Muncie Times, Muncie, Delaware County, 7 March 2002 — Page 7

The Muncie Times, March 7, 2002, page 7

NEWS BRIEFS

NEWS BRIEFS FROM PAGE 6 because it was one of the few foods we were seen eating in public. Many Black families traveled with fried chicken in their food baskets in the old days because they could not eat in restaurants and roadside cafes. Why fried chicken? Because it was one of the few foods that would keep any length of time without spoiling. It is still a staple for out-door eating. The bottom line is that when you celebrate events such as Black History Month, you would do well to take a careful look at the real histoiy in order to be able to attach the right things to the right people. Watch the HBCU1 rd with caution President Bush signed an executive order Feb. 12 to put into place an advisory committee called the “President’s Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges and Universities.” The board will issue yearly reports to the president regarding the needs of the HBCUs to “ensure the long-term viability and enhancement of these institutions.” The board will also recommend ways to advance in areas such as academic performance, use of technology, financial planning and development. This all seems good, and in keeping with the president’s promise of a 30percent increase in federal funding to Black institutions of higher learning. And just in time for Black History Month. It goes without saying that HBCUs are the cornerstone of the AfricanAmerican community. Several graduates from our own Howard University and the University of D.C. have said that if it weren’t for these schools, they wouldn’t even have first degrees. As a community, we’ve been very supportive of education as a way up the economic ladder.

and we’ve seen such illustrious alumni as W.E.B. DuBois, Jocelyn Elders, Langston Hughes, Andrew Young, Alex Haley and Ed Bradley, to name a very few. But while the appointment of the 21member board is a good start, we still cannot be blind. The president is responsible for appointing the board and we have some reservations about that. He said the membership would include sitting presidents, representatives of higher education institutions, business and financial leaders, representatives of private foundations and secondary school administrators. A brief look, at the board reveals that about 80 percent of its membership is male. One day, we would like to see a board that is 50 percent male and 50 percent female. We like the president’s move in this direction, but we’re not going to wholeheartedly accept everything he throws at us. And though the president’s 2003 budget has allotted $264 million for the 102 HBCUs, that money will not go very far. Bush’s budget: Bad news for women The Bush budget for 2003 leaves some very serous questions unanswered. At a time when the American economy has been showing real signs of strain, how does this administration propose to build the number of jobs and expand our economy? This budget does not contain one new idea to create jobs and economic growth. There are 40% more Americans unemployed than when President Bush took office last year, yet his budget calls for cutting hundreds of millions of dollars in job training funds, college tuition grants, youth opportunity grants and assistance for dislocated workers. Women’s wages have gone down in the last year, yet

this budget has no provision that would reverse this trend by helping working women get equal pay for their work. Instead of planning how we can get back on the path of fiscal discipline that enabled our economy to grow over the previous eight years, this budget calls only for more corporate and upper-income tax cuts at a time when economists agree that further cuts of this nature will not stimulate economic growth. This budget endangers the Medicare and Social Security trust funds. Since President Bush took office one year ago, $4 trillion has disappeared from our surplus, and estimates indicate that the Social Security trust fund will be raided to the tune of $1.5 trillion over the next ten years. Instead of protecting Social Security and Medicare funds as he pledged to do, this budget creates a long-, term crisis in their funding. The President talks about “reform” of Social Security, but what he means is a Social Security privatization plan that would raise the retirement age and cut benefits. This would be particularly dangerous to women, over two-thirds of who rely heavily on Social Security and its related sundvor benefits for income once they reach retirement age. President Bush talked about prescription drug coverage, but his budget would cover at best one-third of seniors, and the private insurers that are supposed to make the plan work have called his proposal unworkable. The president and Republican members of Congress told American families they were for prescription ding coverage; this budget tells us they weren’t serious. We know that protecting Social Security and Medicare and providing real prescription drug coverage are particularly important for women, who have been

paid less throughout their working lives and are least likely to have any other form of pension coverage in their retirement years. And Bush’s plan is particularly harmful to women in many other ways. The. White House recently recommended the closure of the Women’s Bureau offices of the Department of Labor, the only government agency dedicated to the concerns of workingwcmen. In addition, Bush’s budget would slash funding for after-school programs that offer education and safe space for children of working families; would eliminate funding for international family planning that offers hope to the poorest, most vulnerable women around the world; would offer insurance coverage for embryos while extending no new coverage for low-income women; and increase funding for abstinence-only education, which censors educators on important topics such as birth control. In his state of the Union speech, the president said dignity for women was an American value. We agree. It is unfortunate that the President’s budget doesn’t live up to that principle.

What’s in a word? Everything! Few problems weary me more than Black America’s inability to agree that the word “nigger” is inappropriate under most circumstances. The endless wrangling puts me in sympathy with civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer, who once sighed, “I’m sick and tired of betog sick and tired.” In fact, the late Ms. Hamer and all our other ancestors must be gapb 4 down with dismay to some of their descendants insist — and insist and insist — that they have turned the word into a term of endearment, or a badge of racial pride or a satirical

weapon against bigotry. I can hear our ancestors as clearly as if they were sitting right here beside me: Lord have mercy Jesus! Our children have lost their ever-loving minds! And we have. Harvard professor Randall Kennedy is one of those madmen. His new book, Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word, purports to be a rational and evenhanded look at this protean term in all its guises. But if written words can have a pitch and a tone — and I believe they can — it becomes clear from the cast of his voice where Kennedy’s sympathies lie. He likes the word. He admires its malleability. He believes that those of us who find it objectionable — he calls us “eradicationists” and “regulationists” — are being unrealistic, old-fashioned and more than a tad prudish. “If nigger represented only an insulting slur and was associated only with racial animus, this book would not exist, for the term would be insufficiently interesting to warrant extended study,” writes Kennedy. “Nigger is fascinating precisely because it has been put to a variety of uses and can radiate a wide variety of meanings.” He then offers examples of how African Americans have used the word, dating almost from the time of slavery — in humor, in political commentary and as a form of salutation. Hp quotes African-American comedians such as Richard f ryor and Chris Rock, screen writers sucii as Quentin Tarentino and legiom f hip-hop artists who lace their lyrics using the w'" ‘ objective e .0.1 1 verb. s those ' f the w r ord ay it has . ive owners and bigots, right up to sent times. In fact, the is useful in this way: Alter detailing the word’s NEW.'. :.»Rl rr " ' '' l l ’AGE 8