St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 24

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH EDITORIAL THURSDAY, JUNE 11, 1998 http: www.stlnet.com FOUNDED BY JOSEPH PULITZER, DECEMBER 12, 1878 ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH JOSEPH PULITZER EDITOR PUBLISHER. 1878-111 JOSEPH PULITZER EDITOR PUBLISHER 1012-1955 JOSEPH PULITZER EDITOR PUBLISHER 1955-1986 CHAIRMAN, 1979-1993 MICHAEL E. PULITZER CHAIRMAN PRESIDENT, 1993 NICHOLAS G.

PENNIMAN IV PUBLISHER TERRANCE C.Z. EGGER GENERAL MANAGER COLE C. CAMPBELL EDITOR RICHARD K. WEIL, JR. MANAGING EDITOR CHRISTINE A.

BERTELSON EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR ARNIE ROBBINS DEPUTY EDITOR DISCRIMINATION B6 Battling a chronic problem JOHN SHERFTIUS Ventura County Star The road to Jasper, Texas LETTERS TO THE EDITOR the job market as do current oppressive tax burdens? Charles E. Lessig Jr. Fenton fire. Our forests deserve at least this much consideration from a medium as influential as the Post-Dispatch. Ted S.

Cooper Treasurer The Ruffed Grouse Society Wildwood is fraught with human interactions that traditionally have given cover to racism: getting loans, finding the right agent, getting a fair price, fitting into the "right" neighborhood. Blatant housing racism isn't uncommon, according to local housing activists. Nor is bias limited to race. "The wrong sort" includes families with too many children, religious minorities and gays and lesbians (though gay and lesbian people hae no legdl recourse vvhen il cumts to housing discrimination). Cases such as that in Jefferson County tend to flush out others who have suffered discrimination and who glimpse hope of redress.

Supporters of HUD's action argue that by championing well-publicized, blatant cases, it may help "educate" the housing field, reminding real estate agents, for example, that steering African-Americans away from certain neighborhoods as has been alleged against the Gun-daker company here is illegal. But "policing" racism can only deal with racism that stems from individual actions and words. The most insidious racism, the kind that is built into our economy, is impervious even to the diligence of agencies such as HUD. Take, for example, HUD's own efforts to house the poor. Waiting lists for subsidized (Section 8) housing are desperately long, so long that many poor people simply give up.

A scarcity of affordable housing in St. Louis County, and the booming economy, have discouraged landlords from participating in the Section 8 program. Thus, discriminating against African-American families looking for affordable, government subsidized housing isn't necessary. The economy does it by itself. Shannon Graham, one of the plaintiffs in the Jefferson County case, expressed dismay that she could be treated so unfairly this late in the 20th century.

Her dismay is telling. We are far enough along in the battle against racism that we believe some ground has been gained permanently. Cases such as the Grahams' and the murder of a black man by three whites in Jasper, show that racism is a battle to be fought continuously, on all fronts. Old-fashioned racism, the violent, blatant N-word kind, is fading away. The new racism is more subtle, hidden in the language, the gestures and institutions of society.

That's the common wisdom, but the common wisdom is only half true. Overt racism does exist, and not just as isolated and freakish exceptions to the general decorum of society. Racism is more subtle today, to be sure. But rising above covert racism is the proverbial tip of the iceberg. That menacing tip visible in events like Saturday's brutal slaying of James Byrd Jr.

in Jasper, Texas is just as dangerous as it always was. Consider an anti-discrimination case filed by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development against a Jefferson County developer. The suit, brought on behalf of a black couple, accuses Leonard Riebold, an owner of Construction Development Co. and Home Construction Inc. of Imperial, of telling a real estate agent that she should have known better than to bring a black couple to a "redneck area" in High Ridge.

The alleged incident is shockingly bald. "I'm not going to sell no black people a house in those neighborhoods," Riebold is alleged to have told the black couple's real estate agent. "Now you get your out of there and don't come back." The idea that once overt racism is stamped out we can devote our energies to eradicating the more subtle kind misses the essential dynamic of overt racism. It may be less common today than a generation ago. But it is chronic and flares up when left unchallenged.

Housing activists who follow racial discrimination cases here note that HUD has responded quickly and aggressively to the Jefferson County case. The agency's response isn't merely symbolic. It is part of a strategy to continually, and publicly, police overt racism. Such vigilance is particularly necessary in housing, because these suits demonstrate the difference between the American dream of living wherever you wish and the perversion of that dream by those who think they have a right to decide who can live next door. Buying a home Pantries running low Although the headlines about the reduction in the number of individuals on public assistance may sound nice, the sad truth is that many former welfare recipients cannot support their families on jobs that pay the minimum wage.

As a result, many have turned to local social service agencies to help put food on the table. This situation in itself could cause area food pantries to run drastically low on supplies. Adding to the severity of the problem, however, is the historically low food supplies each summer. A number of factors come together to cause this annual problem. Schools are out and don't conduct food drives.

Many companies and churches follow suit due to the increased number of vacations. Compounding the problem is the fact that many school-age children do not receive government meals during the summer. Their parents often turn to food pantries to help provide this nourishment. So while you're grocery shopping this summer, please pick up, a few extra items to donate to a local food pantry. If you don't have time to drop off Republican tax plans unfairly criticized In April, I attended the St.

Louis presentation of the "Scrap the Code Tax Tour" led by House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, and Rep. Billy Tauzin, and I came away energized. The next day, House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt wrote a Commentary Page article saying the flat tax and sales tax would be a windfall for the well-to-do at the cost of putting a greater burden on working families. I am a CEO of a medium-size manufacturing company and decided to conduct a confidential, voluntary survey of our employees to determine if their taxes for 1997 would be increased or decreased on a flat-tax basis. The employees included management, professional, clerical and hourly workers, with the majority being hourly; we are probably representative of working America.

The results of the survey, in which 58 percent of our employees participated, were that 89 percent would have had lower taxes on a flat-tax basis. If our company is representative of the country as a whole then it seems that the overwhelming majority of taxpayers would benefit from scrapping the current tax code and replacing it with a flat tax. Our company survey is too small to draw any conclusions, but a larger survey by the Post-Dispatch might be both interesting and revealing. Whether we are a Democrat, Republican or independent, the one thing the majority of us can agree on is that we are overtaxed. Jerry M.

Hanvey University City Liberals are ever so predictable, as demonstrated by the June 5 editorial, "Surprise! GOP proposes tax cut." As with any Republican tax-cut initiative, the Post-Dispatch immediately attacks the proposals as a concealed effort to benefit the well-to-do. The editorial demonized GOP ef- How to attract fans The St. Louis Cardinals' effort to attract more African-American fans to Busch Stadium through such efforts as billboard advertisements are off base with reality. The real reason for the lagging attendance by African-Americans and other lower socio-economic groups is that the price is too high for the services rendered. The June 5 article quotes Ted Savage, director of target marketing for the Cardinals as saying, "If we could just get one-fourth of them to come out and watch some good baseball, that would be a tremendous improvement." It indeed would be an improvement if the fans could come out and see' some good baseball.

More fans would feel like investing their hard-earned dollars. Fans are colorblind to good play and positive results. The St. Louis Cardinals need to build upon their glorious history of the Gas House Gang, Whi-teyball, Stan Musial and the rest. They have started with Mark McGwire.

Ail true blue fans of any color or creed do bleed Cardinal red. St. Louis Cardinals, if you build it they will come. JaqkW. Greer Kirkwood More thari 60 years ago, Sam Brea- don and Branch- Rickey, who ran the Cardinals in the best of baseball times and the worst of economic times, discovered that the best way to fill empty seats and build baseball interest for the present and future was to give free tickets to all school-age children.

No billboards. No PR racial spin. Just good will and cleverness. William M. Landau, M.D.

Clayton SCIENCE EDUCATION Looking for leadership food, a contribution of funds would be most appreciated. Together, we can make a difference. Kate Halliday Walter Executive Director Hosea House St. Louis For more than a year, the National Science Foundation has been warning the St. Louis Public School system that it is not making enough progress in changing the way math and science are taught.

The National Science Foundation now says that unless it sees substantive systemic changes rather than scattershot suggestions in the school district's plans, it may withhold $10.5 million of a $15 million grant it gave the city in 1996. The dissatisfaction with but required biology for all ninth graders, the professional development plan for biology teachers was a two-day meeting just before school opened. But a more fundamental issue is deciding what constitutes a strategy. "The professional development activities you delineate by strands bring me to serious concerns about the coherence of the effort," Mr. Hamilton wrote.

"What gives this catalog the coherence of a unified program that obtains reform across the entire sys tem?" The same problem surfaced with regard to curriculum reform. Some serious proposals for progress have been made, such as requiring all eighth graders to take algebra or requiring four years of math and science classes for students who graduate after 2002. But a comprehensive strategy for systemic reform once again seems lacking. Taking all fourth graders to the Zoo may be a fine educational field trip, but it is not a strategy for science education reform. The school district has a couple of choices: Improve the plan, or replace the planner.

If Ms. Williams can't un the city schools was laid out in a series of letters starting in May 1997 from Eric Hamilton, the foundation's program director for educational system reform. Yet Sheila Williams, the person in charge of improving science and math education in city schools, appears to have little clue about what it will take to secure the grant. The essence of the problem is that Ms. Williams apparently lacks a coherent strategy for fundamental, lasting reform.

"I think we've done everything they've asked," Ms. Williams said recently. If she had, the grant would not be in jeopardy. In his letters to Ms. Williams and the school district, Funky Winker bean It does not take a brain surgeon to see where Tom Batiuk is heading in his cartoon strip, "Funky Winker-bean." One can only hope that every adolescent in this land, every parent in this land, every everyone in this land has been reading this strip for the past month.

Already Susan has twice been the victim of a misogynist cretin. It now looks as though Becky and her scholarship to Juilliard will come to a very abrupt end. Alcohol tends to do that. I do not know if there is a Pulitzer Prize for a cartoon strip, but if there were, Tom Batiuk would win it going away. The last time a cartoon strip affected me like this was when Farley died saving little April from drowning in Lynn Johnston's "For Better Or Worse." Bill Moushey St.

Louis As I read the Sunday comics in the St. Louis Post, I laughed at Garfield, related to Sally Forth, reminisced at Family Circle and really enjoyed the -others, except one. Please, if you will, explain to me how Funky Winkerbean is funny. In the June 7 strip, a couple of kids are going off a cliff in a car. A few months back, a young person was passed out or dead on a bed with a syringe next to him.

Will you please explain what this is doing in the com- ics? It really takes away the smiles the others have given me. Sandra Lewis Mount Vernon, III. Forest management The May 31 News Analysis article "Which forest do you prefer? (This is a test)," and the accompanying color photos were a disappointing departure from your normally thorough and objective reporting. The correct answer to the "test" question is both! While many species of wildlife prefer "attractive" mature forests dominated by large trees, still other species absolutely require the dense, almost impenetrable (and poorly appreciated) growth found only in very young forests. These include the ruffed grouse, a much-sought-after game bird, as well as many nongame birds, such as the blue-winged warbler, field sparrow, yellow-breasted chat and the eastern towhee.

These birds are struggling for survival and benefit greatly from areas that have been clear-cut properly. Both clear-cut regeneration harvests and selection harvests are effective land-management tools. Each provides habitats required by various types of forest wildlife. Both are appropriate for use in specific situations, and both are essential to responsible forest stewardship. The article provided plenty of heat for discussion, but it did little to shine any light on the complex-issue of forest wildlife habitat management.

A suggestion from one who believes that very little in life is black or white: Learn the facts before lighting the forts to eliminate the "marriage penalty" tax, an unfair tax if ever there was one, stating that reform would help only 42 percent of married couples (mostly middle- and upper-middle-income folks), and leave the remaining 58 percent either unaffected or adversely affected. In the same day's newspaper was an article, "Worried by GOP's bill, Senate Democrats unveil their own tax-cut plan," which reports Democratic leader Tom Daschle's scrambling to counter a tax-cut proposal by Sen. Phil Gramm offering relief to all couples with joint incomes of under $50,000, not just those harmed by the marriage penalty. Furthermore, if the Post-Dispatch is as concerned about families and the plight of women in the workplace as the editorial claims to be, why not support extensively lowering taxes from their obscenely counterproductive levels to more family-friendly levels that would not force as many mothers into Mr. Hamilton has repeatedly cautioned that her plans don't meet the minimum requirements for widespread, systemic change in science and math education.

Several times, Mr. Hamilton expressed his fears about "the marginality of the mathematics and science reform operation" in St. Louis. For example, Ms. Williams' proposal for professional development educating teachers to teach math and science more effectively consisted of a list of 47 different programs, some of questionable value.

In a year when the school district eliminated all lower-level science classes derstand the difference between a good program and a marginal one, if she doesn't understand the difference between a program and a strategy, her superiors should summon help. Surely faculty members in highly successful public school systems in the county or at local universities could assist her. Perhaps those involved in science and technology scientists at Monsanto, Boeing, Mallinckrodt and others could help the city draft the desperately needed blueprint. Alternatively, if Ms. Williams is not competent, the district might reform itself by hiring someone more capable.

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