Indianapolis Recorder, Indianapolis, Marion County, 2 August 2002 — Page 4

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THE INDIANAPOLIS RECORDER

FRIDAY, AUGUST 2,2002

Mayor speaks out about IPD, Expo fiasco

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Continued from A1

—Mayor Bart Peterson

relations.

!■ r*u ir- ■ —* - ... “I will have a visible presence during Classic and if anyone has a %#aCIOmcyjmaSSIcanaiianyonenasaconqMaBn complaint about IPD they can talk to me personally,” he said.

Solutions

When the Mayor attends Wednesday’s town hall meeting he plans to listen to the people, but he is hopeful to hear solutions on how community residents, Expo staff apd police can work together. Public Safety Director Turner will also be on hand and he already sees an opportunity for improvement ' We can maybe see about increasing the officer manpower,” said Turner of the event that usually requires more than lOOofficerstobeouton the streets. “But the community has a role in this as well, maybe Expo can have volunteers work with police to help visitors find their hotels and other downtown destinations or have more shuttles transport guests into the downtown area.” Turner also encourages local promoters who plan events around Summer Celebration to think more about parking and traffic issues guests may have when attempting to attend func-

tions.

“Right now, everyone is migrating downtown all at the same time and that is going to cause traffic problems,” he

said.

But traffic problems aside, the Peterson administration is now involved in a major public relations blunder that calls for swift action. “Everybody ain’t all right and everybody ain’t all wrong,” said Congresswoman JuHa Carson. “That’s why it’s so important for people to come out to the town hall meeting on Wednesday, it’s going to take all of us to fix this thing.”

like kids being rude and taunting officers, and people parking in areas that were clearly marked “NO PARKING,” now again that does not justify mistreating people, but it does not help the situation either,” said Turner who called this year’s security enforcement “heavy handed.”

Trying to do the right thing

Mayor Peterson said that by and large both officers and IBE guests try to do the right thing and that news of this year’s fiasco is surprising given the community praise his administration received

on the issue during the past two years.

“I think it is important to point out that the majority of officers do the right thing and I think there were some difficult situations that occurred this year and some police officers handled those difficulties well, but clearly there were some officers who acted in a way that we do not want them to act, leaving a bad taste in the mouth of

many guest and visitors,” he said.

“And sure racism exists, but I don’t think it is institutionalized... racism is not tolerated by my administration nor Chief Barker’s leadership or Public Safety Director Robert Turner.” Mayor Peterson said IBE’s Summer Celebration and the CocaCola Circle City Classic are two unique events in terms of logistics and it’s unfair to compare them to other events such as an Indianapolis Colts game, the Indy 500 or NCAA Final Four tournament. “I think because Summer Celebration and Classic are predominately attended by African-Americans, some people latch onto that,” he said, instead of really looking at the structure of how the events are operated. “We want to encourage people to enjoy downtown, but we also want to do it in

a safe way.”

During October’s Coca-Cola Circle City Classic May or Peterson said he will be more accessible to the public to help monitor police community

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Jesse Jackson picks a successor

CHICAGO(AP)—The Rev. Jesse Jack.son has chosen a Baptist minister from Chicago’s Southside to succeed him as president of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition. Jackson on Sunday named the Rev. James Meeks as his choice for the next leader of the Chicago-based civil rights organization. His announcement came during his keynote speech on the second day of the four-day Rainbow/ PUSH Coalition Citizenship Education Fund conference. But Jackson, 60, said he has not set a timetable for stepping down. He said he wanted to name a replacement because “organizations that don’t have a line of succession are traumatized by it” Modes, 45, pastor of Salem Baptist Church, said he did not expect to take over anytime soon because “I expect

Rev. Jackson to live for a long time.” A longtime Jackson ally, Meeks is running as in independent in the 15th Senate District against William Shaw, a Democratic state senator and the mayor of Dolton, a suburb south of Chicago. Shaw is an outspoken rival of Jackson and his son, U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Ql. Theekler Jackson said he first spoke with Meeks about leading Rainbow/ PUSH about a year ago. “He’sdaringenoughtotakeenough risk to be a freedom fighter,” Jackson said. Meeks first rose to prominence in the mid- 1990s when he began working with the Rainbow/PUSH leadership, leading protests of police brutality in Chicago and fighting liquor sales in poor neighborhoods.

National Urban League urges Bush to redirect compassion

By HAZEL TRICE EDNEY NNPA Washington Correspondent « LOS ANGELES (NNPA) — Many Black Americans see President Bush, who calls himself a compassionate conservative, as reserving most of his compassion for conservatives. Hugh Price, president of the National Urban League, has some suggestions for redirecting that misplace compassion. In his keynote address at the organization’s annual convention in Los Angeles, Price called upon the Bush administration to help broaden America’s compassion for the world’s poor in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. “After a prolonged spell of prosperous self-absorption, we Americans must re-ignite our compassion for the least among us around the world,” the civil rights leader says. “We Americans are citizens of the globe, not simply employees and customers of multinational corporations that sell goods and services overseas. No longer can America smugly afford to think of itself as the reigning economic superpower in the world, yet an island unto itself when it comes to compassion.” Price’s speech set a tone for the convention, which covered a variety of civil and human rights issues. “Mr. President, AIDS already ranks with the bubonic plague in the human toll it has taken around the world,” Price said. Quoting statistics from the 14th International AIDS Conference in Barcelona, Price says it will cost $10 billion per year to mount effective AIDS prevention programs in poor countries, yet, America is shirking on its fair share of the tab. President Bush dismantled the White House office on National AIDS Policy early in his administration, and then reopened it in response to criticism. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which distributes most U.S. funds related to AIDS and HIV, the virus that causes the deadly disease, has a budget of about $144 million to assist other countries with prevention and $700 million annually for prevention in the United States, according to the CDC. In sub-Saharan Africa, AIDS is the leading cause of death. The Joint United Nations Program on HIV/ AIDS estimates that 17.2 million Africans have died from AIDS. In 2000, 25.3 million Africans were estimated to be living with the disease. In the Middle East, where Israel and the Palestinian Authority seem hopelessly deadlocked in its violent dispute over land. Price says America should first pray that the warring nations will reach an agreement. “If they cannot, then the international community, including the U.S. and moderate Arabs states, should impose a settlement and, if need be, police it with a peacekeeping force.” Price also urged Bush to lead the charge against global warming, a scientific phenomenon over the past two decades in which the average temperature on Earth is gradually increasing because of the increased concentration of gases, such as carbon dioxide, that trap heat radiating upward, forcing it back toward Earth. In March, President Bush distanced himself from a report by his own administration — the Envi-

ronmental Protection Agency—that blamed human behavior, the burning of oil, coal and other fuels, for the heat-trapping gases. Bush insisted that research results had been too vague to support the report’s conclusions. The White House also opposes the Kyoto protocol, an international treaty that would impose mandatory reductions in carbon dioxide and other emissions from greenhouse gases, chemicals that cause heat to become trapped in the Earth ’ s atmosphere. “I know you haven’t been fiddling Mr. President, but the world is burning due to global warming and AIDS is spreading like wildfire,” Price says. “Both threaten America and African Americans because, like terrorism, there’s no refuge from either of them based on whatever race orreligion you are, where you’re from or where you live.” Unlike last year’s convention in Washington, where Bush and Price embraced after a speech by Bush, the president did not attend this year. But, like last year’s convention, during which Price said Bush would embarrass the nation by sending a low-level delegate to the World Conference Against Racism, the Urban League continued its aggressive call for compassion on domestic issues. They include the fight against ineffective welfare reform programs and private school vouchers. Price scoffs at political claims that welfare reform has been an unqualified success. “Maybe so. But, those recipients still on the welfare rolls are trapped in the perfect economic storm. As they hit the fiveyear limit for receiving benefits, they’re tossed out into a tough labor market at the very time financially strapped states are putting a lid on unemployment benefits.” A study released by the Urban League’s Institute for Opportunity and Equality in June says that the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, a centerpiece of welfare reform, distributes funds unequally between whites and people of color. For example, the report states that while 62.5 percent of white recipients received no subsidies for work-related activities between 1996 and 2000, that percentage was 70.5 percent and 70.9 percent for Latinos. Price called for Bush and Congress to allow states to loosen the time limits on assistance and expand child care and health care for recipients. The federal welfare law comes up for renewal this fall. Price also expressed disappointment in the 5-4 Supreme Court ruling to uphold the use of vouchers to help parents send their children to private schools. “The trouble is vouchers foster an illusion of choice,” he says. “Make no mistake, high fallutin' private schools have no intention of admitting lots of low-income innercity kids.” Price’s speech, while stressing more international issues, was similar to calls made this summer by other civil rights leavers, including NAACP Chairman Julian Bond and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, founder and president of the Rainbow/PUSH coalition. Price called for balance between homeland security and protection of America’s civil rights laws: “Nations that are targets of terrorism are entitled to root out, destabilize and eradicate it. Yet, we must remain forever vigilant to pcotect our civil rights.”

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