Newspaper Page Text
8A
JUNE 8, 2000
THIS WAY FOR BLACK EMPOWERMENT
By Dr. Lenora Fulani
China and the
democracvtradeoft
he Congressional vote on
normalizingtraderelations
with China is being cursed
and celebrated. Isthetrade
deal good for the American
economy? Yes. Economicstrength
is improved by trading with coun
tries all over the world. Is the
trade deal good for the American
worker? The argument can be
made (and many have made it)
that anything that helps the
American economy overall ben
efits the U.S. worker. However,
the argument can also be made
(and many have made it) that
greater access to world markets
includes greater access to cheaper
labor, which in turn costs the
American worker.
No one knows which outcome
will dominate and its likely that
things will pretty much stay on
the course they’re already on —
one which improves the economy
yet erodes the living standards of
average Americans.
President Clinton’s campaign
for normal trade relations with
China, did not, however, focus on
the economic side of the debate.
His emphasis was on the political
side of the debate —the extent to
which advancing a global market
economy advances democracy in
repressive societies. What’s no
table about this political debateis
that.it focuses exclusively on how
theintroduction and expansion of
market economies accelerates the
growth of democracy in underde
veloped authoritarian countries,
while ignoring that democratic
process is on the decline in the
United States.
It’s true that in absolute terms
America is significantly more
democraticthan China. But while
freetrade may have put democra
tization on an upward curve in
the People’s Republic, it is on a
downward curve in America. De
mocracy is declining here, where
over half the electorate doesn’t
vote, the incumbency return rate
for elected officials is higher than
in the Chinese Politburo, public
policy debateis heavily controlled
by the two parties and special
interest money runs the show.
It’s probably the case that early
stages of a market economy do
produce greater democracy. When
market forces come to bear in an
oppressive society, it gives ordi
nary citizens more involvement
in decision making because they
are participating in the market.
But in more economically devel
oped societies with more demo
cratic traditions there comes a
point when the oligarchy — what
ever form that happens to take —
starts to constrain democracy be
cause it wants to restrict the ex
tent to which competing forces in
the society can make corporate
America accountable to the
people.
Right now, Bill Clinton and Tom
DeLay — not to mention Al Gore
and George Bush — can have it
both ways. They can fight for de
mocracy in China while they re
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AUGUSTAFOCUS
press it in the United States. For
liberals, leftists and labor —most
of whom are in the Democratic
Party — this should be a hard pill
to swallow. They, after all, spent
20 years accusing Ronald Reagan
of being a veritable stormtrooper
for unbridled capitalism, only to
find out that capitalism’s great
est hero is their own Bill Clinton.
Harlem Congressman Charles
Rangel — who had opposed the
White House on NAFTA — voted
with the Clinton Administration
on China and took six other mem
bers of the Congressional Black
Caucus with him. Rangel now de
scribes himselfas“a New York guy
going national,” according to the
Wall Street Journal. 1 am a friend
and supporter of Charlie Rangel
and he has come to my aid on more
than one occasion, but in my com
munity “going national” is
often interpreted as “going
white” — becoming more- prag
matic and accepting of a corpo
rate agenda.
Rangel believes in pragmatism
—the need to “play ball” with the
big money interests — and he’s
right — if you’re going to play the
pragmatic politics game.l, for one,
don't like that game: That’s why I
am an independent and why I
think Black people should get
their butts out of the Democratic
Party. We lose by playing that
game — just as Americans lose
overall by playing the two party
special interest game. That’s why
somany Americans are becoming
independents.
Organized labor seems to be
paying more attention to the fact
that it hasbeen abandoned by the
Democratic Party than Black
America is. There is talk about
defections — by the United Auto
Workers and the Teamsters — to
supportindependent presidential
candidates Ralph Nader or Pat
Buchanan. Thisisahealthy thing,
though I am one of those people
whobelieve the Democratic Party
sold out the labor movement —
not last Thursday — but in 1947
when Taft-Hartley was enacted,
restricting the right to organize
and to strike.
The Left, meanwhile, is in a
heightened state of agony over
whether or not to support the
Democrats. The left-wing New
Republic’s John Judis accused
Green Party candidate Ralph
Nader — who is focusing his at
tacks on Al Gore — of talking like
aleftist. I thought that was a good
thing! My problem is when left
ists talk like Democratic Party
hacks, which they often do.
I personally think it’s positive
that the U.S. government nor
malized trade relations with
China. The much tougherissueis
whether it’s going to normalize —
i.e., democratize — political rela
tions with all of us. That fight —
the battle for political reform of
ourown electoral and governmen
tal process — is something that
the people of this republic are
going to have to do for ourselves.
BALLISTIC THREATS TO WORLD PEACE AND STABILITY...
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TO BE EQUAL By Lee A. Daniels
Recalling Birmingham tragedy
n a recent column, Hugh b.
Price, president of the Na
tional Urban League, wrote
that the recent indictment of
two now elderly white men. Long
suspected of taking part in the
notorious Birmingham church
Bombing of 1963 m “shows a de
termined refusal on the part of
...[asignificant cohort of black and
white Southerners] tolet the great
crimes of the region’s past go un
punished.”
Healsowrote that this determi
nation “demands a reconsidera
tion of what white Southerners
actually felt about the segrega
tion and racial discrimination that
barred their black fellow citizens
from participating full in Ameri
can life.”
I agree.
But I also think the flurry of
comment and recollection about
that area of Birmingham’s and
the nation’s, history has another
important significance.
It is that the malevolent act,
which the killers committed as an
act of defiance, was really an act
of surrender.
For all their bravado and pos
turing among the morally-be
nighted racial extremists in and
around Birmingham at the time;
for all of George Wallace’s pledge
Racism in college sports industry
intentionally chose the head
line for this column to include
the words “college sports in
dustry” because clearly col
lege sports, particularly basket
ball and football in the largest,
most sports-competitive univer
sities in the nation, in an indus
try. It is also an entertainment
industry, just like the professional
sports are just as much about en
tertainment as they are about
athletics.
Many of the young people playing
college basketball or football are
African American. Unfortunately,
all too often the adults who work
with them -the coaches, the train
ers, the scouts - do not seem to
mirror that. It seems that while
college sports do provide an av
enue for young African Ameri
cans to get an education, it may
not provide a venue for employ
ment afterwards.
Now, one young college coach is
brave enough to raise the issue of
employment of African Americans
by college sports departments. His
nameis Sean Sheppard and he’sa
strength and conditioning coach
at Ohio State University and he’s
written an open letter calling Ohio
of“ Segregation Now! Segregation
Tomorrow! Segregation forever!,
I'm convinced that these men
knew - perhaps consciously; but
certainly subconsciously-thatthe
days of state-sanctioned White
Supremacy were numbered, and
not in decades, but in months.
That is why they, deliberately,
struck at the black children of the
Sixteenth Street Baptist church,
which had been the staging
ground for the great civil rights
demonstrations earlier that year.
Four young girls - Denise
McNair, 11, Addie Mae Collins,
14, Carole Robertson, 14, and
Cynthia Wesley, 14 died in the
rubble that Sunday morning.
The ferocity with which Bir
mingham Police Chief Eugene
“Bull” Connor tried to suppress
the demonstrations exposed the
moral blindness and physical bru
tality of the South’s edifice of le
gal segregation for all-round the
nation and the world, to see.
And it was the participation of
thethousands of childrenin those
demonstrations that brought the
Movement its victory.
So, the Birmingham church
bombers struck back at the black
children of Sixteenth Street Bap
tist Church out of revenge against
the Birmingham black commu
State, the National Collegiate
Athletic Association, and the
broadcasting industry into ac
countability.
Sean Sheppard has 14 plus years
of experience as a college athlete
himself and as a coach in Division
I athletics. He has worked in
small private colleges, in state
universities and in huge athletic
departments. Hehas coached elite
football and basketball players
and those who are below average.
I've never looked Sean Sheppard
in the eye, but I have talked with
him on the telephone and I have
talked with those whohaveknown
him since childhood and I would
say that I have never talked with
a more sincere, more respectful,
more caring youngman. Butheis
one who must tell the truth as he
sees it - something all too many of
us are afraid to do too much of the
time. So when he sent me a copy
of a statement he recently made,
I paid attention.
In it, he calls attention to the fact
that of the 342 employees within
the Ohio State University ath
letic department, there are only
19 African Americans (5%), de
spite the fact that most of the
Editorial
nity in general, and against the
black children of Birmingham in
particular.
They struck at them because
they could see the future in those
children. They could see their
promise, their determination to
strive and their probability of suc
cess, not just in dismantling the
legal barriers of segregation, but
in achieving their full human ca
pacity as well.
And, of course, it wasnot justin
the Sixteenth Street Baptist
Church, or in the rest of
Birmingham’s black community
that children like this were to be
found that day. That sense of
possibility for the children existed
in every church in every black
community in America.
I realized with fresh eyes, so to
speak, that this was one of the
lessons of the Birmingham
Church Bombing when, in the
wake of the recent indictments, I
read the comments of two black
women who grew up in Birming
ham during those days.
One is Sheryl McCarthy, a col
umnist for Newsday. The otheris
Condoleeza Rice, a former pro
vost of Stanford University who
is Texan Governor George W.
Bush’s foreign policy adviser dur
ing his run for the presidency.
football and men’s basketball
teams are African Americans.
There are only 4 black assistant
coaches of the 70 assistant
coaches. There is only 1 black
female coach. There are only 2
head coaches in a department of
30 coaches. Indeed, in the 100
years of history of Ohio State bas
ketball, there has been only one
black head coach and there has
never been an African American
head football coach.
Sheppard raises the question of
whether the message, conscious
or unconscious, that is being de
livered to the African American
community is that while univer
sities have no trouble awarding
scholarships to black athletes be
cause of the money these athletes
will generate, they have a prob
lem sharing that money with the
African American community by
hiring black coaches. It’s a mes
sage, he says, that the African
American community is getting
loud and clear and they are talk
ing aboutitin barbershops, black
owned restaurants and other
places where informal conversa
tion is held.
The need for more African Ameri
I read their recollections of life
in Birmingham at thattime - both
knew at least one of the girls who
were killed; and I thought of the
lives and careers they themselves
went on to fashion.
They were not the only ones of
theblack children of Birmingham
to succeed.
“Most of us thrived,” Sheryl
McCarthy wrote in a recent col
umn. “We became judges, doc
tors, university presidents, tele
vision producers, journalist, fin
anciers; one of us may sdon be
secretary of state, depending on
who is elected president.”
We'll never know for certain
what the world lost that morning
when those four girls were killed.
But it is clear that what some of
their friends and acquaintances
have achieved is what their fu
ture could have been.
It was apparent even then to
some on both sides of the color
line - and both sides of the moral
line, too - that these were the
possibilities the Civil Rights
Movement’s energy and moral
force was putting within reach of
Negro children.
Some whites embraced that vi
sion of the future.
See BIRMINGHAM, page 9A
cansin college coachingis not just
about sharing the wealth of col
lege athletics either. It is about
providing the role models, the
counseling and the much-needed
mentoring which African Amerj
can athletes so desperately neelz.
Who better understands a young
athlete from the inner city that an
adult who's been there himself or
herself? Who can better recog
nize the signs of trouble that these
young people often show?
Now, it is important to say that
Ohio State probably is not the
only university with such hiring
records. I expect that most of the
NCAA Division I athletic depart
ments have comparable numbers.
Whilel don’thavestatistics for all
NCAA Division I schools, I do
have the total number of NCAA
athletic administrators, where
nationally about 8% of them are
African American. Which means
that some of the larger NCAA
universities probably have better
hiring records than OSU’s while
some undoubtedly have worse.
Sean Sheppard is quick to point
out that advances have been made
See RACISM, page 9A