Volume 7 Issue 13…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…April 2, 2004

By John Burl Smith

Off-the-cuff in New Hampshire (3-25-04), George W. Bush suggested "community colleges" could solve American's jobless problem. Joblessness is the 800-lb gorilla congressional conservatives try not to notice. Concerned over Bush's economic policies that facilitate outsourcing and moving US jobs over seas, Republicans in battleground states, like Michigan and Ohio, are second guessing Bush strategist Carl Rove.

Clueless, as to how the economy works, Bush's idea ignores the fact that community colleges are ill-prepared to provide workers with skills that eliminate structural unemployment and built-in obsolescence that are down sides of globalism. Strategically, his simplistic proposal does not recoup the 3 millions manufacturing and almost 9 million downstream small business jobs lost. Moreover, it fails to recognize the obsolete education currently dispensed by community colleges and the system's inability to absorb more students. Putting the "cart before the horse," Bush pretends his budget does not cut education funding at all levels.

Bush's proposal puts "community colleges" on the frontline fighting unemployment. This raises credibility issues for Bush because Americans remember he made first responders the frontline in the "war on terror." Now he is cutting their funding and overtime pay. Bush's proposals shift the burden of paying for fighting terrorism and the "jobless recovery" to the states in order to pay for his tax cuts. Testimony before Congress by the Medicare and Medicaid chief actuary Richard S. Foster illustrates Bush is in WMD mode, trying to hide his ballooning federal deficit and debt.

A classic example of educational obsolescence, I attended college several times before enrolling at Shelby State Community College in Memphis, TN. When I entered Shelby State in 1977, career counselors saw keypunch and 10-key as top choices for future job skills. Thousands across America fell for that pitch. Helplessly, we watched computers replace the machines and trainers. Twice in one lifetime I paid for retraining before finishing the original training. My past dilemmas have become the hip hop generation's present nightmare.

A perilous pitfall, Bush's narrow job training perspective assumes that if community colleges teach what "companies want," the companies will be in the US when training ends. Bush's "faith-based" education will not help Americans compete in the international job market; because US schools are too weak in science, mathematics and languages. Bush's proposal does not address the needs of poorly educated job seekers that do not meet minimal educational requirements for college.

Sadly, like his father, Bush just does not get it. "It's the economy stupid!" There is a disconnect between the depth of suffering and anxiety Americans are experiencing due to obsolete skills, joblessness and Bush's policies that rob the poor to give to the rich. This does more damage to America than al-Qaida or Saddam Hussein ever could. Allowing Bush to use 9-11 to justify piling such massive debt and deficits on future generations, we have truly failed our grandchildren. Retraining workers for jobs that may be in China next year is no solution to structural unemployment and obsolescence. Overcrowded community colleges will only repeat the tragedy of high school. And, with jails already overflowing, are Americans going to be safer?

A cock, the Dark Knight-Batman/White Ninja/Zorro loves lots of chicks. A recent encounter left him in a fix trying to prevail against several chicks. When teasing love pats turned to fisticuffs, he became the unwitting victim of a gaggle of girls and needed rescuing. After discussing girls and self-defense, the Dark One/Ninja/Zorro sadly said, "Grandma, I need a hug."

Charles Richard Drew (1904-1950)

The eldest of five children, Charles R. Drew was born on June 3, 1904, in Washington, D.C. He excelled in academics and sports. After graduation from Paul Laurence Dunbar High School (1922), he attended Amherst College on a sports scholarship. One of 16 blacks to graduate from Amherst (1920 -1929), Drew received a Bachelor of Arts (1926) and decided to study medicine. Poor and in debt, he worked as a professor of chemistry and biology at Morgan State College in Baltimore, Maryland, before applying to medical school.

With his undergraduate loans repaid and some money saved, Drew applied to medical school. In 1928, only two colleges in the United States accepted black medical students. Howard University rejected his application for a lack of sufficient English credits. While Harvard University accepted his application, it was for the following year. Impatient to begin his studies, he applied to McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

An excellent student, Drew won the annual prize in neuroanatomy (1930) and was elected to Alpha Phi Omega, the school's honorary medical society. Under Dr. John Beattie, a visiting professor from England, Drew began his study of blood transfusions and methods of preservation. He graduated with a Medical Doctorate (M.D.) and Master of Surgery (C.M.) from McGill University in 1933 and continued his research with Beattie while interning at the Royal Victoria Hospital. He finished his residency at Montreal General.

Drew returned to Washington, D.C. following his father's death in 1934. He accepted a position at Howard University Medical School to teach pathology. A two-year Rockefeller Fellowship took him to Columbia University-Presbyterian Hospital in New York, where he continued his studies on blood. He developed a method to separate the red blood cells from the plasma and freezing the two separately, allowing blood to be stored and shipped long distances. Drew's plasma storage system (blood bank) revolutionized medicine.

In 1940, he graduated from Columbia University with a Doctor of Science, becoming the first black person to receive such a degree. His dissertation, "Banked Blood: A Study in Blood Preservation," showed that plasma lasted longer than whole blood.

During World War II, Drew served as medical supervisor on the "Blood for Britain" campaign. To meet the wartime demand for plasma, Drew initiated the use of "bloodmobiles" - refrigerated trucks - a practice the Red Cross continues to use during blood drives.

In 1941, Drew became the first director of the first American Red Cross Blood Bank in New York. He was asked to organize a massive blood drive for the U.S. Army and Navy. However, Drew denounced as unscientific the military directive that (1) blood be typed according to the donor's race and (2) black donors be refused. Drew was asked to resign from the project.

He returned to Washington, D.C. and was made professor of surgery at Howard University, and chief surgeon at Freedmen's Hospital. In 1943 he became the first black surgeon to serve as an examiner on the American Board of Surgery. He received numerous awards and honors and wrote numerous articles on blood for various scientific journals.

On March 31, 1950, while driving near Burlington, North Carolina, Drew's car overturned. On April 1, 1950, he died from injuries sustained in the accident. Ironically, had he received a blood transfusion, he may well have survived his injuries. (Sources: www.princeton.edu, www.gale.com/free_resources/, www.redcrossaustin.org and www.inventors.about.com)

The Dance of Fatherhood

The Dance of Fatherhood is an exciting new play produced by Mimi Williams and "Lady J." Fatherhood is a major issue for black men that began during chattel slavery. The demand of breeding new slaves for the plantation created today's dilemma of fatherhood and dysfunctional black American families.

Centered around a group of young black men, the play stars Rayquan, "The Dawg," played by Yohannes Sharriff, Shane (Rodney Wilburn), who is torn between running with the pack and taking care of his children, Paul (Aston Greene), who is still caught up sexually with his estranged wife, and David (Eddie Oliver), who hears the music of fatherhood but cannot commit to the dance. The surprising climax shows why inner strength is required to endure this adagio of life.

The Dance of Fatherhood debuts April 21-22, 2004 at The Kyle Theater inside Avondale High School, which is located at 1192 Clarendon Drive, Avondale Estates, Georgia. For more information, please call 770-808-3159 or visit www.lady-j68.com.

Criminalizing Childhood and Choking Creativity

Recently, a Georgia public school student was arrested and charged with making terrorist threats because of the images depicted in a drawing. Another student was suspended from school because of entries in a personal journal. Increasingly, public schools are cracking down hard on students that fail to adhere to strict rules of conduct, written and unwritten.

Advancement Project, a Washington-based civil rights organization (www.advancementproject.org), examined the consequences of zero tolerance policies. Its report, Derailed: The Schoolhouse to Jailhouse Track, found these policies take students from an academic track to a future in the juvenile or criminal justice system. The analysis shows that black, Latino and disabled children suffer more under zero tolerance.

The report, authored by Judith Browne, Advancement Project senior attorney, looked at data from school systems across the country and discovered a disturbing trend as educational systems begin to look more like criminal justice systems. Relatively minor misconduct that parents, principals or teachers once handled are referred to police and public prosecutors. By criminalizing trivial offenses, children are pushed out of school and into the juvenile justice system, making them less likely to graduate and more likely to end up back in the juvenile or criminal system. The prison-like environments that accompany zero tolerance policies lower morale, stifle creativity and make learning, which entails making mistakes, far more difficult.

Zero tolerance criminalizes childhood and chokes creativity. Stifling creativity deprives mankind of the innovations that come from creative minds. The medical innovations of Dr. Charles R. Drew, a black kid from a low-income background, saved and continue to save many lives. In a society that tends to write off poor and black children, who knows what cures and inventions have been short-circuited or derailed by choking their creativity and criminalizing childhood indiscretions?

Fire Paige!

All too often in a society that tends to write off blacks and other minorities, the few that are promoted tend to be reminiscent of Native American scouts and other "good little soldiers" used by the United States government to track down their "renegade brethren." Once the renegades were rounded up, all Native Americans, including the scouts, whose skills were obsolete, were confined to reservations. Terms like turncoats and traitors were applied to scouts, while more colorful terms were used to describe blacks that did more to maintain the status quo than improve the socioeconomic and political condition of black people.

Rod Paige, the first black Secretary of Education, created a firestorm of criticism when he called the National Education Association (NEA), the nation's largest teachers' union, a "terrorist organization." Paige later issued an "apologetic restatement for his February remarks before the annual meeting of the National Governors Association. However, it did little to diminish NEA's ire, as he characterized their Washington lobbying efforts as "obstructionist scare tactics."

Above and beyond the ill-will Paige has created among some of education's major stakeholders, Paige has exhibited an obvious disdain for all things academic, much like Bush, an avowed non-reader. This alone makes him unsuitable to head the nation's department of education. The NEA has been on point in criticizing Paige for his vigorous defense of the indefensible, Bush's "No Child Left Behind" school reform program, which Bush has failed to adequately fund. Paige has also failed to improve George W. Bush's use of the English language or his own, which makes them both less than ideal role models for school children.

While we must wait until November to replace Bush, you can sign the petition calling on him to find a better person for the job of Secretary of Education at www.FirePaige.org.

Disgruntled wants to know: Like invading Iraq, what was the rush? Preempting my favorite game show, Jeopardy, in order to monopolize the 6 PM news cycle, there George W. Bush stood, putting "lipstick on a pig!" Looking like a deer caught in Richard Clarke's headlights, Bush was desperately trying to dress up his stupid claim of executive privilege to keep Condoleezza Rice from testifying under oath in public before the 911 Commission with a few sentences. Obviously, backing away from his untenable position, Bush said thank you and dashed from the room with reporters screaming questions after him. Watching a president with a $170 million dollar reelection war chest scamper, "nothing runs like a deer!" What happened to the principle?

Disgruntled feels: Checkmated! To discredit former counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke, the GOP and the Bush administration unleashed a barrage of dirty tricks, including threats to declassify Clarke's testimony before the congressional 9-11 inquiry. Upping the ante, Clarke suggested all internal email and memos be declassified, forcing the administration to sacrifice its queen. Discarding its claim of executive privilege, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice will testify in public under oath before the full 9-11 Commission. In case you missed it, that is checkmate for the American public!

Disgruntled says: According to FBI translator Sibel Edmonds, Attorney General John Ashcroft told her he was invoking State Secret Privilege and National Security when she expressed a desire to go public with translated pre-911 intercepts. The Department of Justice offered her a substantial raise and a full time job to retranslate the intercepts. If true, it is a crime constituting a cancer on the presidency.

Outsourcing American Jobs

A real disconnect exists between the Bush administration's support of businesses cutting their bottom line by taking advantage of low wage labor pools offshore and its rhetoric in addressing the need of US workers to be gainfully employed. According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, the average US household owes more than it earns. This negative income position makes it difficult, if not impossible, to invest in retraining, which the Bush administration recommends for improving the US employment situation.

Unfortunately, while Bush has made several campaign speeches decrying the "jobless recovery" and touting retraining through community colleges and the underlying fundamental strength of the economy, his treasury secretary and secretary of state have voiced support for outsourcing, one of the banes of US manufacturing and technology sectors. Adding insult to injury, Bush has expressed support for H1-B visas, another source of US jobs lost to foreign workers.

On a swing through Cincinnati, Ohio, Treasury Secretary John Snow responded to a question about outsourcing and said that it is good for the US economy. Snow's comments were similar to those expressed by Gregory Mankiw, chairman of President Bush's Council of Economic Advisers. Mankiw's remarks stirred quite a controversy; he was forced to apologize for suggesting that shipping US service job overseas is a good thing. Unlike Mankiw, Snow has not been criticized.

Similarly noncontroversial, on a recent visit to India, Secretary of State Colin Powell reassured Indian college students and leaders that the Bush administration would not try to halt the outsourcing of high-technology jobs to their country. While members of the Bush administration praise outsourcing and Bush touts the strength of the economic recovery, millions of Americans remain jobless. Unless there is a significant improvement in employment, this disconnect between economic policy, which favors business outsourcing, and the reality of too many workers chasing too few jobs will become a political liability for the Bush administration.

Email: charmedone@hotmail.com "During the past century the US has overthrown or attempted to overthrow numerous democratically elected governments, including Salvador Allende in Chile and Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. These CIA initiated interventions, assassinations and invasions have always occurred against leftist, people-oriented governments, often with socialist leanings. Thus the question arises: Why does the United States have a long history of invading and destabilizing democratic countries that do not embrace capitalism? The answer lies in capitalism's top down distribution of wealth. Capitalism demands cheap resources--often other people's resources (Iraqi oil for instance)--cheap labor and unfettered access to global markets for the further spread of capitalism. The mentality of the high priests of capitalism is akin to the ideology of the cancer cell. The principle is based upon unsustainable consumption and unrestrained growth..." -- Charles Sullivan, Corporatism and Single Party Politics

Email: fu@kedbybush.us America has two wars going on, a deficit that won't quit, the worse jobless situation ever, White House officials betraying CIA operatives, a seriously flawed intelligence apparatus, the administration stonewalling the 9/11 commission, a health care system that needs a serious overhaul, a failing social security system, seniors who can't afford their medications, Corporate cronies over-feeding at the public trough, an environment stressing from it's filth and waste, crooked science, and a Bush administration that appears more concerned with women's choice, prayer, gays, and now condoms. Go figure....until November.

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