<+>=<+>KOLA Newslist<+>=<+>
[source: NativeNews; Thu, 10 Feb 2000 17:01:11]

From: "CATHERINE DAVIDS" <cdavids@flint.umich.edu>
Organization: The University of Michigan - Flint
To: ishgooda@voyager.net
Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2000 15:47:30 EDT
Subject: Re: Indians, Hispanics count, too

Article from The Flint Journal
Sunday, January 6, 2000
written by suburban editor Jim Larkin

         Catherine Davids was not in a particularly good mood.  After years of being forced to sit in the background while whites and blacks discussed the issue of racism in the Flint area, she decided she had had enough.
         So Davids, program director of the University of Michigan-Flint's cultural and diversity services, decided to release some steam.  Her topic: the Undoing Racism workshops and the lack of American Indians and Hispanics being invited to participate in them.
         "In Flint, when it comese to a discussion of racism, people only think that it's a black and white issue," she told me this week.
         "The American Indian and Latinos don't seem to count.  It's a very common thing for blacks to think they can speak for the rest of us."
         "But to exclude 15,000 people from the discussion process is sometimes seen by us as a tactic to silence our voices - that what we're experiencing isn't valid or interesting."
         American Indians and Hispanics were not invited to the Undoing Racism workshops for a reason, said Margaret Williamson, president of the Community Coalition, which arranged the workshops.
         "We wanted to look at the black-white issue first because that was the one that was so divisive to the community," Williamson said.  "If others are intereted, they're more than welcome to attend.  Just give us a call and we'll set it up."
         There are all sorts of signs that blacks and whites aren't the only ones having difficulty resolving their differences in this highly segregated community.  Davids points to 1997 when the Flint Public Library, during American Indian History Month, put up a display honoring cowboys, a group responsible for the American Indian's slaughter.  There therer was the time five years ago, when then-Flint Board of Education member, Bobbie Ann Wells, who is black, commented, "These Hispanics are minorities; they're like us.  We represent them.  I don't know why people look at them as separate."
         American Indians and Hispanics are no longer willing to take a back seat while others try to drive them into the future.  Just ask the Flint school board, which has voter-elected Hispanic representation after years of the board refusing to appoint a Hispanic.
         Statistics from Claritas, a Chicago-based national research firm, indicate that as of 1998 - the most recent year figures were available - there were only 10, 895 Hispanics and 2,716 American Indians among Genesee County's 438,635 population.  that figures out to Hispanics composing just 2.5% and American Indians less than 1% of the county's population.
         Consider this, however: in Genesee County's 28 municipalities, Hispanics are the largest minority in 14, blacks in 11, American Indians in 2, and whites in only 1.
         That should be strong enough reason to stretch a wider net as the community at large continues its discussion on racism and tries to develop strategies to combat it.
 

<+>=<+>
Information Pages: http://users.skynet.be/kola/index.htm
Online Petition: http://kola-hq.hypermart.net
Greeting Cards: http://users.skynet.be/kola/cards.htm
<+>=<+>
if you want to be removed from the KOLA
Email Newslist, just send us a message with
"unsub" in the subject or text body
<+>=<+>