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| VOLUME 17 No. 831
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Rash of skinhead
violence has
MThree die and one is paralyzed in
hate-crime spree in Colorado’s capi
tal city. A dead policeman’s name is
scrawled on a dead pig dropped at
door of police station.
By Mary Boyle
ASSOCIATED PRESS Writer
‘ DENVER
(AP) A white teen-ager with a shaved head bra
zenly admitted he shot and killed a West African
immigrant at a bus stop because he didn’t want to
live in a world with blacks.
The American youth also wounded a white nurse
who rushed to the dying man’s aid, leaving her
paralyzed from the waist down.
“Idon’t like some blacks. I guessit’s sort of a thing
that I love my own people and I'd like to see a place
where just we could be,” Nathan Thill, 19, told
KUSA-TV in a jailhouse interview.
Thill was arrested Thursday for killing 38-year
old Oumar Dia of Mauritania, and wounding Jeannie
VanVelkinburg at a bus station Wednesday night.
The shootings were the latest in a series of hate
crimes that have residents worried about a surge in
racial tension and police on alert for increased activ
ity by white supremacist groups, especially before a
Democratic fund-raiser Saturday that President Bill
Clinton is attending. ot b 0 ‘
‘The most brazen incident was last week’s slaying
of a police officer during a shootout with a white
skinhead. The suspect then committed suicide with
the slain officer’s gun.
- Days after the officer’s funeral, a dead pig with the
officer’s name was left outside the police substation
where he worked.
. “I work with drug addicts and they don’t scare me
‘as much as these people do,” said Lisa Meza, 30, who
gves near the station. “I hate to see where the city is
heading.” 0
' The wave of hate crimes have shaken Colorado’s
capital, a swiftly growing city with a reputation for
tolerance and open-mindedness symbolized by the
election of a black mayor, Wellington Webb, by
See SKINHEAD VIOLENCE, page 2A
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- Story on page 10A
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Jacqueline Thompson, rear, holds aone child from her set of sextuplets
Friday, Nov. 21, 1997, at the Mazique Parent/Child Center in Washington
while her aunt, Grace Baptiste, right, holding two babies and Ann Marie
(cq) hoilds another two babies. Few people stepped up to help Linden and
Jacqueline Thompson when she delivered six babies, the first black sextu
plets born in the United States. But free baby food, car seats and diapers
lavished on newborn septuplets in lowa prompted donations this week in
Washington for the Thompson babies, born last May — one girl was still
born, but the surviving four girls and one boy are healthy and learning to
crawl. (AP Photo/Washington Post, James M. Thresher)
RACE dialogue rur:
The following is a
summary of a soon to be
published study which
concludes that African-
American boysare more
inclined than others to
devalue academic suc
cess to avoid loss of self
esteem associated with
poor grades. The study
suggests that African-
American girls avoid
this behavior and in so
doing, aremorealigned
with Whites and His
panics. We offer the
piece, which was sent to
media organizations
from the American Psy-
African-American males more likely
to lose motivation to succeed by grade 12
African-American boys, compared with nal Study, which was begun in 1988 and
Whites, Hispanics and African-American has been following nearly 25,000 stu-
girls, are “particularly
and perhaps uniquely”
vulnerable to “academic
disidentification,” the
phenomenon in which
success or failure in
school ceases to matter
to the student. The find
ing comes from a four
year study of nearly
25,000 high school stu
dents across the United
States and is reported in
the Decemberissueofthe
Journal of Educational
Psychology, published by
the American Psycho
logical / Association
(APA). :
The study, by doctoral
candidate Jason W.
Osborne, MA, of the State
University of New York
at Buffalo, supportssome
(but not all) of the theo
ries of Stanford I&nm
sity psychologists Clau
M. Steele, Ph.D., who
first proposed the concept of academic
disidentification as a form of self-defense
against expectations of poor academic per
formance. ¢ ,
Data for the study were drawn from the
ongoing National Education Longitudi-
mhopofimn Augusta, South Carolina and the Central Savannah River Area
A’
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g
chological Association,
to the public to invite
input from our readers
on this research. This
is the first in a series of
While Osborne’s
findings support Dr.
Steele’s theories as
they apply to African-
American males,
that African-Ameri
can girls are similarly
less to support the
- that others from
- socially disadvan
taged backgrounds
— such as many His
panics — would also
tend so disidentify
with academice.
NOV 27 - DEC 1 1997
Over the course of the study, there
were few substantial changes in the rela
tionship between self-esteem and achieve-
See BLACK BOYS, page 3A . .
v bl Sialbgueon racs
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Frederick Benjamin, editor
dents since the eighth
grade. The students’
grades, level of aca
demicachievementand
level of overall self-es
teem were measured
when they were in the
eighth grade; .in the
10th grade: and again
in the 12th grade. Ac
cording t 6 the author,
the correlations be
tween self-esteem and
self-esteein and grades
provided a measure of
the students’ degree of
academicidentification
or disidentification:
self-esteéem rising or
falling with grades and
achievement scores
would indicate stron
ger academic identifi
cation; self-esteem re
maining the same or
Drug-testing
firm lacked
certification
BCounty seeks to cut its
losses in face of Beard
challenge. Others may
have been unfairly
treated under tainted
drug-test policy.
By Mirunda Gastichuro
AUGUSTA FOCUS Staff Writer
How .
accurately was the Augusta
Commission’s policy on substance
abuse testing followed when Ja
son Beard tested positive for co
caine in 1996? Apparently, not too
accurately.
At the time Beard (and possibly
many others) was tested and fired
from the Richmond County Fire
Department for substance :bi’use,
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momwth
and Human Services, according to
his attorney, John “Jack” Long.
The city did not follow its own
testing procedure. Jason Beard’s
urine sample was not tested by a
certified lab, Long said.
Instead, the test was adminis
tered at a Lab Corp, Inc. lab in
Herndon, Va., which was not cer
tified at the time of the test. Ac
cordingto documentation from the
office of Augusta’s Human Re
source manager, Lab Corp had vol
untarily withdrawn its DHHS cer
Bo Diddley claims
cigarette maker
ripped off his likeness
Veteran entertainer is
claiming that RJ.
Reynolds Tobacco
Company used his
likeness to promote
the sale of Winston
cigarettes. The com
pany denies the charge,
but stopped the ad
campaign anyway.
GREENSBORO, N.C.
(AP) Bo knows Diddley. And Bo
Diddley, the legendary bluesman,
says R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.
used his likeness in an advertising
campaign to promote Winston
cigarettes without his permission.
The tobacco company denies it
but quit running the ad anyway
after Diddley’s lawyer threatened
to sue.
The ad, which ran from July
through September in magazines
such as People, said in part: “My
blues are real, just like qgysmokes”
and featured a phow of a
guitarist who Diddley and his at
torneys say resembles 80.
Diddley, who lives in Florida,
has not sued Reynolds but has
threatened to do so in several let
ters to the company.
“The ad features a photograph
of a Bo Diddley ‘look-alike’ to
gether with a selection of props,
tification in order to consolidate
its testing facilities and transfer
all its Department of Transporta
tion and FTA tests to another fa
cility.
Why did the city opt to use an
uncertified facility if they knew
that it could have serious reper
cussions? How many other samples
were sent to that same lab, out of
the 20-plus employees that were
fired for substance abuse over the
past year?
According to city attorney Jim
Wall and the office of Augusta-
Richmond County Human Re
sources, Beard was tested under
the County’s authority and there
fore was not required to have been
tested by a DHHS certified lab.
“We felt we had substantially com
plied with the policy, and although
there were some deviations, we
didn’t feel that they were any
thing that would invalidate the
dr;hgnt«'est," said Wall. - b
ill, Augusta-Richmond ty
commissioners and the office of
Human Resources must have felt
that the certification requirement
was important enough to have re
instated Beard at the same pay
and rank he had before he was
fired for testing positive for co
caine. Could others — such as
Keith Wells, former transit de
partment bus driver whose attor
ney also claimed the city did not
follow its own procedure — make
the same claim as Beard and get
See DRUG TESTING, page 3A
poses and expressions intention
ally designed to evoke our client’s
image and persona,” attorneys for
Diddley wrote in a letter to
Reynolds. “Our client considers
any association of his celebrity with
cigarette smoking — an activity
that he does not condone — to be
particularly distasteful and pa
tently misleading.”
Reynolds says it hasn’t misap
propriated Diddley’s likeness. But
it pulled the ads after Diddley’s
lawyer faxed a letter Aug. 29
threatening litigation.
The company filed suit last week
in federal court asking for a decla
ration that Diddley — whose real
name is Ellas McDaniel — cannot
collect any damages or further.
complain about the ads. ;
In its complaint filed in U.S.
District Court in Greensboro,
Reynolds and its ad agency Long
Haymes Carr Inc. of Winston-Sa
lem said the blues ad was part of a
larger campaign to introduce the
newly formulated, additive-free
The ads used “mfi'p&ph'
engaging in “real” ies rang
ing from fishing to drinking to
playing guitar. The ad in dispute
;nd a ‘;pnenc blues w:;:'ist,"
wyers orflcm lds say, whoisn’t
intended to lotg” Diddley.
Diddley, 68, has recorded more
than 40 albums and performed
concerts for Queen Elizabeth and
President John F. Kennedy. His
hits include “Who Do You Love”
and “I'm a Man.”