an ns nr aamcineee =eenCredo of the Black PressThe Black Press believes that America can best lead the world away from racialand natural antagonisms when it accords to every person, regardless of race,color or creed, full human rights. Hating no person, fearing no person in thefirm belief that all are hurt as long as anyone is held back.On June 21, we will observe the 88th annual Father's day celebration to all the fathers out there.The importance of a father in a child's life is monumental. He is to nurture his children by giving theminstruction, protection, sustenance, companionship, assistance, fove, discipline and example."All children need a home where love provides security, where what is taught is not confused by what theyhear and see." (Sper)The ideal father loves and understands his children. What then, are characteristics? He's a worker, who rulesby love and not fear, who consistently doesn't scold his children for scolding is a hurt to the soul which is worsethat a hurt to the body, and often leaves lasting scars. He praises instead of finding fault. He is an example forthe children. He teaches them to use the of God reverently. He cuts out bad habits because he knows they willspoil the lives of younger ones who will imitate him. He takes the family to Sunday school and he is not ashamedto pray, and thanks are always said at meals. He's teaching his boys by example, how to be the right kind of fatherand husband when the grow up. He is fair and just with the children, not playing "favorites." He finds time toassociate with his children. The good father plans with the family to go places and keep his promises. The greatestgift a father can give to his children is himself and to love their mother.EDITOR'S NOTE: The ideal mother validates and legitimizes the father... and the ideal father is thecornerstone of civilization.-Amprisonment.of the Mind"se"They endeavor to make you as much like brutes as possible. When they have blinded the eyes of your mind-- when they have embittered the sweet waters of life--when they have shot out the light which shines from theword of God, then and not 'till then, has American slavery done its perfect work." --- Henry Highland Garnet,"An Address To the Slaves of the United States of America" (1843)American prisons are the linear descendants of American slave pens, socially constructed institutionsdesigned to dehumanize, exploit, and profit from the shackled. In both cases powerful social forces converge toprotect the institution, to insure its continued existence.Prisons as metaphor for slavery are especially crystallized in the disproportionate percentage of AfricanAmericans who are cast into American gulags, a reflection of social policies following media and politicalprojections. .Another factor that mirrors the slave experience is the antebellum (or pre-Civil War) Black Codes thatoutlawed education for slaves, under pain or death.In March 1998, the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC) announced that it would phase out allof its four-and two-year college programs. That means roughly 400 of the state's 35,075 prisoners, men andwomen taking courses for a bachelors or associate degree in arts and sciences,will have to quit by June, 1998.The department which already made it so difficult that it generally took approximately 10 years for a prisoner tocomplete courses for a degree, now offers GED courses and training in vocational fields like cooking or plumbing.~ While some question the usefulness of college for prisoners, one long-term corrections expert foundeducation to be the "most powerful" preventer of violence,, in and out of prison.Massachusetts prison psychologist, Dr. James Gilligan, notes:"While several programs had worked, the mostsuccessful of all,and the only one that had been 100 percent effective in preventing recidivism was receiving acollege degree while in prison. Several hundred prisoners in Massachusetts had completed at least a bachelorsdegree while in prison over a 25-year period, and not one of them had been returned to prison for a new crime.I later discovered that the state of Indiana, and Folsom Prison in California, have also found that college degreesprovided 100 percent immunity against recidivism among their "alumni." Immediately after 1 announced thisfinding in a public lecture at Harvard and it made its way into the newspapers, our new governor, William Weld,who had not previously been aware that prison inmates could take college courses, gave a press conference ontelevision in which he declared that Massachusetts would rescind that "privilege," or else the poor would startcommitting crimes in order to be sent to prison so they could get a free college education!"Clearly, then, what motivates prison administrators isn't what works, but the political imperatives of asystem that seeks to continue the deadly cycle of recidivism. The more bodies they can capture, the more theycan keep. Anything that can break the chains of mental slavery is justified.Knowledge is the beginning, so let us begin.one more time on Monday....he died. Some of ourras "dictator" rather than "president". After all, it hasbecome fashionable in all too many black leadership and even newspaper circles to defend any powerful blackleader, even one as unpalatable as Abacha. We have heard platings denouncing the West's universal rebuke ofNigerian dictator Gen. Sani Abacha did the unereaders may be surprised to her us refer to an ex-lAbacha as attempts to "force Africa into a western concept of democracy. "Apparently, according to these pundits,there is such a thing as "African democracy" -- a oblack thang you wouldn't understand."Let's see... that wouldbe the kind of democracy where: .* You don't actually get to vote for anybody except the one candidate chosen by the official parties;* You don't get to vote at all unless you're a member of one of the aforementioned parties, "* If you do somehow manage to elect someone other than the Head African In Charge, he get put in jail (notcharged, just jailed); .* Any parliament that disagrees with him finds itself out of a job;* Being too outspoken in criticism of the HAIC will get you killed--and that includes participating in anti-government demonstrations. Yeah,that kind of democracy.That brand of sophistry may make sense to an African-American intelligentsia blindly enamored of anythinggp it isn't all that impressive to rank and file Nigerians, who have been screaming for Abacha's headforIn fact, the amazing and inspirational thing was, given the certain knowledge of the mortal danger theywere in, the frequency with which Nigerian citizens took to the'streets to protest the strongman's rule.The one pleasant point is that there is at least a fair amount to open political dissension in Nigeria, as longas you aren't too successful at rallying people to your point of view. py aleAgain, that seems to have been not so much a commitment to intellectual freedom as a simple immunity torule and all criticism and a smug assurance of the extent of his- Gitizen of the Soviet Union in the 19 had more say in his and his countryTs future than a Nigerian citizen doesnow."You don't have to believe us, Just ask around. There are lots of Nigerian expatriates living right here inChances are, you'll find very few of them who will have kind words for their late leader or what he has done3 But now, he's » Where does Nigueia ap Xow? The military has installed another dictator, Will he betemporary oy, ke Abaca, wil good to him? . _We hope and prayour Nigerian brothers and sisters.power, The plain fact of the matter is; a |wreoyy teDATEeo wit «68 KERNER COMMISSION: AN UPwos: «"Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white...separate and unequal.This was the conclusion of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders ... the Kerncr RiotCommission, named after its chair, then governor of Illinois, Otto Kerner, The commission's report was issuedon March 1, 1968. a -A thirty-year update on the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders was issued last. April by theMilton S. Eisenhower Foundation and the Corporation for What Works, Washington, D.C. This column willsummarize the observations, analyses and recommendations of the Eisenhower and Corporation for What Worksupdate of the Kerner Commission Report. Their update is entitled, "The Millennium Breach... Richer, Poorer andRacially Apart."What has happened in the thirty years since Kerner and where do we stand now? The Kerner Commissionproposed remedies to racial, spatial and economic disparity. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and early1970s brought about improvements that helped expand an African American middle class. There have beenachievements made possible by the Civil Right Movement and by individual struggles of millions of AfricanAmericans. The African American middle class has expanded, as has African American entrepreneurship. Therehas been an enormous rise in the number of African American mayors,, other elected officials and police chiefs.Yet in the 1970s, when technological change in the economy increased demand for high-skilled andeducated workers, jobs for the less-skilled, and educated became obsolete. The unemployed stayed behind, butmore mobile middle-class African Americans left core inner city neighborhoods. Labor market policies to providetraining and jobs for their less skilled never materialized. In the words of Harvard Professor William JuliusWilson, "the exodus of working- and middle-class blacks from core inner city neighborhoods enhanced theconcentration effects of joblessness and poverty and removed important economic and social buffers that havesoftened the impact of macroeconomic changes in these vulnerable communities."During the decades of the 1970s and 1980s, conditions in inner-city ghettos went from bad to worse. Today,for the first time in the 20th century, most adults in many inner city neighborhoods are not working in a typicalweek. The real unemployment rate in these areas far exceeds the official rate. The consequences of neighborhoodjoblessness in Professor Wilson's and other experts' view are more devastating than those of high neighborhoodpoverty. When people are poor but employed, they can better prevent family breakup, crime, drugs and otherproblems than when people are poor and jobless.Since the Kerner Commission, other important trends have included:*From 1977 to 1988, the incomes of the richest one percent in America increased by 120 percent and theincomes of the poorest fifth in America decreased by 10 percent during time of supply-side tax breaks for therich and against the poor.* During the 1980s, child poverty increased by over 20 percent, with racial minorities sufferingdisproportionately. Today,, the child poverty rate in the United States is four times the average of WesternEuropean countries.* Since the Kerner Commission, the U.S. has had the most rapid growth in wage inequality in the Westernworld, with racial minorities suffering disproportionately.* America's neighborhoods and schools are resegregating. Two-thirds of African Americans andthree-fourths of Latino students now attend predominantly minority schools... one-third of each group in intenselysegregated schools.* In urban public schools in poor neighborhoods, more than two-thirds of children fail to reach even the"basic" level on national tests.* America's housing policy for the poor and minorities has become prison-building. Over the 1980s andearly 1990s, the country tripled the number of prison cells, at the same time reducing housing appropriations forthe poor by over 80 percent. Only one in four eligible poor families get housing.* States now spend more per year on prisons than on higher education, while ten years ago, spendingpriorities were just the opposite.* By the late 1990s, one of three young African American men was in prison, on probation, or on parole.* Sentences for crack cocaine, used disproportionately by people of color, are much longer than sentencesfor powder cocaine, used disproportionately for whites.* Prisons disproportionately incarcerate minorities, but prison building has become a growth industry forwhites in rural areas. .Carl Rowan's Commentary ,Black Republican in a Different LightI've been saying for a generation that one black person need not sell out the rights and dreams of all blacksor minorities in order to be a Republican, or even a conservative Republican.Rep. J. C. Watts, the former Oklahoma football hero who is the lone black Republican in the House ofRepresentatives, is proving that. Watts has just played a major role in getting the House to vote down a measurethat would have banned affirmative action programs at most of the nationTs colleges.Rep. Frank Riggs, R-Calif., was trying to attach a $101 billion bill covering federal aid to college studentsan amendment that would have banned affirmative action to help blacks, other minorities and women at anypublic college or university that accepted federal funds. This would have been a national version of California'sProposition 209, which has led to a calamitous drop in the number of blacks and Hispanics accepted in theUniversity of California system. And it would have slammed the door to equal educational opportunity in thefaces of millions of youngsters of color.Watts dared to join with Democratic Rep. John Lewis of Georgia in sending their House colleagues in aletter saying, "This is not the time to eliminate the one tool we have--imperfect though it may be -- to help levelthe playing field for many minority youth."Fifty-four Republicans followed Watts' lead in voting against the Riggs amendment, and it was defeatedresoundingly, 249-171.Watts surely knows that the Republican Party needs him infinitely more than he needs the GOP. But he alsoseems to realize the damage that Prop. 209 has done in California, and that most of the people who opposeaffirmative action on grounds that they are opposing racism are in fact trying to retain preferences for those whohave profited from racism from this country's beginning.Watts has taken a stance that millions of Americans wish that black conservatives such as Supreme CourtJustice Clarence Thomas and California University regent Ward Connerly would take. The point is that if Wattshad voted for the ban on affirmative action he would have given protection from criticism to enough whites inCongress to allow them to pass the unwise amendment. The parallel is that the Supreme Court would be a lotless hostile to minorities if Thomas did not give "cover" to the most backward elements, and that the Californiaregents would never have dared base admissions on something as flimsy as SAT scores if Connerly had not beenso arrogantly aggressive in opposing affirmative action.By refusing to be blinded or racially corrupted by partisan politics, Watts has scored his most impressivetouchdown, and in the process has given a better name to those black Americans who choose to be Republicans.Ra .Do you still use the "N" word in your communications with other people? When will you stand up and startdenouncing and discounting the use of the "N" word? For too long the "N" word has been an integral part ofBlack and White America's vocabulary and psyche. When ever it is used, it is a negative, condescending and"dissing" term meant soley and completely as a put down. The "N" word is the most offensive, inflammatoryracial slur in the English language and we should discontinue its use for now and forever more.It is interesting how we rationalize our actions and behavior with this word. Isn't it the height of hypocrisyfor African-Americans to become outraged over the word's use and abuse by White people, and turn around sayingit is "endearing" to use it among ourselves?Think about it, use of the "N" word denotes nothing but self- loathing. It is another was we keep ourselvesdown and perpetuate the crabs -in -a - barrel" syndrome. A writer said, "words gain meaning as they areoo ee with actions, demeanor, or attitudes that are of a distinct nature." So what does the "N"word meanBe re young or old, the usage of the "N" word should be abandoned. Although some rappers hurl theword with vigor, as if to make it a term of endearment, the violence and strife that exists among them bears outthe true connotation they have when they use the word."Up you mighty race," is what we need to be saying to each other. Not disrespecting each other with theuse of this word, In order to rise up, each of us should start on a mission to promote mutual understanding,dignity and respect while all discriminatory practices between ourselves. To gain the broad successesthat have eluded us for so long, we must see and exhibit value in ourselves and our people. :If another Black uses the "N" word, bring it to their attention. If you hear the word on records or mediathat is in the possession of your children, or relatives, seize and destroy it. It's within the power of each andeveryone of us to eliminate this word within our lifetime, As we accomplish this goal, watch how many otherSse cesnsslist GuaiE dnd as ivet well find wea can Colleceresr cocemighich 04 et Y