Racial & Economic Justice
Guest Post by Alan McSurely
Originally published as "School board right to end ‘segregation,'" a letter to the editor of the Chapel Hill News.
Several letters and at least one News & Observer column by Rick Martinez have explicitly attacked the NAACP and, by implication, Valerie Foushee and Elizabeth Carter of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board, for our efforts to provide equal educational opportunities for each differentiated (and gifted) learner in our schools. These attacks suggest an organized effort to racialize this initiative.
Activists, start your engines! There are three great events tonight, addressing development of Carolina North, workers' rights on campus, and homophobia in the classroom. (All pertaining to UNC, hmmm.) Which one are you going to?
1. Town Council Public Hearing on the Horace Williams Citizen's Commitee Report and on OI-4. Starts at 7pm, Chapel Hill Town Hall. There are lots and lots of meetings relating to UNC's development plans, but this Monday is one not to miss. The Chapel Hill Town Council will hold public hearings on two issues that will define the future deliberations about Carolina North. I'll be there.
2. The Workers Solidarity Coalition teach-in about the history of workers struggles at UNC. Starts at 7pm, Greenlaw 101, UNC-CH. Sounds great! Panelists include: Fred Battle, leaders of the 1969 Lenoir strike, Keith Edwards, leaders of the Housekeepers Movement and UE 150. I hate that I will be missing this.
Not quite. About 30 Nazi's came to Raleigh on Sunday to visit with their KKK pals. I'm proud that the opposition was led and populated largely by people from Orange County. The N & O put the ratio at about 20 protesters per Nazi.
The white supremacists marched onto the Capitol grounds to furious shouts from the protesters. Several wore brown uniforms reminiscent of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. Three others donned Ku Klux Klan robes.
About a half-dozen speakers cited a wide range of complaints including interracial marriage, the war in Iraq and what they said was Jewish control of the media.- Raleigh N&O, 2/22/04
I guess you can add OrangePolitics to the list of Jewish-run media. Look out, I'm taking over!
It doesn't inspire much confidence for me to see Orange County government holding yet another forum about our affordable housing problem. In addition to forums like this, a "summit" a few years ago, and a lengthy report from a well-qualified task force you'd think they'd be up to doing something about affordable housing by now.
In my experience, the County's not even particularly good at the one thing they do, which is disperse the voter-approved bond funds to support the building and acquisition of affordable housing.
In addition to a number of other good ideas on the Chapel Hill Town Council's agenda, I'm told they will hear a proposal tonight to rename Airport Road to Martin Luther King Boulevard. When I was first exposed to this idea (at a candidate forum last fall), I was taken aback. I've known that road for a long time by only one name.
But actually, it makes a lot more sense to me than naming the road after an aiport that hardly anyone uses, and most people expect to be closed within a few years. And It's especially appropriate that the street that will be the future grand entrance to Carolina North should be named after such a great American. I hope it will serve as a daily reminder to all of us to do whatever we can to live up to the moral challenges of our times (of which there are many).
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