EDITORIAL
nd every inn r city ran , federal d te fund to
econo . c dev lopm nt dep rtment, m nn d by taff who .
evl er run b in d who operate th u h their
th onl con ern.
I of th pr i in th han
hip. Politi i low th mselv to be intimid ted by
t P hed into votin pprov I of dubio use
I th m there' dlin nd gr nt doll will be 10 tor th
corporation ill i inv tm nt to orne other city or te if" e
don t hurry up nd go Ith thi project." Hungry for the ppearance
o pro city 1 pprove th proj
Who bene ?
ot th community if you 100 t the' ue from down here t the
round level of oned, open and dangerous housing; bo rded-up
tore fron ; and jobl people idling ay the day standing on the
com r.Theveryp ple-whobytheirpovertye mthegrantdoll rs
for th on mi dev lopm nt dep rtmen - re th on who
b nefit tit.
Take th whol Fo Theatre project in Detroit. Ho and
jO�l Detroiter hould wince every time they walk over the fancy
bric that pave th Fox bloc . Tho e bricks were paid for with funds
earned by the jobl s but earmarked for the Fox economic "develop­
ment" project. Emmet Moten, the city employee who put the Fox
rehab project together u ing millions of dollars of city grants and city
community development fund to make it go, now wor for Little
Ceesars, the corporation who owns the Fox. Detroiters got one fixed
up bloc and a few inimum wage jobs.
Then there Highland Park and its economic development arm,
DEVCO. Thi w the highly paid DEVCO bureaurcrats were in
front of the city council btagging they had leased all tores in a
promised hopping center to be built at Mancfiester and Woodward.
No city re ident had any chance to build, buy rent, own or manage
any store or any part of the hopping center. Th whole deal has been
don behind clo ed doors in ecret. A few city residents might get a.
minimum wage job and the city will get orne tax dollars, while
non-re id nt corporations get sub idized expansion.
Wayrte County government is another exampl of what is pas ed
off in the name of "economic" d velopment. The commission'
economic development committee voted thi week to give away
$500,000 worth of property and scarifice $1.2 million in taxes to an
unn med corporation. No public notice was given that there were 30
acres to be given away. It w ,like th Highland Park deal, a secret
clo ed door "development" project put together by tax-paid employ­
ees of the county w,orking dutifully on behalf of the unnamed corpo-
ration. •
Then, there's Benton Harbor. There, the Chamber of Commerce'
has renamed itself the Cornerstone Alliance to manage government
grants without the restrictions of the' Open Meetings Act or the
Freedom of Information Act. Using all the benefits available to
busines under the Enterprise Zone (50% tax break among tho e
b II fits), th Allian has created a "development" project involving
R .1} � �lY \ � c .). But',the plant to be built
g?1 � 10 0 n 1ra or, goes into Benton Township which
Wilt hare 10 Ole few tax dollars paid by the new company. A few city
re idents are promised jobs in exchange. -
In everyone of the examples mentioned, and all those not men­
tion d, there is an additional piece of meat thrown to the corporations
"incentives" for inv tment in the cities: tax breaks. When next
you vi it an inner city chool andsee no computers in the clas room
or tissue in the bathrooms, think of all the millions forfeited by the
schools in the form of tax breaks for the corporations and their
economic "development" projects.
Are the tradeoff worth it? For what the city gives do the people
get enough in return? We don't thing o. We would like to see citie
take a new path on th road to revival.
We ay, put an end to economic development as it now goes. Take
those dev loprnent dollars out of the hands of wheeling-dealing
bureaucrats whose Only concern i their own resume and job future
and put the grant dollars under the control of a committee of commu­
nityorganizations.
. Furthermore, a110 only those community organizations who e
me bership i comprised of city r idents to take charge of the
money, propo the projects and okay the pending.
W have a deep respect for the people. In a democracy we thought
that that was the way it was suppo ed to be. Put the people who suffer
the urban blight in control of the dollars and we believe there will be
progress in improving the neighborhoods.
I
•
r
By MUMIA ABU-JAMAL
From DealJa Row
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! (J/JiliiOIl\ \ u»: I
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many other importaant programs.
Iieve t py '11 bri
d more co tructiv mini-
tration of th e programs,
gain th i u is how to reduce
the number of tho e in poverty nd
wor over t long term toward the
goal of eliminating poverty.
When lead of thi new admini-
tration do or ay something that ap­
pears to be on the right track it is
important to let them know.
Espy wn that e i a leader
who is ensitive to the needs of oth­
ers and that at the same time h has
the courage to challenge ur commu­
nity to be more involved in the long
term struggle toward full empower­
ment and development.
ow i the time to move forward
am regain some of the progres that
was dismantled by Reagan-Bush.
..__;::J
. i ippi,
Y d' tin­
an effective d-
ministratorwbo out th poor.
Yet, py' care about the poor
beyond entime tality. H cor-
tly tared - in our opinion, more
clearly t n mo t thatthe question i
not how to help the poor, but bow to
help eliminate t institutionalized
poverty and discrimination that
keeps the poor in the tatus of being
poor.
It is refreshing to waatch thi pro­
gressive African American I der
take the initiate to rescu the term
"Empowerment" from the right­
wing reactionary forces, who during
the Reagan-Bush years, attempted to
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tives are fed.
sources for a pittance in return.
T W tcouldnolongerfightby . WHIL THE U .• Army
proxy, as they did when Ethiopia and charges abroad to muddle the spec­
Somalia Iought in the de crt border tacle of starving Black babies, Black
areas. There is a United States of "babi who have the misfortune of
America, a European Community, being "Born in the U.S.A." are rele-
but imperial r i lance and 0 i- gated to the gutters, to urban sink-
tion to th very notion much I the holes of squalor, to oul-sapping
reali ty, of a confederation f African hools, only to graduate to prisons,
States. nd if they survive that, to the grim
And 0, after tens of thousand of, ,peripheries fth rich t nation of
Somali , men, women and babies, Earth. For the U.S., apparently, char­
have starved to death, the U.S. sends, i ty does not begin at home.
not food, but guns, id arms of the Whenever America feels down, it
world' Policemen, agents of Em- eems, it always earches abroad for
pire. a Black or Brown ass to kic to re-
U.S. think tankc call or a" w 'tore 1 agging fortunes; Libya, in
Coloniali m" as U.S. Idle warm North Africa; Iraq; Grenada; Beirut,
over the Hom of Africa, ubduin now Somalian "warlords" (armed
Somali warl rds, and warning U ..
audiences (perhaps th mo t drug-
addicted on earth) of the dangers.of
Khat-a lea African farmers have
chewed for millennia to kill hun r
and give' en rgy. much as "Indian "
in South American hi hland
ch wed Co af to d aden hunger.
before greed for 0 aine in the "civ­
ilized" world creat d mon trous
drug market. .
Somali mi ion r'c dicated
upon rug War-Part 2?
MUMIA
ABU
JAMAL
troops; ambivalence at their "hu- with misery.
manitarian" mission-to insure safe Why, one wonders, could not a
p sage for medical and humanitar- consortium of African tates, join in
ian groups who came to Somalia to a multi-national military effort to in­
attempt to arrest the seemingly per- sure that food shipments reach tarv­
ennial tarvation that rends the land ing villagers
_ There is something unseemly
about the spectacle of whit soldie
from imperialist countries trotting
off to Africa to insure that the na-
The specter of armed troop con­
verging on a ci ty in E t Africa fills
me with muted rage and ambiva­
lence. Rage at th f t they were U.S.
-,
U. S. m rine points pi tol t head of 1S-y r old boy in
'Meg di hu February 14. U.S. troops re being vi w d more
nd more as occupation fore in Somalia.
FROM
DEATH
ROW
,
It smac of Kipling's "White
Man's Burden."
The late Ghanian Premier,
Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah, was of
the opinion that only a United Stat
of Africa, undera socialist economi
y tern, could insure and protect the
ocial defen e and continental
-n ed of African .
richly with U.S. weapons given/ Id
to the Barre regime) and back to
Baghdad.
Th quasi-wars agai t tiny,
but vocal targets, proves how far the
Empir has fallen and how quickly. '
One Head Cannot
Go Into Con ultation
African Proverb
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