Indianapolis Recorder, Indianapolis, Marion County, 11 December 1993 — Page 2

Rodney King asked that npw famous question, ‘'Can’t we all just get along?" if '7

Apparently not.

Or maybe it depends on your neighborhood. ' A ' The people in Ravenswood seem to be able to get along

toiapoae

. H^bry Rodham Qintoa WWTV ^ Guide that she is‘ really appalled by the steady diet of violence and impulsive sexuality that we see all

the time” on television.

What bothers me is that the bluenoses and the political blue bloods seem to have movie makers

with themselves.

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Maybe everybody there is just alike, maybe that’s why it is such a blissful community. There has probably never been any trouble.there until this little Black family moved in. It’s amazing how much trouble this woman and her children caused in this wonderful little utopia. Indianapolis has a dubious past as it relates to matters of race and housing patterns reflect the vestiges of forced segregation. Ravenswood is just a place where people still live in the past and it is not the only such place in Indianapolis. Other areas of the city have neighborhood associations that all but completely control who buys houses in certain neighborhoods. These people don’t have to show their ignorance like they did down Ravenswood way. They can hide behind the sheets of respectability making quiet little transactions selling houses without so much as putting up a sign. But they really should put up signs that tell the truth. These signs should say No Negroes, Coloreds, Blacks or African Americans are welcome here. In these people’s minds they probably feel that they are better than the people of Ravenswood, but they aren’t. They will probably even talk about how awful it was for those people to behave in such a fashion. Whatever else these people are in Ravenswood, at least they are honest. And when it gets down to it, it is always about someone’s little family trying to get a decent place to live based on what they can afford. People can run but they can’t hide from the fact that many communities in central Indiana are like Ravenswood. Some have found ways to hide it. Some of these places are affluent and wouldn’t have Anybody who used to live in Ravenswood live there either. The laws are unwritten and only spoken in the right

circles.

Some apartment complexes routinely sabotage AfricanAmericans applications with the result being the same as if the Klan had marched and threatened people. It happens today. It happens everyday. The people who would deny other American citizens the right to live where they can afford to live are no better than the people down by the river. All of these folks are selling the American dream down the river and they ought to be ashamed. Many people are disgusted with the hypocrisy shown by people who talk a decent game but who really don’t want their neighborhoods to reflect diversity and reality in 1993. Some people have no idea what time it is, much less what year it is. Well, the alarm is ringing.

Sam Jones

a real hero

The Crossroads of America Council of the Boy Scouts of America recently honored Sam Jones the president of the Indianapolis Urban League. Mr. Jones was featured as the subject of a celebration of his life and times. The program featured friends and family and the event gave further credence to the notion that Sam Jones has made an important and lasting contribution to the community of Indianapolis. He has shown us all that there is hope and that things can change for to better. Mr. Jones’ integrity and sense of pride and justice have been a source of encouragement for many people. We salute Sam Jones for his many accomplishments, but most of all we salute him for being litre when our community has needed him no matter what throost.

» J If W * . / W l ■ * ■

Kl,1 >” “Above the Law” and other dmg lords were not —

and TV producers running scared, skull-busting, bone-cracking Segal ^ children, but corropting the and that's very bud for thii or any films. Let Hollywood abandon dtis lawmen swoni to prMcc{ns> < IfoSU gratuitous, money- “T^tfoi ShS Stone didn't ^foienlTin “WtSTsidfS ^ grubbing violence and sex when 1 have to bare har crotob lb “Basic. it fioze i see iL I saw on TV, in a few hours <rf lnstinct,”becomeso lustily involved existence of nth

inescapable insomnia, a in the sax ads during which she preposterously implausible Steven kntfed bar fevers to death. But those

Segal movie, “Under Siege,” about are the unimpassioned judgments Of WmiH I boa Mf* in -^. a hijacked U.S. Naval vessel. This one columnist who has absolutely if I hx) not seen any of the movies abuse film oozed with wanton violence, as no right to impose them on othcn. fisteddboveTNa

-and death.

School vouchers are losing their appeal

When California’s voters rejected a ballot proposal that would have given state-financed vouchers worth $2,600 to the parents of every school child in the state, they signaled that the voucher option is an idea whose

time has gone.

Vouchers never made much sense, and they still don’t. The voucher idea says

not be taken as an endorsement of the piddle schools’ fiulurelo

tidffhfisim Hit flight from pv***ic nijiwdt I believe the piece to sfart reel reform is to focus

Some form of school choice ^fnd rt»ep» should nrtwImtvwviif^—u^hefeHlwn

options within the public system

education is subject to the same market forces

retailing or manufacturing: the schoob will improve if they have to compete for customers. That sounds good, but what works in the private marketplace isn’talways applicable to the distributioa of public goods, such as education. Vouchers subsidize private schools at public

expense.

Instead of making public schools better, they deprive themof funds while bribingthe most involved and concerned parents to transfer their children out of the public schools. This was so obvious that California’s ballot Proposition failed to win the support of many conservatives who were expected to solidly support the “choice” route to school reform. Those conservatives were troubled by wellfounded doubts that voochers alone would assure educational excellence; by fearof more state regulation of their private schools, and by worry that substandard schools would spring up to attract the subsidies. The voters also recognized that vouchers would weaken the public school’s historic and still critical role of binding people and communities together in today’s multicultural urban setting. llie rush to embrace and subsidize private schools has a precedent in our history. In the 1960s, fear of school integration spurred some southern communities to set up segregated private academies. Georgia’s voucher system — still on its books, although not implemented — is a 1961 law that allows state subsidies to pay private school tuition, obviously intended to subvert integmled public

schools.

Of course, many voucher plans come with antidiscrimination clauses and are sold as ways to give poor people choice. But the ultimate, inevitable effect is to subsidize middle class flight from the public schoob and turn them into dumping grounds for the poorest children. Many are that now. The waning enthusiasm for school voucheisshould

may be put of that reform, but we won’t know until it’s tried and very stringently studied. Sofar,tllwehavcisanecdotal

support for the effectiveness of school choice. Americans, especially those seduced by provoucher propaganda, should realize real school reform will take resources and commitment.

to perform at the highest leveb and tneet the Mglmt

That also means psrents and commaaity orguiizatiom must become deeply involved ia our children’s schools. v So for sQ the rhetoric, school reform hasn’t even

Refbrm’sstarting place shouldn’tbe the fantasy of

han’t even been triad.

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A message from Blacks who left the plantation

Acdlumn “A Political Wake-Up Call” a few weeks ago expressed my frustrations and anger at Blacks for behaving — in my opinion — in such an irrational way to politics. I concluded by inviting Blacks to wise up to their lying presidential Democratic leader. “And if one other

Black has discovered enough common sense and guts to rebel against the self-imposed’political oppression of the Black community’spolitksl follies and the racism in both parties, write me, The New Republicans, 1501 Broadway, Suite 412, New York, NY 10036.” Need! ess to say, that combination of (1) leaving the plantation and (2) becoming independent, perhaps even • Republican, was enough to light a fire of debate in any Black beauty or barber shop in the country. ItcertainlylitafireunderaMr.H. M. (not hb real initiab) who read my column in The Metro Herald in

Tony Brown's Comments l| TONY MOWN

Springfield, Va. Although hbn the only negative letter I’ve received so far in an

unusually luge response, hb views probably wpwaent the majority of

well-reasoned letter I knew that be wasn’t suggesting that I limit my opinions to the safe areas such as “boot-strap” remedies. Certainly, 1 thought, he must realize that public policy b shaped by politics and does impact on economic development. I wondered also whether he had ever chastised all of the Black Democrats who argue along nothing bul partisan lines. And what’s wrong with an occasional Black such as myself saying what millions of others say every day, but whisper out of fear of Hie kind of attack leveled by Mr. H. If? I don’t care what 1 sound like. And neither am I afraid of the cheap shots, such as the comparison to Pst Buchanan, that violated the thoughtfulness of Mr. H. M.‘l

It should be pointed out that Hie 1993 string of Republican victories was possible largely due to an unusually large number of Blacks voting for white Republfcatis. The issues, school choice in particular, had an attraction for these poor innercity parents whose children can’t eat Democratic rhetoric or learn false Democratic promises of better schoob. The Black masses have always led our struggle, largely because their “feet hurt” the most. Rosa Parks started the Civil Rights Movement; Martin Luther King led to No, lam not, as Mr. H.M. accuses, asking Blacks to be dumb enough to give Republicans 90 percent of their votes as they slavishly give the Democrats. That would be as aoDailina as

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with Patricia Jennings of Pittsburgh (“Yes, Cmfed up with the self-imposed

political oppression.”); Al WilUadis of Buffalo; Edward jftfll Of

Gaithersburg, MD; Johnnie Morgan of Los Angeles; Marc Little of Savannah; Bob Carter ofLos Angeles; airisIhomasofAiim^on.VA; David Dealing (^Indianapolis and Raymond

Green of Philadelphia.

Theresa Nance of Pasaiac,NJ, who helped Gov.-dect Christine Whitman win election, speaks for aH of them: ”1 fled Hie Democratic plantation some years ago and haven’t looked beck since. Needleas tosay, I’ve been both badgered and vilified by my sisters and brothers who chose not to opt for their political freedom. I have been visible in Hie party and I’m happy to say the county leaden have listened to my bsuee conceming perity for my

and acted positively in some ii “Obviously, I don’t believe that we

of Blacks who today prefer the

TodoHtt.y'mmurtjwfrc.rth*. l^TstiU^l beaed on Hie issues and not on race or party affiliation. * ** _ iiothingVwofsL' “behtthns or laheliw thaw with AUofthoMa

'• • 1 !> <fO tana of Mr. B. hi’s 1 rms ♦ -S' ft

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