•
Opinion
ODe of the le 0 that
uId be I &om the
1988 Jac on for President
QIlmpaign' the critical role
the Black vote can play .
Sba •• • Ia the future of A&ican­
Americans in this country.
Rev. J often referred to
African-Amreicans "giants
·th grasshopper mentalities·.
That· to say h �a PC) .-
calpotential that we are ei er -
unaware of or simply fail to
utilize to our full advan .
- Th' . �ticu1ar1y true during
party primary electio bot .
is also true in general eledio
as well
In 1988 J Jackso n
more votes than any
Democr tic runn r-up in hi -
tory. His 7 million votes
more than W Iter ondale
won the nomination with in
1984 (6.7 million). But despite
. this brilliant success, an
analysis of the ote is very
troubling from the perspective
of Blac political participa­
tion and empowermenl Jesse
Jackson received 2 million
white vote 1 million vote
from oth r minorities and 4
million votes from African­
Americans. The tounding
r ct is, how ver, that there are
14 million registered African­
Americanvoters in the United
States. Put another way there
are twice as many regis ered
African-Americans voters as
ati
By p. ust HawI�DS
A number of House and
enate members have intro­
duced versions of "national
youth ervice" legislation, a
proposal which links volun­
teer duty to government
benefits. The bill receiving the
rno t attention i the c­
Curdy- UDD bill, named after
the respective House and
Sen te uthors. While the
proposal may be well inten;;;
tioned, there re m ny
proble regarding equity,
orker displacement, and
program administration
which need closer examiDa-
� ,
In the M cCudy- Nunn
proposal government aid
uld be tied to either military
or civilian service. IJI other
ords, young people could -
serve i the . or ric
in a blic facility, ucb a
tal hospital
F - each year spen .
military, t a reduced
bou $100 a week, the
ould reee i e a 12,000
VOUCller to be used for tudent .
aid, job traq or a down pay­
ment abo. For each year
of civilian service, . t a
the total vote Jesse Jackson·
received in his peresidential
bidl
Equally amazing is the
number of African­
Americans be> remain tiIl­
registered to vote. There are 8
million UDregistercd African­
Americans in the United
States today. Again, putting it
in diffeteDt terms, there are
more African-Americans
registered to vote than the
total number of vote Jesse
Jac on received in 1988!
ore than 500,000 A&ican­
Americans are unregistered in
Georgia, more than 450,000 in
s tes like Texas and orth
Carolina. In the State of e
Yor "up south," 1 million
African-Americans are un­
registered to vote. In the au­
cial ew York Primary
Michael Du aki won with
900,000 votes to Jesse
J chon's 500,000 votes. In
w York State there were
more unregistered African­
Americans than Dukakis'
total vote in capturing the
election!
All across America critical
primary and general elections
ar I t by the margin of low
Black voter registration
and/or low Blac voter turn­
out, Though voting and elec­
toral politics are not the only
means by which we a African­
Americans can advance and
protect our interests, this
th Service-
reduced wage, the youth
receive a $10,000 voucher to
pay for government benefits.
The intention of the bill .
to f ter the ideal of civic duty
d public service, while a the
same time meeting com­
munity social needs.
The victims of these youth
ervice proposals, however,
ould be the poor. It i a
regressive concept hich
turns youth in 0 indentured
servants. Similiarly, a. the 17th
century peop d trade a
passage to America to
for another per on for a
defi . te time period. Surely,
we· have progressed from the
ys of tho pr ctice.
ODe of my P concerns
. based on the question of
ho equity d equality of
saaifice caD be quaranteed
The proposal old elilQiDate
existing for of stude aid
and condition receipt of
postleOODdary ed ional­
si ce on participatio in
national service. Thi uld
undoubtedly result in na­
Jional ervice composed
primarily of low-income youth
o ould have no oppor­
tunity to go to college
o
arena is certainly a crucial
area for Blac empowermenl
Electoral politics determines
t policies prevail which in
turn determines who gets
, and how much in terms
of the allocation of tax dollars
resources and opportunities.
African-Americans canno af­
ford to ignore, neglect or un-
I derutilize our potential power
in the electoral political arena.
Every African-American
community in this nation
should have a non-partisan
VOTER MOBILIZATIO
PROJECT. We should strive
for general agreement among
our diverse organizations and
forces that there is great deal
of respect and leverage to be
gained from maximum voter
regi tration and maximum
turn-out. If for example we as
Afiican-Americans could get
90% of our people registered
and achie e a voter turn-out of
90% of oour registered voters
.on a consistent ba is, the
pwoers that be would be
forced to take notice. This
90/90 African-American voter
participation formula is a goal
that should adopt and wor
ith strenuous effort to
achieve.
. 1'heVOTERMOBlllZA-
TIO PROEJCT, like the
United Front, should be a
- coalition effo Indeed such a
pl'ojea could be sponsored by
the United Front, since it is a
non-partisan program. The
critical factor is that com­
unities hould raise the
. monies necessary to fund
voter mobilization projects on
a permanent basis. The goals
of the V.M.P. are quite simple
but essential; voter registra-
. tion; voter education; and get
out the vote.
In terms of VOTER
� REGISTRATION a strong
emphasis needs to be placed
on mobilizing m iv support
for national, state and coun­
ly/municipallegislation which
would make voter registration .
much easier. A maze of un­
necessary barriers now exist
which tend to discourage large
number of people from
registering. Post card or mail­
in registration, registration at
motor vehicle bure us, and
AUTOMATIC registration at
all agenci which serve the
public - sc 00 , libr rie ,
welfare offi ,food stamps,
office, publi hou ing, health
care centers etc - should
receive priority attention.
Employm
Programs - YES
children a single parent
a bare bones budget, It .
work to live from pay check to
pay chec in substandard and
crim ridden housing. It .
I work for many of our youth
and po r to experience th
constant hardship of poverty.
Instead of national youth
- ervice we should be develop­
ing a n tional youth job
program, which included
remedial education' as is­
tanee, j b training for decent
paying occupations, jo COUD­
seling (r um and interview
preparation), special
programs for juvenile delin­
quents and teenage paran
(with child care assi lance).
The concept of community
service' an ho orable one,
but it must be developed on a
fair and equitable b '. Ironi­
cally, the proposed natio
ervice concept, which p-
posedly i intended to ch
our youth the val of ciYia,
faik ... impo. .. by
. treatmg one class of -:a'uedS
differently than another-. AD
agenda to help our youth .
b dIy ueeded. .... .but the au­
rent co eept of na .
vice is a wroug-headed aDd
divisiYe approach.
It is a regressive concept
hich turns youth into
indentured ervants.
they served their tim in na­
tional service. On the other
hand, th·. r middle and upper
income counterpar could
enter co ge without similar
service.
In addition, there are
numerous other question re­
lated to labor standards which
can be raised. What protec­
tion would existing publicser­
vice employees, particularly
those who earn low wages,
have from di placement?
What would protect the volun­
teer &om exploitation by
employers? What would it
CXlSt to maintain strong labor
taDdards for a large national
propua?
Currently, are n de-
quately addressing the needs
of our nation's youth. Thi is a
bad time to experiment ith
dubiou youth ervice
pro en we ha left
behind miIlio of unserved
•
ildren and young people by
not fully funding Head Start,
Chapter 1, PeD Grants, the
Job Corps, the Job Training
Partnership Act, and other
programs.
The thinkiDg which drives
the e national service type
proposals· d on percep­
tion that the pub1ic will suport
this program (cost estimate .
OYer IS biIIioD) if you make
people k for it· - no mat-
ter it may
be.
This type of attitude
enlisted . to. po
port a swcepial elfare
rd biD lJU, in-
duded a . rkfare
pro . iOD. Everybody sup­
ports e coacept of the rk
ethnic,. yet It the same time
many of the DatioDal service
u pporlers doa't lIDderstand
the y d den of the
poor. It i also work to rear
Door to door canvassing and
registration should abo con­
tinue until have achieve our
registration goal
As it relates to voter turn­
out, the V.M.P. should deploy
canvassers to conduct pre­
election literature drops. One
election day there ould be a
full non-partisan eledion day
get out the v e set-up 00
plete with a p one bank, can­
va sers, sound true nd
tr nsportation to provide
rides to polls. Church con­
gregations, on a voluntary
basis, should ta e respon­
sibility for getting every
regis ered voter within their
congre tion to the polls and
work to tum-out the vote in
the precinct(s) immediately
adjacent to their chruch. ADof
thi sh uld be undertaken
with funds raised on a self­
support basis by the com­
munity for the Voter
M bilizati n Project.
Th 90/90 formula for
Blac v ter participation and
e w rm nt can wor Its
ti that we as African-
American become deadly
seri bout th po r of the
ballot in th elector I poli . cal
arena. We UST 0 -
GANIZE V er M ilizatio
Projects aero this land