Tt the group wil eld tseondit anniversary. ieLike most: events of this kind, :There will be speakers and awards "fe i oes!well as ry tesco our economic impact.- additional direction on this matter. First of all, to refuse tofor ust one day and then go back to doing business as usual the very next day will do nothing to improve the economic status of black people. As for_ ghowing the establishment how much we spend and how great a role we playa in their economy, they already know how much we spend, what we spend it on,i lly every other aspect of our buying habits, Check out Ken Smikle Ts. Target Market News, or just go to your local library and do some research onA gonsumption spending by black people.~ * Qur buying habits as well as our economic impact on business are welldocumented. Believe me "they already know._. | So what will oshowing them ? do for U.S.? I submit, very little or- dbsolutely fiothing. I am for withdrawing our money as much as possiblefrom as many non-black owned businesses as possible, but I am also foring something that will have a positive impact on black businesses andtilack consumers. If we concentrate merely on hurting someone else orProving a point for a day, such as Gas Out Day last year (Look at gas pricesnow and you can see how much impact we had on that industry) we willnot achieve the goal of our protest: economic empowerment.. We must incorporate positive action in our strategies of protest andHoycotts so that our people benefit from our actions. How many blackpeople are now buying Texaco gas? How many of us are eating atDenny T s? How many of us are renting cars from Avis? How many blacksare collecting bottle caps for Coca-Cola? How many of you have turned. io your 10% discount coupons at Comp USA?* Another example is the flag in South Carolina. If it came downtomorrow, what would black people gain economically? Back to businessas usual with black people getting little or nothing from the tourismindustry in South Carolina.That kind of strategy makes no economic sense. Or maybe it does, tothose black people who get paid off to say oEverything is fine now, youcan come back to South Carolina and spend your money, black people. ?The result of our being angry and protesting should be economicempowerment, collective economic empowerment, not a few individualsgetting paid, a few nice commercials on television, or a new ohired hand ?with a black face for showcasing purposes only. The result of our beingmad at someone should result in our making positive moves towardgetting true freedom, both psychological and economic.* Demonstrations of our anger alone will not do that. Only positiveaction toward one another will get us there. Going back to the status quoafter the fight is over does nothing for black people economically. Protestsaf this kind must go on for much longer than one day, and they must nottherely concentrate on causing a little uneasiness for someone else. Wecannot and must not allow our anger to be the only driving force. It Ts notabout othem; ? it Ts about us.: Please think about this and know that we must not only make a point. Hy withholding our money on one day, we must also look at ways to enrichourselves as a result of our actions. Those stores we do not shop at on May20 will be there the next day and will probably Le just as much or moreafter we oprove our point. T-* - Now, what is the answer? What shall we do? Well, here is one answer. Howabout a Black Dollar Day? Let Ts call for black people on May 20 to take oneof those dollars they do not spend and start a black fund in their city. Thereafter,an the 20th of every month, let Ts continue to do that. One dollar, each month,from every black person who cares to participate, deposited in a black financialinstitution, if possible. Now that Ts what I call proving a point. That Ts what I calldemonstrating black economic impact. Just think what can be done across thisnation in our various cities if we would do that. Withholding our dollars fromspmeone else and using those same dollars to empower oursel ves "to supporteurselves. What a concept!* I don Tt know how large your city is; so I will use mine as an example.Cincinnati has over 100,000 black citizens. If just half of us participatedin Black Dollar Day, we could invest in new businesses and communityfrojects, build and support our own institutions, and help those among uswho are less fortunate or those who run into difficulties from time to time.Who knows? You may be the next one to need help. Isn Tt a $1.00 permonth investment worth it?* Get your Black Dollar Day started now. I have already called for onein our city. You have until May 20 to save your first dollar.*~ While I will support this effort, I must offer some_ if you were black. oMost black folk, other than: the oones who lived there, avoided both "cities after dark. It was kind of an ?unwritten law that you were goingto be stopped and harassed by lawenforcement in either place if youwere black and it was after dark orif you were black and happened tobe driving an expensive car.Hold your breath. -The city of Signal Hill has justelected a black man as the mayor ofthat city. His name is Edward H. J.Wilson. In addition to being a certi-fied public accountant. He is also amanager for the Nissan Motor Cor-A graduate of the University ofSouthern California, oEd ? Wilsonhas served in at least 15 differentmajor roles in both Southern Cali-fornia government and policy-mak-ing groups. Put a pin in all of that. .A couple of years ago, after hewas ousted as president of theCompton Branch of the NAACP,some say unfairly, well-knownCompton accountant Royce Estersdecided to form a new Civil Rightsgroup. It is called the National As-sociation for equal justice in Ameri-URBANDr. ManningMarable, profes-sor of history and director of theInstitute of African American Stud-ies at Columbia University, offers athoughtful analysis of race andethnicity in the Feb. 25 Chronicleof Higher Education. Though notunique, Dr. Marable Ts views pro-vide a significantly different frame-work for understanding the com-plexities of race and ethnicity. Hisis a more comprehensive approachthan that of the anti-identity poli-tics school, which appears to havesingular access to both the conser-vative and liberal public media.Dr. Marable begins by pointingout that while a great deal of schol-arly attention has gone into study-ing race and ethnicity, too often thediscussion has been mired in olddebates and definitions. He assertsthat to understand the changesaround us, we need a new and criti-cal study of the increasingly com-plicated relationship between raceand ethnicity.Part of today Ts confusion stemsfrom the fact that the concepts ofrace and ethnicity have evolved verydifferently. Race is a dynamic so-cial construct that has its roots inhallia aOnly through hard work dedicationand education will one gain the tools| needed to succeed. || Remember Read Your Black HistoryRead the "M" Voice Newspaperexecuting people when it has beenproved that trial evidence or caseOral argumentsare expected tobegin this month in imprisoned journalist and policetion.was wrong or tainted post-convic-:«abuse activist Mumia Abu-Jamal Tsfight for a stayed execution and a{new trial. Days before he was to be executed i in December for the 1982 murder of a Philadelphia police of- ficer, a case in which Abu Jamalwas convicted with what has proven:© be tainted witnesses and falsece testimony, Mumia and his Mawyers filed a writ of habeas cor-Mumia Abu-Jamal, a formerBlack Panther, was a radio journal-ist in the 1970s that publicly ex-posed police misconduct. In 1982,he was stopped one night, a police,officer ended up dead, for witnessesall with police connections, saw fourdifferent people "none of whomlook like Abu Jamal, and the policeclaim he tried to shoot at them whenthey arrived on the scene, thoughthe gun placed at the scene wasempty. It Ts since been proven that- the witness testimony was coercedtestimony was out-: i ale St be Sia SpMumia Abu Jamal Ts petition tothe: federal courts seek to exposethe state court Ts failure to upholdhis constitution rights, as deter-mined by the Supreme Court of theUnited States, whereby a state courtdecision is obased on an unreason-able. determination oof the facts inlight of the evidence presented instate court proceeding. ? Under theAnti terrorism and Effective DeathPenalty Act of 1996, a narrow win-dow whereby federal courts, on verylimited grounds, can hear claims ofhabeas. Mumia didn Tt have just oneclaim. He had 29, compelling Fed-eral District Court Judge WilliamH. Yohn Jr, toat least hear Mumia Ts |argument. This is an opportunity_ for all of the, post conviction evi-pe. was ie delay in; sk ay ae sonand plaques and all the rest. There _will however be one big difference. - It will in fact be a ofirst, ? Mayor Ed Wilson of the city. of Signal Hillwill be the guest of honor.There is a peculiar irony here. Acity that once closed its eyes toracial injustice and allowed certainofficials to display their disdain forpeople of African descent have nowelected one of these persons to headtheir government.Royce Esters, a longtime fighterfor civil rights, has indicated hefeels Wilson can be the vehiclethrough major changes will e rec-ognized in Signal Hill. That is why,he explains, he has chosen Wilsonas the guest of honor for the NAEJAbanquet and celebration. oThere have been changes inSignal Hill since the spotlight wasplaced on that city after the death ofRon Settles, ? said Esters. oBut itwas not obvious until just recently.Most people did not know. that EdWilson was elected to the city coun-cil in Signal Hill more than threeyears ago. Now he is the mayor ofthe city. You cannot deny that isprogress, ? Esters charged.As an aside, Esters and othermember of NAEJA are urgingPERSPECTIVEthe transatlantic slave trade, theestablishment of plantation econo-mies based on enslaved labor, andthe ideological justification for thevast extermination of millions ofindigenous Americans. WhiteAmericans have thought of them-selves in terms of racial categoriesfor several centuries.By contrast, ethnicity is a rela-tively recent concept. There are noreferences to ethnicity, per se, inthe social science literature of the19th and early 20th centuries.Ethnicity surfaced in the writingsof sociologists during the GreatDepression, as a means to describethe diverse immigrant populationthat came largely from Southernand Eastern Europe. Later, ethnicitywas used to describe the develop-ment of modern European national-ism and the conflicts developingamong various communities definedby their cultural and social tradi-tions._ Because of the hegemony of raceand racism in the social develop-ment of the United States, Euro-pean immigrants who arrivéd herequickly learned that the key to theiradvancement and power was toclaim the status of being white. Inother words, during the 19th cen-tury, race was much more powerfulthan what we might today callethnicity in determining the lives ofmost new immigrants.Given the history and complexi-ties, there is small wonder that thereare currently major academic dis-agreements over the meanings and .materiality of both race andethnicity. For example, should racebe subsumed under ethnicity as asubcategory? Or is race an excep-tional social category in its ownright, because of its peculiar his-torical development, discourses,relations with culture, etc., whichset it apart form ethnicity? To whatJudge Yohn grant the petition, anevidentiary hearing would be next.If Yohn denies the petition, anotherdeath warrant would be signed(though Abu Jamal would have twomore appeals, to the Federal Ap-peals Court and the U.S. SupremeCourt). Because federal courtsrarely overturn state convictions,this case must be watched to makesure the federal courts don Tt givetoo. narrow an interpretation ofMumia Ts claims. Clearly, his claimshave merit.The Mumia case, as did theGeronimo ji Jaga case, exposes theflaw in the-American judicial sys-tem when convictions come aboutas a result of a railroad case where chremmnetanpe ond authority (police)eainhin te asideHill was a lost cause. The notion ofment in that city was at best, a pipedream. ?He continued, oIn a way it iskind of like the pride we felt whenDouglas Dollarhide, the first blackmayor of Compton as elected backin the 1960s. It was like a dream -come true. ?Getting back to Wilson. He is anative of Ventura, California, andwas reared across the united Statesad Europe. His father was a careermilitary man. He graduated fromhigh school in Holland and cameback to the US to attend college.His accomplishments make himsound like a candidate for oWho'sWho in America. ? He is a memberof the Board of Governors for LongBeach City College. He is a mem-ber of both the American Instituteof Certified Public Accountants andthe California Society of CertifiedPublic Accountants.Wilson also served as chief fi-nancial officer for Family SavingsBank as well as s the Internal Au-dits manager for the CaliforniaCredit Union.extent, if at all, should race be mea-sured by biological, genetic, or cul-tural differences among groups?Can ethnic minority groups whoare at least partly defined by theirlegal racial categories, such as Af-rican Americans, be guilty of orac-ism ? themselves?Many different theoretical ap-proaches have been proposed to ad-dress such questions. At one end ofthe ideological spectrum are the ra-cial-ethnic theorists, the. multiculturalists, who insist thatracialized ethnic groups should bestudied together. This group main-tains that racialized minorities arefundamentally different from otherethnic groups because they share acommon history of oppression. Af-rican Americans cu 1¢ to this his-tory involuntarily in chains. Ameri-can Indians were subjected to a de-liberate policy of genocidal exter-mination.A common history of residentialsegregation, economic subordinationand political disenfranchisement hascreated the basis for a comprehensiveapproach to the study of such ethnicminority groups.Social scientists such as RobertAllen and Robert Blauner provide avariant of that argument, using po-litical economy to understand race,asserting that racializéd minoritiesshare not only uniquely differentsocial histories from white people, but also that their existence is strik-ingly similar to that of a colonizednation.At the opposite end of the spec-trum are the cultural universalists,who, for divergent reasons, attackor dismiss all kinds of ethnic stud-ies that factor in race. They main-tain that ethnic identity is not bio-logically-based, but rather a prod-uct of social forces and voluntarychoices. Some, such as NathanGlazer and Patrick Moynihanrying Out sentences on tainted tri-als. The reversal of so-called jus-tice in America is still a gray areabecause rarely will a criminal jus-tice system self-incriminate its so-called ofair ? process. On the otherside of that coin you have peopletrying to expose the flaws in thissystem being blocked by lack ofaccess to court systems and peoplethat will heartheircases. The Mumia .case is just one of thousands ofcases where persons were convictedand sentenced because the systemand other processes, failed them. Iget dozens of letters a, week fromprisoners seeking to get their casesout in the open because they weresomehow, legitimately compro-mised by the judicial process. Crimi- nal justice is criminally injust oncethe decision has been renderedter laughingly says, i never:1ought I would live to see this day,I've seen here in Compton formanyyears and we all thought that Signala black man at the:-head of govern-Ed Wilson to positions of power,courts. Not only does one man Ts:judicial (individualfrom ascigaAdeotne Wien couldn awellbea wake-upcallforthe People.of Southern California to realize -we are on the verge of anewday.. With the election of people likewe can begin to actually have ahands-on role in local governments.This means the small cities we haveoverlooked or have given upas lost.NAG is to be commended forhaving the wisdom to honor a youngand powerful figure who can makereal changes.If you are interested in makingchange a reality instead of just aword in the dictionary, then youshould contact someone at NAGand make reservations for April 29at the Petroleum Club in LongBeach. there are two different phonenumbers, (310) 608-5878 or (310)637-5300. The group has a websiteand the address _- iswww.NAEJA.ORG. You can ob-tain information about tickets andtables by calling either of the num-bers or punching up the websye.The organization is fairly newand the mayor is very new. As mem-bers of the community, we ought tostand being both of them and helpthem grow into the viable assets weneed.A Re-Examination of Race and Ethnicity(1963) took white ethnic groups asa standard, urging black people to Tstrive to acquire the lifestyles, fam-ily patterns, and work habits ofwhites to diminish racial tensions.More recently, a new school ofuniversalists implies that any rec-ognition of a unique status forracialized ethnic groups moves dan-gerously toward racial essentialismand separatism. This school vilifiesthose who emphasize thediscontinuities and conflicts amongvarious racial and ethnic groups. oEthnicity ? is an oinvention, ?nothing more; all Americans, re- |gardless of their respective racial orethnic identities, share far more witheach other "culturally, socially andpolitically "than they do not share.Finally, there are the social theo-rists of race and ethnicity, who,frankly, do put forward essential-ists and identity-bound models ofcultural difference. The most influ-ential school of thought, presentlyexpressed, in many black studiesprograms, is afrocentricity. It is aconcept initially developed byMolefi Asante, former chair of blackstudies at Temple University, andbases itself on an oppositionalstance toward Eurocentrism, thecultural ideology and supremacypractices of the white West, and ona belief in the endearing meaning ofrace and ethnicity.It is not surprising that a na-tional conversation around issuesof race and social diversity such asthe 1997-98 President Ts Race Ini-tiative is so difficult to carry out.The discourse about race continuesto be politically charged, both inpublic policy and on the nation Tscollege campuses, and people gen-erally talk past each other "pre-cisely because there is no consen-sus in abstract theory or in the realworld on what is meant by race andethnicity. .BETWEEN THE Linc iii iiiimileaciMieriiaiA nies exbne- 05200 ma enim ace anG We Must Stand On Alert for the Evidentiary Hearing of Abu-Jamalputa person to death "an act whichis irreversible "before it will con-sider admitting the system failedand having to reverse its error, Why?Because if it really acknowledgedhow frequently it does happen (aswe Tre.finding out in Los Angeleswith its police scandal), then thecriminal justice system will breakdown,The Mumia case is one ofAmerica Ts biggest tests to see ifitisas aggressive in correcting criminalinjustice by the courts as it has beenin applying criminal justice in thelife hang in the balance, the cred-ibility of a whole judicial systemhangs in the balance, Can we affordnot to be on onational alert ? in thiseffort to save Mumia? I think not.Tn saving Mumia, we save manyothers, and may one day, save ourpA sae selves