Indianapolis Recorder, Indianapolis, Marion County, 13 December 2002 — Page 9

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 13,2002

THE INDIANAPOLIS RECORDER

PAGEA9 :

Readers Respond

Elder Rash responds te Brown <olemn This letter is in response to the article written by Amos Brown in The Recorder’s Nov. 29th edition, ‘Those pushing Nordstrom boycott need to do their homework." In Mr. Brown’s view, Elder Lionel Rush and the “Don’t Shop Nordstrom” coalition needed to do their homework. We respectfully disagree. We did our homework; it is Mr. Brown who failed to do his. Had he done so, he would not have written this article. For instance, Mr. Brown stated, “After speaking with coalition members and Nordstrom officials, I’m not yet convinced Nordstrom is guilty of egregious, clear-cut bigotry and discrimination, worthy of a community boycott.” Who appointed Amos Brown God? Has he asked to see the court depositions of former employees who worked in Nordstrom’s Loss Prevention Department? Ifhe had, he surely would have known that these employees testified, under oath and in great detail about Nordstrom’s policy of racially profiling “certain” customers. Since these employees worked in the company’s Loss Prevention Department, some for many years, and testified to what the policies were, wouldn’t they be a better source for the facts than Mr. Brown? Additionally, Mr. Brown’s claim that Indy’s Black organizations, including the Nordstrom boycott coalition, have presented no evidence on how Indianapolis’ retail stores treat African Americans,” is disingenuous. Though discrimination may exist at the other stores Brown mentioned as well, there was no need to examine those cases at that point. I am not an ambulance chaser. Employees from the other stores did not approach me and ask for help. The Nordstrom employees did. My research proved that racial issues not only exist at the Indianapolis store but at Nordstrom stores in several other cities, too. Until the employees at the other Indianapolis stores complain, the focus will remain on Nordstrom because their employees came forward first. I deliberated very carefully and researched this case over a period of three months before I determined that the allegations Nordstrom discriminates in hiring and promotions, that it uses racial profiling of customers and retaliates against employees who complain about these policies was true. Why else would Nordstrom have given out money to members of the coalition after our meeting with Peter Nordstrom on Feb. 27,2002? If your company is in the right, why try buying off the coalition? Moreover, what coalition -members did Mr. Brown meet with as he claims? Former Nordstrom employee Gail Johnson sent Mr. Brown pertinent information regarding the racism at Nordstrom on two occasions. She told him about employees being passed over for promotions with excuses such as *the Black person is not enthusiastic enough” or “the Black person is not a good fit” or the white person “has a better fed for the Nordstrom customer,” even though the Black employee was the top producer. Is that fair? Mr. Brown has no excuse to claim ignorance. He was informed about the Black Loss Prevention employees being paid less than whiles, bat he never responded to Mrs. Johnson, iratnad, he — to Nordstrom to get their side and

William V. Corr, Executive Vice Presklent Campaign for TobaccoFree Kids

wrote this article. One wonders will cost the state far more in the whether Nordstrom’s increased long run. If these cuts are not advertising purchases with the reversed, more Indiana kids will company Mr. Brown works for, become addicted to tobacco, Radio One, had anything to do more Indiana residents will die with his slant on the story? of tobacco-caused disease, and Mr. Brown had us on his TV Indiana’s taxpayers will pay show but he treated us coldly, more to treat tobacco-caused As soon as the show was over, he disease, immediately left the studio Until now, Gov. Frank which shows he was not really O’Bannon has been a champion interested in hearing our side, in protecting Indiana’s kids from And we were only allowed to tobacco. A national report reappear on his program after our leased in July by the American lawyers threatened to sue the Cancer Society, American Heart radio station. Association, American Lung AsMr. Brown states that Peter sociation and Campaign for ToNordstrom took the complaints bacco-Free Kids ranked Indiseriouslyandflewtolndianapo- ana sixth in the nation in its lis several times to meet with funding of tobacco prevention, coalition leaders. The report found that Indiana There is only one coalition is one of only a few states that leader and that is me. If Peter have kept their promise to use Nordstrom flew into town sev- tobacco settlement money to eral times and met with the coa- fond a comprehensive tobacco lition, I was excluded from all of prevention program based on those meetings except two. the recommendations of the James Patterson, an editorial U.S. Centers for Disease Conwriter with the Indianapolis trol and Prevention (CDC). Star, did an investigation and The administration’s latest asked Nordstrom several perti- plans break this promise. We nent questions regarding their urge Gov. O’Bannon to mainpractices. They refused to re- tain his commitment to spond. Indiana’s kids and restore foil The Nordstroms were invited funding for tobacco prevention. tojoinus when we interviewed We look forward to working with Bishop Thomas Benjamin with him to do so, and we are on his “Living for the City” com- also prepared to work to agmunity affairs TV show and they gressively fight these cuts with declined. They were invited to others in Indiana who are comgo with us on the Bottom Line mitted to the health of Hoosier radio program with Willie children. Middlebrook, and they again declined. They were invited when we went on the Stan Solomon radio show and declined. Mr.' Brown asked, “Is # Nordstrom treating Black em- Lllllfl ASSOCMtlOII ployees differently or tolerating racism or racial injustice?”'nien OlSHIliyCd he answers his own question, The American LungAssociastating “probably so but no more tion of Indiana expresses its disthan any other Indianapolis pleasure with the O’Bannonbusiness.” Kern an administration’s plans Mr. Brown attempts to draw to raid tobacco settlement funds attention away from Nordstrom for purposes other than those for reasons only he can explain, for which the fund was created, Agam, the business in question puttingthehealthofmanyHoois Nordstrom. A company can s iers in jeopardy, be exposed and brought to task i n 1998,46 states - includonlyifthe employees complain, ing Indiana—settled their MedDoes it make Nordstrom right icaid lawsuits against the toto be racist or tolerate racism bacco industry when the indusbecause others are doing it? try agreed to distribute among Mr. Brown says Nordstrom the states $206 billion over 25 employs eight Black managers, years. The purpose of the settleA very recent investigation ment funds was to help states shows that Nordstrom only em- offset increases in health care ploys three Black managers out costs to combat tobacco-related of 60, less than one-half per- illnesses while also funding tobacco prevention and cessation It is Mr. Brown who did not programs designed to curb get the facts; we have them. youth smoking. We are asking the commu- Since the settlement, Indiana nity to Don’t Shop Nordstrom, has distinguished itself as a It is our goal to expose this leader in the use of settlement company’s egregious practices fo n ds. and protest until they come to with the O’Bannon-Keman the table to settle these issues, administration’s proposal to Elder Lionel T. Rush borrow against future settleGreater Harvest ment funds while raiding the Institutional current settlement trust fond. Church of God in Christ Indiana will be turning its back Indianapolis on the progress it has made and 466-0134 its original intent for securing settlement dollars. ■ The economic cost to IndiU BOnnOII plon anaeach year to pay for the conrriilrlrai! sequences of tobacco use is stag- "**’*■*"*■ gering. It is estimated that Just months after Indiana Indiana’s economy loses $1.4 was recognized as a new national billion annually due to the early leader in protecting kids from retirement of smokers for meditobacco, the O’Bannon admin- cal reasons, $11 million annuistration has delivered a one- ally due to worker absenteeism two punch that threatens the due to smoking, $86 million to future ofthe state’s tobacco pre- care of babies born with lowvention program just as it is get- birth weights because their ting to foil speed. The adminis- mothers smoked, and millions tration has cut $20.6 million more in other hidden costs, from the $25 million the Legis- Indian* also has some of the lature appropriated for the pro- highest smoking rates in the gram in Fiscal Year 2003, leav- nation. Nearly 32 percent of ing just $4.4 million. It has also Indiana’s high school students proposed trading nearly half of smoke. the State’s future tobacco settle- The American I Jing Aaanriament payments for a much tion of Indiana is encouraging smaller lump sum payment up its supporters and other confront, which will reduce the cerned Hoosiers to write Gov. amount of settlement dollars O'Bannon, LL Gov. Kernan, and available for tobacco prevention their state legislators and exand other vital health programs press their displeasure at the in the future. administration’s (dans to turn These are penny-wise, pound- its back on Indiana’s health, foolish proposals that let down Indiana’skids and taxpayers and

OPINION Turning Back the Clock: Does the leader of our Senate view Civil Rights as a mistake?

Staff Wrttar

I think it’s time for all African

Americans in our society who mistakenly believe racism is dead to wake up. One ofthe most powerful men in our country has just revealed what are probably his true feelings in regard to the

potential for racial harmony. Trent Lott, Majority

leader of the United States Senate, has virtually called the civil rights movement a distraction and a mistake. Lott, a Republican from the deep south state of Mississippi, was a featured speaker at the recent 100th birthday celebration for South Carolina’s Senator Strom Thurmond, who is the oldest person ever to serve in either house of Congress. As history buffs know, Thurmond was a candidate of the anti-freedom, anti-Black and anti-Yankee Dbdecrat (or State’s Rights) Party in 1948. According to the Washington Post, Lott had this to say about his hero: “I want to say this about my state- when Strom Thurmond ran for president we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the countty had of followed our lead we wouldn’t of had all these problems over all these years,

either.”

After hearing this backward statement, the first thing I wanted to share with Senator Lott was a quote one of my friends in high school would eloquently say to me in times of awkward stupidity: “What the hell were you thinking?” On national television, Senator Loft, Republican leader of the U.S. Senate, praised the 1948 campaign of a man who once said “All the laws of Washington and all the bayonets of the Army cannot force the Negro into our homes, our schools, our churches.” Thurmond was among the group of southern Democrats who left the party’s 1948 convention after a majority of delegates endorsed President Harry Truman’s civil rights policies. Thurmond and his running mate, Mississippi Governor Fielding Wright (probably another Loft hero) campaigned on a platform of preserving segregation and keeping the federal government from intervening in prominent situations on behalf of African Americans. Yes, it is true that Thurmond joined the ranks of Alabama’s arch segregationist George Wallace, Georgia’s ax-wielding former Governor Lester Maddox, the late Mississippi Senator James Eastland and other racist southern politicians who became more benevolent andbenignduringtheirlateryears. Thurmond later hired Black staff workers, and went out into the African American community for votes. But the point is Loft praised the racist . 1948 incarnation of Strom Thurmond, not the updated 2002 version of Strom Thurmond. Loft’s spokesman said the comments were misunderstood, and that to read anything negative into them would be “totally wrong.” But let’s flip the script for a moment. Would Loft and his like-minded friends enjoy seeing members of the Congressional Black Caucus praising efforts of radical Black Panther activists, die more extreme Nation of Islam members or even Nat Turner, the fugitive slave who joined his followers in a brutal

1831 massacre of white families that supported slavery? People in Lott’s camp, and most white people in general, would be eternally offended by such remarks. The type of “problems” I guess Lott wanted to avoid was the positives made by Black people during the civil rights movement. He wanted to avoid the sit-ins, marches and picket lines. He wanted to avoid riots that occurred after the anger of African Americans finally boiled over after centuries of injustice in conjunction with the cowardly assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. He wanted to avoid the institution of affirmative action, and abolition of the “separate but un-. equal” era. In order for this situation to be totally resolved, Lott must apologize or clarify his statement ifhe cares anything about the way he is viewed in front of mainstream America. Second, his publicist or consuhant should probably be fired for gross neglect of their boss’ image and allowing him to make such decadent comments, whether they agreed with them or not. , • If national Republican Party officials do not condemn or repudiate Lott’s comments, then I say African Americans should take it as a sign that the GOP (at least nationally) does not really care about our feelings, thoughts, needs, desires or aspirations. I hope this whole situation serves as a lesson to each and every individual (especially in the African American community) who couldn’t be bothered to vote during these past elections. If Trent Lott doesn’t clean up his act, Black America might have a thorn in its side (an anti-progress Senate/Congress) until the 2004 elections. Hopefully, more Americans of all races will turn out to support independents, Democrats and moderate Republicans who are not held hostage by Loft’s decadent and out-of-date political views. '.'iv'v to On the Other Hand ' Owa much lighter note, I’m glad to see that former President Jimmy Carter has been finally honored with the Nobel Peace Prize. He accepted the award earlier this week. This man should have received it a long time ago. President Carter, who led the U.S. during one of the most interesting times in histoiy, has done more than any other American chief executive to preserve real peace in our society. He made history after facilitating the 1979 Camp David Accord between Egypt and Israel. To date, Carter has worked harder than any other president has (with Bill Clinton running a close second) to fight for tranquility in the Middle East. With his calm, down-to-earth demeanor, Carter has been able to discuss peace with otherwise unreasonable regimes in Haiti, North Korea and other na-

tions.

Since leaving office in 1981, Carter has served as a voice of conscious for every President who has come after him. As a major sponsor of and volunteer with Habitat for Humanity, Carter and members of his foundation have built homes for needy people all ow?rfne world. Although Carter was not a perfopt fit for the late 1970’s,

we could definitely unashamed moral coi

today.

his leadership and ; in the White House

Your Voire

Given this season of <old weather, do yea believe state government and utility companies have done a . good job of keeping heating costs down?

n

‘Overall, I think they are doing a good job ofkeeping costs at affordable rates. I know gas, electric and heating companies have assistance programs that help people who cannot afford to pay heating bills. But the fact that I’m a miser and conserve my heat really helps keep my per-

sonal utility bill low. My average bill ranges from $40 to $60, so I’m not complaining. But naturally, demand for heat will increase as the weather gets colder, and prices might also go up. But that’s with any product. It’s pure capitalism ... supply and demand.”

-Ti

ing. I think since we had such a mild winter last year, utility companies might decide to charge customers a little bit more in order to make up for lost revenue from last winter.” - Leonard Hiser * I know they’re trying to keep heating costs down, but it’s

still relatively high, in my opinion. Actually, I’m not sure if they could do better or not. But if they can, these influential people should. It would especially be a shame to any

invalid or low-ii

heat this winter. We’re pretty 1

all our other |

LaonarG Hisor

nave (UKMjiuunj

“Not really. During the summertime it was taxes if it mea pretty affordable to keep our houses cool But could have it’

I heard costs for natural gas have been