in place a
functional democracy, we're confident
we can work on our differences in a way
thatis developmental tothe entire coun
try.
Many of the former Perot voters are
concerned with government overspend
ing and over-involvement in the daily
lives of Americans. The Black commu
nity is concerned with this too, but from
a different angle.
Social service and regulatory bureau
cracies are bloated and mismanaged.
But that’s not all that’'s wrong with
them. The poor who are intended to be
served by these government programs
—many ofthem Black and Latino— are
hardly the true beneficiaries. For exam
ple, 65 cents of every dollar spent on
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BY WRIGHT FOR THE PALM BEACH POST, FLA.
slamming shut of the doors to the world.
Then there is the anti-immigrant vio
lence. The whole nation watched the beat
ings of Mexican immigrants by police in
California. There are some who have
tried to excuse the beatings by saying
that the Mexicans shouldn’t have been
here and shouldn’t have run. No one
deservestobe beaten by the police for any
reason, whether they are in this country
legally or not.
Butimmigrants, documented and un
documented, are not only suffering po
lice brutality. There are dozens of cases
of anti-immigrant violence, particular
ly against Asians. In January, for exam
ple, Thien Minh Ly, a 24-year-old Viet
namese man and UCLA graduate was
kicked, beaten and stabbed to death
while skating on the grounds of his
neighborhood high school. His alleged
killer had bragged of killing “a Jap.”
And, although white supremacist para
phernalia was found in his home, both
the alleged Kkiller and police deny this
was a race-hate crime.
. Those of us who are not Native Amer
icanareallimmigrantstothisland. Some
of our ancestors came legally, others did
not. Some came willingly, others did not.
Scapegoating immigrants will not solve
the economic problems of our nation. We
must find a way to all live together —
with respect.
welfare goes to the bureaucracy and not
to the poor; 20 percent of many public
school budgets is spent on complying
with state regulations and not on edu
cating our kids,
But even worse than being bloated
and wasteful, these bureaucracies are
ineffective. The social ills they were
designed to redress have gotten worse,
not better. Funding for these programs
has become the grist for a massive polit
ical patronage mill, which allows in
cumbent politicians of both parties to
create and sustain their own power bases
—toplay political football with the lives
of our children — while the conditions
in our communities worsen and the econ
omy declines.
Although these programs provide a
“safety net” for many, the prevailing
policy is one which keeps the poor bare
ly suspended above total destitution,
rather than creating ways out of the
“safety net” trap and into an economi
cally and socially developing society.
We could — if we, the people, instead of
the politicians and bureaucrats, made
the decisions — spend far less money on
far more creative and effective social
development programs. We could both
cut taxes and improve peoples’ lives.
But to make that possible, an entirely
new environment, a “democracy envi
ronment,” must be created in which
public- and private-sector policy is more
directly shaped by the people of this
country. That’s needed to stimulate over
all economic growth and social redevel
opment — to improve education, unem
ployment insurance, welfare and food
stamps to survive.
There must be a dramatic political
restructuring in which the corrupt in
cumbent machines are tossed out of
See UNDERSERVED, p. 11
