At Week's End; 526; "The American Dream"

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry The meaning and the warning of the Los Angeles riots for America and for New Mexico next on a week's end The riots in South Central Los Angeles have been the most violent in many ways the most destructive in US history Millions of Americans have seen the smoke and the bloodshed as a disgrace and a menace Millions more around the world watch the

events in Los Angeles as nothing less than a revolt against the failure of American democracy We devote this program to all this and more but first this background report by Mary Kate Mendoza I mean, let's get real, this is America, they say they talk about America but they're not really talking about America I don't know what they're talking about, I'm going to college, I'm trying to stay educated, I'm trying to stay as a black intelligent man But when stuff like this happens, it's hard to stay intelligent, it's hard to stay real or cool down Because you got so much riled up inside of you that you're just going to let it go Well, it's a very unfortunate situation but it's understandable because you have a lot of ghetto problems, inner city problems And those people feel hopeless, they don't have jobs, don't have educations, no right to turn to And when they feel like the government and the justice system have let them down, they have no rest to go Basically, I feel tired, I

feel frustrated and I'm real angry I mean, this has been going on for many years, you know, police have been beating down my friends, my family, you know, and it's frustrated And at one time, the one time we can get in a video tape, what happens? To be wake up and realize that all people in America deserve equal treatment, it's going to keep happening You know, I mean, I walk down the street and I walk by a person, a lady, a white lady, she'll clinch her purse tour You know, I'll drive down the freeway, it's someone to look at me and lock their door I mean, what am I going to do to jump out the car and steal their car? I mean, it's hard I've been watching the system of justice for years And every system wants to know why I'm changing, I think it's time for that change now I'm just here to stand up for the poor people in this country, this is a classy issue, this is a rich against the poor, it's a powerful, against the powerless It's not a racial issue, it's all of us that feel like we're powerless against the system And I

just hope that everybody can be nonviolent and stand up for what they believe in, because sooner or later I believe we'll prevail Just going to take unification of purpose and aim and objective of all people regardless of race, creed or color And this has come to a point now, where either we come together as a people, or forever be separated We're at both a sad but a joyous time We have seen from the lowest of the low, what happens when you find yourself powerless with affluence all around you, with no place to go Anybody would revolt against that, it is the nature of our human kind And to think that it is only blacks who are going to be rioting if this persists is incorrect Everybody would do the same thing, given the same condition through them You would, you behind the camera would, and you in the audience will, if that time ever comes Be

cautious of your freedoms, and what America supposedly represents Let's truly make it represent what it can be Why are you here today? For this round, is show my support for justice and merciless and truth Joining me now are three distinguished guests, Arthur Silvers served with the Congress on racial equality in Los Angeles Where he went through the Watts riots of 1965 He knew personally both Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King He is now an architect and businessman Christine Sierra is associate professor of political science at the University of New Mexico She's a specialist on American politics and particularly on race and ethnic relations and on Hispanic politics And Godfrey Reggio is a former Christian brother who worked with gangs in northern New Mexico during the 1960s Help develop numerous community organizations in New Mexico and elsewhere and is now a distinguished film director Welcome to all of you Arthur, can you give us

your perspective on these events in Los Angeles? Yes, I'd be glad to thank you Roger and thank Channel 5 and my distinguished guest First of all, I would like to attempt to broaden the discussion There is a Sufi teaching that behind every plan there is another plan and behind that plan there is even another plan and so forth and so on I'm here to say that I believe that what we are facing is a long and established invisible empire of an elite core of humans whose objective it is to absolutely control the world, the wealth and its people They use division, distraction, deceit and misinformation to have us believe that they are for the people When in fact they are clandestinely carrying on behind our

backs their own hidden agenda Not only here but around the world I implore you to act on the teachings of all the great spiritual teachers of the world and open your eyes to see what's happening around you to listen to what's really going on I see I've been cut off Is that correct? No, I'm sorry And I think that's very important because if we're going to save the world I think we have to look at not what happened to Rodney King which is not simply the tip of the iceberg But as a matter of fact it's the bottom of the barrel that is screaming from the pressure of all the other people who are piling on top of them And it's an unmerciful and unrelentless genocide of my people and unfortunately perhaps the genocide of most of us all Christine this is very strong language and it's not unusual One here is it more

and more these days Here's Arthur Silvers who is in a sense part of the American dream A professional, a black man who has achieved success in his career Who's talking in terms of genocide, conspiracy, and other alienation as I hear you Arthur from the American system as we know it What are we looking at here? Is this nothing less than a revolt and a rebellion against American politics? I think we're looking at the truth I think that if we can take his outrage and his prophetic words to heart We can look at the policies in our country over a number of years And indicate that indeed the gap between rich and poor has grown Inequality has dramatically increased It has increased over a number of decades but it has particularly exacerbated over the last

12 years of Republican rule You're saying things are worse now than they were in the 1960s when we went through the Watts riot? Yes and I think the sense of powerlessness, the sense of people not being able to come to grips and to heal this country And to exercise some control over their lives has really become a major problem And let me say that national leadership in this country not only have the engage in certain kinds of economic policies and so on to produce this inequality But I think the national leadership has also not created the political will to do anything about it I would suggest that actually national leaders have created divisions, have told us that the poor do not matter And that that's okay, that we have no relationship to each other And so I think that is the truth that he speaks Well some people have done very well in the last 10 years, haven't they? I mean 1 %

now of the American people own more than the other 90 % in terms of the national wealth Unfortunately our collective interest has dwindled down and deteriorated into very narrow self -interest Usually that is a charge that's leveled against minorities who are trying to advocate for civil rights, women who are advocating for feminism and things of that sort Quite frankly I think it's an economic elite that has profited the most from self -interest Both of them talk in terms God -free of an elite Less than half of the American people vote in presidential elections Fewer than that turn out generally in congressional and senatorial elections Fewer still participate in the party processes that lead up to those pivotal elections Fewer still only a very small handful care or know about what goes on in the halls of Congress Are we talking about a suppression or are we talking about an abdication of responsibility? What's going on here? I would look at it rather than look at it in

conspiratorial terms or in traditional left -right terms or in sociological terms I would look at it in the sense that all of us at the table here, your self, the whole country, is a nest the size Is under a spell, is in fact asleep at the wheel We live now in a society that is in fact a new world coming, 500 years after the so -called discovery of the Americas At the expense of Indians, we are now in a new world coming and none of us have recognized that I would think to be specific to Los Angeles since this is an occasion not unrelated to other things But an occasion that shows us that everything is interrelated. It was something that, as it were, pricked a boil The events in Los Angeles were for me an indication of what specifically black people But generally people

of color in this country have had to bear. Those of us that are white cannot understand because we don't experience that. What they experience is unsayable that children can live this kind of life, that parents can live this kind of life, that black males, most of them, get somehow subject to incarceration that these people ever since they have been here have not been in any way treated as human beings is something that we have to come to reckon with. I would say that when the lights are starting to go out to use a metaphor the last flickers are very dramatic. I think we face in this new world coming a sure turning point or vanishing point in our relations with ourselves as human beings My fear is that we are transiting now into a post -human period, the period of mass man on the moon as it were The riots are but an example of the malaise, of the

suffering, of the lack of meaning that is not only true in Watts and those areas of Los Angeles or all the cities of this country that responded in rage to what they saw but is an indication of what's going on with everyone in some sense. We are all defranchised. Worldwide phenomenon. Arthur, this is, as you and I know, a fundamental repudiation in a sense, fundamental, almost a betrayal, isn't it, of the American dream. This was supposed to be a society that overcame the differences among human beings, differences of color, differences of culture. We were to be the great experiment, the last best hope, as Jefferson said, of mankind. What's happened here? How have we lost our way and is there any hope? I hear in all three of you a great deal of pessimism, is there any hope of refinding our way? First of all, I take great exception to your premise. I believe that this country was not founded

on the great American dream as you hold it up to be. It never was for my people who were brought here. Over 125 to 150 million Africans were displaced from Africa to make the wealth of this country. They were put in chattel slavery. Indians were regarded with no regard and genocide plagued them until they had just flee from the man. And I'm not sure that an attitude that the American dream is one thing is held in very high steam by very many people. As a matter of fact, to Geoffrey's point, Godfrey's point, I'm sorry. I think that it's not fair to say that it is only black people or even suggest that it's black people. The fastest growing number of people on the employment roles today are white

males. You look on television. I've looked on television and I've seen white farmers and their families crying. They're beginning to feel the pinch of poverty, the pinch of this evil empire that's upon us. What's the answer, though? If we have a majority here who are poor and it cuts across all of these lines, Christina, is there any way out here? Yes, I think, well, first of all, let me make a couple of observations. Certainly the poor and the urban underclass have spoken out. But we can't sort of see them as all one monolithic group either. That is that it seems to me that the poor are survivalists, that they survive. And there's also a working poor out there that are attempting to try to control their lives and do the best they can. They were there in South Central Los Angeles. Absolutely. And even seeing those women whose apartments burned or their homes

burned and they lost everything they had. But it seems to me that the human spirit to fight and to make the most out of a very bad situation is still there. What we need are, I think, not only the structures and political messages and political opportunities to help these people in grasping the kind of control that they need over their lives. But we also need what one of the most foremost community organizers in this country now claims is we need mediating institutions. We need institutions to try to make the connections with people among all classes, among all races. To bring in the excluded here. Absolutely. But not even the excluded Roger. I mean people who are also in the mainstream of American life. I think that by and large the connections are missing to each other to see how my interest affects his interest and his interest. But the connections are very important, God -free. And we're talking about an intellectual connection

here. Arthur points out something which is fundamental to American history, which is that a large group of our people of our fellow Americans have been systematically excluded here. Well, they've never been our fellow Americans. Never been our fellow Americans. And yet I think there is a large majority of Americans who believe somehow still in that public mythology, which articulates that. And I think we have to come to grips with that reality, with that truth. Well, you know, it's very similar to any, let's just say the Catholic Church. There are things that are put up as like the bumper stickers of what we believe in. But how it translates to daily life is another question. How do we get that honesty in public life? Well, step back for a moment before that question comes in a country, in a world, that whose principal prayer is pray for more, what can we expect? Are all of our values or the materialization of life? If you speak about spiritual values, you're relegated as a person who's a fundamentalist, which I'm not, or

you're relegated as a nut, which I hope I'm not. But their values deeper, their values that go to the core of what it means to be a human being. I'm saying that all of those values are systematically being ripped, not from one class by another, but from all of us equally. We're all ending up without our birthright. So the go to your main question of is there hope? I think before we can place hope in this so -called American dream, we have to understand that the situation as we confront it now in the political structure is absolutely hope less. In other words, what we don't want to do is place hope in something that has no power to deliver. What we need, I think, to place hope in is ourselves, is our own capacities, our own abilities. Can people blame black people? Politicians only come around to black people when it's time to vote. The black people, as only an

example, have never been given an opportunity of equality or a freedom in this country, though all the lip services there. Black people maybe should be listening more to the wisdom of people like Malcolm X, rather than to the appeals of Martin Luther King. But aren't you talking about something very fundamental here, which is in effect a redistribution not only of national priorities, but of national wealth? The very foundation of this economy is based upon the commercialization of things like violence, the commercialization of an underclass, in effect. There's a structure here which keeps all of this in place, the replacement of which, the dispossession of which is going to be a very big upheaval in American life. I would suggest if I can interrupt that question, no offense to you, Roger, is a question of the old thinking that we are still trapped with. We live in a brand new world. We have not seen it. We don't know the laws of it. And we have no idea of how it functions. We're taking old thinking and putting it into that world. I would

say, though, that while recognizing the fundamental question of values and trying to insert a new set of values perhaps, a new vision into this country, I will, however, say that we are rooted in our attitudes and the structures around us. And we have to start to come to grips with this question from where we sit now, whether it's in these local bodyels or ghettos or in our middle class existence at the university or in our professions. And it seems to me, I would like to suggest two things. It does seem to me that if any change is going to occur, it has to be at the community level among community, for example, community organizations who can harness somehow the insights of people who are living and seeing every day these kinds of conditions can kind of harness that into some positive energy with hopefully some help from national structures. But at the same time, while I agree that maybe national leadership is not really

the answer, I do think it's an important component of all of this. I can't do it without any more than you can do without money. We have to have a moral message running through this country at the national level. I find that that message is missing or the message anyway of real healing, a real healing message. Well, Arthur points out that there's a fundamental hypocrisy here. Indeed, is there any hope of overcoming that hypocrisy? Is there any hope of arriving at truth and therefore at some solution, Arthur? Well, I certainly hope so, Roger. Let me go to some of the things that you've said. Much of what's been happening in America has already been discussed about the black issue. I wore this t -shirt today because most people look upon Martin Luther King with some envy. When he said violence is a moral,

he didn't just mean smashing windows. He meant social and economic violence, which is being perpetrated upon black people and many other people in this country on a daily basis. We have a government that is notorious for supporting despots all over the world. In South Africa, which our country certainly resembles only the race's proportions are changed. The power, though, is in the hands of the same people. Our government is responsible, at least was responsible for 25 % of the use of the gross national product of South Africa. It has led the world away from sanctions on Africa and consequently freedom for black people in that country. And of course, the question here at home as well. I want to broaden this question from home, Roger. I think that the emphasis that we

have to deal with is that this is not your homegrown problem. This is an international conspiracy that's going on that has affected black people all over the world, brown people all over the world, and it's spreading into the white environment. But just a few seconds we have left. Any hope, can you give us anything that we can work with or receive we can plant here? I've been so busy fighting from the bottom of the barrel, Roger, that our existence is just we are survivalists. We are survivalists prepared to do what is necessary to survive, and I am one of those survivalists and I want you to know that. We have a final tape we want to show you here, Ms. Carol Owens, who was the mother of 18 -year -old Isaac Brown, the black teenager who was murdered last week in an Albuquerque park. I think it's relevant to our discussion here. What I would like to say to parents and the community of Albuquerque is that I think that we have a problem that is growing and that can

become out of our hands and out of the police hands. The game situation is nothing but death and just a whole lot of heartache to a lot of parents. Because these kids can either land up going to jail for the rest of their lives or they can land up like my son did, dead. And I think that we need to get more involved with our teenagers instead of just letting them go and hoping that things will work out for them because we are losing them. There is something very wrong with our society. I know that the situation is getting worse here in Albuquerque. I didn't realize how bad it was until I came back here and people told me about what was going on. And then from what I understand kids with guns in the cars, what is this? The guns, I don't know what to say about the guns, I don't know what kind of gun control we can have. When a 12 -year -old can go out and buy a gun for $50, I don't understand that. Where are they getting these guns

that they can do this? I don't have all the answers. I don't even know half the answers because I didn't expect this to happen to my son after bringing him from for him to survive in L .A. And then to come out here in Albuquerque, which I thought was a very peaceful city. And for this to happen to him, it's very scary. And since my son has died, I've met a lot of his friends and they're good kids. They're very good kids and they just need some place to go. He would be very proud to know that he had friends that would help his mother the way that they helped me. And I want to say thank you very much to my dear friend Diana Ashford, who's really been there from the time that this has happened. And her inviting me into her home, my daughter and I, to stay with her until we find another place to live. She's been very helpful and I want to thank everybody here in Albuquerque. I didn't know

how much support I would get and I have been getting a lot. And I felt everybody's prayers for me and my family as we go through this. And it's going to take me a long time to get over this. But I'm going to do my best and I'm going to be there for this generation that's coming up. I really am going to get involved in the community and I'm going to be there for Isaac's friends and for any other young people that are out there that need help. And their parents, I hope their parents will take a lesson from this and help them also. Thank you all for your candor and for your insights. Thank you Arthur Silvers and Christine Sierra and God for your Regia. We'll have you all back to talk about this some more. And thank you for joining us for a week's end. I'm Roger Morris. For a video cassette copy of this program, send $29

.95 plus $3 for shipping and handling, two, at week's end, KNME TV, 1130 University Boulevard Northeast, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87102, or call 1 -800 -328 -5663. VISA and MasterCard are accepted. Please indicate the date that program aired. Thank you.