EDITORIAL
in. Th'
personal
irn
no ir, it .
th y
do th lthy.
So, whil Proposal A adds tax burden to low income pe
th ckup plan d the opposite. A family of four rning I
t n 24,000 year will actually a tax d if Proposal
A fails, bees the personal exemption ri from 2100 to
8000 per person.
Proposal A hould be rejected because it provid a haky
for hool funding. Higher tax on cigare m ns I moking
in th long run. Whil a benefit for society, the ult i I
001 revenue. And, the proposed video keno game is like the
lottery, no guaran ofm ningful financial upport for schools.
Proposal A's hike in the sal tax will hurt those who file
fed ral tax re urns. Unlike incom tax, I tax is not deductible
on federal income tax. So, while Proposal A would cut the tax we
pay � the te, it would increase the tax we pay to W hington.
Three reasQJl8 to vo no on Proposal A: fairn , strength of
upport for schools, deductibility.
By Bernice Powell Jackson
We Americans like every­
thing instantly, Fast food ham­
burgers, instant oatmeal, and
ten minute oil c are j
a few indica io of our inpa ..
tience. We a like quick fixes to
our problems.
It's that quick fix mentality
that popped up in Preaident
Clinton's State of the Union
message last month and in the
two versions of the Omnibus
Crime Bill passed by the Senate
and the House last fall. "Three
strikes and you're out," they Cry
as the solution to America's
crime problem.
Americans, all Americans,
are concerned and deeply trou­
bled about crime - and rightly
o. There are twice as many
murders now as there were 30
years ago. Violent crime is up 23
percent over the pest ten years.
Much of this violent crime oc­
curs in the nation's inner cities,
where homicide is now the lead­
ing cause of death for young Af­
rican American men.
But the reality is that while
quick fixes work for oatmeal,
they do not work for people.
As Congre works toward
one version of the crime bill,
they will be re-examining such
provisions 88 mandatory sen­
tences for three or more serious
crimes.
EVEN SENATOR Joseph
Biden of Delaware calls the
three strikes and you're out pro­
vision "wacke", attributing it to
who's-the-toughest-on-crime at­
titude of the Congress.
One of the major provisions in
the Senate version of the crime
bill is the building of an addi­
tional ten federal prisons.
Our own recent history and
tatistics show u that building
more prisons is no the elution
to crime. Over the past 20 years
we have spent $37 billion in
prison construction alone, with
another 5 billion already
planned.
But, instead of a alleviating
. the crime probl m, th United
8ta has me the world's
number one jailer.
Some 1.4 million Americans
are now in pri on. Americans
are more likely to be victims of
violent crime now rather than
I likely.
T T with he
high t incarceration rates also
hav th high violent crime
rate. If pri on worked, logic'
tell u that violent crimes
hould have dropped over the
pest 20 yea ,Prisons alon do
no work.
The Omnibu Crim Bill is
one of th I r xpansions of
the use of capital punishment in
American legislative history. No
longer would capital punish­
ment be re rved for murder
History also tell that the
poor and people of color always
suffer disproportionately when
the death penalty is imposed.
Indeed, Supreme Court Jus­
tice William O. Douglas once
said, "One searches our chron­
icles in vain for the execution of
any member of the affluent
strata of our society."
The Congressional Black
Caucus has said that the crime
bill has tressed the building of
prisons and the mandatory
minimum sentencing too much
over the more long-term solu­
tions to crime.
WHAT ARE THE real solu­
tions to crime in America? The
Congressional Black Caucus bill
names some. They have offered
their own alternatives, includ­
ing gun control, training for po­
lice, judges and court officials
and more police on the streets.
We must also commit our­
selves to educating all of our
children. Minnesota, for in­
stance, found that 35 percent of
its inmates are functionally illit­
erate.
In large cities it is not un­
usual for half of the high school
student to drop out before
graduation, ensuring that they
will never be able to get good­
payingjo .
We must commit ourselves to
providing nurturing, supportive
communities for our children.
Over and over again, as we talk
with young gang members
'across this nation, we find they
are products of dysfunctional
families, with no outside sup­
port systems.
We've got to teach parents
how to be parents. We've got to
provide positiv alternativ for
gan - recreation programs,
after-school tutoring programs,
counseling programs .
WE MU T COM IT our­
Iv to creating J 00. Tens of
thousands of inner city resraents
have given up looking for jobs
and are no longer even counted
in th unemployment numbers.
Millions of jo have nit
over the . past two decad ,in­
pa ing all Americaru , bu pe­
ci lly the poor
Th are not quick fix or
y answers. But had w cho-
n to nd that 37 bill ion on
people. instead of pri ons 20
year ago, we might not be
mourning the loss of an entire
g neration to prisons and to
meteri right now
hit
ch
speecn of B
BI
ca UISeQ by th ir
nd i typi of lBI
Th obviou a r to both
qu tio i n phatic" ol"
Sp ch nd pronunci tion
DO OT nd never can oome
. long at birth with raoe, in
color, hair texture, iz and
ha of n or mouth and otb r
phy ical fe tur . Th and
other physical ttribu al-
ways and unavoidably INHER­
ITED from an tors.
But speech and pronuncia­
tion along . th raoe prejudice,
t ble manner , geography,
chemistry nd other knowledge
and voluntary and op ional be­
havior re always LEARNED
from other . They are AC­
QUIRED.
nd
nd
h pat-
. Inger born and
ccultu ted in Germany and G Ne
his . a product of t Yor Tim nd other inaocu-
environment in hich h te or d luded ources ref; r to
culturated. Appalaehian coal miner calk,
Environment and ecultura- B rly Hillbilly tal cue
ion - or RACE - determine Mi ion drunkard '. tal and
differen among rious peo- "red ' " talk WlllTE DIA­
pIe's peach patterns nd inflec- LECT nd WHITE ENGLISH,
tions. t I will accept and refer to
Thousands ofBIa from M- long-dead lave' talk, cotton
rica, the Caribbean Islands and patch talk and ghetto talk 88
South America are ttending Black dialect or Black English.
eolle and unive iti in the Careful writers would not
United Stat today. Two of falsely characterize nearly one­
them - tall, thin, fashio bly half billion persons because of
d and hockingly beauti- fuzzy tl;linking or ineptitude.
ful young omen from Chad in Perhaps they should narrow fa-
orth Central Africa - were cus to denote" American planta-
comparing boo at the Little tion-ghetto" dialect and be more
Professor SU?re across from O�o_, _�.
Readers Write
en ace Society" is one of
the best movies (Black-written,
produced and directed) ever to
portray the purgatories of ghetto
life. Despite the vast amount of
inner-city violence, there is
much more 0 be understood
then that which is apparent.
Th Hughes brothers
twin Idirector ) who have a
horough understanding of tb
streets, the books and them­
selves, would not have mani­
fes ed a movie only to display
ham , uff ring and death.
n th contrary, it's an an -
dot , a parable, a story with a
I n.
J sus even id himself, "I
will open my mou h in parabl ,
I will utter things hidden since
th tion ofth world."
There is much to be deci­
phered from the title itself. No­
tice hat it's not entitled
"Menace to Society," but" en-
II Society." Th preposition
"to" w d Ie ed and th Roman
num ral "IT" was inserted. The
"IT" r pr n two (2) or second
(2nd In ord r to derive at a
n ,there had to have been a
first, for this is the basic fund a-
men of mat mati .
tence criminal offenders and ex­
claim that we are "a menace to
(two) society," she or he was one­
thousand percent correct! We
are a second (2nd) menace,
which means that there had to
have been a first.
Who is menace number (1)
one? Menace I (one) is none other
than America herself.
HOLDO !
Please don't misinterpre this
as some sort of racial misrepre­
sentation because I speak the
truth. "Then you will know the
truth, and the truth hall set you
free."
In the beginning of the movie
it showed clippings of the Black
uprising (Watts riot). After the
national guard was called in, the
uprising subsided and the drugs
were brought in. "Menace 1"
wanted to restore tractability
and tranquillity very fast, and in
their own fashion. Even the nar­
rater (Kane) said himself, "after
th riots, then came th drugs."
Blacks must begin to ren­
dered themselves r sponsible
for some of their right and
wrongs. But who's to blame for
our rep iva environment -
that being urrounded by more"
wrongtban right?
Yon CI�. rt to such via-
o
jud sen-
lence and negativity out of cir­
cum tances. These 'circum­
stances' derives from the most
calculated crime in the universe
- The Black Holocaust.
than murder, aggravated as­
sault, felonious assault, po es­
sion and delivery of cocaine way
over 650 grams, robbery, armed
robbery, strong-armed robbery,
carrying a concealed weapon,
murder in the 1st 'degr and
eonspijacy to all of th above.
"Menace I" is ponsibl for
the productivity, shipment and
distribution of crack co ain
throughout the innerciti . This
"Menace" is also held account­
able for the invention of guns
and oth r emplacements m
ded in the Black communiti .
AMERICA, AFTER 438
years, has still not yet been ·
char-ged for her masterminding
role in the crime of all crim . As
a matter of fact, sh tends to
sedate us (as in tb movie) to
make us forget or forgive them of
our oppression, while leading us
a way into If-destruction. How
can we forgivet mofthis when
God himself promised that he
wouldn't (Acts 7 :6-7).
After exactly four centuries,
we are till affected by the en­
slavement and violence enacted
upon our ancestors. We've been
branded like cattle into the
mindset of that which is totally
against our nature. We 'PO!��
a spirit of godlin but deny its
power (II Timothy 3:5).
So even though our crim ap­
pear to be perilous and formida­
ble, their not as bad as America's
multi-crimes. In th eyes of Al­
mighty God, she (America) is
guilty of deceit, lying, treason,
embezzlement, kidnapping,
rape, arson, ult, ault w/a
deadly weapon, a ault less
ACE are the vic-
tims of vulnerability most sus­
ceptible to the sleights and lies
of "Menace 1" after years of being
beguiled by th ir so ry. So de­
luded is "Menace II" that h
have come a movingmetamor­
phosis - the living d d - doc­
ilely led in the wrong di ion
- difficult to lead into the right.
There is much hope for" en­
ace TI," but will it tak ano h r
consternating circums n � for
them to wake up?!
RAPHAEL X JOHNSON
loni
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