N<WCDiber 8-14, 1987 Michigan Citizen
5
Op i ninu. (·llllllHl'IlLlr.\. Letter ..... \ ic\, ....
,
hi e and read a lover?
he media
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yin. Cb tJr.
Racism in the media - it is a
constant refrain.
However, the recent
program sponsored by the es
teemed Schomburg Library in
Harlem to discuss this issue was
different. On the panel were
ome of the best journalists in
th business. All of them were
African Americans and they did
not bite their tongues.
These were no newcomers to
the field. All were seasoned
veterans, and some had more
than 20 years in the business.
There was Les Payne, a Pulit
zer Prize winner and now a syn
dicated columnist and assistant
managing editor of Newsclay.
There was Jim Nelson,
former president of the New
Yor Association of Black J our
nalists and currently a reporter
for the Washignton Post
Magazine.
There was David Hardy, the
main organizer of the successful
landmark discrimination suit
against the New York Daily
ews, and there was Marquita
Poole, an Emmy-award winning
producer with the ·CBS Evening
e s."
oderating was Thulani
Dav-i, a crusading reporter with
the ; ·Jew York Village Voice.
If you want to know why
media coverage is often racist,
you just need to listen to the
litany of statistics recited by
�avis a the beginning of the ses
sion;
-Blacks make up less than 1 %
of the newsroom management at
this country's dailies.
-Only 6.3% of the staff of
these dailies is minority, and that
includes all racial and ethnic
employees.
Our S olen Legacy
ByRo En}
Another aspect of ancient
Egyptian theology is known as
the Memphite Theology.
In the Memphite theology,
this and other theories were
brought together to form a
broader philosophy on the na
ture of the universe.
This belief conveys the
authority of a ruler to create by
command.
As professor Breasted has
pointed out, "We come close to
the background of the Logos
doctrine of the ew Testa
ment, "In the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was with
God,and the Word was God."
The Memphite text sp ns
beyond that of the physical
realm and assends to a higher.
plateau, one that employs inven- .
tion by the cognition of an idea
in the mind and production
through the utterance of a creat
ing order of speech.
Thought and speech are an
cient attributes of power in
Egypt. Personified as deities,
they are related to the Sun-God,
Hu, or, Authoritative Ut
terance, speech so effective it
creates.
Sia, or perception, is the
ability to receive mentally, a
situation or an idea.
Hu and Sia were attributes
that carried governing authority.
They are in material terms, the
eart, the organ which conde es
bought, and the tongue, the
rgao which create the con
. cieved thought actuality.
All this is credited to the ac
tivity of tbe Memphite God,
� Ptah, ho is himself, thought
and speech in every heart and on
every tongue. He was the first
creative principle, just He
nOW remains.
"Ptah the great one, He is the
heart and tongue of the Ennead
of Gods who begot the gods.
There came into being in the
heart, and there came into being
on the tongue, something in the
form of Atum. This is the inven
tion and production of Atum."
Out of nothing there came
into existence, the idea of an
Atum, 0 a creator-god. That
idea became in the heart of the
divine world, which heart or
mind was Ptah himself." Then
that idea became upon the
tongue of the divine world,
which tongue or speech was
Ptah himself." .
It continues, "Great and
mighty is Ptah, who has trans
mitted power to all gods, as well
as their spirits through this ac
tivity of the heart and this ac
tivity of the tongue. It has come
to pass that the heart and tongue
control every member of the
body by teaching that Ptah is
throughout every body in the
form of the heart, and
throughout every mouth in the
form of the tongue of all gods ,
of all men, of all animals and
every creeping thing that lives by
Ptah's thinking as the heart, and
commanding as the tongue, any
thing he wishes.·
(Passage taken from th f
Memphite text. Information
taken from "The Intellectual Ad
venture of Ancient Man", By H.
and HA. Frankfort)
racism will continue to exist un
less we challenge it - in the
courts and by organizing. As he
said, The media, one of the
most powerful forces in this
country, is also the most racist.
Only the media is allowed to
, correct its own test papers' ...
and the test papers of everyone
else as well. But, he added, what
the Daily News suit showed us
was that we were not at the
mercy of the media; we could
take the case outside - to the
courts - and win.
The fact that racial and eth
nic communities could effect a
change, however, was the real
nut of the discussion. The
numerous discrimination suits
and boycotts which had been
successfully mounted against
the ew York Times, the Bal
timore Sun, UPI and others
were heralded.
The importance of passing on
the legacy of struggle among the
younger racial and ethnic
reporters and of teaching criti-
cal thinking to all our youth was
noted. But particularly em
phasized was the crucial role
which the community must play.
As Hardy said, "Change has
to come from the top but it can
not come without the involve
ment of the community. Sup
porting this, eIson noted that
we must organize to respond to
the media, both positively and
negatively. She noted that news
organizations generally assume
that each letter represents 200
others. Yet, racial and ethnic
groups don't use this tool as ag
gressively as they should.
It really is up to us .. If you
don't like something you've
heard or seen in your local paper
or on a radio or TV station - take
a few minutes to call or write.
And get your friends and family
to do the same. Also support
those in the media who take
positions you agree with. We
cannot bemoan our lack of
power when we refuse to exer
cise the power we do have.
Upbeat about helping teens
By Marl D Wright Edetm n
Dr. Mary Vernon's upbeat
attitude has taken her - and the
many teenagers she has helped -
a very long way.
As one of 14 children and as
a Black young woman growing·
up in the South, Vernon had
every right to be pessimistic
about her chances of going to
medical school and becoming a
doctor. But, with the help of
scholarship money and lots of
hope, she made it. She now ser
ves as an Assistant Professor of
Pediatrics at Duke University
Medical Center.
Dr. Vernon is �ow pouring
much of her abundant energy
into helpihng the disadvantaged
teenage youths of Durham,
orth Carolina to find their way
in life. She directs Teen Link, an
ambitious program based in
Durham's Lincoln Community
Health Center. The program
helps young people grapple with
the many different but interlock
ing problems they face, from
drug abuse to health to personal
relationships. "We have to 100
at the adolescent on a holistic
basis," says Vernon.
Dr. Vernon is positive about
teens and their potential. Her
program gets young people ac
tively involved in helping other
teens learn about health by en
listing them to serve as "peer
health educators." After 16
hours of training, these teens
answer questions and provide
information to their peers.
The .approach works.
"Teenagers do talk to
teenagers, Ie notes Vernon, even
on subjects they might find "em
barrassing and uncomfortable"
to disc with an adult. The
Benjamin
Chavis
arian
Wright
Edelman
CHILD
WATCH
CIVIL
RIGHTS'
JOURNAL .......................
peer educator program means
that more teens are repeating
accurate information to other
teens and that more young
people are comfortable seeking
the medical help they need.
Teen Link also gives teens a
chance to help each other with
problems through group dis
cussions. Groups set up by the
program 100 at different
aspects of teen life, such as fit
ness, sexuality, and life planning.
When teens begin to get support
from each other on problems,
Vernon has found, they can
open up and discuss other issues
that have been troubling them.
While Teen Link is only a
couple of years old, it already
has many lessons for anyone
who wants to help teens. It
teaches us to be hopeful, to lis
ten to the needs of teens, and to
enable teens to help themselves.
If you are interested in setting
up a similar program in your
community, contact Teen Link,
c/o the Lincoln Community
Health Center, Inc., 1301 Fayet
teville Street, Durham, C
27707.
-Fully 60% of the ap
proximately 1750 dailies in this
country have no racial and eth
nic employees at all.
But statistics are useless un
less we begin to analyze their im
portance in human terms. David
Hardy spoke with bout
the fact that racial and ethnic
stories are not given the same
weight as white-centered
stories. But when they do be
come important, the story is
often taken from the Black or
Hispanic reporter who had been
covering it and given to a white
reporter. .
In fact it was being taken off
an Abscam story which he him
self broke, and seeing it given to
a white reporter, which finally
made Hardy organize and in
itiate the Daily News suit.
Jill elson agreed, saying,
"Black reporters are not allowed
to be visionaries, to comment or
to analyze" to which Davis
added, "or to be the final
authority. "
Les Payne suggested that this
Contra hearings
DID YOU 0 ... that
one of the most overlooked
bits of information to come
out of the Iran-Contra hearings
wa the revelation by Rep.
Jack Broo s that Lt. Col.
Oliver orth h d worked on a
cret contingency plan that
would suspend the U.S. con-
titution in the event of a
national emergency. Brooks
wa not allowed to pursue his
line of questioning. But what
was revealed suggested that in-
e d of being a n tional hero,
orth may have been part of
a cret plan to tum America
into a military dictatorship.
DID YOU OW ••• that if
you are an average American
here is the sum total of what vou
drank last year: 421 gallons of
soft drinks; 25.4 gallons of cof
fee; 23.9 gallons of beer; 203
gallons of milk; 25 gallons of
wine and 1.6 gallons of liquor.
Marian Wright Edelman is
president of the Children'
Defense Fund, a national \01 ice
for children.
DID YOU OW ••• that
taxes eats up 34% of the average
person's paycheck. The other
big expenditures are housing
and household operations
which eat up 18% of the average
family's budget followed by food
and tobacco products which ac-
count of 12.5" of expenditures.