1998 - 1999 Broadcast Season
Broadcast Program Transcripts

Black Issues Forum #1422

Holloway:
Issues of race and economics for Blacks, Latinos and Asian-Americans next on Black Issues Forum. [MUSIC]

Holloway:
Good evening and welcome again to another edition of Black Issues Forum. Tonight we are in Durham, North Carolina on the campus of North Carolina Central University. I'm happy to be here, my alma mater, went to graduate school here. And we're here for another Town Hall Meeting on race relations. Tonight we're talking about race and economics, Blacks, Latinos and Asian Americans. And to discuss this first let me introduce Reverend Curtis Gatewood. Mr. Gatewood you are president of the Durham Chapter of the NAACP and you are also a founder of the organization NOBLE.

Gatewood:
That's the acronym for the National Organization for Brotherhood, Liberation and Equality.

Holloway:
Thank you for being with us. Also Oliver Powell. You are president of the North Carolina chapter of NAAP and that National Association of Asian Professionals. Thank you very much for being here. And Dr. Nolo Martinez, Director of Hispanic and Latino affairs, Officer of the Governor. Dr. Martinez, thank you for being with us. We're here to talk about these issues of concern for minorities but lets talk about the economic issues first. Do non-minorities, particularly non-blacks, rather, let's start off in the Hispanic, Latino or Asian communities, are they doing better economically, you think, entrepreneurs or is that just a perception in the Asian community or the Hispanic community that it is better off. Do you want to start with that Mr. Powell?

Powell:
There is a kind of stereotype of Asian Americans. You see it in American media all the time, called the model minority. We are often referred to as the model minority because if you look at statistics they do say that Asians have a higher per capita income nationally. But if you take a look at the statistic itself it is a little bit deceiving. When you look at the distribution of Asian Americans throughout the country, over 50% of Asian Americans are located in Hawaii, California and New York, compared to 19% for all over races. This uneven distribution of Asians in areas of higher wages in those areas, higher standards of living in those areas, kind of skews the statistics. Another factor that plays into it is that a lot of Asian families are dual income and multiple income families. There are statistics that show that there are more multiple income families in Asian than other communities.

Holloway:
What about North Carolina? Are those pretty much the same, the same ratio of percentages, do you think?

Powell:
Well, if you look at North Carolina, what has drawn so many Asians into this area are high tech jobs and the universities which track them into the high tech jobs. So, I have not looked at the statistics themselves, but I would imagine that they are somewhat skewed in a similar fashion.

Holloway:
So, the Research Triangle Park in the Durham area is what is attracting many. What about from the Latino Hispanic community, Dr. Martinez?

Martinez:
I think the answer to the question at the national level, yes we are doing better. There's a larger percentage of Hispanic small businesses. There is also a larger growth or a faster growth of jobs for the Hispanic, in the nation. And that I think is a trend that will move into North Carolina. However, when you ask the question "are you doing better?" I think we look at North Carolina, the fact that we have opportunities with jobs is the first step to say "yes, we are doing a lot better." However, the Hispanic worker in North Carolina as we all know happens to be one that is going into the blue collar type of worker. It used to be that we would have a very large number of Hispanic workers in the farmwork community. But it is growing in construction, textile and so many areas. And the larger number of those are going into metropolitan areas where there is really all kinds of jobs not just farm.

Holloway:
Let me ask Mr. Gatewood. And here in Durham and in North Carolina, how does that effect your African Americans in terms of business and employment? I know that the NAACP on the national basis is interested in that. What is your sense of that here in North Carolina and Durham?

Gatewood:
Well, first of all African Americans, first of all I have a problem with the term minority anyway. Because I feel like number one, it takes away the identity of separate African Americans, Hispanics and Asians. It tries to slide everyone under a certain blanket and a lot of times it disallows us to look specifically at problems that relate to the African Americans in particular who I would say are victims of the worst and longest oppression in the history of the world. But first of all, I'd like to get away from that. Also white women also slide, selectively under that particular title, whenever it is time for opportunities, economics and professionals, in a professional sense. And of course this allows certain people to eat from both sides of the fence. But at the same time we, if your question is still are we doing better and I would certainly say we are not doing good enough, not nearly enough, particularly as we deal with the new form of racism. At one time we were dealing with Bull Connors attack dogs. Now we are dealing with wolves in sheep's clothing who wear white shirts and neckties and act as if they have equal opportunities, they are equal opportunities lenders but they are really equal opportunity liars, so we are really having a lot of problem with racism from, I think, all levels, as it relates to the so-called minorities.

Holloway:
So do you in this so called minorities term, are you saying that the Asian American or the Hispanic Latino community is competing for those resources or how is that playing into the economic.

Gatewood:
Well, let me see, first of all, again, I think it causes us to lose focus on certain groups because groups are not really moving up at the same level. When we use the term minority or just sweep everybody under the same blanket it causes us to see exactly where African Americans are at this particular time in our history. And a lot of times we say we will give this piece of pie to so called minorities and that could go to a white woman. So, what I'm saying is that the minority term within itself which means less than is not really a positive word from the beginning. So, I think we are dealing with now, we are dealing with new forms of racism, new games that are being played that will allow us to stay off balance while we continue to really feed the perception of white supremacy.

Holloway:
Let's talk about coalition building now and if there are coalitions. I understand there is a coalition of the "different so called minorities." Who would like to address that and where are we with building these coalitions.

Gatewood:
I can, I'd like to..

Holloway:
You want to start? Go ahead.

Gatewood:
First of all I think it is very important that we build coalitions because, number one, if everybody is a minority then who is the majority. And if they are minorities, I'm minorities, white women are minorities, then it seems like together we would comprise of the majority. And it seems like to me if we comprise of the majority then we should have majority resources. But unfortunately I think that game again is played. So, when we say that you are the minority then you will not look at the fact that just a few people in this country and in this world have access to all the resources. So, I guess what I'm saying is that it is necessary that we build coalitions. But other people who have been mistreated like Native Americans and Hispanics who we have a lot in common in our struggle, and when you come together and put our goal to be justice then I think that would allow us to really come together. I'm going to be working with some of the men on this panel. I'm hoping also to be working in the future with several young people who I also think should be part of the coalition.

Holloway:
What are some of the examples of some of the coalitions that you have seen with other minorities?

Martinez:
Well, I will actually start with the one that I am the closest to. About six months ago I was appointed to this position by Governor Hunt. And the creation of an office for Hispanic Affairs was actually under or next to an office that is run by Carolyn Coleman who is probably one of the greatest leaders in the African American movement..

Holloway:
And also is a female...

Martinez:
Yeah, is also a person that I think we could learn a lot from. So that is a very strong coalition, not only because it is two groups coming together but it is legitimized by our Governor. I wanted to talk about one issue that I think could get into this coalition building, and it is an issue that we all really have to concentrate on the reasons for why we have a growth of, for example, Hispanics or professionals. and our economy's moving forward because we have people that are coming with very determined focus, which is, if you look at the Hispanics, we are here to work and we need to understand that to grow economically and to provide to our families, we have to take advantage of whatever opportunity is out there. I think that we are not as advanced as many other groups because we have not understood, perhaps, the issues of investment, using banks, and those are the kinds of things that we would like to learn from other groups so we can begin to realize that there is power in that type of coalition building formation.

Holloway:
Yeah, I think I see a trend here. We see determination here in the African-American, we see some rejuvenation of that, and we see the investment things here. Is that the situation in the Asian community? Is there some building here we can do, some coalition building?

Powell:
Before we get into coalition building, Asians right now need to focus on community building. Especially in the South, Asians have typically not been organized, have not been active within the community, and that is something that NAAP is trying to do, is to try to organize the Asian-American community first. After that, you have to recognize so much our history, recognize that we are not the model minority, that we have a lot more in common with other minority groups, if you want to use that term. For example, historically Asian-Americans, just the fact that there is a community, we owe everything to the Civil Rights movement. There was no naturalization laws for Asians before the Civil Rights movement. As far as the Hispanic community, there's so much in common as far as being an immigrant community that's had to struggle with language barriers, cultural barriers. So we are a little bit behind in building this coalition, but we are moving forward towards that.

Holloway:
Okay, we have our first comment or question from the audience. Sir, go right ahead please with your comment or question.

Scott:
Good evening, my name is Minister Paul Scott, president of IMAANI, Inspiring Many Acts Against Negative Influences. My question and comment is, I think one of the things we must do to expand when we're talking about economics into. economic exploitation of the African community, and we must ask major questions that aren't being addressed in the present context of the Civil Rights struggle or the struggle for equality. Like why are African-Americans disrespected by businesses? Why are there guns so readily available in the African-American community, and why is there a liquor store on every corner of the African-American community? As we move towards the year 2000, the new millennium, these are questions that must be answered and can't be ignored any more.

Holloway:
Mr. Gatewood, I know you've been involved with these issues for some time now. You appeared on our program several years ago on the Million Man March, and those were some of the issues. What about the exploitation of the African-American community?

Gatewood:
Well certainly Minister Scott makes an excellent point. While we're here talking about economics, we have African-American men who are disproportionately packed in prison based on the fact that jobs that would normally be within the African-American community prior to desegregation, they have left the community, and now not only that, but corporations are now not even allowing other people within this community to work. They're shipping jobs overseas into sweatshops where they can even feed their insanity of greed and oppression even further. So I think by, first of all, if we go through the process where we were broken down spiritually and economically, and culturally, from the beginning, and then we look at the fact that we've come to unfortunately depend to a certain extent on the resources in America, then when you take those jobs out of the community and replace them like he said with crack cocaine and guns, this plays into a cycle of poverty, a cycle of homicide and really genocide and suicide. So these are issues that we're dealing with, but at the same time, we're gonna have to rebuild, as he also alluded to, the African-American community is going to also have to rebuild itself within its community, because a lot of times we're talking about what we're going to do on race and what we're going to talk about when it comes to race. But Dr. King said in order for us to have true justice, American would have to radically redistribute the wealth in America. But that has not taken place. We always talk about the parts of Dr. King's vision where he talked about little white boys and little white girls coming together, but we don't want to talk about the things that he said we could do to make that happen.

Holloway:
I think we need to come back to that. Really, we need to devote a full show, a season to that.

Gatewood:
Absolutely.

Holloway:
We have another question or comment from the audience. Sir, go right ahead.

Williams:
Good evening. My name is Jerry Williams, I'm a student here at North Carolina Central University, and I have a question that I would like to direct to Mr. Martinez. I read a very interesting article in reference to the treatment of migrant farm workers from Mexico and other areas and how bad they'd been treated from areas from salary, housing, health, etc. And the Governor has only appointed four inspectors to inspect and check out the well-being of these farm workers, and they have been treated very, very badly--its an understatement. Could you please comment on that please?

Martinez:
Yeah, one of the problems that we see with our farm working system. We have about 120,000 farm workers every year in North Carolina. One of the groups, 10,000 of them last year for example, are under a H2A program, which is a program that is called Guest Workers, and those are people who come here just for work and will return back to Mexico for the most part. There are federal agencies as well as state agencies that are in charge of inspecting housing as well as wage and hour issues. This is under the Department of Labor. It's not the Governor's appointment. One of the things that that department has actually accomplished, which I think is a positive-of course there's a lot to be done. And I would say by answering your question that the Department of Labor or the Wage and Hour program, which is a federal program, will not be the only ones that can actually solve the problems that you're talking about, because of one thing. And that is that, as a farm worker, you do not have security of employment. If you get injured, in many cases if you're not an H2A worker you don't have Worker's Compensation if you're injured. In many ways you have to accept what you're asked to do. One thing would have to be also the attitude you have and the honor that you have to have a job. So you could probably not only not protest, but you would not have the ability to complain if you don't understand the language. So I think that to make individuals comply with the law, and make sure that they treat the farmworkers fairly, you would need to go beyond the Department of Labor or federal agencies. But it's not ignored, it's not being ignored.

Williams:
I understand this completely, but still, and I'll make this brief, considering right now from a state perspective, there's only six inspectors who can go around and make sure these farmers are taking care of the farmworkers, and only 2 of those speak the Hispanic language. They can't really talk about the abuse, and the H2A counselors and inspectors, it's a documented fact also that they're going around pocketing more money to keep the farmworkers down. I can relate to that, picking tobacco and cucumbers when I was growing up, you know. But it's a documented fact, look in the Durham area. And that needs to be addressed wholeheartedly. Thank you very much.

Holloway:
You know, that brings to mind, we coined this program "the neglected minority," and I know Mr. Gatewood, you don't like that term, but as a group, each community has its own problems, its own issues that need attention devoted. One of the things that was brought up in One America, President Clinton's initiative that John Hope Franklin chaired, and the same thing the Asians, the Hispanics were saying that the black/white thing is taking away from these issues. And so I'm wondering, and then it also brings to mind about those issues, here in Durham, there have been some tensions between black and Hispanic. The News and Observer has written a lot about that. The crime, the tensions between them. How valid is that assessment here in the Durham area? And if it is, what can be done about it?

Gatewood:
Let me speak on that. First of all, I think again it's another way to divide and conquer, because when African-Americans, whenever there's a report of African-Americans either robbing a house where Hispanics live or so on, I think it's yet to be proven that this is racially motivated, and a lot of times people want to say because African-Americans rob an apartment from Hispanics-I know my house was kicked in, I mean, and anytime we look and see where people are being killed, they're still African-Americans. So how can you say that African-Americans are attacking the Hispanics, when everytime we look into the newspaper, it's been an African-American that killed another African-American. So I think people are trying to play into, or trying to bring friction and tension between the groups of so-called minorities so again, it will distract us from the real issue.

Holloway:
Okay, we only have a few minutes. Sir, if you can be real quick, and then we want to bring the Chancellor up and say something.

Male:
My question is, what impact does NAFTA have on the minority community, especially here in an area like Durham with technology, and also in the surrounding area with textile and farmlands.

Holloway:
Okay, if we can address that very quickly, and I'd like to ask the Chancellor to come to the microphone and we'll end with some concluding remarks. NAFTA, can someone speak to that?

Martinez:
Well I personally think that I have seen a number of positive changes because of our development and the growth of our trade with Mexico, and of course one of the areas where I think in terms of the Hispanic community we will have some benefits from it would be our competitive advantage if we have a growth of a bilingual, bicultural group that could relate very well with this trait. That's my take on it, and I think that's on the Hispanic perspective.

Holloway:
Let me say, we cannot resolve all these issues in a program like this, and hopefully next season we'll devote more time to the individual concerns. We are happy to be on the campus of North Carolina Central University, and we'd like to not only thank Chancellor Chambers but he also is a pioneer in this area, and we'd like him to provide some concluding remarks. You've heard some interesting analogies and statements here tonight, Chancellor. How would you like to summarize or give us your words of wisdom as we close out tonight?

Chancellor
: First of all, we're really pleased to have all of you here, those on the panel as well as those of you in the audience. It's quite obvious that we've only begun to touch the bottom of the iceberg, and we haven't begun to have enough dialogue to appreciate. Some of the things that were mentioned here tonight I think are quite instructive and helpful. For example, the comment about building the within among Asians before trying to reach out to build more coalitions. There have been efforts to establish coalitions, certainly nationally, but I haven't seen that much here in Durham. There have been efforts to establish coalitions with Latinos and Hispanics-not enough nationally, and not enough locally. We've had a lot of work with the Puerto Rico Legal Defense Fund, the Asian American Legal Defense Fund, the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund, and yet there's still a gulf. And this kind of dialogue I think is quite helpful. Third, I didn't see us get very far with the question of economics and the impact on the different groups. There is a tension between African Americans and Hispanics, for example, on who gets the job. There is a tension that promotes a divide, and it's something that we need to address in North Carolina and nationally.

Holloway:
Thank you so much, Chancellor. We've really run out of time, and we thank you so much for you comments and for having us here at North Carolina Central University. We have run out of time, and of course we want to encourage you to continue to work on coalition building, become active in your community, whether it's our friends in the Asian community, Latino, Hispanic, or in the African-American community. We'd love to hear from you-please contact us on our web site. The information is on your screen. Next week we hope to be following the Governor's Race Initiative, and Chancellor Chambers is involved with that on business and education. Next week on Black Issues Forum, join us again then. I'm Jay Holloway, you have a blessed evening and a good night.