Indianapolis Recorder, Indianapolis, Marion County, 10 March 2000 — Page 8

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THE INDIANAPOLIS RECORDER

Friday, march 16.2000

OPINIONS

Celebrities return to the struggle By WILLIAM TEMPLETON After a period in which some notable AfricanAmerican celebrities have acted as if they had arrived, whether the rest of us did or not, the 2000 presidential campaign has marked the return of the Black athlete and entertainer to the freedom struggle. Many actors and athletes have never let fame get in the way of their values, but it is notable that the peer pressure is moving away from the mindless competition over collecting baubles to being part of something that makes a difference. The campaign of Bill Bradley for the Democratic presidential nomination deserves a great deal of credit for enticing African-American basketball players into politics. Bradley’s generation of fellow players. Bill Russell, and Willis Reed, had been quite active during the 1960s. They couldn’t help it. They often had to sleep in segregated hotel rooms while traveling. As late as the Carter administration, Reggie Jackson, Julius Erving, Franco Harris and Dave Parker led a delegation to the White House to lobby for more youth employment funds. But in the last decade, the hip-hop generation of , athletes and entertainers has spent more time dealing with the criminal justice system instead of the political environment. They’ve forgotten the role that Jack Johnson, Paul Robeson, Jesse Owens, Joe Louis, Jackie Robinson, Arthur Ashe, Althea Gibson, Russell, Muhammad Ali, Curt Flood and Jim Brown all played as the door-openers to progress for the entire race. Each of them had to endure physical abuse, mental anguish and even poverty to stand up for their dignity. Actors like Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte even sparked independence movements due to the power of their dramatic presence, and helped give the fight to end apartheid the final push it needed. Poitier even paid for tl^p education of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s children. Significantly, the man who has embodied the commercialization of the Black athlete, Michael Jordan, simultaneously set the new tone for the Black celebrity in business and politics by taking an ownership stake in the Washington Wizards and endorsing Bradley. Whether or not the phalanx of superstars backing Bradley pushes him to the nomination, their participation helps underscore the stakes for African Americans in the 2000 election. The next step is to tie the celebrity participation to the issues such as the attacks on affirmative action in places like Florida and Texas and the fight for reparations. Organizations such as the Black Coaches Association, Black Filmmakers Foundation and NFL Players Association have demonstrated the power of unity among the famous. But attacks on free agency, salary caps and the fade to white on television should remind the fortunate that they too need a vigorous Black political presence. In addition to their visibility, it is a good time to make a concerted effort to fully fund the front line organizations from the ranks of the wealthy. The NAACP has to struggle along on less than some celebrities pay for a single mansion. As the television issue demonstrates, the civil rights struggle makes those mansions possible. Silicon Valley money is pouring into the opposition to Black progress. The only way we’ll be able to compete is to channel the imagination and enthusiasm of our champions to the “political Super Bowl’’ in November. Black athletic and entertainment success was at a similar peak at the beginning of the last century, but was wiped away within 10 years because the political climate changed. We don’t have time to shoot at each other when the bullets are coming in our direction from all sides.

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Will community centers do w hat’s bestfor community?

Last month, this column raised legitimate questions about the Community Centers of Indianapolis (CCI). I questioned their commitment to diversity and serving the human service needs of our African-American community. That brought a letter from Barry Baer, chairman of the Community Centers of Indianapolis Board. In his letter Baer, a former head of the Department of Public Works in the Goldsmith administration, discussedCCI’s decision tochange its leadership structure which resulted in the ouster of longtime President Earline Moore and the agency's chief operating offleer. The decision, said the letter, was made “following considerable study and deliberation.” Baer indicated the board’s decision was “unanimous” and would “result in considerable cost savings at a time when CCI is striving to maximize the financial resources that can be devoted to direct services at its community centers.” While Baer and CCI’s board feels “it is not appropriate to comment about the specifics of Ms. Moore’s lawsuit,” they emphasized “that discrimination was not a part of the decision to restructure the organization and eliminate Ms. Moore’s position and the position of the chief operating officer.” Baer continued, “we hope that the entire community can come together to participate in the process to improve CCI and its ability to get vital services to people in need.” On that point we agree. How CCI runs the city’s multi-service center system is of great interest to our African-American community. It is reasonable for our Black community to expect and demand that we have input into how CCI reorganizes and restructures its central management. Up to now, our Black community has been locked out of CCI’s decision making process. Baer and CCI’s board haven’t submitted to questioning from the city’s Black media regarding the agency’s direction and priorities. W|y hie CCI executives and boarc|rnembera continuing to hide in the shadows, avoiding media, failing to update and include the community in their reorganization process? In what direction is the CCI board taking an agency described in CCI’s letterhead as “the neighborhood based, social service delivery network for Marion County?” Will CCI emulate Goldsmithism or become more neighborhood and people centered? In this interim period, who will run CCI? How racially diverse will that management team be? How important is racial diversity to CCI in the 21st century? How will CCI evaluate 2000 Census data? If the data requires.

will CCI radically restructure services where the need is in 2001, not 1971? Chairman Baer and his board's letter to this column is a start. But. if CCI has nothing to hide; if they'recommittedtodiversity and service to the complex mosaic of human service needs in Indianapolis; then they should be willing to discuss the questions I’ve raised with the city's Black media and our larger African-American community! What I’m hearing in the streets Congressman David McIntosh, the front-runner for the Republican nomination for governor, has agreed to be interviewed by yours truly, Monday, March 20, on our WAV-TV Channel 53 daytime program. Setyour VCR’sortakea long lunch. Now that the Legislature committed to spending some of the multi-millions in tobacco settlement money. I’m waiting to see if Indiana’s African-American communities and African-American health agencies will gamer their fair share. African Americans suffered disproportionately from tobaccorelated deaths and disabilities. Yet, resources from the tobacco settlement haven’t benefited Black folks.

Example 1: You couldn’t go three blocks in the hood without seeing forests of cigarette billboards. As part of the tobacco settlement, anti-smoking billboards were supposed to replace the cigarette ads. The anti-smok-ing billboards went up in white neighborhoods and on the interstate, but none were placed in Black neighborhoods. Example 2: No tobacco settlement money has gone to Indiana Black Expo to allow them not to accept tainted tobacco company money for Expo’s annual free concert. African-Americans suffered and died from big tobacco's sins; Some of that blood money must be returned to our Black community to benefit our people. I couldn't believe my eyes. On page 73 of the March Indianapolis Monthly Magazine was a promotion for an upcoming visit to Indy by Essence Magazine's legendary editor Susan Taylor. But in big letters on the page, Taylor is referred to as “Suzanne Taylor.” It would be funny except for the fact that Indianapolis Monthly continues to be among the most racially un-diverse magazines in America. No African-American editors or writers. Few Blacks employed at all. Indianapolis Monthly could have solved that by naming an African American their new editor. But instead they chose the same old same old. When a company lacks a commitment to racial diversity, African Americans endure insults like the Monthly’s “Suzanne” Taylor gaffe! The exodus of talented, dedicated African-American women from WTLC continues. Sources

tell me that Ramona Holloway, who came here two years ago as community affairs director and costar of the now defunct “Breakfast Club," plans to leave for a station in the Virginia Beach/Norfolk market. Holloway’s departure, three weeks after Vycki Buchanon’s still unexplained ouster, again raises questions of WTLC’s commitment to the upward mobility of African-Ameri-can women. In a similar vein, Buchanon spent some 20 years as a positive on-air role model for AfricanAmerican women. So it’s unfortunate that WTLC chose as Vycki’s replacement an announcer who calls herself “The Midday Mama”— a term that’s juvenile at best, pejorative at worst. A term which reinforces the worst negative stereotypesof African-Ameri-can women! "City Treasures,” the excellent Black history special produced by Channel 8 anchor Tina Cosby and publ ic affairs director Denise Bates was -a ratings success, earning a 4.4 Nielsen rating and an 8 share in the competitive 7 p.m. time slot. Quality Black-oriented programming can get good ratings on Indianapolis TV, so why does Channel 8 insist on airing “Showtime at the Apollo” at 3:30 a.m. Friday nights? See ‘ya next week! Amos Brown's opinions are not necessarily those of The Indianapolis Recorder. You can contact him at (317) 293-9600 or 'e-mail him at [email protected].

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Who Wants to Marry a Hunan Rights/tar

McCain gives Bush a run for his money

WASHINGTON - It is now clear that Texas Gov. George Bush, once regarded as invincible, is vulnerable. He already carries the look of a loser on his worried face thanks to Sen. John McCain, who made an impression on primary voters. Sen. John McCain came across to lots of people, including independents and Democrats, as just the “straight shooter” that he pretends to be, and if such people flocked to him in the winter primaries, they are not likely to abandon him in the fall. That would be bad news for any Democratic candidate. McCain's candidacy has unmasked Bush in a way that I warned about months ago. The Texas governor is several times too slick and devious to be trusted. Thus the conservatives

don’t really embrace him, and the moderates think his “compassion” and his public claims of religiosity are mostly postures designed to con certain groups of voters. Bush has claimed the GOP mantle on grounds that he is the one Republican candidate who can win enough Black and Hispanic votes to defeat any Democrat. Yet, he acts as though these minority groups won’t see that, in South Carolina, he rushed to Bob Jones University - a bastion of racism and conservatism - to hold a key rally. So Bush gets embarrassing questions about

why he jumps into bed with university people who ban interracial dating and would have forbidden his brother Florida Gov. Jeb Bush from marrying a Mexican woman - people who insulted his father, President Bush, as “a devil,” and who at one time even refused to admit Black students. (After nationwide criticism, the university has since rescinded its interracial dating rule.) McCain got the windfall of declaring, “I would condemn openly the policies of Bob Jones, because I would want to make sure that everybody knew that this kind of thing is not American.” This he dared to say in South Carolina! That leads some Bush backers to declare that McCain is a liberal in disguise. Anyone familiar with the votes of the Arizonan knows that it must be a very deep disguise. But it does seem that McCain has a different sense of fairness than Bush, and that he does not seem to think that he can sucker people and play both^sides of every issue the way the Texan does. And that maikes McCain a formidable opponent now - or in the fall. It seems foolish to say that a senator who is much criticized in his home state, much reviled by some of his Senate colleagues and not much loved by the Republican establishment is the guy the Democrats ought to fear most. But that . clearly is the warning of the hour.

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