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JULY 24,1 y, AUGUSTA FOCUS
8A
NATIONAL COMMENTARY By Marian Wright Edelman
We must get our youth
before courts do
: mid the public hysteria about
rising juvenile crime rates and
politicians’ pleas for harsher
penalties against young law
breakers, New York Supreme
Court Justice Gloria Dabiri is starting to
hear a different response to crime.
“I think more and more police officers
and prosecutors are understanding that
it will take more than punishment to
address youth crime,” said Judge Dabiri,
a member of the Black Community Cru
sade for Children’s Juvenile and Family
Court Judges’ Leadership Council. “I
spoke at a National Prosecutors Associa
tion recently, and the tit.c of the meeting
was ‘Combating Juvenile Crime through
Prevention.’ It’s nice to see the district
attorneys of major cities and other begin
ning to understand that it’s part of the
job to address this issue before our chil
dren end up in court.”
Still, the government’s response to ju
venile crime tends to be “too punitive,”
Judge Dabiri notes, reflecting on much of
the legislation floating around Congress.
“We know the kinds of things that place
kids at risk, but we aren’t addressing
them. We know children need adult su
pervision, and that we need to address
truancy, abuse and neglect. We know
that we need more after-school programs
thatbuild relationshipsbetween kids and
adults.”
Judge Dabiri is right. Too many politi
cians focus on the immediate political
reward for “getting tough” with young
offenders. They ignore the long-term so
cietal benefits from investing in ways to
keep young people out of trouble, and
turn them back into productive citizens
when they do enter the court system.
Now, Congress is under pressure to
pass another “tough on crime” bill tar
geting young people. One piece of that
bill already has passed in the House, the
Juvenile Crime Control Act, which pro
vides SSOO million a year for states to
punish young offenders, provides for try
ing more children in adult courts, and
devotes not a penny to prevention: Also
awaiting passage is a second House bill
that threatens to undermine the Juve
nile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
Act of 1974, which is the primary grant
thefederal government allocatestostates
to run juvenile courts with such existing
conditions as states must protect truants
and runaways from unjustifiea incar
ceration, and juvenile delinquents from
incarceration with adults. On the Senate
side, yet another bill includes certain
harmful provisions similar to the two
House bills. All three pieces of legislation
fail to invest adequately in prevention
and emphasize trying children as adults
and imprisoning children with adults. A
comprehensive bill, passed to some de
greeon all three measures, is expected by
midsummer.
Something is wrong with the values of
anation that would rather spend $30,000
to lock our children up after they get irto
trouble and won’t spend 3,00 to give
them a Head Start. And something is
wrong with us if we do not fight the
criminalization of our youths and their
need for positive alternatives to the
streets: jobs, after-school programs and
recreation.
Charles W. Walker
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Too many politicians
focus on the immediate
political reward for
getting tough” with
young offenders. They
ignore the long-term
societal benefits from
investing in ways to
keep young people out
of trouble, and turn them
back into productive
citizens when they do
enter the court system.
Violence is a real threat in today’s
society and we should be concerned about
it. Children are among the most likely of
all age groups to be the victims of vio
lence. And one out of every two children
murdered in America is a black child,
even though black children make up only
15 percent of the juvenile population.
But we need to make sure that our
concern over crime doesn’t force us to
forget that these are still ou children.
They are 10 times more likely to be vic
tims of violent crime than to be arrested
for a violent crime. Also, while violent
crime by youthsisstill too high, it dropped
2.9 percent between 1994 and 1995, the
first decline in a decade. Homicide by
youths fell 15.2 percent between 1994
and 1995. .
It wastesmore energy, and more money,
to come up with stricter punishments
than it does to join forces on the mea
sures we know reduce crime and broaden
opportunities for young people. We know
that most juvenile crime is committed
between 3 - 6 p.m., which highlights the
importance of having more adult men
tors and after-school safe havens. We
know that for better schools and more
talented teachers. We knot that even
trouble youths will seek out role models,
which emphasizes theimportance of keep
ing them out of prisons and away from
hardened adult criminals, and instead
keeping them in schools and rehabilita
tion programs where they can learn from
adults worth emulating. And we know
that theincreasein violent juvenile crime
has been drive by the easy availability of
guns, which stresses the importance of
urging our political leaders to pass legis
lation to make handguns less accessible
to our children.
These are the kinds of things we have
to do if we are serious about reducing
crime. We must add our voices to the list
of individuals who are calling for real
solutions and reject the claims of those
who think the answer lies in building
more prisons and sentencing children
and youths to longer terms.
Marian Wright Edelman is president
of the Children’s Defense Fund, which
coordinates the Black Community Cru
sade for Children, whose mission is to
leave no child behind and to ensure every
child a healthy, head, fair, safeand moral
start in life. For more information about
the BCCC, call (202) 628-8787.
Editorial
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ALONG THE COLOR LINE By Dr. Manning Marable
Toward a new dialogue of race
’ resident Clinton’s recent speech
on the state of contemporary
‘ race relations has stimulated a
| long-overdue national discus
| sion. The president announced
the creation of a national commission to
examine issues of race, to be headed by
- prominent African-American historian
John Hope Franklin. During the next
year, the presidential commission will hold
public hearings to explore the dimensions
of America’s continuing racial crisis.
There is much discussion these days
about who owes whom an “apology” about
the continuing burden of race and racism
in American life. White conservatives are
now loudly proclaiming that there have
been too many apologies given toward
black folk. Negroes like Ward Connelly
take pride in their auxiliary role of defend
ing white supremacy by outlawing minor
ity scholarship programs to universities
and colleges. Perhaps what isneeded from
the black perspective is not so much a
dialogue with whites about their attitudes
and explanations about race, but rather, a
critical dialogue within our own commu
nity. Our most pressing priorityisto think
about why the current impasse exists
within the black freedem movement, and
to develop a new strategy for its rebirth,
challenging the structure of white power
and privilege in this country.
Throughout the 20th century, the Black
Movement has always pursued two differ
ent strategies for empowerment: liberal
integration and racial separatism. the
ideology of liberal integration was located
in organizations like the NAACP, the Na
tional Urban League and among most
black elected officials. The advocates of
liberal integration believed that black folk
would be empowered if representatives
from our racial group were elevated into
TO BE EQUAL By Hugh B. Price
Accepting diversity is a must for U.S.
resident Clinton’s pledge touse
his authority to reduce racial
and ethnic tensions in America
and make it possible for all
Americans to have viable op
portunities to improve their lot is wel
come — and vitally necessary.
One can readily acknowledge the long
way American society has come from 30
years ago when official policies and pri
vate acts of discrimination and exclusion
were widespread.
However, the road to a society where
equal opportunity is the rule isn’t free of
resistance and barriers. We’ve seen
enough in recent years and in recent
::;‘nthstoknowthatmuch remains to be
e.
For example, the FBI logged 7,947 hate
crimes which victimized to 10,469 people
last year. Sixty-one percent of the crimes
were motivated by racial bias, 16 percent
by religious bias and 13 percent by ho
mophobic or anti-lesbian bias.
But this evidence of the persistence of
bigotry should neither depress us nor
deter us. Rather, it should energize us
and help us act with a sense of clear
sighted urgency.
Any conscientious effort to reduce ra
cial and ethnic tensions must involve
helping Americans understand the de
mographic changes now afoot—that by
the middle of the 21st Century, halfof the
Ameritan population will be people of
Perhaps what is needed
from the black perspective is
not so much a dialogue with
whites about their attitudes
and explanations about
race, but rather, a critical
dialogue within our own
community.
positions of power or prominence. The
problem with this form of “symbolic repre
sentation” is that too frequently no ac
countability existed between our so-called
representatives and the black masses.
Clarence Thomas, for example, was placed
on the Supreme Court as a cynical ma
nipulation of racial tokenism. The fact
that he is racially “black” says nothing
about the content of his politics, which are
reactionary and deeply hostile to blacks’
collective interests.
The alternative to integration was rep
resented by black nationalism. The pow
erful example of the 1995 Million Man
Marchillustrated the extraordinary reser
voir of support for the nationalist perspec
tive inside the black community. How
ever, after the march there was failure to
consolidate this widespread support into
an effective national organization or pro
gram. Disturbingly, the Nation of Islam
developed a growing collaboration with
whiteracist cultleader Lyndon Laßouche.
Thecordial relationship between Minister
Farrakhan and white conservatives like
Jude Winniski also illustrated that black
nationalism could be just as conservative
as Reagan Republicanism. Newt Gingrich
and Farrakhanboth agree on conservative
patriarchal family values, racial self help,
color. The President needs to help Ameri
cans see that future, understand it, and
accept it.
That future is one in which the eco
nomic health and social cohesion of
America will become more and more de
pendent on its being a tolerant and open
society. Thus, we must ensure that as
many Americans as possible have achance
to gain the educational and technological
skills to forge a meaningful life.
That means that America should no
longer tolerate a double-digit unemploy
ment rate for African Americans—a rate
that has been at least twice the national
average fmmre th:gat threemn decades.
Among the things ill requireisa
tax code not tilted toward the wealthy,
but instead designed to help the needy
attain economic self-reliance, and a vi
able system of health care for the poor
that helps bolster their chances of being
sufficiently healthy to concentrate on
succeeding in school and the workplace.
In addition, as we have said in the past,
the President and other political leaders
between the predominantly-white
police forces of this country and its Afri
can-American and Hispanic-American
citizens. The negative interactions, such
as the random “profile stops” of black
men and dark-skinned Hispanic men
must stop.
Further, President Clinton must shore
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supply side economics, and both oppose
leshian and gay rights.
Both integration and nationalism have
one basic common starting point —the
issue of race. The former perspective
seeks to transcend racism by assimilating
blacks into the current institutions of soci
ety. The other perspective assumes that
racism is permanent and will always be
with us, and therefore seeks to separate
the community from the white main
stream. Both strategies are in effect reac
tions to what white people say and do.
Instead of trying to either integrate or
separate, we need to think about how to
transform this society. We shouldn’t be
debating at the margins of power how to
gather up additional crumbs from the
master’s table. Nor should we sulk away
from national debates about race, pre
tending that we can go it alone. Our task
and our challenge is to lay claim to the
future of this society, demanding funda
mental changes in the organization of
power and resources.
Any dialogue about race as we enter thc
21st century has to begin from the premise
that “racism” is nothing more than a sys
tem of power, privilege and violence, nur
tured by centuries of criminal behavior on
the part of the white capitalist establish
ment against our people. If Clinton wants
to talk about apologizing for slavery, he
should begin by negotiating the full finan
cial compensation for our unpaid labor
power.
Dr. Manning Marable is professor of
History and the director of the Institute for
Research in African-American Studies,
Columbia University, New York City.
“Along the Color Line” is distributed free
of charge to all black publications. It
appears in over 300 newspapers through
out the U.S. and internationally.
up the enfeebled civil rights mechanism
of the federal government itself. It will be
seen as a hollow gesture to declare one’s
concern about racial injustice while criti
cal positions at the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission and various
department’s civil rights offices remain
vacant.
These are some of the things the nation
deserves to hear the President address.
There is no mystery to promoting tol
erance and opportunity and inclusive
ness. It will require what it has always |
required: the decency and courage to
condemn intolerant acts and speech and
to act to make inclusiveness a reality.
Many Americans, Mr. Clinton among
them, recognized then that although
churches with white congregations have
been set afire, too, setting churches afire
for reasons of bigotry is a particularly
heinous act that demanded a swift, very
public response.
One part of that response was the fed- .
eral Joint Arson Task Force Mr. Clinton |
created to investigate the fires. Thusfar, |
their work has led to the convictions of
110 people for 77 of the fires—an arrest |
and conviction rate more than twice the |
national average for arson. i
Equally significant, the church
burnings provoked a national outpour- |
ing of financial m-nd “sweat eq- |
uity” volunteer to help rebuild !
the damaged churches. - ~