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FREEDOMWAYS                 SECOND QUARTER 1980

Senate proposed 200,000 community service cuts, eliminating all of Title VI of CETA. They proposed to cut $1.5 billion from CETA and proposed to add $7 billion to the over-kill military budget during peacetime. They are smoking peace pipes with gunpowder in them. We must not let these killers of a dream go unnoticed or remain acceptable any longer.

Looking beyond the Congress, we find that a Supreme Court which ruled in favor of Bakke last year, thus altering affirmative action and negating creative justice, has surpassed the insensitivity of that decision with the recent Mobile decision. This decision in Mobile, Alabama, that declares single-member districts unconstitutional will virtually wipe out every black board of education member, city council member and state legislator in the nation. It is the most racist Supreme Court decision of the 20th century, one that fundamentally undercuts much of the impact of the Supreme Court 1954 decision.

As we further broaden our view, let us not forget the media with its appraisal power. Of the top 134 executives, only two are black. Of the 1769 daily newspapers, only six have Blacks in executive management positions. The media too often project us as being impotent when, in fact, we are important; project us as liabilities when we are, in fact, assets. The media perpetrate five aggressive acts against the black and brown community every day: (1) we are projected as less intelligent than we are; (2) we are projected as less hard-working than we work; (3) we are projected as more violent than we are; (4) we are projected as less patriotic than we are; (5) we are projected as less universal than we are. They do not call Senator Kennedy "white senator" or the president "white president" because their skin color is self-evident. Our skin color is also self-evident. Therefore, when they refer to us as "black leaders" they are not describing our skin color, they are defining our domain. We must reject this racist aggression for the whole planet is our stage. We are not slaves of the ghetto; we are citizens of the world. That's why we have spoken out and will continue to speak out for a just peace in the Middle East and for our nation to make a complete break economically, militarily and diplomatically with America's immoral partnership with the racist apartheid regime in South Africa. We affirm these goals as being in the highest national interest.

When one looks at all branches of government, the media and corporate leadership, it is clear that there is a leadership crisis in the nation. The national vision is blurred, and we must find a better way. If history is instructive, and it is, it will tell us that the vision to save the nation will not come from the palace, it will come from the

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---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-26 11:41:06