Indianapolis Recorder, Indianapolis, Marion County, 2 December 2005 — Page 8

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THE INDIANAPOLIS RECORDER

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2005

EDITORIAL

JUST JELLIN' IT

Female rapists deserve same punishment as men By SHANNON WILLIAMS Recorder Editor

Beth Friedman, Debra LaFave, Amira Sa’Di and Pamela Turner all have two things in common with one another. They were teachers and they had sexual relations with their male students. Since Mary Kay Letourneau, whose relationship with her sixth grade student ultimately produced two children, it seems that the number of female teachers engaging in improper relationships with their male students has increased significantly. That’s definitely a problem. However what seems to be an even bigger problem is that these women aren’t being properly punished and instead are getting rather “fluffy” sentences. Let’s take Debra LaFave for instance: this 25-year-old woman was sexually involved with her 14-year-old middle school student, and last week she reached a plea agreement that enabled her to avoid jail time. Pamela Turner was charged with having sex with a 13-year-old student at her elementary school and only received a 9-month jail sentence. In 2002 Beth Friedman faced up to 76 years in prison for her 18-month-long sexual relationship with al5-year-old student, but instead she was sentenced to only one-year probation. The list regarding female teachers having sex with students could go on and on. But rather than continuously brief readers with individual female sexual offender profiles, I’d much rather address the issues. One issue in particular that needs to be addressed is exactly how to correctly label the improper behavior of these women. Thus far in this editorial I’ve said the women “had sexual relations,” “were engaged in improper relationships,” or were “sexually involved” with their minor students - when in actuality, I should have called the acts exactly what they were - rape. Simply because women committed the acts, doesn’t mean harsh words shouldn’t be used to describe their behavior. These women committed forms of rape, even if nothing else than statutory rape. Despite how willing each boy may have been regarding the situation.. .they were all minors and should have been represented as such. These women need to be put in jail; something that I feel would have certainly happened had a man committed the crime. Repercussions to crimes shouldn’t be gender based, they should be issue based.

With last week’s announcement from IPS Superintendent Eugene White to reorganize the state’s largest school district - individual reactions range from extreme excitement, to somewhat disappointment. I sincerely believe that White’s redistricting plan is a good one that will not only revitalize diminishing areas, but also decrease IPS’ overall budget woes. While most are pleased with the plan, I’ve found that the few who oppose it are doing so because it directly affects their family, specifically a child that currently attends one of the schools that are being converted to specialty schools. As a product of IPS, I personally support White’s redistricting plan. While there are very few initiatives, if any that generate complete satisfaction from everyone, I’m pleased to know that most associated with IPS approve.

A couple of week’s ago I attended the 2005 Torchbearer Awards Gala that’s been put on by the Indiana Commission for Women (ICW) for the last two years. The Torchbearer Award is the highest honor given in the state to a Hoosier woman who has overcome tremendous obstacles, broken down barriers or have achieved feats that have helped to make Indiana a better state. The general mission of the ICW is to “eliminate barriers to equality” through a variety of different efforts. While both the Torchbearer Award and the mission of ICW are very much needed, I was extremely disappointed in the manner in which the gala was organized. Everything was tremendously unorganized from the program and dinner starting incredibly late, to empty spots throughout the program, to last minute script completion, to not acknowledging all award winners - it was awful and I expected more from a state organization. Melissa Martin who is one of ICW’s 13 commissioners served as chairman of the gala. It’s unfortunate that an event with the potential to be so great, actually turned up short of such an accomplishment.

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Amos to my man Mitch: Show me where Black business got the money

By AMOS BROWN III

How much state business have African American-owned companies received from the administration of Gov. Mitch Daniels? A few weeks ago, in a press release, the Indiana Democratic Party decried the huge amount of taxpayer dollars, nearly $600 million, which has been awarded to non-Indiana firms. Democrats are upset because during the campaign, in slick TV ads and campaign rhetoric my man Mitch’s minions blasted former Gov. Joe Kernan for doing business with out of state firms. “Buy Indiana,” Daniels proclaimed during his RV campaign. Now, nearly a year later, an inordinately large sum of cash has been doled to non-Hoosier firms. During the campaign, Daniels emphasized that he’d make it easier for minor-ity-owned businesses to do business with the state of Indiana. After taking office, Daniels did make it easier for minority firms to obtain state certification. The processing backlog for minority businesses to get state certification was reduced. The Daniels team emphasized that on RFP’s or requests for proposals, prospective bidders would receive additional points towards their bids if they included women-owned and minority-owned business participation. So, when Democrats said some $600 million had gone to out of state bidders, includingthe highly visible Hoosier Lottery advertising contract, I wondered if Black-owned businesses are getting their fair share of the dollars? My wondering became urgent when I heard that the troubled Family and Social Services Agency (FSSA) has a bid package on the street worth $1 billion over 10 years. Since Gov. Daniels set a 5 percent minority-owned business participation goal for state vendors, this behemoth 10-year FSSA contract could mean some $50 million to a minorityowned vendor. Unfortunately, the Daniels administration makes it difficult for the public to ascertain how well those receiving state contracts are doing - including minority owned businesses. In an age when many government agencies are making records and documents easily accessible via the Internet, Daniels’ Department of Administration and the Office of Minority Business Development is in the Dark Ages when it comes

to obtaining information on minority business inclusion. To get the data you have to spend hours in asmall cubicle in the State Office Building Complex downtown. You have to fill out paperwork requesting specific bid documents, then look through them to learn whether minorities are getting a fair shake. It shouldn’t have to be that difficult for our community to learn if my man Mitch is really making it easier for mi-nority-owned businesses to do business with state government. So, I’m asking Gov. Daniels and his crew these simple questions: Since taking office, how much state business have Indiana owned and operated Black businesses obtained? Of the nearly $600 million in contracts with out-of-state firms, how many of those firms partnered with Black-owned businesses? How much business did those Black-owned businesses receive? What are the minority business participation goals in the proposed FSSA mega-contract? Since I’m not sure the folks in the governor’s office read The Indianapolis Recorder, I’ll forward these questions to Daniels’ crew to answer. I hope I’ll get their answers in time for Christmas. But, I’m not holding my breath. What I’m hearing in the streets Music dominated the homegoing celebration for the late gospel singer and WTLC-AM (1310) announcer Robert Duckett Turner. Held Saturday at Mt. Olive Baptist Church, hundreds gathered to remember Turner’s contributions to gospel music and our community. Turner was remembered as humble, kind, selfeffacing, generous to a fault and most of all dedicated to gospel music for virtually his entire lifetime. The emotional highpoint of the service was a reunion of all his beloved Silver Heart Singers. Attending the service was a who’s who of the city’s ministerial and gospel music community. Though music dominated the four-hour celebration, Bishop T. Garrott Benjamin, Pastor Jeffrey Johnson, Elder Shawn Tyson and Cleveland Bishop Robert Hubbard, a former gospel singer spoke as did Congresswoman Julia Carson and this columnist. Marvin Boatright, a longtime friend, who handled Turner’s funeral arrangements, brought a final tribute arranging with a Detroit colleague to borrow the hearse that carried Rev. C.L. Franklin (Aretha’s minister father) and the late Rosa Parks. Robert Turner’s casket was

borne to its final resting place in a vintage historic white hearse - an honor befitting this gentle giant. Our community has lost one of its giant musical lions. We’re comforted knowing Robert Turner now performs in God’s Celestial Concert Hall. This summer, during a town hall about rising youth violence at Friendship Baptist Church, City-County Councilman Issac Randolph promised to introduce an ordinance requiring those with city contracts to make an effort to hire exoffenders. Maybe I missed it, but to date, Randolph hasn’t introduced that ordinance. I know he’s busy running for Murray Clark’s state Senate seat, but I hope Randolph doesn’t think Santa brings ordinances in his sleigh. Indianapolis Star rookie columnist Matt Tully reported last week that CityCounty Councilman Greg Bowes blasted council President Steve Talley. Bowes told Tully that the police consolidation vote “was important enough that we should have.. .pass(ed) it.” Bowes blames Talley for the debacle, but another senior council Democrat told me he blames county party chair Ed Treacy. “Tracey’s the party chair. Where was his leadership?” the senior councilperson told me. State Rep. Mike Murphy, the county Republican chair, had his council members unified. But on two critical issues, who’d be council president and law enforcement consolidation, Democrats couldn’t unite. Does the party chair bear some responsibility for the disunity? Party unity and solidarity will be tested as Democrats battle for two spots in the party’s 2006 judicial ticket. Pressure is on for the party to slate a Hispanic candidate. The front runner was Israel Cruz until he was charged in June with drunken driving. But Hendricks County Prosecutor Patricia Baldwin, a Republican, dropped the charges against Cruz last week for lack of evidence. Now Cruz faces a face-off with former City-County Councilwoman Karen Celestino Horseman, the first Hispanic elected to a Marion County office. This battle for judicial slating will enliven the Democratic slating process and next May’s primary. See ‘ya next week! Avios Brown’s opinions are not necessarily those ofThe Indianapolis Recorder. You can contact him at (317) 221-0915 or e-mail him at ACBROWN@AOL. COM.

True education reform in U.S. needed

By GEORGE E. CURRY For NNPA

This country likes to celebrate anniversaries. Last year, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court decision. This weekend will mark the 50th anniversary of Rosa Park’s decision not to give up her bus seat in Montgomery, Ala. What many people don’t realize is that there were two major Brown decisions in the mid-1950s. The landmark ruling outlawing “separate but equal” schools was handed down in 1954. A companion ruling was issued in 1955 calling for schools to be desegregated “with all deliberate speed,” which essentially meant no speed at all. Perhaps it is fitting, given this propensity for celebrating the past, that this week - 50 years after the second Brown ruling - that the Metropolitan Center for Urban Education at NewYork University has issued a report titled, “With All Deliberate Speed: Achievement, Citizenship and Diversity in American Education.” The 44-page report, available online, does more than revisit the 1950s; it outlines a series of steps to improve public education. After pointing out that the U.S. is undergoing one of the most profound demographic transitions in history, the report observes: “Unfortunately, the United

States continues to have an unequal and two-tiered system of public education. Even as the United States becomes increasingly diverse, our nation’s K-12 education system remains unequal and increasingly segregated by race and income.” The report says the country has a mixed record on eradicating the last vestiges of its Jim Crow public education system. “We are a nation ambivalent,” it observes. “We are both for integration and against it. We are for equality, but we are unwilling to create and sustain policies that ensure equal opportunity. We are for academic success for all children, but we allow millions of them to remain isolated in inferior schools.” We have traditionally shifted too much of the burden to the schools. “Desegregation failed in some communities because almost the entire burden of integrating our society was placed on our public schools,” the study says. “That was a mistake we cannot afford to repeat.” “...We, therefore, recommend a fundamental change in the relationship between schools and the community, where both are seen as having a shared responsibility in the education of all children.” To do its part, the community should take over responsibility for providing the schools’ support services, freeing teachers to concentrate on what they do best - teach. The schools must also change.

“Even today, too many of our schools still are being used as sorting machines - sorting children into those who are college bound, those who will use basic skills and those who will be left behind,” the report said. In order to do better, the report argues, diversity must be part of the equation long before students enter the first grade. “If we expect all of our children to go on to college and have diverse learning experiences and then go on to work with people from diverse ethnic, racial, social and economic backgrounds, surely it makes sense to prepare our children for these new experiences as early as possible,” the study says. “We are losing ground and jobs to other countries - for example, China and India,” the report states. “Our nation’s ability to sustain our long-term economic success increasingly depends on the very children we are not educating now.” Put another way: Each year, 1.2 million children do not graduate from high school. Of those, 348,427 are African American and 296,555 are Latino. At the college level, almost a quarter of first-year students do not stay around for their second year. Figures show that only 31 percent of Latinos complete some college and 48 percent of African Americans, compared to 62 percent of whites and 80 percent of Asian Americans. “According to the National Center on Education and the Economy, by the year 2020,

the U.S. will need 14 million more college-trained workers than it will produce,” the report states. “Nowhere is college participation lower than among African-Ameri-can and Hispanic youth; no where is the potential to meet our nation’s need for college graduates greater.” Among the report’s recommendations: • Push state legislatures to provide essential and quality educational opportunities, regardless of where the child attends public school. • Make sure all students have access to a high-quality education and the opportunity for diverse learning experiences. • Provide additional opportunities, including afterschool programs, for students to improve academic skills. • Create greater regional equity. • Support and stabilize integrated residential communities. Whether we accomplish those goals will impact our national security, our ability to compete globally and field an able military, the report says. That alone should be incentive to take on these tough issues. George E. Curry is editor-in-chief of the NNPA News Service and BlackPressUSA. com. He appears on National Public Radio (NPR) three times a week as part of “News andNotes withEd Gordon.”To contact Curry, go to his Web site, www.georgecurry.com.

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