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_SEPTEMBER 17,1908 AUGUSTA FOCUS
8A
CIVIL RIGHTS JOURNAL By Bernice P Jackson
An apology and a plea
few weeks ago I wroteabout
themurder of thelittle black
girl in Chicago, lamenting
her death and the fact that
two little black boys, ages seven
and eight, had been arrested. One
of my Chicago readers sent me a
message, reminding me thatlshould
have used the word “alleged” in
front of the word murderer, noting
that folks in Chicago were leery of
the charges, which many felt were
based on insufficient and contra
dictory evidence and the fact that
the police were basing their case on
confessions by the boys. My read
ers and those folks in the Chicago
community who were skeptical were
right — and I was wrong.
Not wrongto lament the murder
of the beautiful child and not even
wrong to lament what is happen
ing to our children, who seem all
too-often to be trapped in a vicious
cycle of violence. But wrong to
believe what I was reading in the
national media and wrong to rush
tojudgment about thoselittle boys.
Apparently from the beginning of
the Chicago case there were ques
tions raised about how police
treated these little boys. They
were interrogated by police officers
without their parents and without
a juvenile advocate. There were
questions about whether children
soyoung could understand what it
means to waive their right against
self-incrimination. There were
questionsabout whether police took
seriously enough the statements of
other teens that they had seen the
little girl with a man with a beard
on the day she was killed. There
were questions about what to do
with the boysonce they werecharged
— thankfully a judge determined
that the boys were too young to be
incarcerated.
In the last few days since the
Chicago police dropped thecharges
against the two boys, after the
crime labs found semen on the
girl’s underwear and even the po
lice acknowledged it would be im
possible for these young boys to
produce semen, I've been thinking
alot about adifferent kind of prob
lem facing our community. It’snot
a new one or one that I have not
been aware of before — it’s the
problem of what we do about the
fact that our children, especially
our male children, have been tar
geted to become fodder for the
prison system.
It is clear that society has come
to expect that most young black
men will be imprisoned at some
time in their lives. It is clear
because we choose to spend more
money on building prisonsthan on
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building schools and minds. It is
clear when the city of Chicago
rushes tocharge aseven- and eight
year-old with murder and when
other cities across the nation are
not far behind them. It is clear
when one looks at the numbers —
numbers which show that while
minorityyouth are 1/3 of theyouth
population, they already are 2/3 of
the youth in long-term public fa
cilities. African-American youth
are 15% of the population, but 26%
of those arrested, 41% of those
detained and 52% of those waived
to adult court. ‘
It is clear that society has de
cided these young people are ex
pendable and imprisonable espe
cially when we look at legislation
right now being debated by the
Senate and which, if passed, would
guarantee that more young black
males will be entering the adult
prison system than ever before.
That bill, S.lO, was introduced
into the U.S. Senate by Senators
Hatch and Sessionsand would take
away thedecision-makingauthor
ity of federal judges as to whether
children 14 years and older should
be prosecuted as adults. It would
give prosecutorstheun-reviewable
discretion to prosecute juveniles
14 years and older as adults. Chil
dren as young as 10 could be tried
for capital crimes as adults under
this legislation.
In addition, under S.lO children
would no longer be protected by
federal law from being locked up
with adults despite the fact that
children housed with adults are
five times more likely to be sexu
ally assaulted, twice as likely to be
beaten and 50% more likely to be
attacked with a weapon. Similarly,
this legislation also allows chil
dren who are truants, runaways
and those having family problems
to be locked up rather than placed
in a community setting as they
now are.
Treating children, even children
who commit or are thought to
commit crimes, asadults just won’t
work. Ifthere is any lesson to be
learned from the Chicago case, that
isone. This proposed legislation is
dangerous and ends decades-long
protections of children and youth.
The stories of thetwo littleboysin
Chicago might have turned out
differently in a world where chil
dren are treated as adults.
We must come together for our
children. We must reach out to
those who are lost. But we must
also challenge those who would
take away their protections and
their rights.
Charles W. Walker
Publisher
Frederick Benjamin
Managing Editor
Dot T. Ealy
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TO BE EQUAL By Hugh B. Price
Count every American correctly in 2000
hose Americans who have
viewed that American insti
tution, the census, aslargely
the quiet province of statis
ticians, are about to discover how
contentious counting — and not
counting — numbers can be.
Recently, a special three-judge
panel of the U.S. District Court in
Washington ruled that the federal
Census Bureau can’t use a pro
posed new method of counting to
conduct the decennial count of the
American population in the year
2000.
The Clinton Administration
wanted to use a method known as
statistical sampling— an approach
that combines the traditional
house-to-house attempt to count
every person in a neighborhood
with a simultaneous sample of 10
percent of householdsin that neigh
borhood.
By comparing the two results,
the Census Bureau claims it can
estimate the characteristics and
numbers of people who are missed
and provide a more accurate total
count.
But that proposed new approach
generated bitter opposition from
Congressional Republicans. They
argued that the Constitution re
THIS WAY FOR BLACK EMPOWERMENT By Dr. Lenora Fulani
Independent voters must be made legally whole
his week the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the 2nd Circuit
heard my case against the
New York State Board of
Elections. I had asked the court to
intervene and place my name on
the ballot for an Independence
Party primary for Lt. Governor. I
was prevented from accessing the
ballot through a combination of
discriminatory state laws and the
actions of a white leadership clique
backed by amulti-millionaire which
hopes to keep control of the party
out of the hands of the member
ship, which is very racially, geo
graphically and politically diverse.
I sought to prove the existing laws
_relating to the rights of minorities
'in minor parties were ill suited for
‘anew set of political circumstances
:and were now being used to deny
‘'my right to participate in a pri
‘mary election and theright of party
'members to select their choice of
candidate for public office. While
my motion wasdenied, I believethe
‘issues raised in this case have
'strong ramifications for the inde
'pendent political movement, for
Black America, and for the future
of the democratic process.
- Inshort, my case illuminatesthe
_following situation. A person de
cides they’re not happy with the
political options of the major par
ties. They choose to become a
member of a minor party. Should
quires “an actual enumeration,”
or head count, of every U.S. resi
dent. Their opposition led to the
lawsuit and the court decision.
Thethree-judge panel sidestepped
the constitutionality question, de
claring instead that the Census
Bureau had wrongly interpreted
the federal law regarding taking
the census.
For its part, the Clinton Admin
istration reacted to the court deci
sion byimmediately filing notice to
have the issue heard by the U.S.
Supreme Court.
. No one should think the issues
in thisdispute are minoror hard to
fathom. Thisbattle isabout power
and money — and race and
ethnicity.
In 1990, when the Census Bu
reau used the traditional method
of trying to count every person in
aneighborhood, some of the counts
were significantly skewed: Census
counters missed 8.4 million people.
In addition, they counted another
4.4 million peopleeither twiceorin
the wrong neighborhood of resi
dence.
Since the census count is used
to, among other things, apportion
political districts and distribute
federal monies, under-countingor
someone try to prevent them from
doing so, the courts will vigor
ously uphold their right to belong
to a minor party. However, once
that individual is in an indepen
dent party and they want to par
ticipate in the things people do in
parties, such as have primaries,
the courts will not act toguarantee
that right. The court’s position is
this—you have theright tochoose
to be a minority, but once you’ve
made that choice, we have no obli
gation to grant you equal protec
tion under the law.
Oneaspect of the legal quandary
of this case is embodied in courts’
reliance on precedents in deliver
ing their rulings. But in the social
and political experiment that is
America, we have come to many
new crossroads and frontiers. The
fact that record numbersof Ameri
cans are exercising their voting
rightsoutside the two-party frame
workisone of them. It hascreated
new political circumstances in the
country that raise new sets of legal
issues that the courts will ulti
mately have to address.
In this way, minor parties and
more broadly, the independent
movement, face circumstances simi
lar to those faced by Black Ameri
can and the civil rights movement
nearly 50 years ago. In the land
mark civil rights case, Brown vs.
over-counting peoplein particular
areascan haveasignificant impact
on political party fortunesin state
legislatures and the Congress it
self. Andit canalsodetermine how
much federal aid a locality does —
or does not — get.
However, the issue of who was
“undercounted” and who was
“over-counted” when the tradi
tional head-count method wasused
for the 1990 census is even more
sensitive.
Most of the 8.4 million people
who were missed were African
Americans in inner cities and His
panic Americans in California,
Texas, and New Mexico. Most of
the 4.4 million who were counted
twice were college students and
affluent whites who owned more
than one home.
Statistical sampling, in other
words, would increase the number
of blacks and Hispanics counted,
which would help the Democrats
and could shift money and political
clout away from wealthier, mostly
white districts.
That’s part of the political calcu
lus at work in the debate.
But there’s a larger issue here
also, one which is the foundation
of our support for the use of the
Board of Education, the Supreme
Court broke with prior precedent
and unanimously asserted that
“separate but equal” schools were
unconstitutional because Black
school children received an infe
rior education under that system.
With this ruling, the Court struck
down alegal concept once accepted
as a “natural” understanding of
race relations.
I believe we are at another such
juncture. We need the Court to
step in and say that whatever po
litical affiliation people choose, they
will enjoy equal protection under
the law and not be placedde factin
an inferior position. We need the
Court to strike down what has
become a “natural” understand
ing of our democracy — that
Americais “naturally” atwo-party
country. It isnot, but it does have
a political system dominated by
two parties which leave the major
ity of Americans disenfranchised.
What are the political implica
tions of this strategy? Blacks and
Latinos have a critical and cutting
edge role to play in the next phase
of independent politics. It turns
out that the combining of political
and legal claims that raise both
First Amendment (right to free
dom of association) and Fourteenth
Amendment (right toequal protec
tion) claims captures the essence
of the “second class” status of the
statistical sampling approach: It
is that every American citizen
ought to count — and therefore
ought to be counted.
The Census predicts that if it
uses the traditional way of trying
to count every individual head —
an estimated 275 millionin 2000 —
it will miss about five million
people. e it
If that comes to pass, there’s no
reason to think blacks and His
panics and the poor won’t make up
the disproportionate share again.
Aslwrotein arecent column, all
Americansdeservetobecountedin
the Census. Their being made
visible is the very foundation of
democracy. That point should es
pecially resonate with African
Americans— whom otherssought
for so long to makeinvisible, as far
as democracy was concerned.
The concept of “actual enumera
tion” cannot be used to glibly ra
tionalize the current process —
which by guaranteeing an
undercount of America’s African-
American and Hispanic-American
citizens effectively robsblacks and
Hispanics as groups of their right
ful place in the American nation.
That’s disenfranchisement, no
matter how you describe it.
independent voter. Given that the
right to equal protection has been
most successfully established in
civil rights claims, the presence
and activity of Blacks and Latinos
in third parties — like in the Re
form Party for example— provides
acritical handle for asserting these
claims.
The new minority in American
politics is the independent. And
independents of all races and
ethnicities working hand in hand
can force open the door to greater
democracy by building off of the
tradition of the civil rights move
ment torenovateandinnovate our
democracy. In the process, Black
America stands to reposition itself
as part of a broad reform-oriented
coalition of Americans who are
attempting to take political power
away from corrupt politicians and
parties and put it where it belongs
— in the hands of the people.
Lenora B. Fulani twice ran for
President of the U.S. as an inde
pendent, making history in 1988
when she became the first woman
and African American togeton the
ballotin all 50 states. Dr. Fulaniis
currently a leading activist in the
Reform Party and chairs the Com
mittee for a Unified Independent
Party. She can be reached at 800-
288-3201 or at http://
www.Fulani.org.