Portland Advocate_1981-05

• there weren 't any, we had Bishop M. Turner who sort of went ahead of the Black theology of James Koen and others who came in the 60's. There wasn't any kind of collective resis– tance and from what I have been able to document so far, and the important thing is that we should always try to identify those sources which deStro'Yed our nnvement and those forces that deStroy our rrDVanent. We might dis– cover that they resurface periodically whenever we begin to make sorre headway. Now what happened as far as I have been able to document , and my research is not thorough at this point, is that white preachers, the white church, and I hope you have no problem with that because it's a reality it's a fact. Th~re is a white church and a Black church, I didn't make it that way I simply found it that way. Never– theless, on the influence of the white church, one of the first things they did was to say, ''Now y' all settle down, none of that anotion stuff, let us teach you heathens how to worship God by being statues like us and stony, then they said don't y'all read that Old Testament so much, stay out of the old book because in the old book you had a Sampson killing people and you had a Moses leading God's people to the dry land then God splashing water on hundreds of thousands of Egyptians and you had God's people cutting a David getting the dream out. They didn't want us in that Old Testament, they wanted that .nice 'turn the other cheek' but we sort of misinterpreted that and began to talk about a different kind of Jesus. We sort of went around and let people slap him around and so he had to look like a European, that long straight hair, blue eyes. How did he ever get that way? I can't understand European's distortion of history. They d:i.c::tort God, everybody gets distorted and what they said is stay out of the Old Testament. Read about turning the other cheek and love, it was always about love. Now they can talk about love, of course, because they were appeasing, stealing, and exploiting everybody so it was alright for than to tell people to love us: By the time they got through with us in the seminaries, we had negro preachers, who were so proud that they could roll an R like Pres– byterian Scottish ministers. They didn't know what to do with themselves, and anything that smacked of a little anotion they couldn't stand it. It got to the point that when it looked like you might stand up and get a little move, they looked at you out of the corner of their eye, but as soon as you strike up one of those foreign anthans they get real proud. They felt better abo~t singing "~tighty Fortress Is Thy God," they felt uncan– fortable with spirituals and by the tlllle they got through with them, there wasn't any resistance left. We were so happy trying to be like the European church, even Jesus was so pure and European and wanting to get to heaven. You find out our people know more about the temperature of hell than the tanperature in their own house. They know more alx>ut the minerals in heaven than the minerals on earth. They know more about the shiny streets. I don't know about Portland, Oregon, it's such a beauti– ful place but where I cane from you go stumbling across garbage, but sane of our people know more about heaven's streets than about their own streets. Sane of our Brother clergy can preach ten sermons on how the gold shines on the streets of heaven, and go right outside of church and stumble on garbage in the streets. I want to now talk a little about the nnvanent, the Black struggle. We're at ~very critical time in our history and that was a part of our history– The Black Clrurch. I think the Black minister and the Black church was one of our noble creations, they came out of our experience and there has been nothing quite like it. TO BE CONTINUED........... . SERIOUS RESERVATIONS ADOUT CAWTHORNE By Ron Herndon There was much discussion about tho candidates during the recent school board elec– tion, of particular interest to the Black community was Herb Cawthorne' s candidacy. ~ he Black United Front support– ed Herb with serious reser– vations. On some· key issues he has voted in the interest of the Black community, usually in doing this he con– sulted with individuals and organizations in the community before casting his vote. That practice makes sense if he is truly going to represent the community that created the movement and atmosphere that made his selection to the Board possible. Unfortunately on some equal– ly important issues Herb's vote has hurt the Black community. In most of these instances he had very little contact with individuals or organizations in the community. Herb's re– cent vote not to hire a perma– nent superintendent until after the new Board is seated this summer is potentially a very costly setback for our commun– ity. The Board had committed itself to hire a permanent superintendent this spring. The conservative members of the Board did not want this to happen' neither did big rosiness interest that supported ex– Superintendent Blanchard. They all know there is now a four vote liberal majority on the Board that could hire a super– intendent who may not reflect the conservative, racist,values Portland holds so dear. With Priestley and Sarah Newhall leaving the Board, there is every reason to believe the new Board will have a conser– vative majority. Their under– standing of our interest in Black children will be mini- Page 3 !;1al. Herb is well aware of this. His explanation was, he wanted to get a Black superintendent hired and he did not think it possible to attract a good superintendent if he/she anticipated being elected by a four to three split board vote. Herb's rap about the Black superintendent defies logic. The only Black person a conser– vative board hired would make "Uncle Tom" look like a revo– lutionary Black militant . Portland is not known for hir– ing, electing or selecting Black people who work for our collective interest. A conser– vative school board will be'no different . Herb' s reasoning of not bringing in a superintendent on a split vote is ~eak. Indi– viduals wanting to perform a good job generally accept that opportunity. Herb was select– ed to the School Board by a split vo te. Be for real, how many people in the economically depressed education market– place would refuse to accept the superintendent's position in a major city, paying over fifty grand a year plus fringes that move it close to eighty or ninety grand a year? Herb also voted for Forrest Rieke to be Board Chairman and Frank McNamara to be Vice– Chairman, both hold very conser– vative views about the educa– tion of Black children. When , the Board was developing a new desegregation plan, Rieke and McNamara consistently voted against the interest of Black children. Herb knows that better than we. Remember him walking out of the Board meet– ing. Maybe now we are to be– lieve leopards change their spots. The only plausible explana– ~c. ion for Herb's vote is it was designed to pacify certain powerful white interest groups that went after him when he voted to fire Blanchard. These same groups backed the recall aimed at all Board members that fired Blanchard. In addition to all of this, ~t was learned Herb quietly approached the Oregon Alliance of Black School Educators for their support on putting the new middle school, Tubman, at Jefferson rather than Eliot as promised by the Board. This community fought to put the middle school at Eliot. Every major Black organization supported this. Herb voted for the Eliot site. Under– standably people change their views on issues. We ask only that our representatives keep in touch with the community and inform the community when (Continued on Page 5)