Indianapolis Recorder, Indianapolis, Marion County, 5 February 1994 — Page 2

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THE INDIANAPOLIS RECORDER

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1994

Working women critical to our future

EDITORIALS

Editors note, we will reprint a number of editorials from the past as we begin the countdown to our one hundred year birthday celebration, which will occur in 1995. Learning to function in the scheme of things... Recorder editorial June 4,1932 The race is sadly aborne of producers; it is top heavy with consumers, we must strive to eradicate such conditions if we are ever to satisfy our aspirations as a race. A college education is primarily intended to facilitate its possessor’s thinking ability; to enable the graduate to more efficiently serve humanity, society, civilization; to fit products of higher institutions of learning to function in the scheme of things... in leading us... toward higher goals . Woes in Educationland, Recorder editorial November 27, 1993 A radio show host summarized a recent report on the status of education in Indiana by saying that Hoosiers are getting older and dumber. Could this be true or is it just a bad joke from Kentucky or what? In fact most measures of achievement related to education are declining in Indiana and the population of the state is ageing. The public educational system in Indiana, including institutions of higher learning, has generally been under valued by the public and its representatives the legislature. We spend less money per capita on education than nearly every state in the union. And it shows. The state legislature has over the years often appeared to hold the belief that education was an unnecessary evil that drained our taxes and mined our kids. In the past farm and factory had little use for people who were educated much beyond the eighth grade. This way of thinking has contributed to our present dilemma. The problems we see now occurring in public education have at their root this historical mistrust of the vety process of educating our young. As a consequence, our colleges and universities as well as our elementary and secondary institutions have always battled for relative crumbs from the legislative table. A quick look at Ohio for example shows a public personality that has placed a high value upon the education of its young. They spend more and they have much more to show for it. Indiana has not been fiscally conservative relative to education, it has rather been dumb and cheap. Businesses want people who can read and write and compute and we make excuses about why our kids can’t. Our brightest students leave the state to attend college in Ohio and Illinois, because we don’t spend money to recruit them. We have top ten sports programs but no top ten undergraduate programs in the public arena. We’ve created a system of secondary schools where only a privileged minority receive a proper education. We’ve allowed our racist past to swallow up our investment in the future as we pay for buses instead of dedicated teachers and good equipment. Over the short run our drop out rate will continue to climb and our achievement scores will stay near the bottom. It appears that our failure to value education will help us to continue to succeed in our quest to stay dumber than our neighbors. We hope that there will be some new movement in the halls of government which will lead us to understand the education of our young people will not corrupt them. Maybe some people from our majority rural state will figure out that education can be a good thing even when you don’t agree with every teacher and every idea that might be taught. Ignorance may be bliss but can also destroy Indiana’s future. We don’t have to stay dumber than our neighbors, unless we really are. The Recorder's platform... Recorder editorial July, 23 1927 The Recorder’s platform... Representation, pro rata in civic, political and general public affairs as these effect the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of all citizens of the community... A civic program and civic organization, real active and above board for all Negro citizens... A good housing, health and recreation program for all Negro citizens... A vigilant stand against segregation or Jim Crowism and further spread of the nefarious bane of American tradition... Negro leadership of integrity, independent, fearless, aggressive and constructive... News, all the news, if news, without malice, fear or favor to none....

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Why, some might ask, do I start the year with a seemingly puerile suggestion that our social well-being depends on our willingness to give women real equality in the workplace? Because I know that there are not enough sermons preached in all the churches of America to dam up the fires of sexual desire that are fanned in movies, on television, in newspaper columns and ads and just about every place else. Young people will fornicate, no matter what, and millions of girls will bear babies. Because I know divorce is now as much the American way of life as an enduring marriage. Thus we are going to have forever millions of teenage and adult women who head households and often are the sole breadwinners in their families. Because I know the super-

The Rowan Report lyCARL ROWAN

moralists with an ISthcentury view of “a woman’s place” will never change the trend of more women in the workplace — 34.7 percent of women in 1952, 19,269,000; as against 58.2 percent in November 1993, 58,937,000. Women who work because they have to in order to survive economically, or emotionally. These working women are absolutely critical to the futures of the many millions of children who

are vulnerable to the blandishments of school dropouts, sexual predators, shoplifting and more serious crimes and drug abuse. I mean children who become the faceless, silently hated people of the land because of their need for welfare or other taxpayer “support,” as in prison costs. But this society handicaps, even cripples, millions of women and makes it impossible for them to be really good parents by discriminating against them in the work force. Who doesn’t know that the poorer the female-headed household, the greater the likelihood of disaster for the children? The Washington Post had a dismaying report showing that while women make up 51 percent of the U.S. population and fill 44 percent of all federal government

jobs, they hold only 13 percent of top federal jobs. The Washington Post report indicates that worst treated are the minority women who, in the current right-wing furor, are most blamed for family breakdown, crime and illegitimacy. We’ve celebrated our “year of the woman” that involved a few women who won seats in Congress or got governorships or other top political posts. But it sure as hell wasn’t the year of the women who have to feed and clothe children, help them with homework and teach them to keep their noses clean and their zippers zipped and chastity belts locked tight. Are we such a selfish, cruel, stupid people that we can’t do something about this nationcrippling abuse of women in 1994?

Gearing up for the battle of the budget

The start of the legislative year signals renewal of the perennial battle of the budget. Once again, we will hear dire warnings about inevitable national bankruptcy stemming from runaway budget deficits. Once again, we will hear sad stories about how the richest nation in the world can’t afford to mount efforts to train and employ all of its people; to allot scarce resources to help those in need; to reform its health care system, or to do other things that are important for the welfare of its citizens. And once again, we will see Congress enmeshed in schemes to cut social programs like Medicaid, and to enforce balanced federal budgets through a constitutional amendment. Whatever the spending totals included in the President’s budget there will be loud voices raised urging those totalsbe lowered drastically; voices that insist the government spends too much and does too much. But the real question is not how much the government spends but on what it spends and how effectively it spends it. And the real issue of the deficit isn’t how large it is, but in which direction it is moving. For a while, in the late 1980s, the deficit really was a serious problem. But a combination of tax hikes, spending cuts and a more vigorous economy have cut the budget deficit from about $300 billion to about $190 billion. That’s an amazing feat. Now that the deficits are trending downward, both in absolute numbers and as a percentage of the gross national product, it would be folly to remain fixated on the deficit to the exclusion of pressing human needs and the need to build a stronger foundation for the future. But that is what is likely to happen, since lawmakers are operating under a 1990 agreement that caps discretionary spending. With a rigid ceiling on such spending, new programs or increases in old ones can only be financed through cuts made elsewhere. That means we will see attempts to slash some important social programs such as lowincome heating assistance, and inflict smaller cuts on other programs that will limit their effectiveness. I’m hoping someone — the President is clearly the most likely candidate — will finally come out and say that this whole process is a numbers game that has to be brought back to reality. Public debate now begins with the

assumption that spending must be cut, and it works backward from there. Public debate should begin \yith determining what the nation needs, and then how those needs can be met. Those approaches are very different. One method—the present one—puts public policy in an artificial straitjacket. The other approach would recognize that America is today at a turning point in its history. A nation that once dominated the world’s economy is now among several economic competitors in a global system. Remaining competitive requires training and educating

people for a new era of technologically sophisticated jobs. And it means investing in an infrastructure that will undergird a renewed economy. A natiot that prided itself on ideals of equality and openness is now trending toward greater inequality between those with the skills and education to thrive in a modem economy and those who do not have the skills and education to find

decent jobs.

Investing in human resources and in the nation’s economic future means targeted, efficient government spending in critical areas. The budget must be the tool for the policy decisions which guide that spending, not a rigid barrier to necessary investments.

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A call to realize the dream

I sometimes refer to myself as a Brown vs. Board of Education baby to remind myself of the changes I have seen in my lifetime. Growingup in the nation’scapital, I was scheduled to attend one of the segregated kindergartensof that city. But during the summer before school began, the Brown decision changed all of that. Those of us over the age of 30 are intensely aware of the changes we have seen in our lifetime. We know first-hand what the segregated world was like. We remember what it felt like not to be able to stop at a restaurant or a rest room on a long automobile trip. We know what it meant not tobe able to get any job we wanted, despite our education or background. We remember when there was no Congressional Black Caucus, when no major cities had African-American mayors, indeed when many African Americans were denied the right even to vote. But for young people that world is history. It is difficult for many of them to understand the emotional and physical toll that living in that world took on African Americans. It is hard for them to imagine what it felt like not to be hired forajob or to be paid at a lower wage. They cannot understand easily the significance of the historically black colleges which were the only highereducation option for most. They cannot imagine what

other. Our men and women, our babies are dying of AIDS. Children 10 and 11 years old are planning their funerals. Children are having children. Mothers, hooked on crack, are abandoning their babies. Fathers have given up any hope of jobs in their lifetime. Our ancestors—who survived the Middle Passage, the horrors of slavery, lynchings and Jim Crow laws — cry out to us.

it was like not being able to try on Martin Luther KingJr., the champion clothes you wanted to purchase or of peace, cries out to us. not being able to get a cool drink of We in the Commission for Racial water on a hot day. Justice use this occasion, after more That is the real significance of the than a quarter-century of work, to Dr. Martin Luther KingJr. holiday, rededicate ourselves to continuing It is a time for remembering and for the struggle for racial justice in this sharing that memory with ouryoung country and in the world. My people and our children. In order for predecessors, Dr. Charles E. Cobb them not to take for granted living Sr. and Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr., wherever they want, attending have left a rich legacy for me — as I whateverschool they have the ability take over the helmof the commission and funds to attend or working at — and for our staff as we begin our whatever job they are qualified for, newjoumey together. We thank them

they must understand their not-so- for that,

distant history. If they are to We rededicate ourselves to work understand the importance of voting, tirelessly to help end the violence they must understand what it was which is destroying our like when we couldn’t. communities. We say, “Enough!” But the Martin Luther King Jr. We say enough ofthe violence which holiday mustbe more than memories, is killing innocent children, which is It must become a time of rededication destroy inga generation of our young and re-visioning because the times men. Wewanttofiridw^ystoenable we are living in are more dangerous churches ^id / ‘?community to our survival than any time since organizations to take back our we arrived unwillingly on these children, (osteal them from death’s shores. Our children are killing each grasp and to give them life and hope

Civil

Rights Journal

ly BERNICE

P0WEU JACKSON

— hope for a future which includes them, hope for the world which Martin Luther King Jr. dared to dream. We rededicate ourselves to work tirelessly around up-building the health and wellness of our communities. Our health care needs parallel those of undeveloped countries. If our young men survive the violence, they face higher mortality rates in adulthood. We face higher incidences of cancer, heart disease, hypertension, alcoholism and drug addiction. Our babies are more likely to die. AIDS is rampaging through our communities. Toxic wastes continue to be dumped on our communities and we are unhealthy from living next to these deadly chemicals. The Commission for Racial Justice will work harder than ever on health and wellness issues. As we celebrate the life of Martin Luther King Jr., we in the Commission for Racial Justice rededicate ourselves. And we ask you to join with us in the struggle. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks would demand no less. Bernice Powell Jackson is executive director of the United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice, 700 Prospect Ave., Cleveland,Ohio44115-11 W , (216) 736-2168 • FAX: (216) 736-2171