The Courier-News from Bridgewater, New Jersey • Page 7

THE COURIER-NEWSMday, Fabruary M0 A-7 Measuring black economic progress Hatchet job flected the unusual gains of the 1960s, a period of major black advances in employment, income, education and escape from of ficial poverty. But by 1978, black family income relative to whites had declined two points to 59 percent. Outside the South, where the ratio remained at 57 percent, it was even worse: a drop from 67 percent to 62 percent in the Northeast, from 76 to 72 in the North Central United States, and from 75 to 57 in the West. How is it possible for individual black income to rise significantly while black family income was losing ground relative to whites? The two publications look at the question and arrive at two different answers. Said the Urban League report: "This decline of black family income is in part due to the sharp increase in multiple earners among white families during the 1970s and the sharp decline in multiple earners in black families.

the changing living arrangements of families. Since the 1950s, there has been a pronounced shift away from husband-wife families and a corresponding rise in the proportion of families headed by women who do not live wi th a husband. "This shift has been much more substantial among blacks than whites. For instance, the proportion of all black families headed by women rose from 22 percent in 1960 to 39 percent in 1977. Among whites the change was from 8 to 12 percent.

"One trend which should improve the economic welfare of black families, gains in the earnings of workers, has been large ly offset by another trend, the changes in family living." Behind this cold recital of statistics is the warning that while we continue to press for progress for individual black workers, we had better also begin to pay some attention to what is happening to American families, and to black families in particular. It is something the White House Conference on Families ought to pay special attention to. By WILLIAM RASPBERRY For some time now, I've been trying to reconcile what 1 "know" with what I read on the question of black economic progress. What I "know" is that, despite the persistence and even growth of poverty among the poorest of black Americans, a significant number of blacks are doing better than they have ever done before: both in absolute, terms and in comparison with their white counterparts. I "know" this because I see it.

So what do I make of what I read that the income 'gap between blacks and whites, after some respite during the 1960s, is growing again? The statistics on the widening gap are at least as persuasive as what I "know." But both things can't possibly be true, can The answer is: Yes, they can. I've just gone through two documents the February issue of American Demographics magazine and the National Urban League's annual report, "The State of Black America." And what I learn is that the reason for the apparent contradiction between per sonal observation and statistical abstractions is that we are looking at two different things. The personal observations are of individuals and, it turns out, are quite accurate, even reassuring. In 1959, for instance, black men earned, on average, 58 percent of the earnings of their white counterparts. By 1977, the figure was up to 78 percent.

For black women, the improvement was from 64 percent of white women's earnings in 1959 to an astonishing 95 percent in 1977. In other words, not only did black income rise substantially during that period, but it rose at a significantly faster pace than white income, producing encouraging gains for black men and near parity for black women. But to drop the other shoe, the income of black families did not improve relative to whites. The gap really did grow wider, just as the civil rights organizations have been insisting. In 1969, the median income for black families was 61 percent of white family median income, and even that figure re By JACK ANDERSON WASHINGTON Larry Brady is a 40-year-old New Hampshire man.

conservative by nature, who used to run the Commerce Department's export administration office. Then, last spring, he made a career-shattering mistake. He told Congress some unpleasant truths about the department's licensing procedure for U.S. firms doing business with the Russians. U.S.

corporations were shipping to Russia high-technology equipment that could be converted to military use, he warned. "The Soviet Union and other controlled countries are now capable of acquiring some of the most sophisticated Western technology and diverting it to military forces," he testified behind closed doors. That was enough to upset his bosses in the Commerce Department. But Brady went on to describe the department as basically a lobbying agency for American businessmen. "I think over the past few years," he said, "we have not been able to say 'No' to an I don't think other agencies are able to rely Department judgment with regard to license applications.

There are very, very few cases that we propose a denial." That did it. The Commerce Department brass labeled Brady's testimony "incorrect and irresponsible." He was demoted, barred from high-level meetings and denied access to classified information. According to a special counsel's report, Brady "was slowly eased out of a policymaking role by being excluded from meetings that had a direct bearing on his ability to discharge his responsibilities." Brady's boss, Stanley Marcuss, ordered secret reports prepared that would grease the skids tor Brady. One report blasted Brady as "a man committed to his own agenda, not to positive management; to public arguments over the past, not improvements for the future; to obstructionism, not the furtherance of the administration's export control policies." This hatchet job was written by Vincent Rocque, a Marcuss aide, who denied the existence of his handiwork. If Brady was guilty of obstructing the Carter administration's export policies, it's too bad he wasn't more successful.

He told the truth. Now his testimony stands as an indictment of the administration. The Russians have turned to military use the sophisticated U.S. computers they promised would be confined to peaceful projects, just as Brady had warned. What was his reward for being right? He was punished as a disloyal public servant and harassed until he quit his job at the Commerce Department in disgust last month.

There was no help from higher up, either. Despite Jimmy Carter's promise to protect whistle-blowers, Brady was ridden out of the government by those who were embarrassed by the accuracy of his warnings. Jack Anderson is a columnist with United Feature Syndicate. "Historically, black families had a higher proportion of two-earners than white families. But between 1969 and 1978, the proportion of black families with two or more earners fell steeply, from 56 percent to 47 percent, while the proportion of white families with two or more earners rose from 54 percent to 57 percent." Here is the explanation offered by Imarirn rtamnoranhiri' Forum For family deterioration involves far more than income statistics.

It involves education, crime and delinquency, career opportunities and ambition, social stability indeed the future of the society. IVillium Raspberry is a syndicated coin in ins! iriii The Washington Post, AnaiysisCommentaryOpinhn "The principal reason for this shift is Writers (iroiip. Ted Kennedy comes down to earth BANGOR. Maine Sen. Edward Kennedy sat in the front seat of his chartered bus as it took him, a skeleton staff and a small group of reporters to his next stop in the dwindling Maine caucus campaign.

The mode of transportation was only a shadow of the presidential-like jet entourage that had marked the Kennedy campaign little more than two weeks earlier, before his landslide defeat in the Iowa caucuses that shattered the image of the near-invincible Kennedys. Then, the candidate had sat up front in a first-class compartment surrounded by press aides, speechwriters. family members and other assorted helpmates. Stewardesses served them hot meals and cold drinks between warding off demands for booze and other Mentions from the joy-riding reporters and television technicians to the rear. Now Ted Kennedy was facing the world not from 35.000 feet but down close through a muddy bus windshield.

And the world out there, from all reports, was not an overly receptive one for his challenge to an incumbent president, though Maine is, as everyone reminds him. in his own backyard. The world out SPECIAL SATURDAY 10 to 5 SUNDAY 12 to 5 ONLY SPECIAL PURCHASE there, in fact, seems to expect that in spite of Kennedy's firm statement that he is in the 1980 race "to stay." he will have to give up even his modest bus transportation and fold his presidential campaign if he loses badly here Sunday and in New Hampshire Feb. 26. The resident wisdom says that his campaign funds will dry up and that as a Kennedy accustomed all his life to winning, he will not be able to deal with the humiliation of repeated defeat and will call it quits.

But as Kennedy sits in the bus, he insists the resident wisdom is wrong. Candidates, of course, always say they will go the route, not gauging as they speak how the dynamics of a losing campaign can force them out. But Kennedy is convinced that his new challenge to Carter on foreign policy, and his now relentless pressure on the president to debate the issues, are beginning to get through to the voters. "It's gonna come around." he says. "I think there will be increased questions about this war hysteria set loose by this administration." And so he will continue to demand that Carter campaign, convinced that public pressure will mount along with his own nagging.

Kennedy said one reason he can continue to run even if he continues to lose is that he has high name recognition and a basic forum among those who share his views. His Georgetown speech has buoyed his liberal constituency, and he says he can raise enough money within it to keep going. Once he can "smoke out" the president. Kennedy says, the dire economic conditions in the country will take their toll on him. That, of course, has been Kennedy's hope ever since the crises in Iran and Afghanistan first diverted public attention from the economy and sent Carter soaring in all the polls.

What may be different now is that Kennedy, having broken his own reticence on foreign policy criticism, seems to have convinced himself that Carter can't possibly stay off the campaign trail indefinitely. Kennedy acknowledges that, unlike his two brothers who campaigned for the presidency expressing a sense of urgency that was contagious, he is dealing with issues that are harder to crystalize in ways that really arouse voters. But he is trying. His line that Americans would rather sacrifice gas for their cars than to have their sons' blood spilled "to protect OPEC's pipelines" conveys his pitch for gas rationing and less military breast-beating in a way he says everybody can understand. At the same time, though, Kennedy realizes that stridency before live, enthusiastic audiences can backfire on him when shown on the television evening news in the quiet living rooms of America.

He is capable of being an old-fashioned blood-and-thunder orator on the stump. But he is also a media-wise pol who is wary of such theatrics. He gets angry from time to time, but he seldom conveys that image of barely contained outrage that enlisted an army of zealous followers for his brother Robert in 1968. Until he does. Ted Kennedy may not catch fire.

But if there is no fire in his belly, there seems to be some smoldering a conviction that if he perseveres, he will get Carter in his sights. W. Uermond and Jules Wilcover are columnists with The Chicago Tribune-New York Sews Syndicate. aVCBaVsSSSHB Socialists and the 1980 election 6-pc. DINING ROOM 48" table with 2 12" leaves and 4 chairs.

Black decorated and maple finished on hardwood. Reg. $599 Sale Also available in oblong ARMSTRONG SPECIAL PURCHASE Formica Pedestal DINETTE TABLE SUNDIAL SOLARIAN SALE 'Tht Sunny No-Wax floor" $8 99 iq. yd. Every FIXTURE in our store lz off In a sense, the debate between Harrington and Aronowitz is not new.

It goes all the way back to Karl Marx, who dismissed other leftists of his time for being "reformist" or "Utopian" and declared that his analysis of capitalism was the only one that could clear a path to economic and political justice for the masses. Marx has certainly been the most influential of all socialist thinkers. But his ideas have been interpreted in many different ways by socialists all over the world searching for the best strategy to apply Marx's ideas in the unique political and economic environments that have existed at different times and in different countries of the industrialized world. The debate between Aronowitz and Harrington was a small part of this continuing dialogue here in America. But it is a debate that not all elements of the small American left participate in with equal fervor.

The American Communist Party, for example, believes that socialists here should look to the Russian experience as a model of socialism in action. There are also a host of splinter groups that profess to strictly follow the beliefs of one or another socialist theorist, such as Lenin or Mao Tse-tung. These groups characteristically have a strict economic interpretation of politics and believe that a revolution can occur in America through organization of the working class. The Democratic-Socialist left, of which Harrington and Aronowitz are major figures, are generally wary of Russian socialism and believe that socialists should engage in questions involving politics, culture and personal lifestyle, as well as traditional economic concerns. Of all the major industrialized countries, socialism has found its least favorable reception here in America.

Attempts to make socialist ideas and actions an important force in American society have always failed the most recent example being the New Left of the 1960s. The debate between Aronowitz and Harrington boils down to their differing explanations of why the New Left failed. Aronowitz believes it is because the New Left had no positions to articulate after the Vietnam War ended. Harrington sees it as the left's continued failure to address itself to the political mainstream. What about the future? Today, Aronowitz sees the new campaign against the draft as a movement that can engage large numbers of people and at the same time raise serious questions about the political and economic structure of American society.

Harrington wants the left to campaign for Kennedy for many reasons, not the least of which is the senator's opposition to the draft. What about the Immediate prospects for the growth of socialism In America? Both Aronowitz and Harrington agree that it doesn't look very good. Joe Kelly, a former reporter for the Peterson News and the Yonkers Herald Statesman, is a freelance writer living in New York City. By JOE KELLY "No serious politician in America today worries about what the socialists will do, 'V Michael Harrington, chairman of the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC) told a gathering in New York City last week. The occasion for Harrington's rueful assessment was a debate with the author and former labor organizer, Stanley Aronowitz, over the role that American socialists should take in this year's presidential race.

1 Harrington, who came to prominence in the early 1960s by writing "The Other America," a book about poverty, argued that socialists will never have any presence in American politics until they learn to build coalitions with other groups on the left, such as the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. This means compromising some principles and making difficult choices. One choice socialists should make right now, Harrington argued, is to support the presidential campaign of Ted Kennedy. "I'm not saying he's the best," Harrington told an audience Of more than 400 at Columbia University attending a debate sponsored by the DSOC and the New American Movement (NAM), another Democratic Socialist organization. "I'm merely saying he is the best possibility for an organization of the mass left.

He represents a challenge from the point of view of working people and minorities, women and other outcast people in society. If Kennedy 16ses or is driven out of this campaign, it will be a loss for the left. Harrington's coalition strategy and his support for Kennedy stem from one basic principle that Harrington follows: "It is not enough to hi've good positions. You have to translate tho.ie positions into a politics thdt reaches people where they are." Aronowitz disagreed. The author of "False Promises." a book about the shaping of the American working class, asserted that it is enough sometimes to simply have1 positions.

We live in a time, he says, when the major political actors and parties are refusing to acknowledge the existence of certain key issues, such as the decline of American power in the world. And only right-wing politicians are seriously addressing the economic questions raised by the collapse of New Deal and Great Society liberalism. According to Aronowitz, who is a member of NAM, socialists must make it their first responsibility to address those issues, even at the risk of breaking ranks with other liberal groups and losing any voice in electoral politics. "Socialists have the responsibility of saying things about the world situation that have to be said, sometimes despite where people are. Electoral activity, given the weakness of the socialist movement, can never be what we spend most of our time doing.

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