Indianapolis Recorder, Indianapolis, Marion County, 12 March 1994 — Page 2

THE INDIANAPOLIS RECORDER

SATURDAY, MARCH 12, 1994

EDITORIALS

Undertow in our schools is having a cancerous effect on our children

Many young people are faced with the sad prospect of having to fight to be excellent. These fights are not with legitimate competitors but with their peers attitudes about performing well in school. In many high schools, students who achieve certain academic excellence are faced with ridicule and derision from classmates who question their strong work ethic. And many of these young people question the social value of good grades and good behavior. Some young people pretend that they don’t do well in school in order to gain peer acceptance. Others try to maintain a bad boy or bad girl reputation to divert attention from their academic achievements. While this is not a new phenomena, it appears to some educators and parents that this kind of negative pressure is more widespread than ever, and it seems to undermine some of our best attempts at educational reform. Far too many students have come to question the basic value of their educational experiences and this has had a devastating impact on student achievement. With this in mind, it would seem that any serious attempt to improve education in America needs to include an analysis of this cancerous attitude toward excellence. It should also include some recommendations in this regard. Young people have to be involved in this discussion and they need to be approached in a serious and sustained manner. For far too long educational reformers have neglected this aspect of educational decline. Conversations with the consumers of American education are rare, undervalued and often paternalistic by design. There is an undertow present in the educational ocean that is being ignored by adults while it is pulling more and more bright young people under. We need to find out why so many students are willing to pull others down. We need to find out why this behavior is becoming the norm by which young people measure themselves as they face the future. We need to find a way to stop this waste.

Editors note: We will Jreprint a number of editorials from the past as we begin the countdown to our one hi mdred year birthday celebration, which will occur in 1995.

1957 or 1857 January 26,1957 Is this 1957 or 1857? An Associated Negro Press article last week pointed out various developments which made us wonder. Although the ANP noted that “opposition to civil rights for Negroes and other minority groups is developing along parallel lines of the forces wjich struck a lethal blow at democracy right after the Civil War,’’ is seems to us that the blows at democracy today are more like a prelude to another Civil War—one of ideas, ideals and ideologies. In brewing up a storm of conflicting ideas of Constitutional Americanism, 1957 seems more like 1857, with the nation rushing headlong into a major battle. It puts a strain an the imagination to believe that the Civil War of 1961 will have guns, bullets and bombs for its ammunition. Rather, it seems that prejudice, racism and bigotory will be aligned agianst democracy human decency and enlightenment. The moral indignation at a South of murder of defenseless Negroes disfranchisement and flagrant abuse of their rights as American citizens in 1957can certainly be no less intense the moral indignation over a race enslaved in 1857. As Negroes fought then, so they must fight now. They must use all their forces to assure that right becomes might, that the side of ignorance and reactionism does not win in the United States Civil War of the twentieth century. They may as well face the realization that the internal conflict in this country today is no less a cold war than the conflict between democracy and communism. Facing that knowledge, they should use every weapon at hand, fighting boldly in a conflict which can only be lost by default through passivity, timidity or complacenct.

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Ordinary people can 1 hear the same reactions when ™ 1,BB

subjects such as crime, illegitimate babies, public education and troubled families are brought up. People say they feel powerless to Jo anything to improve things. I try to tell them about citizens such as Sara Keeney of Albucjuerque, N.M., who once shnr \; those frustrations. Then she got involved with Results, an unusual grass-roots citizens lobby committed to bridging the chasm between people and government. On a family trip to Washington, Keeney made an appointment to see her congressman, Manuel Lujan, a Republican who later became seaetary of the Interior Department. Political novice Keeney told Lujan about the 35,000 children who were dying every day around the world and how a simple vaccine could cut the toll. She gave him a

copy of a bill that would increase funds for childhood immunization. To heramazement and joy, he agreed to co-sponsor it. In today’s atmosphere of cynicism, few Americans believe they have any real impact on what their government officials do. Over and over, you hear laments such as, “You can’t fight city hall,” “Politicians are all a bunch of crooks” and “There’s nothing one person can do.” That need not be- and should not be, insists Sam Harris, the founder

make a difference

of Results. “Ordinary people can make a difference if they are willing to take extraordinary actions,” Harris says. You get some idea of how much such actions can accomplish in a recent report from the United Nations Children’s Fund. It shows that deaths from childhood diseases such as measles, malnutrition, whooping cough and tetanus have dropped dramatically around the world in recent years. At the same time, however, the report points out that most of the developing world is threatened by what it calls the PPE spiral: poverty, population growth and environmental deterioration. Results volunteers have played a role in combating world hunger and disease. The group helped get an increase in child survival funding within the U.S. foreign aid program. Here at home, the group has worked

to battle homelessness and increase funds for social programs. Although Results is a lobbying organization, it is a far cry from your typical high-powered, well-paid Washington lobby. “We recognize that the best lobbyists live in Denver, Seattle, Chicago and all around the country,” founder Harris says. They are teachers, homemakers, salesmen_ordinary people who will go talk to their elected officials, send letters to newspapers and in other ways call attention to problems and solutions. Sara Keeney recalls that as she left her meeting with Lujan, “I noticed I was hooked, completely swept up with the influence I could have, one lonely citizen. “I was thrilled to the core of my being to be an active participant in my democracy.”

Middle-class America still feeling insecure

Do I see the first glimmerings of a new war on the poor shaping up? It seems unlikely since we now have the first national Administration in a decade that’s committed to more equitable national policies. And there’sagreaterunderstandingof the growing danger inequality poses to America’s social stability and economic future. But there’s a lot of free-floating middle class insecurity out there that may be channeled into repressive measures against people on the bottom of the ladder, instead of on more productive measures to help everybody move up the ladder. And this is a congressional election year, with Jl the temptations that offers for political candidates to play on the fears of voters and to seek scapegoats for their problems. A case in point is the new crime bill now gathering support in Congress. By the time it gets to a vote, it may be loaded with repressive features that don’t hinder crime, and saddle us with a primitive, unworkable criminal justice system. Some aspects of the new, more punitive approach to crime could lead to an expensive prison-building spree that imprisons people and keeps them there longer than necessary. We already have a criminal justice system that criminalizes offenses other countries punish lightly; imposes longer sentences than similar crimes draw in other countries, and operates in a way that is biased against young AfricanAmerican men. The end result is a system that doesn’t deter crime and fails to rehabilitate offenders. Reforming the federal crime code makes sense, but not if it just encourages a war on poor young men. And welfare reform makes sense, too, but not if it just encourages a war on poor people. The Administration will propose a welfare reform measure that would force people to work after two years on the welfare rolls, something that sounds appealing but will require huge investments in child care and job creation if it is to work. The states are jumping on the bandwagon, with reform plans that are even more obviously punitive. Virginia, for example is considering welfare changes that would force recipients to work within a year of going on the rolls, and drop them completely after a second year, whether or not they have a permanent job. That doesn’t sound like reform to me — it sounds like punishing people for being poor.

Welfare reform needs to encourage work and independence, but that requires the availability of child care, health care, job training, jobs, and a panoply of social services to help people get on their feet. Any so-called reform that doesn’t include those necessities isn’t reform, it’s punishment. The goals of too many of these socalled welfare reform plans to cut costs, not to help people in need. Another sign of the start of a war on the poor is the growing callousness about the homeless.

Increasingly, the media are painting the homeless as a threatening force to be repressed, instead of as unfortunate people who need affordable housing, jobs, healthcare, drugtreatment, and other services tailored to individual needs. So there’s a growing trend to paint crime, welfare, and homelessness as aspects of a growing underclass that threatens the middle class, instead of as the inevitable results of a stagnant economy and a discriminatory society.

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The Cuba embargo needs more attention

To American the little yellow school bus is a symbol for children and education. It is a sign of the future. And at the same time brings back fond memories of childhood trips from home to school. Last summer, the little yellow school bus became a different kind of symbol when the Pastors for Peace led a caravan of 95 trucks and cars and three yellow school buses across the United States/ Mexican border along with 100 tons of humanitarian aid for Cubans. Pastors for Peace, an arm of the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization, had collected this aid-food, medicine, wheelchairs, Bibles, bicycles, soap, toothbrushes and computers, from churches and organizations across the United States. This was given to Cubans through the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Center in Havana. The buses themselves were togo to a program for mentally impaired persons and to church youth groups in Cuba. For the past 34 years, the United States has embargoed all trade to Cuba, including food and humanitarian supplies. Thus, Cuban hospitals cannot purchase prescription medicines from U.S. companies. And Cuban churches and other humanitarian organizations cannot receive relief

either. Food itself is a scarce commodity to most Cubans, while we in this nation still grow more food than we eat. Pastors for Peace decided to challenge what they believed was an unjust law. Thus began their caravan, collecting relief in cities across the nation, culminating in a border crossing last summer to Havana. But U.S. Customs officials were unhappy with this attempt at circumnavigation, and while they allowed two school buses to cross, they forced the caravaners to carry across much of the aid by hand and confiscated the third little yellow school bus. Rev. Lucius Walker, founder of Pastors for Peace, and 13 others who were on the last school bus, refused to leave and began a 23 day hunger strike. They stayed aboard the seized school bus in more than lOOplus degree weather, surviving only on water and juices brought to

them by many supporters until the of relief supplies have crossed the Federal government relented and U.SVCanada border bound for the allowed the school bus to cross the caravan, despite the passage of a border. That bus is now in Havana 1992 bill which makes it a violation at the Ebenezer Baptist Church, to transport goods destined for Members of the religious Cuba across U.S. territory. It’s not community believe that the Cuba clear why customs official allowed embargo is unjust to the 11 million the group to cross the border, Cubans who suffer from although there are some indications widespread shortages of food, that the Clinton Administration medicines and fuel. Congressman may be reconsidering the embargo. Charles Rangel of New York has In early March, watch the introduced legislation into the newspapers and television for news House ofrepresentative calling for of the U.S.-Cuba Friendshipment an end to the embargo and for trade Caravan, which will include openings with Cuba. Citing the contingents not only from the ending of the trade embargo with United States and Canada, but also Vietnam, Rangel points out that from Mexico, England, Sweden U.S., companies are losing $6 and Germany. There will be more billion every year that they are not than 100 vehicles and 10 little allowed to do business with Cuba, yellow school buses. Pastors for “This bill addresses not only the Peace asks those wh6 believe that humanitarian issues that we all care people in Cuba should have food, about, but also the vital issue of medicine wheelchairs and other free trade,” said Rangel. “It’s humanitarian aid to write or call ridiculous to deny U.S. companies the White House, the State the opportunity...because a small Department and the U.S. interest group wants to starve the Department of the Treasury (of Cuban people into submission.” which the Customs is an agency) A hearing is scheduled on the during that time. If you’re interested billby the House Ways and Means in supporting Congressman

Committee on March 15. Meanwhile, the Pastors for

Peace are beginning its third

Rangel’s legislation, let your

congress person know.

The right to food and to medici ne

caravan, whichisschedulcdtocross isa fundamental human right. How the Laredo border on March 9 with long can the U.S. go on denying

145 tons of aid. Already two tons this?