9MHT9NH.^ARTERLY THE DREAM DIES HARD .WHEREDID I GOH W ? PORTLAND IS SUPPOSEDTOBETHEHOME OFTHESUEPYMSRoH AND SUCHIRRESPONSIBLE M b UNGRATEFUL BLAC* PARENTS ..THATDAMNEDBUCKUNTIED FRONT, < HEREWEGIVETHEM ACHAKE TO ROBELBOWSWITHUSINCURFINE SUBURBAN SCHOOLS . . . . . SOMEBODY'S OCT ToBEA LUTLg UNCOMFORTABLE ASWELL BETHEM NIGROS, I kNoWDAMN WELL THEWHITE FOLKS WN'I STANDFORWAITINGINUte COLDFOR THE SCHOOL BUS EVERY A U J E S U S ^ ^CHWST t BOB CRAZEN $ Co. WILL HAVETOSTAMPOUT THIS NUISANCE . . . . I CAN'T BEUEVE THIS JSHAPPENING1& ME / BlG RED I * ----- " By Lenny Dee The recent firing of Superintendent of Public Instruction Robert Blanchard by the Portland School Board has touched off a storm of controversy unparelleled in Portland’s educational history. That the issues seem to be racial in a largely white, middleclass town adds a disturbing note to this confusing, sometimes paradoxical struggle, a struggle that may shape the educational future of Portland in ways that most of us never expected. Immediately after the firing, some of the city’s most wealthy, influential business leaders — including the likes of the Benjamin Franklin’s Bob Hazen, Charles Davis, a lawyer and former head of the Public Utilities Commission, and former Congresswoman Edith Green — formed a group to promote and finance the recall of Board members who voted against Blanchard. Spokesman Carlos Rivera cited those members’ “ immaturity of judgement, irresponsibility in decision-making and failure to put the welfare of the children first.” For their part, two of those Board members say that Blanchard was fired because of his troubled working relationship with the Board. Nowhere in the emotional exchange of charges, or in the press accounts of them is the startling idea that is at the root of the controversy: community control of the schools, and with it a repudiation of 25 years of attempts by liberal educators to establish equal, integrated education. While Blanchard’s firing is a dramatic development, it is only one outward sign of a trend of thinking that is growing in the Black community. But why should a group like the Black United Front, formed last summer to call for changes in Portland’s educational policies towards Blacks and regarded as having broad-based support in the Black community, demand what is essentially a return to “ separate but equal” education, a presumably white-racist notion that was to have been laid to rest in 1954 with the landmark Brown vs. the Board o f Education decision? That decision asserted unequivocally that separate education for Blacks and whites was inherently unequal, so why should it have the blessing of the BUF? To answer that question, we can begin by quoting the words of Derrick Bell, a Harvard law professor who is soon to become the dean of the University of Oregon law school. In a recent Oregonian article, Professor Bell stated, “ The Brown decision was significant because it ended the legal subordination of blacks, removed the barrier that prevented blacks from going to school with whites and made it possible for black parents to gain an equal educational opportunity for their children wherever those children attended school. “ But the Supreme Court neither guaranteed every black a seat in a mainly white classroom nor ordered black children to be enrolled in such classrooms against the wishes of their parents. The court invalidated all coerced assignments of black children based on race. It also mandated that the black victims or racial segregation were entitled to an equal eduIllustration by Isaac Shamsud-Din 5
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTc4NTAz