Indianapolis Recorder, Indianapolis, Marion County, 9 April 1994 — Page 2

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THE INDIANAPOLIS RECORDER

SATURDAY, APRIL 9, 1

Action Against Violence brings youth together

EDITORIALS

Why Schools could Save America Many children spend more time with educators than they do with any other adults, parents included. For eight hours a day, five days a week, nine months a year, most youth between the ages of five and 16 are in school. The poor, rich and middle class students come to school to learn. School is the single common denominator for the vast majority of young Americans. From tiny villages to large cities, children spend a lot of time with teachers, counselors, coaches and administrators. School attendance and television are virtually universal in America. Access to caring and interested adults is not universal among America’s youth. It is not surprising news that youth do well when exposed to caring adults. It is sad news however, that most young people feel that educators in general don’t care much about them as individuals. Recent polls among adolescents show that educators as a group are frequently characterized by youth as uncaring and lacking commitment to their student’s well being. Everything else aside there is a professional class who are supposed to provide guidance and counseling to students. In reality, guidance counselors seem to have little to do with guidance and virtually nothing to do with counseling. Instead, it seems that these educators are experts at scheduling. They should be called master schedulers because that’s what they do. This amounts to missed opportunities on a grand scale. The kids are in school, the adults are in school, but no one has time to care about the kids. Even the guidance counselors seem to only have time to arrange schedules. They apparently have little time to talk to students about other issues. So what happens when not enough educators care about their young students? What happens when many of these students’ parents are not available because they are missing in action or because they are at work? What happens when we’re lucky enough to get excessive mediocrity among high school graduates. When we’re unlucky, we get a lot of dropouts and a lot of dysfunctional young people. Our young people are failing because we are failing them. When schools work reasonably well, their places where youth thrive on the attention they receive. Good schools are places where young people from difficult circumstances are able to come and leave bad things behind, so that they’re able to work on becoming good people. All schools should be places where virtually every child is able to discover their unique potential and get assisted in achieving that potential. Some schools do this. But far too many don’t. We can blame parents and we can blame television, but we cannot escape the fact that most American children are in school whether they are on welfare and have evil parents, or whether they live in mansions and have heavenly parents. We spend billions on education. We have these young people in virtual captivity for a time and we are not doing them any good by ignoring our billion dollar lapse in judgement. Our schools are not good enough for our children. If our jobs were as bad as many of our schools, the unemployment rate would be as high as the drop out rate. Schools can save America if we are determined to save our young people. Schools are a reflection of the soul of our country. If many more schools become places to market drugs and dismay, we may as well send our kids directly to prison instead of to school. Then we can stop pretending to care.

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On April 5, 1968 in Cleveland, Ohio, the day after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, Robert F. Kennedy said, “about the mindless menace of violence in America which again stainsour land and every one of our lives. It is not,” he said. “The concern of any one race. The victimsof the violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown. They are most important of all, human beings, who other human beings loved and needed. No one — no matter where he lives or what he does, can be certain who will suffer from some senseless action of bloodshed. And yet, it goes on and on and on in this country of ours.” Since Dr. King’s death, Kennedy and 800,000 men, women, and children have been killed by guns. Everyday in America, six Black children die from guns, 1,118 Black teenagers are victims of violent crimes, and 151 Black children are

arrested for crimes of violence. Neverbefore hasourcountry seen or permitted the epidemic of gun death and violence that is turning our communities into fearful armed camps and sapping the lives and hopes of so many of our children. Never have we seen such a dangerous domestic arms race. Never has America permitted children to rely on guns and gangs rather than parents and neighbors for protection and love. Or pushed so many onto the tumultuous sea of life without the life vests of nurturing families and communities, challenged minds, job

prospects, and hope. This is not the dream that Dr. King spoke of 30 years ago. This is a modem nightmare that must end today. The assassination of Dr. King symbolizes the tremendous loss our communities face daily as a result of the violent deaths. To commemorate the 26th anniversary of his death, the Black Student Leadership Network organized a National Day of Action Against Violence recently. The Day of Action was the first of many activities coordinated by the BSLN in local communities to address the social and economic ills reflected through acts of violence. On Monday, more than 600 BSLN members encouraged young people to organize speak-outs on violence, hold candlelight vigils for neighborhood victims of gun violence, teach-ins on the gun industry, and a variety of other activities.

In ordertocreate lastingsolutio to the epidemic of violence, BS members are asking young peopl of all backgrounds to join in this effort. “In order to stop violence against children, the BSLN’s antiviolence campaign must involve everyone — children, youth, and young adults in meaningful activities and actions that address the underlying causesofviolence,”said BSLN Field Director Lisa Sullivan. The event was an opportunity for youth and adults to talk and begin to work together. For more information about the Black Student Leadership Network write BSLN, 25 St., N.W., Washington, DC 20001 or call l-800-ASK-BCCC, and ask for the Black Student Leadership Network. Marian Wright Edelman is president of the Children’s Defense Fund, a national voice for children, andaleaderoftheBlackcommunity Crusade for Children.

Layoffs threaten corporate America gains

African-Americans have made slow but steady progress in breaching the formerly impenetrable walls of corporate America. Many companies looked at the antidiscrimination laws that expose offenders to monetary risks, and at the demographics, which indicate that white males are a shrinking part of the workforce. Their response was to implement affirmative action programs and hire and promote AfricanAmerican professionals, managers and executives. But toooften, African-Americans in corporate America were met with informal discrimination and harassment, usually in defiance of stated corporate policies. They persevered, but working in sometimes hostile environments and struggling establish a career in the face of racially-based unfairness takes its toll. A new book by Ellis Cose, “The Rage of the Privileged Class” discusses the frustrations and anger felt by so many talented individuals. Society views Black managers as successes, but many are victimized by petty discrimination and denied the raises and promotions taken for granted by their white peers. While the problems they face are nowhere near as difficult as those endured by their brothers and sisters at the bottom of the economic ladder, they do constitute an unfair race-based burden that hurts individuals, companies, and the economy. Now, in the 1990s, African-American managers face further challenges. One is downsizing. Corporate America is on an economy binge, trying to strip costs and re-engineer work in ways that cut employment. In contrast to previous waves of cost-cutting that targeted blue-collar production workers, the downsizing thrust applies as much to mid-level managers as to line workers. There isn’t a lot of data to document whether African-Americans are being hit disproportionately by downsizing layoffs, but history and recent experience suggest they probably are. Last year, a study of Equal Employment Opportunity Commission data found that Africanr Americans were the only group to suffer a net decline in jobs during the 1990-1991 recession. More than 35,{XX) companies were surveyed. That will be felt for years to come, as African-

American executives at senior levels will not be replaced by other African-Americans, who are now being squeezed out of the pipeline. As downsizing continues long after business and profits rebound, companies must examine their policies and practices to prevent further erosion of their AfricanAmerican workforce. Another threat is “diversity,” the effort many large companies are making tosecure a workforce that looks like America. That should be a positive factor, but too often corporate diversity policies just aim at increasing the gross numbers of minorities and women. In the process, Black employment often declines

even as minority and female employment rises. | African-Americans will have to keep pressing T corporations to provide equal employment opportunities, J and to nqfnitor them closely to ensure that downsizing doesn’t BL | affect Blacks disproportionately and that diversity doesn’t become a camouflage for removing Black from the corporate rainbow. It’s also the time for African-Americans to expend more energy on starting businesses and entrepreneurships. A big lesson of downsizing is that it’s better to be the one that hires and fires than the one who gets hired and then laid off.

90’s renaissance man is destroying stereotypes

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When people use the term “renaissance man” they are usually referring to a person highly cultivated in both the arts and sciences, such as artists Leonardo da Vinci. There’s a modern day renaissance man living and working in rural Mississippi. Dr. Ronald Myers, Sr. is a practicing physician in Tchula, Mississippi. He’s also a Baptist minister and a jazz musician. And he’s 100 percent dedicated to providing health care to the African-American community of Tchula. Tchula has a population of 2,000, many of whom are unemployed, while others are agricultural workers, most of whom live below the poverty line. Myers originally began working in nearby Belzioni, as a part of his commitment to the National Public Health Service, to repay his medical school tuition. When he completed his service, he saw the need for health care in Tchula. There had been no doctor there for eight years when he established a rural health clinic there. He didn’t know that he would receive resistance from the government. But the county, state and federal governments felt that

the community was too impoverished to support a clinic and would supply no funds for his effort. So, remembering the old slave adage about God making a way out of no way, Myers used his own funds to renovate a deserted restaurant for the clinic and works days at the clinic and many nights in nearby hospital emergency rooms to pay for the costs of running the clinic. But some evenings are devoted to his other love, jazz. Myers has found another way to raise funds for the Tchula health clinic — through jazz concerts with his trio. Today, he plays piano and trumpet not only in surrounding Mississippi towns, but in fundraising concerts across the country. Money raised is used for the clinic and for a mentoring program for rural youth who

have an interest in medicine. Myers is a man of many talents driven to serve the people of the rural Mississippi delta. The founder and pastor of the Tchula Bible Fellowship Baptist Church, he clearly believes that ministering to God’s people is a full-time job. Myers’ newest challenge is taking on state and federal health care issues as they impact his community. He challenged the Mississippi Department of Health, which had never hired an African American in one of its top 16 positions, while 80 percent of its African-American employees work in service and maintenance. He also pointed to the Governor’s Commission on Health Care, which had only three African-Americans out of its 31 members in the state, with 37 percent being AfricanAmerican. “There are no African-Americans sitting at the health care decision-making tables in Mississippi,” said Myers. “So the people in the community can’t be empowered,” he added. The state has now established a minority task force to make recommendations. Last summer those efforts led to a march and rally held in downtown Jackson.

Myers continues to challenge the federal government and its refusal to support the clinic, while planning to support a new clinic nearby. As a member of the Interreligious Health Care Access Campaign, he is in the forefront of challenging the health care reforms proposed by the Clinton administration to include quality health care for Black rural people. Education is also important to Myers. He devotes some of his own time to visiting schools and talking to students about jazz and about careers in medicine. Now he is sponsoring, together with the Mississippi Legislative Black Caucus, a series of health education activities on Black college campuses. The first conference is in Jackson, MS in June. Every now and then in life one finds someone who destroys stereotypes. Ronald Myers, physician, jazz musician, minister, educator, community advocate is not a stereotypical physician, musician or minister. He is truly a man for all seasons, a man committed to his people, a renaissance man in the Mississippi delta. Thanks, Dr. Myers.