Spins Sere eeeeso Liacanteneearcinny AE RAE EERIE RAB I Ie APOPINIONSoVivian Young of Wilmington,Delaware, has made it her migsion- to see that politicians, preachers,and parents donTt forget the chil-dren.| On one occasion, she approacheda pastor she had heard was one ofthe most dedicated preachersaround. oThat being the case,� shetold the minister, oI need a miracleor two: | need your church out-reach program to take in some chil-tren who arenTt in your immediatephurch family. I donTt always get agood response from ministers, but |have to let them know that thereTs aJot more to pastoring than preach-ing and passing the plate,� she says.On another occasion, she walkedservice agencies, churches, andcommunity groups, which willhighlight the health needs ofAmericaTs children. Many childhealth experts have been invited tospeak at the gathering, more than60 health booths will be set up, andthere will be fun activities and foodfor the children who attend. oWewill even have healthy food,�Vivian says with a smile. oThechildren will be eating veggie burg-ers, but maybe we'd better keepthat secret since itTs good for them.�The Delaware rally will coincidewith hundreds of rallies in commu-nities all across America. So farthere are more than 500 local StandFor Children rallies planned in 50Child WatchBy Marian Wright Edelmaninto a gathering of state policymakers and said, oYou may knowthat I conduct Child Watch visits{where she gives politicians andcommunity leaders a firsthand lookat childrenTs plight by taking themon tours of neonatal wards, orphan-ages, juvenile courts, and otherchildrenTs services], but justremember, I'll be watching you.�But since Vivian helped organizemore tan 2,700 people to Stand ForChildren at the Lincoln Memonallast June Ist, she has been workinghard to keep children a top priorityin Delaware. SheTs been bouncingfrom hearings at the State House inDover to community meetings inWilmington"arming herself withall the information she can gatherabout the needs of DelawareTs chil-dren and focusing attention on spe-cific things people can do to insureyoung peopleTs lives.. At last count she had more than30 organizations working togetherto plan the local Stand For HealthyChildren rally on June 1, 1997 inWilmington. They include socialStates.Under the umbrella of Stand ForChildren, people are networkingand coming together with ideas forhow to solve many of the problemschildren are facing. Vivian says,oThere are a lot of services outthere, but people donTt know howto access them,� she says, oWhensomebody needs to know some-thing about mental health servicesfor young people, I know | can tumto someone in our network to findout about it. It feels good when |can tell people how they can gethelp and not have to pay a lot ofmoney for it.�As in every state, Vivian says,DelawareTs children are sufferingfrom poverty, poor nutntion, pre-ventable childhood illnesses, andlack of health and dental coverage.oIf everyone would get involved,children would not be sufferinghere or anywhere else,� she says.With VivianTs help, DelawareStand For Children has organizedcommittees to address childrenTsissues. oWe have set up commit-Keeping children a priorityis a never-ending tasktees on education, health, housing,abuse and crime, and each commit-tee is researching its area so that wecan be informed when we appearbefore members of theLegislature,� Vivian says, oThereare so many problems that itTsastonishing.�Vivian has also gotten her familyinvolved. Her husband, Leonard,Sr, who spent many years with theUnited Nations International LaborOrganization before retiring, han-dles clerical duties for DelawareStand For Children. And her onlyson, Leonard, Jr, who retired fromDupont after 25 years, helps outwith business affairs.oMy life is frenetic, but itTs inter-esting,� says Vivian, who oftenstays up unit 2:00 or 3:00 in themoming preparing for her visits topolicy makers. oSometimes I thinkabout sitting on the porch and knit-ting, and then I say, oNah! ITm sup-posed to be living at this pace. |think itTs what keeps me young.�When state ~=Rep. LaneMulrooney handed Vivian theDelaware Tomorrow Award recent-ly, for her work with children,Mulrooney said, oIt seems as ifeverybody will recognize DelawareStand For Children as a dominantforce for children for a long time.�oShe was right,� Vivian says,oWe will be a force that theLegislature, the governor, and thelocal government will have to dealwith. And the good thing aboutStand For Children is that itTs not aonetime thing. We will remain forchildren.�For information on how you canStand for Healthy Children in yourcommunity on June 1, 1997, call 1-800-663-4032.Marian Wright Edelman is presi-dent of the ChildrenTs DefenseFund, which coordinates the BlackCommunity Crusade for Children(BCCC), whose mission is to leaveno child behind and to ensure everychild a healthy, head, fair, safe, andmoral start in life. For more infor-mation about the BCCC, call 202-628-8787.Mend affirmative action nowFor the first time in history, BlackAmericans are being penalized notbecause they are Black, but becausebther people pretending to be blackare posing as Black in order to get acut of the affirmative action pie.These pretenders are neither whitepor Black. They are the ohonorary�owhite� people who previouslySvoided Black people and some-times ridiculed Black people whenfalking with whites.: These recently converted pseudo-Blacks did nut sit at segregatedlunch counters or in the ocrowTspest� at movie houses. They nevervictimized ancestors and was there-by qualified to receive restitutionbecause of the Civil Rights lawspassed in the sixties.These laws of the 1960s wereaimed specifically to open opportu-nities for Blacks who, as a group,obviously had been systematicallyexcluded from financial opportuni-ties solely because they wereAfrican Americans.Several other cases have involvedLebanese business men, SouthwestAsian people and more, some hav-ing hired foolish Black men toofront� for their misrepresented andMinority KeportBy James E. Allsbrook, Phdhttended Jim Crow schoolsdesigned to prepare Blacks formediocrity and subordination or tobe good, faithful, obedient nobod-jes.* These people come in varioustolors and from various places.Whey are yellow, brown, red, andVarious hues and shades amongthese tints and tones. They havecome to America from Asia, South~America, Central America, thePhilippines, Guam, Alaska, theMiddle East, North Africa and~Asia, and respresent most non-~Caucasian groups. When theprospect of getting money becameevident, many suddenly became~Black African Americans.�One example of wrongful intru-ion into the Black populations iscase of the highway contractorfin Colorado, He won a big highwayng job by getting preferencegh affirmative action on thethat he was a descendant ofeee eceillegal enterprises.When voluntary affirmativeaction began about 30 years ago, |emerged from Kansas Universitywith my masterTs degree andbecame a reporter and feature writerin the previously all-white editorialoffices of the Louisville Couriet-Journal. After working there fortwo years, I thought I saw a glassceiling and went back to school fora doctorate, Visiting that newspa-per about 18 months later, I wasintroduced to the new oreplace-ment� Black writer and wasamazed. One glance and a fewwords indicated that my replace-ment was not an African Americanphysically or culturally. Being con-sidered Black then, like now, is tol-erable if it means money in thepocket.When President Clinton said hewould omend, not end,� affirmativeaction he promised to look moreclosely at applicants and qualifiers.This action, if thoroughly done, willhelp restrict non-Black pretendersand quiet some critics.Affirmative Action laws shouldhave written more rigidly to includeonly two wronged groups"femalecitizens and African American citi-zens of this nation.The United States already hadpaid millions of dollars in orepairand restitution� to NativeAmericans who were wrongfullydisplaced and deprived to in theWestward Expansion. It also paidmillions of dollars to Japanese-Americans and their descendantswho where wrongfully imprisonedduring World War II. Safeguardswere taken then to guarantee thatonly the damaged persons receivedorepair and restitution.� No outcrywas made about wrongful benefitsthen. Careful monitoring of theaffirmative action program will pro-duce the same results today.Just as specific restitution went tospecifically damaged NativeAmericans and to specifically dam-aged Japanese internees, so mustthe specific restitution of affirma-tive action be applied only toAfrican Americans who with theirancestors suffered slavery and dis-crimination.Affirmative action benefits todaymust go only to American femalesand to American Blakcs who, withtheir ancestors, must receive dam-age repair in the form of competi-tive financial advantages and olevelplaying fields� to heal wounds andrepair damages inflicted by almost400 years of slavery, exploitation,degradation, torture, and hopeless- *ness,JamesT E. Alsbrook, Ph.D., isProfessor Emeritus at OhioUniversity.The enduring legacy of Malcolm XThis week we celebrate kuzali-wa, the birthday of oour BlackShining Prince� El Hajj Malik ElShabazz, Malcolm X. There is noleader in the history of Africans inAmerica who is more worth to becommemorated, celebrated andemulated than Malcolm X. As wereflect on the tragic deaths ofTupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls inthe last year, tow of our brilliantyoung warriors who lived andrapped about the orealness� ofghetto life, it is useful to seeMalcolmTs life as a metaphor ofpossibilities for those locked in theprison of ghetto life today.Malcolm rose from humble begin-ning in a poor working class fami-ly. he eventually got caught up inhe dark underside of the domesticcolonies created by AmerikkkaTswhite supremacist system. He wasa petty thief. a pimp and a light-weight gangsta who landed inAmerikkkaTs criminal injusticesystem for his transgressions.The remarkable thing aboutMalcolm, however, is that underthe tutelage of the HonorableElijah Muhammazg, he did not getstuck in the othug life.� He did notsimply bemoan the orealness� ofghetto existence or wallow in andperpetuate it. Malcolm X trans-formed himself from an agent ofdestruction within AmerikkkaTsdark ghettos to an agent of libera-tion committed to changing theorealness� of racial oppression andeconomic exploitation afflictingAfricans in Amenica and the world.This transformative dimension isone of the most enduring aspects ofthe legacy of Malcolm X.But there is obviously muchmore that this generation needs tostudy and learn from the life andteachings of El Hajj Malik ElShabazz. At a time when policebrutality, killings and misconducthave reached epidemic proportionsthe analysis and teachings ofMalcolm continue to be instruc-tive: oThe white press inflames thewhite public againstNegroes...The police are able tomake the white public think that 90percent or 99 percent of theNegroes...are criminals. And oncethe white public is convinced thatmost of the Negro community is acriminal element, the this automat-ically paves the way for the policeto move into the Negro communi-ty, exercising Gestapo tactics, stop-ping any Black man who is on thesidewalk, whether he is guilty orwhether he is innocent, whether heis well dressed or whether he ispoorly dressed, whether he-is edu-cated or whether he is dumb...Aslong as he is Black and a memberof the Negro community, the whitepublic thinks that the white police-man is justified in going in thereand trampling on that manTs civilrights and... human rights.� ,Malcolm X understood the racist |and systematic nature of policeviolence directed against the Blackcommunity. He also knew thatonly collective and concertedaction by the Black masses wouldstop police violence and end theoppression/exploitation of theBlack nation. Hence, Malcolm,taught us that we must control theThese were not popular ideas~when Malcolm was among us andce a er om eel.they are hardly popular today. ButMalcolm courageously stood byhisT convictions, changing someprecepts and concepts as his expe-riences expanded his knowledge- base, but always standing firm onthe basic principles of nationalism,internationalism and = Pan-Africanism. It is clear thatMalcolmTs life and legacy are asrelevant to our circumstances asAfrican people today as everbefore. No doubt Malcolm wouldbe disappointed that othe morethings change, the more they staythe same,� that we have not mademore progress since he walkedamong us. That notwithstanding,our oBlack Shining Prince� wouldVantage PointBy Kon Danielspolitics and economics of theBlack community, that politiciansmust come from and be account-able to the Black community.Deeply steeped in the philosophyof self help and self reliance thatwas/is the centerpiece of the eco-nomic program of the Nation ofIslam, Malcolm consistently ham-mered home the point that Blackpeople must utilize their economicresources for self development,that the shops, stores and businessenterprises in the Black communi-ty should be owned by andaccountable to Black people.MalcolmTs vision was not con-fined to Amerikkka, however. Hewas an internationalist and Pan-Africanist. Malcolm was clear thatthe same system of white suprema-cy that was oppressing Africansand people of color in Amenkkkawas oppressing and exploiting peo-ple throughout the Third World andAfricans everywhere includingAfrica. Therefore, he was a fierceproponent of self-determination ofAfrican and Third World peopleand devoted to the concept ofAfrican and Third World unity/sol-idarity as a means of achieving thegoal of freedom from global whitedomination.not give up on this generation. Hisabiding faith in the transformativepower of African people as exem-plified by his life would dictate thathe exhort us to continue to strugglewith the confidence that ultimatelywe will be victorious.El Hajj Malik El Shabazz wasborn a victim of circumstances cre-ated by racism and white suprema-cy. Like so many victims of racialoppression and economic exploita-tion he was criminalized by a crim-inal system. In effect he was sen-tenced to death in the genocidalconditions of the ghetto. ButMalcolm X refused to languish inthe grave. He rose up to becomeone of the greatest leaders ofAfrican people of all time. This isan enduring legacy of Malcolm X,a legacy which should be an inspi-ration to this and succeeding gen-erations. Long live Malcolm X!Ron Daniels was an independetncandidate for President of theUnited States in 1992. He may bereached at CCR@igc.apc.org or718-533-1624. He served as execu-tive director of the NationalRainbow Coalition and was a cam-paign manager for Jesse Jacksonin 1988. ©Police Brutality: What can we do?Last week I wrote about whatseems to be the rise of cases ofpolice brutality across the nation. Arecent National EmergencyConference on Police Brutality washeld by the Center forConstitutional Rights (CCR) inNew York City to look at the grow-ing number of complaints.Conference participants came from50 cities and 16 states to share theirstories and examine this phenome-non.In the week since | wrote thatcolumn Atlanta police chiefBeverly Harvard has announcedthat she will study how to disci-pline two Atlanta officers, one ofwhom is a sergeant, who beat anAtlanta man repeatedly with abaton and who were caught onvideotape by a passer-by. TheAtlanta man, carrying his wife andtwo children in his car, wasattempting to fill a prescription forhis sick child and exited an inter-state, only to be told to get back onthe highway by police officers whohad closed the exit because ofBlack College Spring break activi-ties. What is causing this epidemicof police brutality? As more andmore middle class Americansmove to the suburbs anT. to gatedcommunities with p* vate policeforces, they cut t.emselves offfrom people in the cities and theyseem to care less how the policekeep the peace.Then, as more and more city res-idents are losing their jobs as facto-ries move out of the country orbecome obsolete, there is growingeconomic pressure on poor,unskilled and poorly-educatedmen, sometimes causing them toturn to crime. As we as a nationcontinue to deny the existence ofracism, we do not take on policeofficers or others who exhibit racistbehavior.oIt feels as if America is at waragainst itself and that there is a mil-itary occupying force targetedagainst citizens to many people inour cities, o said Richie Perez of theNational Congress for Puerto RicanRights, an organization which hasworked with many families ofpolice brutality victims. oIt almostConstitutional Rights is workingwith Congressman John Conyersfrom Michigan on this issue. It ishoped that Congressional hearingswill be held on police brutalitysince it is so widespread and thatthe Congressional Black Caucuswill hold a workshop on this cniti-cal issue at their annual fall meet-ing.In addition, CCR is working to "set up a national network for par-ents and families of victims ofdomestic violence. This is critical,especially, for those families whereCivil Rights JournalBy Bernice Powell Jacksonfeels as if weTve adjusted to policebrutality and corruption and toinferior education in our cities,�said Rev. Jesse Jackson, anotherspeaker at the conference.What can we do about lawenforcement official brutality?First, mayors and police chiefsmust make it known that such bru-tality will not be condoned and willbe punished. Only if these officialsunderstand that the public will nottolerate police brutality will theytake steps to end it because of thepower of police unions and thecode of silence which is prevalentin police forces.Secondly, t Centerforthe victim was killed.Finally, CCR is hoping to set upa national clearinghouse to collectdata on police and other lawenforcement official brutality.Right now there is much anecdotalinformation showing that this phe- ©nomenon is on the rise, but no oneis collecting statistics to prove it.(For more information, call the ."©Center for Constitutional Rights atT -1-800-7640235.)Bernice Powell Jackson is execu-tive director of the United Church :of Christ Commission for Racial ;Justice and DeBorah White is pub- ;lication assistant.