•
Bill Clinton . olf in beep' clothing. He appears to
be 0 muc better th the le der hip America h h d for
th 1 t 12 year , might overloo ho much he i really
like the fo1 now in charge.
Clinton, candid te for the highe t office in the land, i
running a da erous tv commerci in the metro Detroit
are •
. The d t rt by s ying
th t we h ve ne er of the
Democr tic P rty. Thi i
party, the d goe on to y,
that support elfare reform
and the de th pen Ity.
No , mo t of the polling
we've een in this election
ye'·s -tbat voter re
concerned prim rily bout
job and he Ith care reform
- no elf re queens nd
Willie Hor 0 • But here e
go ain, No it is the new
era Democrats playing tho e
.. r, • �sdD.ttb.eir.ap'pe.al to
e. lOamoa,.r
tho e btl1e .<:ollar ethniq 'Who
fled the' citi� he etn'rnd 1O's to regroup 111 suburbati- ..
ghetto of fear and ignorance.
R.epublicana have held onto the president's office by
playing to the fear of these folk, fine tuning racial politics
along the way. .
BllI Clinton ias listened well, learned the tune and sings
in perfect harmony.
First welfare reform. Despite all the statistics that show
there are more white people than African on the welfare
rolls, m?st �l1!.c:ricans believe welfare is a Black thang. This
perception exr-ts thanks to the media and the race politics
of the rec nt past. Clinton's focus on welfare reform i to
oW' sut>�auite he is ready I 0 al with t m."
_ .... '( me !'ithe: b�ffi th deat"'",.lIl�,".iY'I.r!IIM
I anti-poof:pn.(faJtti-�l�c ,.bC1f.3u e h t is who . .:pn
row. Rich folks don't end up there.
For Bill Clinton to devise commercials on these subjects
and run them in a mar ket as racially divided and hostile as
jnetro Detroit is playing the race card with the twist of
Oxford-perfected subtlety .
) The picture is even 'bleaker when you consider, Clinton
ha� frequently visited those suburban ghettos of ignorance,
trymg desperately to woo back those voters who deserted
the Democrats for the race-baiting Republicans. By the
satne token, Clinton has studiously steered away from urban
settings.
For the few times Clinton did visit a major African
American group during this campaign, it is as if he were
talkingpast the audience, to reassure that wider group of
reactionaries out there in Republican land that he, Clinton,
knows how to talk tough to "those people."
When Clinton addressed the Rainbow Coalition he in
sulted Sister Souljah and his hosts. When Clinton stood
before the Black Baptist preachers in Atlanta, the largest
group of African Americans in the land, he talked not about
jobs or health care, the real concerns of Black pastors but
about crime. .,
. The �eal �ill Clinton seems to be trying to get out. This
15 the Bin Clinton who plays golf at all-white country clubs
and has not pushed an affirmative action plan or civil rights
bill for his state. '
We urge African America�s to vote. Don't do like we did
in the last governor's race and stay home. African
Americans don't get anything out of the electoral process
by staying home.
Go to the polls and choose any of the ·other candidates
for president: Lenora Fulani or the Socialist candidate.
Wr!te in a candidate for president or make a statement 'by
vouag for every other spot on the ballot except president. If
you stay home, you don't 'exist.
Just don't be blown away by the huffand the puff of a
, wolf in sheep's clothing: Vote your interests.
I,
I
Poverty i violence. ci m
violence. Unemployment is
violence. And th types of
violence are forced to the into
crucibl of urban America this will
produce nothing more than grea r
intensity of homicide nd
hopei . For the 0 the
tho of childlen like Dantre1l
D ho are killed 1 y, it
is imperative t we 0 harder to
top the violence.
-African prowrb
IN PARTICUlAR the federal
retreat from helping to finance·
public housing has both expanded
the ranks of the homeless and the
deteriorated the physical and human
conditions of the existing units of
mfor
orman
VIEWS OPINIONS
eme GO'S YO Richard
M. Daley, view the ituation
neeclingprtmarily a law enforcement
solution. Mayor Daley quickly
ordered a massive police search and
seizure operation in the 7,000 -
pe on housing complex.
The resident population in
Cabrini-Green is nearly 100 percent
African American. The man
arrested as the confessed sniper in
the senseless shooting of Davis
should be swiftly tried and sentenced
The ruin ofa
nation begin
in the homes
of its people.
or . a ful crimi t.
We believe, bo ever, that to vie
th urban lely . ue of
I d order is gro ly insufficient
irrespo ible. Until the oci
and economic oonditio that drive
peISO to crime and violence are
char ed the tragic murders of our
children in the tree of America
will continue to in e.
How it in cially dive
large city like Chicago that a 7,000-
person public housing project
only African American re iden ?
R idential egregation by race and
ocioeconomlc condition has not
been challenged to any tangible
degree during the I t 40 years.
In fact, racial segregation in
housing is worse in 1992 than it w
in 1952 throughout the country.
In Philadelphia, Newark, Detroit,
Kansas City and in many other cities
the violence in public housing
projects replicate the ituation in
Chicago. But the problem is not the
existence of public housing; the
problem is the absence of adequate
public housing, the absence of
employment, the absence of a
community economic
empowerment for people of color
communities, and the ab ence of
show of priority concern for the
plight of urban America by the
federal government during the last
U years.
empo ermeat,
the intema onal oommunity
h correctly fo ed orId id
ttention to the violence nd
inj tice of pI such BalDi
and Herzegovina or in South Africa,
the violence of the socioeconomic
and cial condition of the United
States 0 DC more international
crunny.
Y , we are ying that the United
Nation Commi sion of Human
Righ needs to urgently review the
y temic violence of human righ in
the United State .
Again the current 1992
Presidential Campaign all but
ignored the piral of violence and
Most men on B-block called him youth, summers with family in
by the honorific, "old-head," but he Virginia.
wasn't really "old" at 54-odd years,
although it must be admitted that, to ALTHOUGH A big city guy at ,
the majority of young men in the heart, the southern cadences of
prison, in their early 20s, Norm speech, stewed into him from
must've seemed old indeed, Virginia summers, never left him,
especially with his bead covered and several times someone, hearing
with a tight cap of apparent white his. "down home" bass, would
wool. wrongly assume his point of origin
Although his snowy head of hair was in the deep South.
bespoke age, his physique was that He developed a habit that every
of a man half his age, well-muscled time he left the cell, he would stop at
and strong. He exercised and the sergeant's desk for "Gelusel," an
stretched religiously for years. For 7 antacid that he used for what seemed
years or so, Norman was held in the to be a constant up et stomach.
"hole. " One day he called down.
Because I listened to a bit of jazz "Call the Sarge! Oh! Tell 'em I
in my youth, we could converse on needa doctor! 1"
the gifted artists of the genre, like "My stomachl Ohht," he
King Pleasure, Betty Carter, John grunted.
and Alice Coltrane, etc. with' a Hearing the alarm in his voice, I
degree of ease 'that others, of the called, and so did several others, "Dr.
Rap/Hip Hop era, coul� �ot. upl Sgt. upl 310 cellll! Dr. up]!"
�e was �ercely opinionated and It took quite a while, perhaps 45
dehghted In a goo� argument .. minutes passed before a nurse
Although �e �w up ,m New York, appeared at his cell, but it made little
he spent time 10 Philly, and as a substantive difference, for she
•
qUI
recommended Tylenol, a common
pain killer which Norm promptly
panned as worthless.
"MAN, THIS STUFF ain't
doin' notbin' for my stomachl," he
growled, the pain audible beneath
the rumble of his voice.
It took days for Norm to be taken
to the bospi tal, and when he returned,
two days later, it seemed as
worthless as the Tylenol he took days
before.
"How'd it go, Norman?" �Aw,
man, they talkin' 'bout they can't
find nothin' I," he replied.
He continued to stop medical
taff coming by t9 complain, and
they took him out for more tests.
About a week later, some guards
came by to pack up his property, and
to give the latest news on his health:
Cancer. Cancer of the <pancreas.
Malignant.
TWO OR THREE weeks after
this diagnosis, Normal Whaley died
in Centre C�unty Hospital near
MUMIA
ABU
JAMAL
�" .•. """'"J'
1"- ...
.....
FROM
DEATH
ROW
Rockview Prison in Central
Pennsylvania.
More than anything in life he
longed for freedom, the company of
a woman, and the sweet summer sun
of Virginia (perhaps sweetened a tad
more by the scat of jazz great, Betty
Carter).
To the government that caged his
flesh for the last near-decade, the
newspaper that he read
occasionally, and the politicians he
lambasted daily as "corrupt,"
Norman was a non-person, a
number, someone to be ignored in
death, as in life.
To my knowledge, no newspaper
recorded his death. No medium
marked the passing of the
"old-bead. "