ublican runninghot path to JesseJackson's Operation mostly black gathering that Bush'sch-repeated vow to get more minoritiesin the GOP was nothing but a smoke-and-ts ploy to deceive blacks and Latinos.* This was easy for Gore to say. Cheney's_@Ongressional scorecard includes opposi-tion tothe Equal Rights Amendment, tough_ gin control laws, busing to achieve racial- Gesegregation, federal funding for abor-tions, child nutrition programs, and.a sepa-: - pate education department. His: knee-jerk. Conservative voting record was a made-in-Heaven chance for Gore to brand Bush a~ political fraud when he claims that he wants_ voters was slipping. Following the March 7a. KS Super Tuesday election primaries exit pollsors in Chicago. He warned _have on black and Latirhe picked him thethe Democratic grip on black and Latinoin California showed that Bush had pared othe traditional colossal bulge in Demo-cratic support among Latinos down toa 2 to1 margin. Overall, 15 percent of blacks,- nearly 30 percent of Latinos and more than40 percent of Asians voted for Bush-McCain. ; aThe Republicans were also heartened:by the whopping margins in which Latino,black and Asian voters supported the anti-gay ballot initiative that limits marriage toaman and woman, and gave near majoritySupport to another congervative poweredinitiative that mandates tougher sentencesfor violent juvenile offenders. In Texas andHealth Care for HomecareBy TYRONE FREEMAN:- . | Nowthat the County" *. o1 has its Medicaidwaiver, wHat Ts next?The Federal govern-ment made no secretof its disappointmentin the County Tsprogress toward . Meeting its man-dated goal of moving people out of hospitaland emergency rooms and into preventivecare. and community based clinics. Implicit_ imthe Federal government's granting of thenew five-year waiver is the provision that. the County step-up its efforts to more ag-' gressively work toward meeting this goal. «*. Yet, the County is currently taking a: stand with regard to home care workers that» not only will impede the progress of pro- oviding health care to all, but will ultimately oincrease the burden on our already over-_ taxed hospital system.. The county Ts reticence to provide homecare workers with a livable wage and healthbenefits runs completely counter to theintent and spirit of the federal government'smandate. The County currently spendsq oRearly $10 million a year on providing*, health care to uninsured home care work- oets. This staggering amount is reached be-cause rather than access preventive carePidesenzrsnce, thése workers and theiries are forced to utilize costly emer-~~ gency rooms to meet their most basic healthcare neéds. Insuring these workers wouldcost less and would further the County Tsoverall health care goals,_ Furthermore, by not providing these caregivers with a livable wage, many will beforced into other jobs in order to supporttheir families, thereby reducing the numberof qualified homecare workers providingessential care to over 90,000 seniors andpeople with disabilities in Los AngelesCountv. The impact of this will be thatseniors and people with disabilities, whorely on home care to meet their most basicdaily needs, will be shifted into nursing orlong-term facilities, which costs four timeswhat home care costs.Under Gov. Gray Davis T proposal,homecare in counties like Los Angeleswould be improved by providing a wageincrease to $7.50 an hour and health ben-efits to workers. San Francisco pays itspublicly funded homecare workers a liv-able wage of $9 an hour with health ben-efits and has already seen the workforcestabilize, giving seniors and people withdisabilities the reliable care they need.Los Angeles County leads the state withover 90,000 low-income seniors and peoplewith disabilities needing homecare. Thatnumber is expected to double over the nexttwo decades, yet we are already at a crisislevel for homecare in terms of poverty,turnover and stability. Los Angeles Countycan avoid future failure and begin to securethe homecare workforce this year underGov. Davis T proposal.We owe it to our elders and those withdisabilities:to:make sure they can rely onquality care to stay active and contribute intheir communities. At the same time weneed to assure those that render the care,that they can provide for themselves andtheir own families.(Tyrone Freeman is general manager,Service Employees International Union,Local 434B.)~ about half of the L.of the black vote in9 voters, he has noone but himself to Blame. In the days beforewere some signs that -_ The substantial support bBush, at least in Texas, also shattered myth that blacks are cradle-to-grave re-flexive party-line Democrats. A sizable "- percentage of blacks are pro-life, pro-school ?prayer, anti-gun control and anti-welfare.Many also enthusiastically support schoolvouchers, three strike laws, stiffer sentencesfor crime, and drug use and oppose abor-tion and gay rights. yas |The National Urban League Ts recentannual State of Black America report con-firms that blacks, like many whites, havebenefited from the boom times. They arebetter educated, own more homes, havemade impressive gains in the corporationsand the professions. Democrats sée this asa plus for them. They bank heavily thatthey won Tt risk rocking the boat by votingfor Bush. But that same prosperity andpolitical comfort can be a double-edgedsword for the Democrats.Many blacks and.Latinos now feel thatthey have a stronger stake in the system.Republicans try to play to that feeling bypitching to blacks and Latinos that theirproposals for school vouchers, bigger taxcredits and cuts, and more aid to smallbusiness, and school vouchers are the bestway for them to accelerate their upwardsocial and economic climb.But prosperity, relative racial peace, andthe social and the increasingly politicalconservatism of many blacks and Latinosis not cnough to cause them to make aheadlong dash into the Bush camp. Hewould have to do much more than dole outthe few paltry dollars the Republicans haveon ad campaigns to attract more Latinos.And he would certainly have to do muchmore than utter the kind of stock, warmedover platitudes about diversity that he didat the recent NAACP convention.He would have to pledge to make po-litical appointments in his administrationthat reflect the diversity of America and toconfront such hot button issues as immi-gration reform, racial profiling, the deathpenalty, the grotesque racial disparities inthe prison and criminal justice system, adisastrous drug policy, support massivefunding increases for health care and edu-cation and greater protections for socialsecurity. :The Cheney pick. however, makes amockery of Bush's dangled hints that hewould do any of these things. It also givesno reason to think that Bush will do any-thing to make over the GOP froma clubby. :_ Party of oole ? conservative whiteguysintoa party of gender and racial inclusion. Infact, a poll released the same day tha Bushpicked Cheney showed that black andLatinosupport is still rock solid for Gore. Nowonder that Gore gloated, oSee, I told youso, ? about Bush to Jackson's group.The Disappearance of Black Leadership.E-mail: ehutchi344@aol.com)CHILD Wartcu: The Harlem Children Ts ZoneBy MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMANEvery July, theblack CommunityCrusade for Chil-dren (BCCC) holdsits annual meeting atthe Children Ts De-fense Fund (CDF) Ts| Spiritual renewala and leadership de-velopment center at the former Alex HaleyFarm in Clinton, Tenn. This year, Dr.James Comer of the Yale Child Study Cen-tet, Dr, Ron Ferguson of HarvardUniversity Ts John F. Kennedy School ofGovernment and other leading educatorsfocused on education and developing strat--egies to close the achievement gap betweenwhite and black children as well as improvethe quality of education for every child,The group discussed exciting programs andinnovative models, including the HarlemChildren Ts Zone created by BCCC Work-ing Committee Co-Chair and Children TsDefense Fund Board Member GeoffreyCanada.Canadais also president of the RheedlenCenters for Children and Families, a non-profit community-based organization work-ing to improve the quality of life for chil-dren and families in New York City. The °Harlem Children Ts Zone grew out ofRheedlen Ts experience during the crackepidemic that swept Harlem neighborhoodsin the late 1980s. Canada and his colleaguesobserved that when drug dealers and ad-dicts broke into an abandoned building thepolice would return to board up that build-ing only once or twice, leaving the drugbusiness to flourish. But if Canada's groupfocused on locking a building up everytime it was broken into, after five or sixtries drug dealers weuld stop returning.Once Rheedlen realized they could takeback and protect one building at a time,they tried to see if they could create posi-tive change block by block. When theysucceeded they then tried it neighborhoodby neighborhood. This idea became theHarlem Children Ts Zone.-~ get surpluses, government " espe-a pag the federal level " has a~- Wiigue opportunity and perhaps aresponsibility to do what governmentsometimes does best " provide for theleast of its citizens.While it is commendable that some unitsof low-and-moderate-income housing has_ been and will be built this:year in the city,the number could be increased appreciablyif the federal government kicks in withmore subsidizing.We also encourage U.S. congressmen "from the area, as well as our two senatorialrepresentatives to mount renewed effortsBlack Press:rn these times of great financial pros-- perity and mega-million dollar bud- -funds forthe City of Memphis.The Low Income Housing Tax Credit, "which provides a 10-year federal incometax break to investors, is responsible for 95percent of all the affordable housing in thenation but more are needed.There are still plenty. of homeless per-.sons in the area and thousands who stillcannot afford their own homes or even adecent apartment,Some persons will call for less gvern-ment in many areas of life, arguing forself-sufficiency or state Ts rights and re-sponsibilities, but this is one case wheremore is needed " from the federal gov-ernment.We mustchampion our own causeid Black Americans have avoice in the Presidential pri-maries? .Or did we, as African Ameri-. cans, again stand in the shad-ows of the political stage like an orphan,her greatest hopes wrapped up in sometiny rag doll she clings to?Over one million Black Americans arein prison. The disparities in punishment,for those who use crack cocaine vs. thosewho use powder remain. Affirmative ac-tion is under fierce attack. The new face Tof AIDS is ours. Poor children are beingleft at home uncared for while their moth-_ ers are forced to work. Some congression-al Republicans have decided to make themodest raise in the minimum wage into apolitical football as they try to scoretouchdowns for the wealthy. Even the besthealth-care reforms proposed by the re-maining presidential candidates wouldleave millions of Americans withouthealthcare for years to come.We heard a bold and bright Black voicehe Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.remembrances are over untilnext year, tucked away again inhis oDream, T we suppose, untilhis next birth and death days inJanuary and April, respectively. oI Am A Man ? annual signs have againbeen scrapped, the same as some of Dr.King Ts other aspirations for mankind,' while opportunities to demonstrate the de-_ Clarati e so proudly we hailed) go(Earl Ofari Hutchinson is the author of claration (once so P 4 8ignored because the I Am can Tt find a Man_ to strike up any real interest in any of the_ Causes just screaming for justice...evensome mercy.And, in answer to oAin't You AWoman?Yes, you are, but, now you gottaget back to marching for the causes ofyour children whom your man has left be-hind to pursue his life and liberty withoutphysical and/or financial responsibility,further eroding the family structure,wherein the man and the woman haveGod-ordained causes that demand mans »and woman and that whole village "notthe dark-colored villagers vs the light-col-ored villagers "to raise our children. Re-member, there Ts a pot of gold at the end ofa rainbow.But, folks, picture Dr. King awakeningfrom his oDream ? only to find it fast be-coming a hellish nightmare, still hauntedby the same issues he had envisionedwould be settled by now "some 32 yearslater.Picture him now belting out in song: oMy country tis of thee, sweet land of lib-erty. Of thee I ? WONDER: oHow come, now, today, all during thisfreedom reign, instead of celebrating con-tinnane victories over ininstices of which |rise up in the recent primaries. Alan Keyesexpressed his views on abortion, tax re-form and international policy quite elo-quently. But where is his plan to alleviatepolicy? Where is his plan to build Blackwealth?On the other side of the aisle, there wasno Jesse Jackson, there was no ShirleyChisolm and many of the aforementionedissues went unaddressed.For much of the remainder of thisdecade we are likely to pay a price for ourlack of volume in this year Ts presidentialprimaries.In the interim, we have no time to waitfor Malcom, Martin, Medgar, or Ms. Tub-man to rise from the dead. Our people aresuffering. The storm is gaining momen-tum. A shelter must be found. The time forbuilding Black businesses to employ ourpeople is now. Now is the time for partingways with those who take our loyalty forgranted. We don Tt have time to wait forsaviors. We mug work together now to "save ourselves. .Liars and dreamers ~don't mix very wellchampioned for then, Black folks are stilllamenting over pretty-much the same con-ditions for themsleves in housing, educa-'tion, jobs, business, drugs, the police andthe welfare system? oHow come Black babies are still beingsnatched from their mothers T arms only tebe farmed out to Massa Green? : oHow come we now have so many and. :so much of the prevalent diseases invad-* .ing society today when we used to have :hardly any, especially with all the fundingthat has been put into medicine and re- |search for everybody today? oHow come we are still being stopped :by law enforcement officials while walk-ing, standing, running and driving just for.being in our own skins? o| oHow come we are still predominate ondeath row? oHow come the Black church hasn Tt- taken a stand instead of a stake in our so Tcietal ills? - oHow come we are seemingly filledwith so much hatred and anger now foreach other, spilling over to everybody elsein which we have contact? = oAnd, Black men, how come there is so:much garbage and debris strewn around itour neighborhoods, when it all startedhere in Memphis with the sanitation work:ers T strike? : oMy people, I still have my dream, but,] thought by now we would certainly haveovercome and would be jubilantly shout-: Ting from mountaintops everywhere...Freé 'at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, *:we're free at last. ?We're admonishing all of us to stop be-ing hypocritical about Dr. Martin LutherKing Jr. and his oDream. ?|'