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Two Americas theme of King commemorative speakers
By DONNA BUDNIEWSKI
Reporter Assistant Editor
The U.S. remains a nation divided between the "haves" and the "have nots"—a land of two Americas, not one country indivisible, with liberty and justice for all, according to former congressmen J.C. Watts and Kweisi Mfume.
Mfume and Watts spoke in Alumni Arena last night during the annual Martin Luther King commemorative program. The theme of two Americas, which both men said had been brought to the forefront of public debate during the recent presidential candidacy of John Edwards, was the focus of a debate and panel discussion—a format that deviated from the traditional single-speaker approach of past lectures.
Mfume, a former Democratic congressman from Maryland who now serves as president of the NAACP, and Watts, who served for eight years as a Republican congressman from Oklahoma, took the stage to make opening remarks and present rebuttals before taking questions from a panel of five distinguished Western New Yorkers. Both men agreed on the disparities they believe still exist among ethnic groups in America, but differed in their approach to closing the economic, educational and social gaps that they believe plague our country. Affirmative action and the war in Iraq were major points of contention during the discussion.
Mfume opened his remarks with the assertion that the government, the military, the family, the church and the educational system are all under attack for their "real or imagined defects," and that strategies for dealing with those defects would have to be "American strategies, not Black, White, Latino or Asian strategies."
"Although we are 50 years removed from the Voting Rights Act, less than 10 percent of elected officials are Black or Latino or Asian," noted Mfume.
Because of the acquiescence of elected officials, he said, the "'haves' have more and the 'have nots' have nothing." According to Mfume, Black Americans still earn less than White Americans. Access to higher education and attainment of a college degree remains elusive for many Blacks and Latinos, and college degrees do not reflect the racial make-up of the country, he said, adding that access to quality health care and the occurrence of certain diseases, such as breast and prostate cancer, impact African Americans at a much higher rate than Caucasians.
In order to counterbalance disparities, Mfume told the audience to take advantage of the opportunities provided by affirmative action, regardless of race or ethnicity.
"Fight for what you believe in and for the guarantees provided by the Constitution day in and day out, without apology," he said. The fight for civil liberties is an American fight, he emphasized, challenging Americans to "do away with the victim mentality" and reach others who believe that gaps don't exist by holding up a mirror to society.
Watts said his ideological views were formed as a "poor kid growing up poor," but that early on, he learned the value of teamwork, which often transcended the ideological views of people he worked with as a football player for Oklahoma State and later as a congressman.
Watts believes it is necessary to challenge old myths, old systems and old government models, such as welfare, that he says are keeping people in poverty, that prevent broken schools from being fixed and block access to preventative healthcare and better educational and job opportunities.
Mfume noted that the justice system in this country still has the "lock-them-up-and-throw-away-the-key" model of punishment, rather than true rehabilitation, which he said has led to an extraordinarily high recidivism rate among males ages 18-25.
"Every city has a new stadium and a new prison. The community isn't safer because we're not rehabilitating them," he said of the focus on building prisons in America and the revolving-door justice system.
Both men differed sharply on the current administration's approach to fighting terrorism. Rebuilding the infrastructure of bridges, highways and schools in this country should be the priority before spending so much money to do the same thing in Iraq, Mfume argued. "The old model is bomb, bomb, bomb and build, build, build—something's wrong with that. Whether you believe in the war or not, it just doesn't make sense," Mfume told the audience.
Watts countered that all terrorists, whether at home or abroad, need to be dealt with and that the past model of containment during the 1990s simply hasn't worked—North Korea, Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein only grew more dangerous during that time. "We are kidding ourselves if we don't deal with bullies—if you don't, Sept. 11 will happen all over again," said Watts.
During the panel discussion, Watts was questioned closely about his views regarding affirmative action by several panel members. He said point systems like the one used to evaluate applicants to the University of Michigan, which awarded more points for the ethnicity of a candidate than for academic standing, will continue to be challenged in the courts, but he also refused to say that affirmative action measures are outright wrong. He believes that the U.S. is wealthy enough to send all children to college if they stay in school, regardless of race or ethnicity, and that educational opportunities should be based primarily on need, rather than the race of a child.
Panel members included U.S. Attorney Michael A. Battle; Donald Grinde, UB professor of American studies and history in the Center for the Americas in the College of Arts and Sciences; Clotilde Dedecker, executive director of the Erie County Commission on the Status of Women; the Hon. E. Jeannette Ogden, Buffalo City Court judge, and Andres Garcia, vice president of community and government relations for Kaleida Health.
Mfume challenged college presidents to be more creative in their admissions policies, rather than focusing only on admitting the top 10 percent of a high school class before considering other applicants.
"The people who write those policies did not graduate in the top 10 percent of their class," Mfume contended. Watts however, favors alternatives, such as vouchers and charter schools, to the current educational system. While Mfume doesn't oppose those alternatives, he doesn't want to see funding pulled away from public education for vouchers and charter schools when 93 percent of students in the U.S. attend public schools.
"It's the poor kids, the innocent kids that get hurt when we don't provide alternatives. We'll never level the playing field if we don't teach them how to read, write and do arithmetic," said Watts.