[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 70 (Friday, May 14, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E964-E966]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            EXPOSING RACISM

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. BENNIE G. THOMPSON

                             of mississippi

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 13, 1999

  Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. Speaker, in my continuing efforts to document and 
expose racism

[[Page E965]]

in America, I submit the following articles into the Congressional 
Record.

          Students Work on Plans To Get Around Initiative 200

       Seattle (AP)--In the wake of anti-affirmative action 
     Initiative 200, some University of Washington students aren't 
     waiting around for administrators to take steps to maintain 
     the school's diversity.
       They have formed what they call a ``multicultural think-
     tank'' to come up with their own list of proposals to 
     encourage and prepare minority high school graduates to apply 
     to the UW.
       ``The first year after something like Initiative 200 is the 
     biggest time to decide what happens for the future,'' said 
     Tyrone Porter, a doctoral student in bioengineering and 
     think-tank member. ``I didn't want to just sit around and not 
     see things really going on.''
       I-200, passed by voters in November, prohibits the 
     consideration of race and gender in state government 
     contracting, hiring and college admissions. At the UW, which 
     had considered race in admissions before I-200, preliminary 
     figures show a decline in minority applications, and 
     administrators fear that will translate into lower minority 
     enrollments.
       The think-tank members' ideas include sending teams of UW 
     students to area high schools, teaching teen-agers good study 
     habits, and helping them prepare for college-entrance tests.
       ``The biggest thing is students going out and being the 
     primary ambassadors for the school,'' Porter said. ``I don't 
     think that's being done on a regular basis right now.''
       Porter has outreach experience. As an undergraduate at 
     Prairie View A&M University in Texas, a historically black 
     school, he regularly visited his old high school in Detroit 
     to talk about opportunities at Prairie View. He is now a 
     regional officer for pre-college initiatives in the National 
     Society of Black Engineers.
       Porter decided to use that experience by working with other 
     students to develop student-driven solutions to maintaining 
     minority enrollments at the UW.
       Porter is pushing for a pool of money to pay for student 
     outreach proposals and hire an outreach coordinator to keep 
     the various programs working together.
       Another group member, Tyson Marsh, has developed a proposed 
     yearlong program designed to teach leadership skills to high 
     school students and encourage them to work in their 
     communities.
       ``I guess the overall hope is to develop conscious 
     citizens, both outside the UW and within the UW community, 
     while providing them with resources and educational 
     opportunities and experience in organizing,'' Marsh said.
       The think-tank members plan to present their ideas to UW 
     regents on Friday.
       The university is still developing its own outreach plan to 
     maintain diversity among UW students. Ideas being considered 
     include placing UW counselors in some high schools, 
     recruitment mailings and working more closely with community 
     groups.
       The student proposals are part of the mix, said Ernest 
     Morris, vice president for student affairs and chairman of a 
     task force on diversity efforts.
       ``They're good ideas,'' Morris said. ``We like the 
     enthusiasm that they represent. We like the fact that the 
     students are implicitly and explicitly committing themselves 
     to working toward this shared goal.''

                               __________
                               

                Spokane Police Stumped by Cross-Burnings

       Spokane (AP)--Investigators have few clues into a string of 
     our recent cross burnings, including two targeting an 
     interracial couple from northeast Spokane.
       In the front yard of the couple's home Tuesday, a blackened 
     cross that had apparently been set on fire before dawn leaned 
     on a fence.
       Inside, a 13-year-old boy who was home sick from school--
     one of the couple's three children--punched his hand into the 
     family's sofa and vented.
       ``If I catch who did this, I want to take them down,'' he 
     said. The boy's mother comforted her son but suggested he 
     shouldn't respond to a hate crime with more violence.
       ``I'm still angry, but not as mad as I was after the first 
     one,'' she said.
       The mother, who is white, and the father, who is black, 
     believe the family has been targeted because of its racial 
     makeup.
       The wooden cross found Tuesday had been wrapped with a 
     piece of cloth that may have been saturated with a flammable 
     liquid.
       It was similar to one left in the front yard Feb. 14, and 
     to another left a week later that was burned outside Zion 
     Temple Church. The predominantly black congregation is in 
     Spokane's East Central neighborhood.
       Investigators call the 2-foot-high crosses in those 
     incidents ``trunk'' crosses because they are small enough to 
     fit in a car's trunk.
       The first of the recent series of cross-burnings occurred 
     Feb. 11, when a larger cross--about 5-feet-high--was left by 
     the northeast Spokane home of a 58-year-old white man.
       Before this year, Spokane police hadn't recorded a cross-
     burning since such hate crimes became a specific reporting 
     category in January 1993.
       Police have no suspects in the recent incidents and aren't 
     speculating about who's responsible.
       Investigators are perplexed about the second incident at 
     the interracial couple's home, in part because their name and 
     address--even their specific neighborhood--were not publicly 
     divulged in a newspaper account about the earlier cross-
     burning.
       That means investigators can pretty much rule out a copy-
     cat crime carried out by someone motivated by media 
     attention.
       But it doesn't rule out neighbors--who may have a dispute 
     with the family--or someone acting out of hatred, 
     investigators say.
       Police also will examine whether a secret racist group may 
     be responsible for the cross-burnings, although there is no 
     evidence to suggest that, investigators say.

                               __________
                               

                 Trenton Council Selects Black as Mayor

       Trenton, NC (AP).--A town where a black never held elective 
     office and that refused to annex three black neighborhoods 
     now has a black woman mayor, succeeding a white man who quit 
     after saying blacks are unfit to govern.
       The town council selected Sylvia Willis as the town's 
     newest temporary mayor in a special closed session Tuesday. 
     The selection averted another boycott threatened by Mrs. 
     Willis' husband, black activist Daniel J. Willis.
       ``They looked at everybody's qualifications and decided to 
     go with her,'' said town attorney Christopher Henderson, 
     adding that the vote was unanimous.
       Mrs. Willis is the first black ever to serve in Trenton 
     government and the town's first female mayor.
       ``This is the beginning of a coming together--or trying, 
     anyway,'' Mrs. Willis said.
       She will fill the remainder of former Mayor Joffree 
     Leggett's term, which will expire in November. Leggett 
     resigned in March after saying blacks did not belong in town 
     government and were not leaders.
       He made the comments amid criticism of Trenton's government 
     by Willis and others for refusing to annex three black 
     neighborhoods. Trenton, a town of about 200 located 90 miles 
     southeast of Raleigh, at the time had only 50 blacks. Since 
     then, the town council has agreed to annex the neighborhoods 
     and their roughly 100 black residents.
       Mrs. Willis' selection came less than 24 hours after a town 
     council meeting at which councilmen Charles Jones and Odell 
     Lewis exchanged angry words with Daniel Willis and others.
       Nearly 30 black residents had signed a petition nominating 
     Mrs. Willis for a seat on the council in the wake of 
     Leggett's resignation and Lewis' appointment as mayor pro 
     tem.
       Jones said no vacancy existed since Lewis was holding a 
     commissioner's seat and the mayor's post simultaneously 
     because he had not resigned from the council.
       Mrs. Willis stood after Jones' statement and volunteered to 
     serve as mayor.
       Her appointment ended a brief boycott of Trenton merchants 
     that began Tuesday. A number of blacks met after Monday 
     night's council meeting and agreed they would not shop at 
     town businesses until a black was appointed to the council. 
     All Trenton businesses are owned by whites.
       Mrs. Willis will be sworn in at the council's next meeting 
     May 10.
       The new mayor is accustomed to breaking ground. She was the 
     first black appointed to several postmaster jobs in towns in 
     North Carolina and New York.
       ``It's like it was God's plan for my life in these 
     situations,'' Mrs. Willis said. ``When I look back, it wasn't 
     anything I particularly went out to seek.''
       She expects to be able to work with council members. ``I've 
     had things thrown at me before, and I had to deal with it,'' 
     she said. ``You don't just strike out because someone talks 
     ugly or looks dirty.''

                               __________
                               

            Minorities Making Few Gains on Newspaper Staffs

       San Francisco (AP).--Newsrooms are still overwhelmingly 
     white and male, despite efforts in recent years to attract 
     minority journalists, a study says.
       The percentage of Asian American, black, Hispanic and 
     American Indian newsroom employees rose to 11.55 in 1998 from 
     11.46 the previous year, according to findings presented 
     Wednesday at the annual convention of the American Society of 
     Newspaper Editors.
       For the first time, the survey also counted female 
     journalists, finding they represent about 37 percent of news 
     staffs.
       ``I still think there are a lot of editors who don't 
     understand the importance of diversity,'' said Nancy Baca, 
     president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists 
     and an assistant features editor at the Albuquerque Journal 
     in New Mexico.
       The survey also showed declines for members of minority 
     groups receiving internships and getting a first full-time 
     journalism job.
       Catalina Camia, president of Unity: Journalists of Color, 
     an alliance of Asian-American, Hispanic, black and American 
     Indian journalists, found one unchanged statistic 
     particularly troubling--9 percent of the newsroom supervisors 
     are minorities.
       ``These are the positions of real decision-making,'' said 
     Camia, a Washington correspondent for The Dallas Morning 
     News. ``Looking at the big picture, these numbers tell us 
     that incredible efforts need to be taken if we are going to 
     get young people of color interested in journalism.''
       At the Tuesday session, ASNE announced a series of 
     initiatives, including creation of a national talent bank 
     listing minority students looking for internships or their 
     first jobs.

[[Page E966]]

       The board of the Associated Press Managing Editors ratified 
     the list of initiatives. ASNE's goal is for newsrooms to 
     reflect the racial and ethnic makeup of the general 
     population by 2025.
       ``You can't sell newspapers to people if you don't reflect 
     their communities,'' said N. Christian Anderson, publisher of 
     the Orange County Register and incoming ASNE president. 
     ``It's a simple business equation, as well as the right thing 
     to do.''

                               __________
                               

   Court: Witnesses Have Troubles Identifying Members of Other Races

                          (By Thomas Martello)

       Trenton, NJ (AP)--The New Jersey Supreme Court has ruled 
     that juries in some mixed-race criminal cases should be told 
     that witnesses have a tougher time identifying defendants of 
     another race.
       Prosecutors had argued there isn't enough scientific 
     evidence to prove witnesses have more difficulty identifying 
     members of another race.
       But the court rejected the argument Wednesday, saying there 
     have been ample studies and that most jurisdictions accept 
     the concept.
       ``Indeed some courtroom observers have commented that the 
     ordinary person's difficulty of `cross-racial recognition' is 
     so commonplace as to be the subject of both cliche and joke: 
     `they all look alike,' '' the court wrote.
       The court ordered a new trial in the rape case of a white 
     Rutgers University student who identified a black man, 
     McKinley Cromedy, as her attacker. The court said the jury 
     should have been given a ``cross racial instruction'' 
     alerting jurors to pay close attention to the possible 
     influence of race in identifying defendants.
       The woman had not recognized a photograph of Cromedy that 
     she was shown a few days after the rape. However, she alerted 
     police eight months later when she spotted Cromedy on a 
     street corner. She identified him as the rapist after he had 
     been taken into custody.
       No forensic evidence was admitted during the trial. Court 
     documents said it was not possible to link Cromedy to the 
     rape through blood and sperm samples, and no fingerprints 
     were taken by police at the scene.
       The trial court did not allow the jury to be advised that 
     ``cross racial identification'' could affect the victim's 
     ability to identify her assailant, a decision upheld by an 
     appeals court and overturned this week.
       ``It's an important decision,'' said Sylvia Orenstein, who 
     argued the case on behalf of Cromedy. ``Science has shown, 
     unfortunately, that most people tend to better recognize 
     people of their own race. This is another factor a jury 
     should be alerted to consider.''
       The court said a cross-racial instruction to juries should 
     only be given when identification is critical to the case, 
     and there are no other eyewitnesses to back up the victim's 
     charges.

                               __________
                               

        Police Brutality and Racial Profiling: Facts Are Scarce

                           (By Paul Shepard)

       Washington (AP).--In Boston, cries of police brutality are 
     relatively rare. A beefed-up internal affairs division seems 
     to be working, experts says.
       In New York, on the other hand, anyone who has ever heard 
     of black immigrants Abner Louima and Amadou Diallo knows the 
     nation's largest city has a problem when race and policing 
     converge.
       But whether these cities have the best and worst records in 
     policing their police--or whether police brutality is on the 
     rise in American cities--is difficult to say authoritatively.
       No government agency keeps track, and few police 
     departments collect information based on race.
       The question has taken on crucial dimensions. Police 
     shootings have taken the lives of blacks in Pittsburgh and 
     Riverside, Calif. In New Jersey, Maryland and Florida, state 
     troopers have come under fire for conducting traffic stops 
     based on a driver's race--so-called racial profiling.
       A picture can be cobbled together from hearsay and 
     anecdotes but the lack of hard statistics riles civil rights 
     advocates who believe black and brown people are more likely 
     to end up unjustly facing a policeman's gun or billy club 
     than whites.
       ``This is frustrating to me in large part because white 
     America has refused to acknowledge a problem exists,'' said 
     Rep. Gregory W. Meeks, D-N.Y. ``Now in 1999, we are seeing 
     some of the same police brutality we saw in the Jim Crow 
     days, but white America just doesn't get it.''
       Meeks, said the Congressional Black Caucus task force on 
     police brutality, which he co-chairs, plans hearings in 
     several cities, including Baltimore, Chicago and Dallas.
       ``At least it will be a starting point,'' said Meeks, a 
     former prosecutor.
       Said Ron Daniels, head of the Center for Constitutional 
     Rights, a New York-based civil rights group, ``We know we 
     have a bad problem out there. We just don't know exactly how 
     bad.''
       ``Anywhere I've gone in this country, 15 minutes into the 
     conversation we are talking about some police brutality,'' 
     Daniels said. He organized a national anti-police brutality 
     march in Washington in early April after four officers from 
     New York's elite street crimes unit fired 41 shots at Diallo, 
     an unarmed West African immigrant, hitting him 19 times. The 
     officers have been charged with second-degree murder.
       For years, civil rights groups have urged the Justice 
     Department to collect nationwide data on excessive force 
     cases. The collection of data was authorized by the 1994 
     Crime Act but not funded.
       ``So far we only have anecdotal information,'' said NAACP 
     President Kweisi Mfume.
       On Wednesday, Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., reintroduced a 
     bill requiring the Justice Department to collect data on 
     traffic stops by local police. ``Stopping our citizens to be 
     searched on account of their race is an unacceptable activity 
     on the part of law enforcement,'' he said.
       A bill before the Massachusetts Legislature would require 
     the state attorney general to study the number of people 
     stopped for routine traffic violations, their race or 
     ethnicity, age, along with why they were stopped, if there 
     was a search and whether an arrest was made.
       San Diego requires that police record of race of people 
     they stop in order to assess whether officers rely on racial 
     profiling in making traffic stops. Some of the 35 police 
     chiefs and activists who met with Attorney General Janet Reno 
     last week discussed adopting such a plan elsewhere.
       But, generally, police officials are wary. ``If passed into 
     law, the (Conyers) bill would place a burden on the police 
     and lengthen traffic stops,'' said Robert Scully, executive 
     director of the National Association of Police Organizations, 
     which represent 4,000 police unions and associations. He said 
     officers are vulnerable to attack during such stops and 
     pausing to collect data ``would make a dangerous situation 
     worse.''
       ``It's ironic that in the quest for a colorblind society, 
     some people want us to keep track of people by race,'' said 
     Jim Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of 
     Police, the nation's largest police labor organization, with 
     277,000 members. ``We're opposed to any kind of racial 
     tabulation,'' he said, opposing proposals to accumulate data 
     on police brutality cases.
       Pasco said that police brutality hasn't been increasing. He 
     notes the number of federal prosecutions of abusive cops has 
     stayed at about 30 a year while the number of officers has 
     sharply increased.
       Available information hints that along with Boston, the 
     police departments of Minneapolis and San Francisco have done 
     the best jobs in curbing such abuses, according to a study 
     last year of 14 cities by Human Rights Watch, an 
     international human rights organization.
       New York, Washington, D.C., and New Orleans appear to have 
     the most serious problems of abusive officers on their 
     forces, according to the report.
       Los Angeles, where the Rodney King police beating led to 
     riots, was judged to be ``slowly on the mend.''
       Allyson Collins, the report's author, said the FBI, U.S. 
     attorneys and Justice Department all have some information 
     that could shed light.
       ``Bits and pieces of information are scattered 
     everywhere,'' Collins said. ``Its not a priority until we get 
     some high-profile case that gets everyone talking and then 
     the public is lulled back to sleep on the topic.''

     

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