[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 136 (Friday, September 27, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1728-E1729]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           POINTS TO CONSIDER

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. JACK KINGSTON

                               of georgia

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, September 26, 1996

  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I'm submitting the following, written by 
Nadra Enzi. These appeared in the Savannah Newspress and certainly make 
strong points for our society and government to consider.

            [From the Savannah Morning News, Aug. 31, 1996]

                            (By Nadra Enzi)

                Ordinary Citizens Combat Racist Graffiti

       Editor: On May 22, while walking through Myers Park, an 
     excited group of black girls called me over to its beautiful 
     gazebo.
       Puzzled, I strolled toward them and was treated to what 
     they saw: intricate (not run-of-the-mill) white supremacist 
     symbols, slogans and generally racist statements literally 
     covered the gazebo's floor, railing and support beams.
       Satisfied that adult attention was brought into the matter, 
     they left, leaving me with a particularly golden opportunity 
     to take action against an act of hate speech perpetrated in 
     the heart of my historically predominant black community.
       Given the gazebo's proximity to a nearby black church, I 
     immediately walked there, wondering if this graffiti was 
     connected to the black church burning campaign occurring 
     nationally.
       After showing its three occupants the scene, one of them, 
     retired high school principal Richard Mole, called the 
     police.
       A unit arrived and its lone officer, also black, was so 
     disturbed by what he saw that goose bumps raised on his arms.
       Contacting his supervisor, who personally inspected the 
     scene, including a note left behind, we were told that an 
     investigation would be launched.
       The next morning I called the city's Leisure Services 
     Department, which referred my complaint to the direct of Park 
     and Trees.
       He personally called and told me that he'd have a crew 
     there to photograph and remove the graffiti later that 
     morning (which he did).
       Later, a white male teen was arrested at the nearby 
     McDonald's for defacing its men's room in the same fashion.
       It is the personal responsibility of myself and every 
     person of goodwill to ensure that this sort of criminal 
     receives the maximum punishment possible. Otherwise, the 
     crime receives a (pun intended) hoodwink and a high-five.
                                                                    ____


                    [From the Savannah Morning News]

               African-Americans Should Shed Group-Think

                            (By Nadra Enzi)

       African-Americans have been a unit of forced cohesion in 
     this country. Slavery forced different tribal ethnicities to 
     become a corporate entity and this entity's evolution has led 
     to the national community existing today.
       We face the frankly exciting opportunity to advance beyond 
     the once-necessary group-think that was the hallmark of much 
     of our past strategy. This opportunity, however, is not being 
     welcomed with open arms by certain segments of our community.
       It is worth mentioning that the very phrase 
     ``individualism'' is often considered to be synonymous with 
     greed and ethnic disloyalty.
       This misperception is used by those entrenched interests 
     (the civil Reich establishment, street corner 
     revolutionaries, social program profiteers and others) who 
     benefit from our current thinking.
       It is also worth noting that not all civil rights 
     advocates, black nationalists, program workers and others 
     fall into this group. In fact, the rank and file in their 
     number should not be considered as blindly approving of the 
     antics from on high.
       Our community, even now, is not the monolith that the 
     above-mentioned interests market us as being. For instance, 
     their continued demonization of U.S. Supreme Court Justice 
     Clarence Thomas is a prime example of their thought policing 
     at its worst.
       Because his views and judicial decisions differ from 
     theirs, he is openly and crudely denounced as not being a 
     ``brother,'' or, it seems, is undeserving of basic respect.
       Is their vision of a ``community'' a ``black space'' (to 
     quote Cornel West), where differing ideas are condemned 
     without even a moment's consideration? It doesn't seem too 
     liberating or much improvement from the strictures of the 
     plantation and Jim Crow America.
       Justice Thomas is a prime example of how fanatical, anti-
     individualists can place someone in exile for the heresy of 
     thinking differently. It is hard to believe that people who 
     trumpet freedom all the time would deny it so callously.
       Recently, a black Prince George's County, Md., school board 
     member nearly succeeded in barring Justice Thomas from 
     addressing an honors ceremony at an area school. This 
     contemptible act should serve as a textbook case in how low 
     the monolith-pushers have sunk!
       Individualism is one of the best options available to us as 
     we progress past yesterday's artificially imposed 
     limitations. Each of us is a committee of one whose mission 
     is to develop his potential and contribute those competencies 
     to the cause we hear so much about.
       If liberation is truly the song we strive to sing, then 
     individualism must be one its stanzas. It is not treasonous 
     to diverge from the group. In fact, advancement comes from 
     generating new ways of addressing reality.
       One definition of insanity is doing the same thing and 
     expecting different results. Obviously, this isn't the best 
     course to choose on the eve of a new century and millennium.
       The anti-individualists, in their crusade against this 
     perspective, try to ghettoize individualism as belonging 
     exclusively to black conservatives. In this way, they attempt 
     to limit its impact to the relatively few but growing members 
     of that philosophy.
       Individualist tendencies exist among people of every class 
     in black society. Not being a Republican or a conservative is 
     not an automatic admission that one is anti-individualist. It 
     is an outlook gloriously independent of other affiliations.
       One becomes an individualist simply by choosing so. This 
     choice is the result of reason, instead of emotion.
       After declaring yourself one, watch the shouting and name 
     calling erupt from the other side and please remember that, 
     sadly, one of the difficult propositions for many white and 
     black people to accept is the sight of a black person who 
     thinks for himself.
       Individualism can be the new middle-ground that joins 
     homeboys, Buppies, hoochie mamas, nationalists, patriots, and 
     every other identifiable community subset in the common cause 
     of freeing what is best and original within each one of us 
     without waiting for any self-appointed ``massuh'' to give his 
     unasked-for approval.
       After all, if I can dictate your development, then I 
     essentially own you. Is trading white slavemasters and 
     discriminators for black ones really an improvement?
                                  ____
                                  

                    [From the Savanah Morning News]

              African-American Voters Must Have a Big Tent

                            (By Nadra Enzi)

       Editor: There is an aching need for African-Americans to 
     rid ourselves of the truly stupid notion that one's community 
     membership can legitimately questioned if one commits the 
     unpardonale offense of not being a Democrat.

[[Page E1729]]

       It seems as if we are not free to exercise differing 
     opinions and entertain alternative political affiliations in 
     pursuit of the same goals.
       Recently, the mayor of Savannah (a black Democrat) was 
     quoted in your newspaper as having said, ``Colin Powell is 
     the most dangerous African-American in the nation.''
       One hopes this was an error on the part of the reporter, If 
     not, it is yet another reminder of how vicious the anti-
     diversity attitude is among some of us.
       Would the names of icons like Frederick Douglass, Jesse 
     Owens, Jackie Robinson, Zora Neale Hurston or even Sir 
     Charles Barkley need to be stricken from the hearts and minds 
     of admiring African-Americans because they are (gasp!) 
     Republicans?
       If so, then former NAACP Executive Director Benjamin Hooks 
     would have to be striken from the record of his organization, 
     because he too is a Republican.
       One can only wonder how far the anti-diversity klan will go 
     in its unholy war against those of use who choose not to ride 
     the donkey in the future. What is so criminal about now 
     following liberal policies whose good intentions have been 
     outstripped by an unsocial program plantation that nutates 
     motivation into increasingly depressing, even dangerous, 
     directions?
       The inner city has been the testing ground for schemes 
     whose damage to health human potential rivals even the 
     programs of the Austrian paperhanger and Karl Marx's 
     stepchildren.
       Essentially, paying poor women to have more fatherless 
     children and providing endless excuses for community 
     criminals whose lethal adventures in the ``hood amass body 
     counts that would be unacceptable in other communities are 
     far from being acceptable measures of one's ``blackness.''
       Still, the anti-diversity klan feels that those who do not 
     embrace these hideous initiatives are somehow threats to the 
     well-being of all African-Americans.
       Their treatment of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is 
     their monument to intolerance. His being a virtual exile 
     among the leadership class of our community is nothing short 
     of tragic.
       We are only four years away from a new century and milleium 
     and this type of ``thinking'' serves as an anchor on our 
     aspirations. Black Republicans, independents and every other 
     kind of political creature are facts of life that these 
     controllers will have to accept.
       We have to have a ``big tent'' approach in our community if 
     we our to achieve the objectives we claim are so important. 
     Otherwise, the finger pointing and the shouting will be 
     drowned out by the increasing volumes of triggers being 
     pulled and hands that should be literate hopelessly 
     scribbling on sheets of paper that threaten to become arrest 
     reports if this trend is not ended.
       Is being blindly loyal to any political party really worth 
     losing everything that we found so hard to attain?

                          ____________________