Indianapolis Recorder, Indianapolis, Marion County, 11 January 2002 — Page 7

FRIDAY, JANUARY 11,2002

THE INDIANAPOLIS RECORDER

PAGE A7

Lets' just break it on down, and keen it real

Fighting child hunger in the U.S.

By MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN Hungry child, l didn 't make this world for you. You didn 7 buy any stock in my railroad. You didn 7 invest in my corporation. Where are your shares in standard oil? I made the world for the rich And the will-be-rich And the have-always-been-rich. Not for you, Hungry child. — Langston Hughes, “God to Hungry Child” ***** Langston Hughes wrote this poem back in 1925 but many Americans might be shocked to learn that in our wealthy nation, where there is so much food available in wastefully large portions that millions of children still go hungry every day. Although the popular stereotype of a person using a soup kitchen is usually an adult man, America’s Second Harvest reports one in five people in soup kitchen lines is a child. The Department of Agriculture estimates that about 12 million children live in families not getting enough to eat and that over 3 million children are regularly hungry. Millions more children live in families regularly forced to skip meals or cut back on food. Who are these children? We all see them every day. They are Black, brown, and white, and live in urban, suburban, and rural communities. A majority live in working families. A 1998 study found that more than one in three children in immigrant families were going hungry, forced to skip meals, cut the size of meals, or go without food a whole day. Many immigrant children are U.S. citizens, but don’t receive food stamps or other benefits because their

parents are immigrants. Black citizens are three times more likely to suffer food ' insecurity than other groups. Hunger affects every area of a child’s life. A hungry child can’t concentrate or learn in school or have energy to play. All children need nutritious meals to grow and develop physically, intellectually, and emotionally. It is unnecessary and shameful that millions of children in the richest nation on Earth are denied the basic right to enough food. Hungry families are families like the Taylors in Washington, D.C. Angela Taylor, a mother of three, has worked for the last 15 years and has never been on welfare. Her income as a child care provider puts her $1 above the income requirement that would make her family eligible for food stamps. As a result, when dinnertime comes every evening, Mrs. Taylor struggles to choose from the small selection in her cabinets and refrigdrflTor — mainly beans, vegetables, and canned potato soup. Meat bought on sale at the supermarket gets rationed and stretched as far as possible, but by the end of the week it’s usually gone. Angela always focuses just on making sure her three children get something to eat every night, even if it’s only soup. She sometimes has to skip dinner herself, but that’s all right, “as long as they get something,” she says. Mrs. Taylor spends most of her day working to care for and nurture other people’s children, but for her own children she still has to struggle to accomplish the most basic goal of parents everywhere: making sure they have enough to eat. No parent should be in this situation in our country, and no child should have to worry about going hungry. Title VI of the Act to Leave No Child Behind (S. 940/ H.R. 1990), the comprehensive children’s bill introduced in

Congress on May 23,2001, by Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and Rep. George Miller, DCalif., and endorsed unanimously by the entire Congressional Black Caucus, will help families like the Taylors find the “freedom from want” President Roosevelt eloquently said all Americans deserve, in a speech he gave half a century ago. The Act to Leave No Child Behind will expand existing food programs to more preschool children and toddlers, increase the number of after-school programs providing snacks and in some cases dinner, restore food stamp eligibility to legal immigrants, and increase food stamps for low-wage families with children, particularly families with high housing costs. Making sure Congress passes these provisions will help all kinds of families, but because Black children are disproportionately at risk, they are especially important for Black children and families. They will ensure that at least 400,000 more Black children will receive food stamps, more Black children will participate in school or child care based food programs, and ultimately, fewer Black children will go hungry. And they will help mothers like Angela Taylor make sure she has more to give her children than just a can of soup — and that neither she nor her children will have to go to bed hungry another night. To learn more about the movement and the Act to Leave No Child Behind and what you can do, call 1-800-CDF-1200 or visit www.childrensdefense.org. Marian Wright Edelman is president of the Children's Defense Fund (CDF), which coordinates the Black Community Crusade for Children (BCCC). CDF’s mission is to Leave No Child Behind.

Person of the Year? Not hardly

By MARK RILEY Electronic Urban Report Time Magazine has named New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani its Person of the Year for 2001. Pardon the more than 2 million Black folks who lived and worked under his 8 year reign if we don’t jump for joy. Black New Yorkers have many terms for this guy, and Person of the Year isn’t one of them. To say Giuliani has had a troubled relationship with Black people is the height of understatement. From the police raid on a Muslim mosque in 1994 right through the Louima, Diallo. and Dorismond cases, he seemed to bare his fangs at the legitimate concerns of the Black community. And all the while, other New Yorkers, most of them white, sang his praises. He was the man who cleaned up New York, made it governable and livable again.

They weren’t most of the 24,000 innocent people stopped, frisked, and humiliated by his police force just a couple of years ago. Ask yourself this question. Would Rudy Giuliani have even been in contention for Person of the Year if Sept. 11 hadn’t happened? Prior to the terrorist attacks he was just another mayor playing out the string. His marriage had imploded, as had his bid for the U.S. Senate. Some of his most ardent supporters whispered privately that it was time for a change. The attack on the World Trade Center changed everything. This mayor, who was paranoid enough to seal off New York’s City Hall with concrete barricades, suddenly became transparent. He became a father figure to 8 million people. He deserves credit for his leadership in the aftermath of Sept. 11, but then he blew it in a ham-handed bid to stay in office

an extra 90 days. Time apparently considered making Osama bin Laden its Person of the Year. There was much fallout from that, with some magazine subscribers threatening to cancel. On the other hand, who would quarrel with Rudy Giuliani? Just us. Giuliani, like O.J. Simpson, is indicative of the deep divide between Blacks and whites on certain basic issues. Many who criticized him during the past two mayoral terms were accused of sour grapes and in some cases, exacerbating racial tensions. People seemed genuinely perplexed at the Black community’s anger at this man. There probably won’t be a national outcry from Black people about Giuliani’s selection. Many Black New Yorkecs are simply happy to see him leave office with the dawn of a new year. His legacy, for us, goes far beyond his actions in the aftermath of a terrible tragedy.

By JAMES BUNTIN Staff Writer Do we as Black people have a problem conducting ourselves today properly in public and with dignity? I think many of you out there would say yes. Those of you who are familiar with my past articles on the subject know I have issues with us Black folks, and the way we conduct ourselves in public. We have a tendency to be too loud, too outrageous and too disrespectful to one another while letting corporate America push us around like fools. So let’s just break it on down and get real!. No candy coating. A mind too open can grasp nothing, while a closed mind can accept nothing new. Black folks, when are we going to realize we need to get our heads out of our butts. Too many times I have seen us on TV and in public making spectacles of ourselves. We also have a tendency to be harder on one another when it comes to business dealings don’t we? It seems, too often, we tend to want something for nothing from one another and then dish out our money with a big ole’ grin even though we may be unsatisfied with the services that other races give us. We don’t want to work together either, do we folks? I am sure that you have heard that old example, “crabs in a bucket!” If I can’t get out then ain’t nobody else gonna get out either. What the hell happened baby? Some of us don’t seem to want anything meaningful in life and we don’t want others to have anything either. We will rob one another and

steal from one another without a second thought. Suppose one day we started to understand the value of working together? Suppose tomorrow we pooled our resources and really stood up for something more in this society like our forefathers did? We might get a fair shake from Capitol Hill. We have forgotten all the sacrifices the Martin Luther Kings, the Malcolm Xs and the Rosa Parks have made for us. I’m just asking you all to think before you act, we are in this together. We have started to take the freedoms that we have today for granted, not realizing that just a few short years ago, we didn’t have them and that nothing is promised to us in the future. It’s been said that a people that forgets its past is doomed to repeat it. Well baby, we sure seem to have forgotten it all. We have come all this way just to act like a bunch of fools. All the suffering that our forefathers endured is now being traded-in for the ability and the right to call each other a bunch of niggas’ and hos on TV and radio and who is getting fat off of it? Who is pulling the strings? Not us. Our young people, the future of Black America, seem to act brain dead at times and are being fed a steady diet of gangster rap while Mommy and Daddy are too busy finger pop’n themselves into oblivion to pay attention. The new baby sitter is a Playstation or an X-Box. Little children get dressed each morning and get ready for school while their lazy parents lay in bed too hung over from last night’s

partying to make them a hot breakfast before they catch the school bus. But you don’t hear me people. Can I get a witness? We have become the new slave masters of our own fate. Shackled by the chains of ignorance and decadence, our society has traded prayer in school for gang related drive-by shootings while our young girls now want to turn tricks or be strippers to get easy money. Well, if you have no education, what else are you going to do? Our schools degrade daily while we build bigger and bigger sports domes, and our neighborhoods fall deeper into decay as thugs sell drugs to our children and police are told to concentrate on speeding tickets instead. There is no monetary profit in busting drug dealers is there? High paid upper class citizens drive through ghettos to buy coke and weed, not available in their drug free neighborhoods. Then they look down their noses at us. All the liquor stores and strip bars are in our neighborhoods while billboards beacon us to drink and smoke ourselves to death south of 3%* Street. Is it by design or just a coincidence? Where does all this lead us? In the future, let’s carve our triumphs in stone and write our downfalls in the sand. Let’s be ever mindful of what we are doing, how we appear to our youth and what we stand for. We need to be kinder and more considerate to each other in the future. In 2002 let’s understand the importance of this truth: where each of us triumphs today, all may walk in victory tomorrow.

Readers Respond

State treasurer leeks at finances As I welcome our state legislators back to the Statehouse, lam reminded there are many tough issues currently facing the General Assembly, the O’Bannon-Keman administration, and the state as a whole. The state’s declining economy, the current budget deficit, property tax restructuring and reassessment are a few of the important issues that will be discussed. As Hoosiers have become more aware of our current fiscal condition, I have been asked repeatedly what has put us into this deteriorating financial situation. While I am not involved in the budgeting process as state treasurer, as the state ’ s chief investment officer, I am provided a unique viewpoint to observe the changes in our financial condition. To provide a simple response to a complex problem the changes can be characterized by a single word, spending. Spending for state services and programs (excluding education and property tax replacement credits) has been increasing at an alarming rate of about 9 percent annually. Since 1989, state expenditure growth has risen over

100 percent, in comparison the con- government should not be asking sumer price index shows growth of more from taxpayers, that is when 42 percent over this same time pe- taxpayers should be expecting riod. For 2001 alone the state spent more from their government. I beabout $800 million more than it Heve that we must invest in our collected in revenues. This is evi- future, but not break the backs of dence the state’s spending is out of taxpayers in order to accomplish control! Both businesses and fami- this.

lies would not be able to survive spending more than was gained in revenue, and neither should government. As the General Assembly reviews the numerous tax increases proposed in the O’ Bannon-Keman administration’s 21 st Century Tax Plan and the Budget Deficit Reduction Plan, I encourage members to evaluate the programs according to standards of success toward: 1. Promoting economic recovery and long-term job growth. 2. Protecting education and safeguarding Hoosier homeowners from reassessment tax shifts. 3. Providing a tax system that is fair and balanced to all taxpayers. While Congress and President Bush are discussing tax cuts to provide an economic stimulus to our economy, I find it alarming that the O’Bannon-Keman administration is proposing tax increases for Hoosiers. During difficult economic times like we currently face.

Your Voice

As the General Assembly debates these issues, I will do my part. I have already informed the governor that I will reduce my 2002 budget 10 percent. Additionally, I remain committed to my role in securing the financial future of Indiana through safeguarding and properly investing Hoosier tax dollars, as I earned record investment income in fiscal year 2001 of over $331 million dollars for the taxpayers of Indiana. I encourage the O’BannonKeman administration and our legislators to seek solutions to the current crisis that will not unduly burden Hoosier families, businesses and farmers. In the wake of the Sept. 11 tragedies, we’ve seen a “can do” spirit in America; I encourage all state agencies to employ that same spirit to the budget crunch, learn to do more with less, and make taxpayers proud of their state government. Tim Berry State Treasurer

What are your thoughts on Colts head coach Jim Mora being fired?

“I think it was a shame that they fired Jim Mora. If anything they should have fired Fangio because our defense sucks, it was ranked number 29 in the whole league, our offense was excellent. I’m very upset that they fired Jim Mora.” Chris Grant “I feel it was wrong to fire Jim Mora, he’s a good coach and he’s done good things for the organization. Jim Mora is a very loyal person. In reality, since he’s gone there’s nothing we can do about it. A little advice for the coach when the job comes around; don’t pick up any offensive players — we need defense.” Steve Dyson

nnn pi ^ P 1 ^ ^

Chris Grant

Stevo Dyson

“He shouldn’t have been fired. “I think there is a fine line beJust because he was head coach tween professionalism and loyalty, doesn’t mean he should be held He chose his loyalty to his defen-

sive coordinator instead of making the change. It’s a tough league and Mkhad Miles you have to make son

decisions.”

responsible for everything. He

had a great offense.’