Newspaper Page Text
8A
JANUARY 31, 2002
pinion
Burmeister bill will
be dead on arrival
sing Shakespeare’s
writings asthe stan
dard, if love and war
are the two grandest
games, politics is not far
behind. And state Repre
sentative Sue Burmeister,
though ambitious, has not
yet learned to play. Time
to revisit Politics 101.
Here arethe Cliff’s Notes
for this little drama.
Many members of the
legislative delegation feel
our tragic heroine has
jumped the gun with a bill
that would significantly
alter the government of
Augusta-Richmond
County.
For starters, Burmeister
should have gctten input
from Augusta’s county
commissioners and the
legislative delegation. One
thing she needs to learn
is, any 'nitiative that
passes the Georgia Gen
eral Assembly will require
four votes in the House
and two in the Ser.ate, and
if she is going to reach a
consensus on this most
important issue, she needs
to follow the ground rule
of politics: Get with the
NAACP should realize flag
fight is not productive
Now that South Carolina
Attorney General Charlie
Condon has thrown down
the gauntlet and “prom
ised” to sue the NAACP, I
suppose the group will feel
it necessary to dig in its
heels for the long haul and
continue with plans to pro
test that doggone flag...you
know the one...even if it
means losing who knows
how much moneyin the pro
cess.
Money that could go
toward..oh, I don't
know...empowering people.
. This type of protest is the
sort of last-ditch effort made
by the disenfranchised in
order to call attention to
themselves to change some
life-threatening situation.
College students of the ‘6os
trying to avoid going to war,
for example. The NAACP is
an organization of grown
folks. They have lawyers
and doctors and statesmen
at their disposal. They are
in a position to attack the
root cause of every single
Augusta
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people who make the vote
happen.
After all, Caesar wasn’t
assassinated because it
was a good idea; he was
assassinated because
people became convinced
it was a good idea.
Now, as for the bill’s
merit... Though leader
ship is long overdue in
the city of Augusta, the
power of the veto does
not a strong man make.
Again, it is all about
building consensus. Take
Charles DeVaney, for in
stance. Now, while we
can find one or two little
points of rabid conten
tion with some of the
former mayor’s practices
while in office, he was an
effective leader in the
sense that he was able to
build support for his
agendas and get things
done.
Or at least attempted.
As for Burmeister,
things would happen for
her if there were method
in her “madness” instead
of madness in her
method.
problem that plagues the
people — poverty. With a
capital P.
And here they are wor
rying about a flag.
The greatest thing they
could do at this point is
walk away from this fight,
and choose their battles
more carefully in the fu
ture. They should put
their efforts into lobbying
for funds, and into educa
tion, not in trying to eradi
cate a piece of cloth.
You'’re going about it all
wrong, NAACP. Instead of
trying to recreate the
world into something that
never offends you, which
is a dead impossibility, use
the flag as fuel to drive the
passion that will solve the
problems that the organi
zation is here to solve.
You’re trying to change
attitudes and thereby gain
bargaining power. Gain
thebargaining power first,
then the attitudes will
change themselves.
Charles W. Walker
Publisher
Frederick Benjamin
Managing Editor
News/Features
RhondadJones
Shun Norris
Copy Desk
Lillian Wan
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WITNESS FOR JUSTICE By Bernice Powell Jackson
State of hate
s we begin a new year
and approach thebirth
day of Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr., this
might be a good time to take
an inventory of our nation’s
progress in achieving racial
justice. While clearly there
havebeen strides madeevenin
2001, with African Americans
recording new firstsincluding
aSecretary of State and heads
of American Expressand AOL
Time Warner, for many people
of color little has changed and,
for some Arab Americans and
Muslim Americans, discrimi
nation has increased. Mean
while, a new report from the
Center for New Community in
Chicago raises some disturb
ing new trends.
The Center for New Com
munity is a faith-based orga
nization whose mission is to
revitalize communities for
genuine social, economic and
political democracy. Its Build
ing Democracy Initiative helps
the Center do this by tracking
TO BE EQUAL By Hugh B. Price _ ‘
The “no excuses” era for public schools
n some ways, thinking
about part of the discus
sion that occurred last Au
gust at the National Ur
ban League’s annual confer
ence in Washington, D.C.
seems, from this side of Sep
tember 11, tobereachingback
across a vast span of time
when America’s — and the
world’s — future seemed less
clouded.
But that’s not really true.
Many things that were said
about the crucial issues of the
day before September 11 still
apply. Nowhere is that more
apparent than when the dis
cussion turns to the quality of
our public schooling.
That point was underscored
by two developments which
occurred last month.
One was Congressional en
actment of what’sbeen rightly
described as “landmark” leg
islation intended to force sig
nificant improvement in the
quality of education of now
low-performing publicschools.
'The second was the release
of amassive study by the Edu
cation Trust, a Washington
based research organization;
which found nearly 4,600 pub
lic elementary schools across
thenation that enrolled mostly
black or Hispanic youngsters,
orenrolled mostly poor young
sters, or both — and scored
among the top third of the
hate groups in the Midwest.
In its 2001 report, “State of
Hate,” itlisted 338 such groups
throughout Illinois, Indiana,
lowa, Kansas, Michigan, Min
nesota, Missouri, Nebraska,
Ohio and Wisconsin, with Ohio
leading the list with 73 such
groups and Michigan coming
in second with 63.
Hategroupsthat the Center
for New Community follows
include white supremacist
groups such as the Ku Klux
Klan, neo-Nazi groups and
white power skinheads, but
also include so-called Chris
tian identity groups — those
who believe that America is
the Promised Land, wherethe
final battle between good and
evil will be fought and who
believe that only white people
are include in the promise of
God and some of whom have
called for the execution of Jews
and gay and lesbian people. It
also includes a new kind of
hate group, middle American
nationalist, which is a varia
schools of their state in read
ing and mathematics.
What both these develop
ments have done is to under
score two points.
One is that, just like their
more affluent counterparts,
large numbers of poor chil
dren, and African-American
and Latino-American children
attending public schools can
learn tocompeteat the highest
levels of achievement if they
get the proper assistance.
Thesecondisthat those who
run the public schools have no
more excuses for not seeing to
it that the high levels of
achievement the Education
Trust report has documented
donotbecomethenorm every
where.
These were also the points
made by many of the partici
pants in our conference dis
cussions on education last
August.
We agreed that for African
Americans, as for all other
Americans, education is the
staging ground for the march,
as individuals and as a group,
intothe American mainstream.
Being educated is not only re
quired *o earn a living in
today’s'super-competitive glo
bal economy, where there’sno
hiding place from its demands
for skill and knowledge and
the ability to keep learning
new things at a moment’s no
tion of white nationalism de
veloped in the 1990 s as areac
tion to the growing globaliza
tion and the increasing num
bers of multiracial people. It
sees as its enemies people of
color and “one world govern
ment.”
But perhaps the most fright
ening trend identified by the
Center for New Community is
thetargeting of youth by these
hategroups. TheCenter points
out that the 2000 census data
show that children of color
and white children in the Mid
west are living in segregated
communities and in a study
done by Hamilton College, half
of the young people inter
viewed agreed that it is all
rightifraces arebasically sepa
rate from each other. At the
same time, many school dis
trictsaredismantlingtheirin-
tegration effortsleftover from
the 1960 s and ‘7os. The mes
sage of the civil rights era is
clearly not being passed on to
this generation of youth.
tice. It’s also fundamental to
what being an American citi
zen means.
Thus, it’seven more impera
tive to refuse to accept aca
demic failure as an “option”
for children who are poor, or
not white. If it’s true, as the
Urban League’s slogan says,
our children equal our des
tiny, we can’t afford to have
any of our children failing. To
mix metaphors, Black America
and America have got to have
all of its people pulling on the
oars if we're to continue that
march into the mainstream.
Congress, in passing the
$26.5 billion act last month,
has put at least some money
behind its rhetorical commit
ment.
The law requires schools to
ensure that all children can
read by the third grade, and
make all students proficient in
reading and mathematics
within 12 years. It mandates
annual state-administered test
ing in those subjects from
grades 3 through 8 so that it’ll
be clear to everyone how stu
dents are doing; and states
would also have to measure
the progress of specific sub
groups of students, including
poor and minority students.
Schools that initially fail to
measure up can get extra fed
eral aid. But their continued
failure would make their stu
These young people, more
over, are being targeted by
such neo-Nazi hate groups as
the National Alliance, the
World Church of the Creator
and the National Socialist
Movement which all focused
attention on young people.
Other groups, like the Aryan
Nations, thought to be extinct
after a lawsuit by the South
ern Poverty Law Center closed
down its Idaho headquarters,
has recruited high school stu
dentsin the small Illinois town
of Salem. The Center hasfound
that there has been a 30 per
centincreasein the number of
neo-Nazi and racist skinhead
groupsin the past three years.
In addition, these groups are
targeting college campuses not
only for recruitment but also
foractivitiesdesignedtofrighten
students and faculty of color
and those who support and be
friend them. Forinstance, Ohip
State University wasblanketed
See STATE OF HATE, 9A |
dents eligible to get financial
support for transportation to
another school, or for tutorial
assistance, and the replace
ment of their staffand revision
of their curriculum.
For all its good intentions,
Washington still hasn’t appro
priated nearly enough money
tofulfill these ambitious goals.
But the legislation at least
steers the nation’s public
schools in the right direction.
What direction is that?
It’s the direction of no more
excuses. No more pretending
that if large numbers of stu
dents in a school aren’t per
formingwell, it’s thestudents’
fault.
It’s not. It’s the fault of
adults around them.
Yes, that includes parents
and other adults in communi
ties around these schools. Part
of the impetus for the Urban
League’s own Campaign for
African-American Achieve
ment is to mobilize parents
and other adults in local com
munities to support the pur
. suit of academic achievement
in their public schools.
Butthereare, in fact, plenty
of examples of dedicated prin
cipals and teachers and com
munity residentsjoining forces
toimproveaschool’sacademic
quality. It’s happenedin indi-
See NO EXCUSES, page 9A