PowerPoint; Dr. Benjamin Carson, Roundtable

Production and broadcast of PowerPoint is made possible by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. This is PowerPoint, an Information Age clearinghouse for issues affecting the African American community, the nation and the world. And now PowerPoints Kenneth Walker. He's the man with the gifted hands, world -renowned neurosurgeon Dr. Benjamin Carson, Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital, as an inspiring personal story to share. His begins as a young black boy growing up in Detroit's inner city without a father and few obvious opportunities for succeeding against poverty and easy money temptations of crime. Does indeed beat the odds to find great success, a success that pays tribute to the powers of faith, education and hard work.

With completion of Delicate Surgery, it is separate to infants joined at the back of the head. Dr. Carson gained world acclaim and he now joins us on PowerPoint to discuss his life and his work. You can join the discussion by calling the PowerPoint hotline at 1 -800 -989 -8255. That's 1 -800 -989 -8255. PowerPoint's anatomy of the life of this brilliant African American brain surgeon begins in a moment, but first PowerPoint news with Werner Avery Brown. For PowerPoint news and information to empower the community, I'm Werner Avery Brown. The U .S. Senate will revisit the issue of sex, lies and videotapes as the impeachment trial of President Clinton resumes this week. Monday, Monica Lewinsky will be videotaped in private, answering questions from both the House prosecutors and the White House lawyers. Presidential adviser Vernon Jordan

and White House Aids Sydney Blumenthal will also provide privately taped depositions. The trial is set to end by February 12th, but that depends on the outcome of their testimonies. For every dollar, a man earns a woman earns only 75 cents for doing the exact same job. In his weekend radio address, President Clinton has proposed a $14 million plan to help close the pay gap. The money would fund programs to enforce equal pay rights. The Equal Pay Act has been on the books for 35 years, but the gap persists. Sales are reportedly brisk for the latest stamp in the U .S. Postal Services Black Heritage Series. The 33 -cent stamp bears the likeness of the late El -Haj Malik Al -Shabaz or Malcolm X. All subjects for stamps are recommended by a panel of educators, historians and graphic artists who review on the average of 40 ,000 suggestions a year. Postal Service spokeswoman Monica Han says the enthusiasm for the Malcolm X stamp also came from within the Postal Service. Malcolm X fans will appreciate the quality of the stamp. It's designed

from a familiar associated press photograph taken of Malcolm at a press conference. He appears to be an contemplative pose. 130 million stamps were printed and spokeswoman Han doubts there will be additional printings because she says the limited edition ensures the stamps collectability. Sports officials and African nations say their international Olympic committee members have been unfairly made the focus of the biggest corruption scandal in Olympics history. Nine members of the IOC have been expelled for accepting bribes and six of them are from African nations. A seventh member from the continent is still under investigation. John Claude Andala, a former sports minister in the Republic of Congo says it's max of conspiracy against Africans. Africans make up 12 of the 106 IOC members, making them a potentially strong voting block in matters such as choosing Olympic host cities. No African country has hosted an Olympics game although several are considering bids for the 2008 games South Africa is a leading contender.

Hope remains on the horizon as we embrace a new year for the family and friends of 14 -year -old LaCretia Murray. Murray convicted and incarcerated at age 11 is serving a 25 -year -to -life sentence for the murder of toddler Jela Belton, whom many believe was actually fatally abused by the baby's mother's boyfriend. The lawyer representing Murray is awaiting a decision by the Texas courts to rule on 17 points. Attorney Keith Hampton told PowerPoint News he's seeking to have the entire case vacated with no further prosecution or to have the confession vacated and not allowed as part of evidence in a third trial. The court has been considering the brief for over a year according to Hampton, such matters usually take six to seven months. As Hampton puts it, we're all just kind of frozen in time. PowerPoint News will keep you updated on developments as they occur in the case. Angola's president Jose Eduardo Dos Santos replaced his defense minister Saturday with a tough talking general in a cabinet shuffle designed at bolstering Angola's fight against unita rebels. According to Reuters News Service,

the move was seen by observers as a clear sign that Dos Santos wants to adopt a total onslaught approach in his eight -week battle with Jonas and his unita rebels. Filmmaker Spike Lee reportedly has his draws in a bunch over the new Eddie Murphy animated comedy show The PJs. According to the Electronic Urban Report, Spike considers the show hateful toward black people and very demeaning. While speaking during a recent video conference with the TV critics, Lee said, I'm kind of scratching my head as to why Eddie Murphy is doing this. The series shows no love at all for black people. PowerPoint News has spoken to many who find the show quite funny in spite of themselves and encourages listeners to view the show for themselves before reaching an opinion. Up next on PowerPoint, host Kenneth Walker is joined by pre -imminent brain surgeon Dr. Ben Carson, author of Gifted Hands and his newest book The Big Picture. For a look at the power of faith, education, and hard work, you can join the discussion by calling 1 -800 -989

-8255. For PowerPoint News and Information to empower the community, I'm Verna Avery -Brown. No, I'll never

let you go Welcome back. I'm Kenneth Walker. If any of our listeners are poor, single parents have sons who are having trouble in school, maybe even sons who are sometimes violent. If any of you is in that situation or you know someone who is and you are wondering what on earth you can possibly do about it, then you will want to pay very close attention to this broadcast for our guest as a young boy was raised by a barely

literate single mother and as he likes to say, he had no competition for the last spot in the class. He was also sometimes very violent, but today Dr. Benjamin Carson is the head of pediatric neurosurgery at the nation's premier hospital, Johns Hopkins Hospital in Maryland. He's pioneered a number of techniques, including one, to separate successfully. Xiaomi's twins joined at the back of the head. He sits on the boards of the Kellogg Corporation and Yale University. How he did all that, and what he's doing with all he's achieved is our focus this hour. You can join the discussion by calling the PowerPoint hotline at 1 -800 -989 -8255. That's 1 -800 -989 -8255. Dr. Carson, welcome to PowerPoint. Well, thank you. I'm delighted to be here. You know, one of the things

I was wondering when I was reading one of your three books, let me say what they are right away. First one was gifted hands. I think the second one was Think Big, and your newest book is called The Big Picture. That's great. Published by Zander, Zanderman. One of the things I was wondering as I was reading gifted hands is if you had any appreciation as a young child in the midst of all these circumstances, just how dire your circumstances really were. Well, you know, as a young person, I don't think you ever really have the big picture, so to speak. I do remember, you know, the dramatic changes that occurred, for instance, when my parents were divorced, then I was eight years old at the time, and we went to live with an uncle in Boston, in a tenement, and you know, before that we had lived in a single family dwelling. It was very small and modest, but you know, we had our own place, and all of a sudden, you know, we were in this place with lots of families and rats and roaches, and sirens, and gangs, and winos, and

all those kinds of things. But, you know, I don't think it was all that big of an adjustment, quite frankly. I got used to it pretty quickly. There are a lot of things that we actually enjoy doing in that environment. And then, you know, later on, we move back to Detroit still in a multi -family setting, still with dire poverty. But, you know, I don't think poverty affects little boys as much as it does out of people, because, you know, we just would hop trains and, you know, throw rocks at cars and run from the police, and I mean, we found ways to have fun, you know. As did we. I mean, we are the same generation, the exact same age, and much is similar in our childhood backgrounds at least, but I just recall, in my case at least, a distinct realization that I was in some very deep kimchi, and had not a lot of optimism that I was going to get out of it. Well, you know, certainly I think that would be the case

early on. But, you know, when I was in the fifth grade, languishing at the bottom of the class, and having the nickname of dummy, I somehow seemed to think that the things were going to work out. How they were going to work up, I had no idea. But fortunately for me, you know, I had a mother who, although she had only a third grade education, and that worked as a domestic cleaning other people's homes, she had tremendous faith in me, and in my brother, and she would always say, you're much too intelligent to be bringing home greats like this. And, you know, she just didn't know what to do, and finally prayed and asked God to give her the wisdom and came up with the ideal of turning off the TV set and making us read two books apiece from the Detroit Public Library and submit to her written book reports every week, every week. And of course, we had no idea that she couldn't read, so we were submitting these reports, and she'd put a little check on them and give them back to us. But,

you know, it did have quite a profound effect because my mother was one of those types of individuals who ran the household. So, you know, it's funny to me because often parents will come up to me and they say, how was your mother able to get you to turn off the TV and read books and submit book reports? I can't get my kids to turn off the TV or to stop playing with the Nintendo or say, go or any of those things, much less right reports. And I just have to chuckle, and I say, well, back in those days, the parents were in charge. Well, I saw that quote from you, and that raised the question from me, parents are still in charge. They just abdicate the responsibility, it seems to me. Well, so often they do. They allow themselves to be told how the parent individuals would not have very much success at it themselves. And the fact of the matter is, you know, there's a tremendous

amount of inherent wisdom that comes from listening to your ancestors. You know, we've gotten away from the extended family concept, and, you know, from, you know, counseling with people who've been successful in raising their children. And, you know, everybody's sort of like an instant expert by listening to the news and listening to, you know, the various studies that came out in the jammel or in the journal of pediatrics or what have you. And I dare say that, you know, many of the individuals who advocate how children should be raised, you know, for instance, I remember last year there was a fair uproar because, you know, American Academy pediatrics came out and said that, you know, there should be no corporal punishment under any circumstances that that was Bob Barrick, et cetera. Well, you know, the fact of the matter is, I think that for the most part is correct, but there are times when a little 18 -month -old or two -year -old

will not listen to reason. They absolutely won't listen to reason and have concluded that they run the world. And sometimes it becomes necessary to put them in their place in a kind and a gentle and loving fashion, but I don't believe that those words are written in the book of Proverbs for nothing. And people just have to learn how to use things in moderation. So my mother was one of those individuals who did know how to use things in moderation. It wasn't always corporal punishment, but, you know, she would know what was important to her children. And of course, all you have to do is then deprive them of that thing. And it can have a profound effect on their behavior. So it becomes inherent upon parents to learn who their children are and what makes a difference for them. Some children, you could spank them from now to doomsday and it wouldn't make a difference. But if you say, all of a sudden, I'm sorry, but you'll not be able to do

this anymore until this behavior changes. Marked change, all of a sudden. We're talking with Dr. Benjamin Carson, the head of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital, world -renowned neurosurgeon. You can join the discussion by calling the PowerPoint hotline at 1 -800 -989 -8255. That's 1 -800 -989 -8255. You mentioned just a brief moment ago the book of Proverbs which I gather figured pretty directly in your childhood transformation. Can you tell us the story leading up to and how that happened? Well, I had a pretty violent temper. I was one of those people who thought I had a lot of rights. And as you know, the more rights you think you have, the more likely someone is to infringe upon them. So people were always infringing upon my rights, no matter what they did. And I was offended and I would hit people with baseball bats and throw rocks at them and sometimes hurt people fairly significantly. But

one day, another teenager angered me and I had a large camping knife and I tried to stab him in the abdomen. Unfortunately, under his clothing, he had a large metal belt buckle. And the knife struck it with such force that it broke. And of course, he fled in terror, but I was more horrified than he, recognizing that I was trying to kill a friend over nothing. And you know, I locked myself in the bathroom and began to contemplate my life and recognize that I wasn't going to become a doctor or anything else. I was going to end up in jail with form school or the grave because of that temper. By this time, I had already turned things around academically. I was an A student, but that temper was threatening to put me away. And I fell in my knees and I just began to pray and ask God to somehow change this thing. And I had a Bible there and I picked it up and I turned to the book of Proverbs and started reading. And there were so many verses in the book of Proverbs. Why Proverbs? I don't know. It was just random? Yeah, it was random. It just opened up the

Proverbs. And there were all these verses about anger and how much trouble people get themselves in by being angry all the time. For instance, in Proverbs 19, 19, it says, doesn't do you any good to deliver an angry man because he's just going to get right back in the trouble because of his temper. But there, verses like 1632, it says, mightier is the man who control his temper than the man who can conquer a city. And Proverbs 25, 28, like a city that is broken down and without walls as the man who cannot control the temper. And that's the way I was. You know, no defense. Anybody could tweak my strings. Anybody could control me because of that anger. And after three hours in that bathroom contemplating, reading and praying, I came out and the temper was gone. I've never had another problem with it since that day. But that was an enormous turning point for me because at that point, I

accepted God not only as my Heavenly Father, but as my earthly Father too. But I gained some tremendous insights. For instance, that reacting angrily, lashing up was not a sign of strength. Rather, it was a sign of weakness. You know, so many of our young men think that it's a macho thing to get mad and put your fists through a wall or, you know, to knock somebody across the room. When in fact, all that is indicating is that you don't have control of yourself, that you don't have control of your emotions, that other people can play your strings at will and that circumstances can do that. And I, at this stage of my life, derive a great deal of pleasure from watching people try to make me angry because I know they're not going to be able to do so. In fact, it's pretty soon you're going to be frustrated. And that gives me a sense of control and power. And I love it. Well, how is it that 11 -year -old boy comes

into possession of a Bible or even has the motivation to open it? Well, at that time, I was 14. 14. Same to 14, even worse, given the distractions. That's right. It was there in the bathroom. And, you know, I am sure that God had some plans for me. You know, you think about how coincidental it is that my middle name happens to be Solomon. Or is it a coincidence that God looked down the pike? Sometimes I wonder, that he know I was going to have this great affinity for the Book of Proverbs, which was written by Solomon. I start each day reading from the Book of Proverbs now, and I end each day reading from the Book of Proverbs and frequently think about that. But also consider this. When Solomon became the King of Israel, do you remember the first incident that occurred that brought him great acclaim? Two women came to him claiming to be the mother of the same baby. And what did he advocate? He said, divide the baby. Well, isn't it interesting that I also became

very well known when I divided some babies? Yes. Yes. Sometimes I think God actually had the size of human strength. That's right. Yes. And most people don't realize, and then it pointed out in my new book that I've been involved in a couple of other sets of signs twin. Right. Most recently, Zambia. Yes. Dr. Benjamin Carson, head of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital. The Powerport Hotline is 1 -800 -989 -8255. That's 1 -800 -989 -8255. I'm fascinated, Dr. Carson, but that man of science has such a place of centrality for faith and God. Well, you know, I think, you know, like Francis Collins says, Francis Collins is the head of the human genome project. Whenever they find out something new, he says, we haven't made a great discovery.

It's just that now we know something that previously only God knew before. And I think the more you understand about the complexity of our universe and the complexity of the human body, the more you have to realize that there is a God who is in charge of all this, it cannot happen by itself. The story about how you first encountered the book of Proverbs encountered for the turnaround in your temperament, ending your temper. Tell us the story leading up to and how you made the academic turnaround. Well, the key thing that made the academic turnaround for me was the reading of the books that my mother made us do. Interesting thing was because I was reading those books all the time. I was looking at words all the time, so it wasn't long before I learned how to spell. I wasn't the first one to sit down the spelling, be all of a sudden. Because I had to put those words together,

I learned grammar and syntax, learn how to express myself both verbally and in written form. And because I had to take those sentences and make them into concepts, I learned to use my imagination. All of those are precursors to significant academic achievement. So within the space of a year and a half, I went from the bottom of the class to the top of the class, much to the consternation of all those students who were always teasing me and calling me names. By the time I was in the seventh grade, the same ones would come to me and ask me how to solve problems. I'd say sit at my feet, youngsters want to instruct you. I was perhaps a little obnoxious side, but at least for a little while. But I went along quite well for a long time. But when I got into high school, being a straight -a student, I fell, unfortunately, into the peer pressure trap. Well, the guys were saying, you know, what are you doing with those clothes on? You know, you need to wear, you know, a tie and it shirts

with the swayed fronts and shark skin pants, thick and thin socks, gingerbread hats. You remember all that stuff, you know? Sounds like a clown suit man, right? It looks like a two -in -red dress back. Well, but you got to realize some of the stuff to kids wear today is pretty ridiculous, too. I mean, those pants, have you seen the pants? The ones that wear halfway down their butts. Oh, it's incredible. I was on the elevator and this elderly lady was there and these guys got on with these pants and she turned around. She said, young man, I think your pants are coming off. And they said, they pulled the look like that. But, you know, it was all I could do to contain myself. But, you know, I guess it's a continual generational thing. But, you know, I started listening about what kind of clothes I should wear, about the fact that I should stay out late playing basketball and be seen with this person and that person. And I went from an A student to a B student to a C student didn't care because I was cool. I was getting the high fives and the low fives and the pads on the back and I was doing the Detroit Strat and I was just too cool. But fortunately, you

know, my mother before that year was out, got me to realize it wasn't what you wore on the outside. It was what you had upstairs that made the difference and what would take you where no one else could go. How is it that you began to think you might want to be a physician? Well, actually, that started out. It's the only career I've ever considered. I used to listen to the mission stories in Sabbath school in church and they frequently featured missionary doctors and they seemed like the most noble people in the world. That's what I wanted to do. This was even at a time in your so -called dummy days. Oh, yeah, at age eight. That's what I wanted to do. And that was my dream from the age of eight until I was 13. By the time I was 13, I had turned things around academically. But I also realized that I haven't grown up and died of poverty, didn't want to continue a life of poverty. So I didn't want to be a missionary doctor anymore. I said at that point, I'm going to be a psychiatrist. I didn't know any, but they seemed like rich people on TV.

And you know, I started reading psychology the day majored in psychology, did all kind of psych projects. And really, it's still a very important part of my life. I enjoy psychology. But I soon discovered that psychiatrists on television were very different than psychiatrists in real life. And I didn't want to do that either. So that's how I sat down and decided, what are you really, really good at? And I realized I had a tremendous amount of eye hand coordination, the ability to think in three dimensions. I was a very careful person. And I said, I bet you'd be a terrific brain surgeon. And that's how I decided. And that's what I advocate for a lot of young people. I say, you know, stop and think about where your special gifts and talents lie. Everybody has special gifts and talents. Now, most of the times when you ask people what they are, they'll start talking about singing and dancing and various types of athletic prowess and things like that. But you know, the fact of the matter is we have intellectual prowess. And it's one of the things that really needs to be emphasized strongly, I think, in the African -American community. We have a tendency to really lift up

tremendously our sports stars and our entertainers. But we don't do a heck of a lot for our intellectual achievers. I mean, when's the last time you've seen an intellectual achiever on the front of Jett or Ebony as opposed to a sports star or an actor? Have I ever? Yeah, that's a good question. And I'm not saying that sports stars and entertainers aren't intellectuals, but you know what I'm talking about. Of course. We're talking with Dr. Benjamin Carson, head of pediatric neurology at Johns Hopkins Hospital. You can join the discussion by calling 1 -800 -989 -8255. That's 1 -800 -989 -8255. We're coming up on 29 minutes into the hour and our discussion with Dr. Carson will continue. And we come back. Internet services for PowerPoint are provided by World African Network, offering news, information, sports, and entertainment for African and African -American communities through broadband and new media technologies. The web address is www

.wanonline .com. That's www .wanonline .com. You're listening to Public Radio. And this is PowerPoint with Kenneth Walker. Welcome back. Once again, we're talking with Dr. Benjamin Carson, the author of three books, the latest of a big picture. He's the head of pediatric neurology at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. Neurosurgery. Neurosurgery. I'm sorry. Thanks for the correction. And you can talk

with Dr. Carson by calling PowerPoint hotline at 1 -800 -1 -800 -989 -8255. 1 -800 -989 -8255. What part do you think today, for today's kids, especially racism plays in the lives of African Americans or should play? Well, it shouldn't play any part. But unfortunately, racism was here yesterday. It's here today and it'll be here tomorrow. It'll be here as long as there are people with small minds and a double to stimulate them. But you know, my mother used to tell me when I was a youngster, if you walk into an auditorium full of races, big of that people, you don't have a problem. They have a problem. Because she said, when you walk in there, they're all going to cringe and wonder where you're going to sit, whereas you can go sit anywhere you want. So if they want to have a heart attack or a stroke, that's fine. And that's basically the way I've tried to lead my own life. Does that mean that I have not encountered racism? Of course, it doesn't mean that. But it means that I have chosen not to invest a great deal of my energy

and worrying about that. And instead decided to expend that energy, trying to be the best possible pediatric neurosurgeon that I can be and trying to develop other types of programs that I'm involved with, rather than spending my wills over something over which I have relatively little control. So then, where does that place you on these controversy issue of the day of affirmative action? Well, I look at affirmative action probably a little differently than most people. In fact, I've written extensively about this in my new book. Affirmative action was extraordinarily important a few decades ago because there were a lot of people who felt that African Americans simply did not have the ability to be an astronaut or nuclear physicist or brain surgeon or any of these things. And those myths have been burst now. So people

who now wish to deprive individuals of their civil rights on the basis of their race do so more or less on the basis of mean spiritness, not so much on the fact that they truly believe that those individuals can't do the things. For the vast majority of young white people in this country now, they have a very difficult time understanding why they should be penalized because of things that have happened in the past which they had no control over. And when you look at it from the black point of view, they say, yeah, but our ancestors and everybody, including us now, still are not playing on the effects of this racism. Now, those are two untenable positions. There is no easy way to merge them together

in the current setting with affirmative action as it exists. Therefore, because I'm a problem solver, I sat down. I said, there must be a way that we can make this work for everybody. And I came up with this ideal called compassionate action. You say, we live in a compassionate country. We always tend the root for the underdog. You know, a lot of people are rooting for the Atlanta Falcons Super Bowl night because they're the underdog. With great disappointment so far as I understand it, but go right ahead. So what I have envisioned then is a system in which we throw race out as an indicator of your underdog status. And rather, look at the circumstances from which you came. If you came from difficult circumstances to apply for a position of a school or a job, and you're

up against people who have not come from difficult circumstances, then you should be given a special dispensation for having overcome so much to get where you are regardless of your racial background. Now, why wouldn't that mean that all those kids would be from Appalachia as opposed to Detroit? They could be from Appalachia. They can be from any place and that becomes a fair system. Now, unfortunately, because of historical things that have occurred in our country, a larger percentage of them, unfortunately, are going to wind up coming from the African American community or the Hispanic community. But that's the way a fair system should work. That is, the people who need it the most should benefit from it. It does not exclude the young boy from Appalachia, whose father died in the coal mines when he was five years old, and he's been trying to be the man of the family and has still managed to get a 3 .9, great point average and good scores on

his SATs and is applying to Yale or Harvard. You know, he gets a leg up and that's fine. I mean, I'm very much admire that young man. And that's the way the American landscape should look. Dr. Benjamin Carson, the head of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital. The PowerPoint hotline is 1 -800 -989 -8255. That's 1 -800 -989 -8255. We are going to go to the phones now and speak with Martha. She's in Washington and listening at station WPFW. Welcome to PowerPoint, Martha. Hi. Hi. I am just so excited because I'm so proud of my black men. But I have a question for the doctor. I have a group of young boys from the age of 6 to 12 and they're all from single parents, with single mothers who are raising them. And I was wondering if the doctor could give me some advice on some problems that they have. So I was wonderful. It was the way that I could contact

him because I know I can't do it over the air. It's a lot of things that I would like to talk to him about problems that the little boys happen. Use that as an opportunity Dr. Carson to talk about the Carson Scholars Fund in an addition answering. Okay. Well first of all I will tell you I do have a program at the hospital at Johns Hopkins. We have seven to 800 students come in at a time from Baltimore, Washington, throughout Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania as far away as New York. Okay. And you know I talk a lot of these issues in addition to showing them slides about the brain and tell them how the brain works. Okay. And they usually make it into a little outing for the school. And certainly if you would talk to my office. Okay. They would help you get involved with that program. That would probably be the best thing. Okay. My personal time is extraordinarily limited. Right. I do have a program that I call the Carson Scholars Fund which is throughout Maryland,

Delaware, parts of DC. We're hoping to cover the rest of DC in the coming year. Okay. In which we give scholarships, $1 ,000 scholarships to students from grade 4 through 12 for superior academic achievement and humanistic qualities. People are only judged against the people in their own school so that you can have a scholar in each school. Okay. But basically the ideal is to have academic superstars in the same way that we have all state basketball players and wrestlers and what have you because at some point we need to change the emphasis. Right. And that's the thing that's going to make the big difference for not only our young people but for the entire nation. Okay. Okay. Martha, thank you so much for the call and the questions and the best of luck to you there. Let's talk to Beth. Beth is in Greenville, South Carolina. Listening at station WEPR. Welcome to PowerPoint. Beth. Hi. How are you? Okay. How are you? Good. Great. How would the long hours of surgery and work? Can you

stay mentally active? Do you think a lot during surgery or do you use your time off to engage yourself intellectually? Time off. What's that? No. I have a tendency to have a very, very active mind. Whenever I see something going on, I'm always asking the question, what could be done to make that better? What could be done to make that more efficient? Whenever I'm on an airplane, which is a lot, I'm thinking about things or writing things and basically try not to let any moss grow under my feet. You know, people are always asking me, how do you have time to write books? How do you have time to go out and get talks to sit on boards? Do all these things because I do somewhere between four and five hundred operations a year as well, which is considerably more than average. And I always respond by saying, if you need somebody to do something, you have to get somebody who's busy because people who are not busy never have time to do anything because it takes them all day to do nothing. And the fact

of the matter is, you know, efficiency can really take you a long way. Okay. Beth, thanks so much for the call and the rest of you in Greenville. Let's talk to Kate. Kate's in Philadelphia, listening at station WHY. Welcome to PowerPoint, Kate. Fine, thanks. This is a really extraordinary program. Thank you. Interviewing an extraordinary person, obviously. Your comments, Dr. Carson's comments about how he chose to be a surgeon interested in me. And I wish you could give some advice to people, even those who have already been through one or two careers and are looking to choose another career. You had spoken of use of analyzing your own intellectual prowess. Yes. And I'd love to talk to you a minute more when you get done talking about that if I could. Okay. I want to hear about what the process

is. Well, what I would recommend to you is that you go to the library and check out my second book. It's just called Think Big. It has a whole chapter on how to get in touch with your special gifts and talents. But one of the things I can tell you very quickly is talk to people who know you, who've known you for a long time and do a little unscientific survey. Just ask them, what do you think I'm really good at? Ask several people that you know that question and see what they think and then sit down and ask yourself, what kinds of things have I always done very well at? And then look at a list of potential careers and see where the mesh is. And obviously if you choose careers where you have a special talent where people see you as being particularly good and where you see yourself as being particularly good, you're likely to move much further and much faster. Well, thank you. Can I talk a little bit more please? Very briefly please. You, well, I'll just pick one other issue. You said that people who are not busy never get anything done because it

takes them all day to do nothing. I'd like to suggest to you that you carry this further with your intellect and recognize that there's something wrong with people who don't get a lot done. There's something wrong with their diet. They aren't getting the nutrients they need. There's more to motivation than ideas and it's good health. It's a very complex topic. I agree with you. Okay, thanks a lot and the best of you in Philadelphia. This work you're doing with the kids is fascinating, but it seems to me the greatest lesson I get from your writings and from the writings of other people from similar backgrounds is that it's the parents, the mothers. Absolutely. Perhaps that need the most work. I mean, some of our young parents, single mothers, today don't get it. That's exactly right. They spend a lot of time concerned about the disadvantages that they enjoy. I like to use the word enjoy because it seems like some people like to revel in all the things that they don't

have. When in fact, almost anybody can take their young child by the hand and walk down to the public library and sit down with them two or three nights a week and engage in reading. Things that make such an incredible difference in terms of that young person's perception of the world and their perception of themselves. A lot of those things are free and we all have access to them. We just have to learn how to use them. What is going on that you know about that seeks to instruct these young new parents in the ways that they won't be mystified when their kid is 11 and they can't figure out how to get their kid to turn off the TV. Very little is going on to help do that and it's one of the things that saddens me the most. You know, when I look out over the landscape of our nation and I recognize that the fast destroying industry in our nation is the prison industry and that the people who are supporting that are our young black males is very frustrating to me because I look out there and I say what messages are these young men getting? Well, you know, they're looking at the television listening to the

radio, they're picking up the magazines and what are they saying? Sports stars and entertainers, zillions and zillions of dollars for doing this and so, you know, when the weather is warm, you go out on the streets of DC. From sun up the sun down you see the young boys out there, bouncing a basketball. They're going to be the next Michael Jordan. Well, you know, none of these media tell them that only seven and one million is going to make it as a starter in the NBA. What happens to the other 999 ,993? But at the same time, how many black neurosurgeons either? Well, excellent. I mean, probably roughly that. Maybe even worseides than it is to be another Michael Jordan. But let's go with black doctors. That's probably a little fair thing to do. But the fact of the matter is it is something that you have much more control over. You can be extraordinarily talented with the basketball, but unless you're at the right place at the right time, know the right people and get the right breaks, you're not going to make it. End of story. So, so many people end up frustrated academically and in terms of the sports entertainment and, and what's left? Up drives this big black BMW with tenet glass and this

tall guy steps out with jewels and furs and, hey, you want to be like me? I can show you how to get yours. That society deprived you of what you should have. It's easy to understand. Let's talk to Gretha. She's in Houston listening at station KTSU. Welcome to PowerPoint, Gretha. Hello. Hello. Yes, sir. This is in reference to your field of study neurology. I received a twisting injury for years, the five years in April. I twisted it at the knee, the right tendons in the thigh, the low back, um, rough to the disc in one and three. And because of the movement that I was in, I had my hair to the right, made a forty -five to three turns to the right, pulled to the left, it popped the neck. Okay, so I have been walking around with a lot of members for the last two years, have been on the chiropractor for about four months now. So now this member is coming back in place. But I haven't had it

diagnosed and put on paper, but this is just through reading here and there psychology today and listening to one doctor on television explaining closely at injured. So I say, well, this is it. No one believes me. No one says anything wrong. I was on Torridor Medicine, which is a 10 -day medicine. I was on this medicine for six months, so I got a double blow to the head. The Torrid Office is my side effect, short -term memory loss. Then with the twisting of the neck and spreading the pictures on the wall at the doctor's office, that's it, that's it. I had a right to left with a blast. And the neck has been locked over. Well, in the contract, the example of me, you said, it's your body's off a half inch. Dr. D. Do you have a question? Sir. Do you have a question for Dr. Thompson? So what would be some of the symptoms of closely at injury and is it not possible for the skull to separate in this position that length of time? Well, your

question is much too complex to answer over the radio like this in a short time without having a complete history, physical examination, other types of studies. But I will tell you, in general, the body has tremendous reparative ability. And the thing that is most important to do is to maximize that body's ability to heal itself. That includes six glasses of water or water equivalent liquid per day, regular exercise, regular full night sleep, and eating a well -balanced meal. If you can do those things, your body will begin to repair itself. Thanks a lot, girther. And we wish you all the best luck in Houston. We're coming up on 48 minutes, 30 seconds into the hour, which means we're going to have to take a break. Once again, we're talking with Dr. Benjamin Carson, the head of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital and the

author of three books, the most recent, the big picture. Our discussion will continue in a moment. Still ahead on PowerPoint. In our two PowerPoint looks to foreign affairs with our Ambassadors Roundtable as we welcome Uganda's Minister of Foreign Affairs for a discussion about changes and challenges in Africa. Please stay tuned. This is Public Radio and you're listening to PowerPoint. Our program will continue in just a moment. Welcome back. I'm Kenneth Walker.

Once again, I guess this hour is Dr. Benjamin Carson, the head of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital and the author of Gifted Hands, think big and most recently, the big picture. The PowerPoint hotline is 1 -800 -989 -8255. That's 1 -800 -989 -8255. We are going to go back to the phones now and speak with Sherry in Houston, Texas. And she's going to like to raise a question to Dr. Carson. I'm a young black female and I was formerly a medical student at the University of Iowa and Iowa City, Iowa. And this is a predominantly white institution. And approximately nine months before I was scheduled to graduate, my registration was canceled there.

And the reason being is because they were discriminating against me there. And they canceled my registration based on academic reasons supposedly, wherein they were actually frothing my grades and not providing with me with proof of my scores. I'm currently pursuing them in a lawsuit and seeking legal representation. And I just wanted to ask to you, as a physician, and being a person who's black, and I'm sure you've encountered situations wherein you've not been treated fairly along the way, even though you are very successful at this time. And I wanted to know, have you encountered other students as you've gone around the country who've encountered this type of problem that I'm having? Of course. And I'll tell you when I was the first year medical student, after the first set of comprehensive examinations, I did terribly. And I was sent to

see my counselor who was of another ethnic persuasion. And he said, do you seem like a very intelligent man? I think there's a lot of things you could do outside of medicine. He thought I should drop out of medical school. And when I refused to do so, he said, why don't we put you on a special program? You take only half of the academic load the first, your half to second, your half to third, your half to fourth, and maybe one day before you die, you'll graduate. But I didn't particularly like that either. And I sort of went back and did myself analysis and tried to figure out where the problem was. And unfortunately, I was able to discover in my own particular case, it was that I didn't learn from boring lectures. I stopped going to the lectures, and that made the big difference. But, you know, there are going to be problems. Like I said, there was racism at all junctures, and we'll continue to be. I think one of the things that our young people have to understand is that as your grandparents use to tell you,

if you're going to go through a system that is not particularly inclined to look after you, you need to be extraordinarily vigilant and extraordinarily good beyond what everybody else is. And you just have to understand that, is it fair? Of course, it's not fair, but that's just the way it is. And, you know, you're just going to have to do whatever is necessary to do. You should go ahead and proceed with your legal suit. Hopefully, you can find a very good lawyer, and you know, things can be examined in an objective fashion. And whatever the conclusions are, you can take it from there. Okay, Sherry. Thanks a lot, and the best to you in Houston. Let's talk to Walter. He's in Washington, listening at station WPFW. Welcome to Powerpoint, Walter. Hey, it's going to be a great show for you, and I want to congratulate you, Dr. Carson. Then I've got to ask you to help me understand your last

answer just goes right to where I was with disagreeing with you on your affirmative action issue, and that the bail curve was published just a few short years ago, 90, 30 years ago, but yeah, yeah. And so we have the idea that it's a level plan feel. I think that the host of the show was actually absolutely correct, and asking you to describe the actual odds of another black man becoming head of neurosurgery at John Hopkins, a racist institution. Then I ask you to take a look at the public school system, where they have basketballs and they have footballs, but they do not have books coast to coast in the public school system, sir. We have an elitist administrative welfare system. Let's let's let Walter, Walter, you raise a very good question in terms of public education. Let's let Dr. Carson take a crack at it. Well, you haven't said anything that I disagree with, Walter. Nothing at all. One of the reasons that I'm so interested

in pushing the academics is because I want our young men to recognize that they have an intellectual heritage. You know, when they walk down the street, you know, you can point out all kinds of contributions that were made by blacks, that bolstered this country. You know, you look at the light bulbs and recognize everybody gives Thomas Edison credit for that, but Lewis Latimer was the one who came up with the filament that made it work. You know, you look at Jones, who came up with the refrigeration system for trucks, later adopted for airplanes and trains and boats. You look at your traffic signal, your gas mask, the term, the real McCoy comes from Elijah McCoy, a black man who is a tremendous inventor. But see, these are not the kinds of things that are being emphasized, not even by us. See, this is the thing that that disturbs me. I don't, I'm not surprised

that the majority society doesn't bring these things into play and doesn't make them known to our young people. I am a little surprised that we have a tendency to neglect them and to emphasize the kinds of things that probably are not going to get us where we need to go in the long run. Walter, thank you so much for that call and that observation and the best to you in Washington. Is there a website perhaps or a phone number for the Carson Fund that you might wish to give for any of our listeners who wish to make contact with them? Yes, the Carson Scholars Fund phone number is the Aircoat 410 -828 -105 and it's www .carsonscholars .org is the website for Dr. Benjamin Carson, the author of three books, Gifted Hands, Think Big and the Big Picture. He is a world renowned head of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital and we didn't get a chance

to talk to him about separating the cyme. He's twins much but he broke some very new ground there. Thank you so much for joining us, Dr. Carson. Thank you for having me. This is PowerPoint. I'm Kenneth Walker. If you would like a tape or transcript of this or any past edition of PowerPoint or to make listener comments or program suggestions, please call PowerPoint toll free at 1 -888 -682 -6500. That's 1 -888 -682 -6500. Here's what's coming your way next week on PowerPoint. Elegant, prophetic, visionary tune in next week for a discussion with Black Science Fiction Writer, Octavia Butler, and speaking of the future, author Faria Chidea will discuss her new book, The Color of Our Future, all that in PowerPoint news with Werner Avery Brown. The creators of PowerPoint include senior producer Tony Regusters, producer director Debbie Williams, news anchor Werner Avery

Brown, and associate producer Tom Woodwood. Our appoints phone producer is Kay Marshall. Our broadcast production assistant is Eric Lewis. Our appoints NPR broadcast technical director is Neil Tevolte. Legal affairs for PowerPoint are handled by Theodore Brown. Our program announcer is Candy Shannon. Our appoints theme is from the CDF stops by Craig Harris. The executive producer is Reggie Hicks. I'm Kenneth Walker. Thanks for listening. PowerPoint is made possible by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's Radio Program Fund. This is PowerPoint, a production of Hicks and Associates. You're listening to Public Radio and this is PowerPoint. In our two, we're honored to welcome Uganda's Minister of Foreign Affairs

to PowerPoint's Ambassadors Roundtable. And you can join the discussion by calling the PowerPoint hotline at 1 -800 -989 -8255. Stay tuned for more PowerPoint. Production and broadcast of PowerPoint is made possible by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. This is

PowerPoint, an information age clearinghouse for issues affecting the African -American community, the nation, and the world. And now, PowerPoint's Kenneth Walker. As the world spins toward the millennium, what changes and challenges lay ahead for Africa? On this first 1999 edition of PowerPoint's Ambassadors Roundtable, we'll talk with his excellency, a mama ambabazi, Ugandan Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Uganda's ambassador to the United States, Edith Sampala. Neighbor to an embattled Congo where Lauren Kabila continues the struggle to find democracy's road, Uganda is attempting to help settle the ongoing rebel conflict in the region and negotiate a lasting peace. Foreign Minister Ambabazi and Ambassadors Sampala join us to provide a first -hand analysis and assessment of the situation, and cast an eye to other issues of concern to Africans, African -Americans, and the world community. And you can join the discussion by calling the PowerPoint hotline now at 1 -800

-989 -8255. That's one. For PowerPoint news and information to empower the community, I'm Verna Avery -Brown. Efforts to impeach the president will take place behind closed doors this week. Three senators from each party will oversee privately videotaped depositions of witnesses Monica Lewinsky, presidential adviser Vernon Jordan, and White House Ait Sydney Blumenthal. The three will answer questions from lawyers on both sides. Their testimony will determine whether additional witnesses need to be summoned, or whether the trial can end by February 12, a target date set by Senate Republicans and Democrats. A new Newsweek poll shows that more than half of all Americans, 54%, believe the GOP has been hurt by the way the impeachment trials have been conducted.

Production and broadcast of PowerPoint is made possible by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. This is PowerPoint, an information age clearinghouse for issues affecting the African -American community, the nation, and the world. And now, PowerPoint's Kenneth Walker. As the world spins toward the millennium, what changes and challenges lay ahead for Africa? On this first 1999 edition of PowerPoint's Ambassadors Roundtable,

we'll talk with his Excellency, a mama ambabazi, Ugandan minister of foreign affairs, and Ugandan's ambassador to the United States, Edith Sampala. Neighbor to an embattled Congo where Lauren Kabila continues the struggle to find democracy's road, Uganda is attempting to help settle the ongoing rebel conflict in the region and negotiate a lasting peace. Foreign Minister Ambabazi and Ambassador Sampala join us to provide a first -hand analysis and assessment of the situation and cast an eye to other issues of concern to Africans, African -Americans, and the world community. And you can join the discussion by calling the PowerPoint hotline now at 1 -800 -989 -8255. That's 1 -800 -989 -8255. PowerPoint's Ambassadors Roundtable begins in a moment, but first, PowerPoint news with Werna Avery Brown.

For PowerPoint news and information to empower the community, I'm Werna Avery Brown. Efforts to impeach the president will take place behind closed doors this week. Three senators from each party will oversee privately videotaped depositions of witnesses Monica Lewinsky, presidential adviser Vernon Jordan and White House aides Sidney Blumenthal. The three will answer questions from lawyers on both sides. Their testimony will determine whether additional witnesses need to be summoned, or whether the trial can end by February 12th, a target date set by Senate Republicans and Democrats. A new newsweek poll shows that more than half of all Americans, 54%, believe the GOP has been hurt by the way the impeachment trials have been conducted in both the House and the Senate, and the majority of Americans, 53%, object to the Senate plan to holding the debate to convict the president behind closed doors. Meanwhile, President Clinton's job approval rating has increased by three percentage points since last week.

It's now at 63%. Monday marks the beginning of so -called Black History Month. It's the position of PowerPoint news that the contributions of African Americans ought not be separated out because, in fact, it's all a part of American history. But be that as it may, February is a time officially designated to highlight such contributions, and the U .S. Postal Service has been doing so for some 21 years with its Black Heritage Series. Each year in historical African American figure is placed on a postage stamp. This year, the late Black Power Activist El -Haj Malik El -Shabaz, or Malcolm X, is the subject on the new 33 -cent stamp. PowerPoint news spoke with historian and professor William Strickland, who wrote the script for the acclaimed PBS documentary Malcolm X Make It Plane. We chatted with Strickland about what effect this might have on the legacy of the controversial Malcolm X. For example, I teach a course on

Marx and Malcolm. And the overriding image of Malcolm is Malcolm the Hater, but to the extent that this really takes that patina of ferocity off of Malcolm. Perhaps it'll get people to really examine his life and really to examine the nature of his social criticism. William Strickland is a political science professor at the W .E .B. Du Bois Department of African American Studies at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. As for those of you who are wondering if Malcolm's widow Betty Shabaz will be likewise honored with a stamp, the process requires that the subject, with the exception of a U .S. president, be deceased for at least 10 years before being considered. Nigerians voted and troubled oil producing by Elsa State Saturday in governorship elections delayed by youth protests in which some 30 people were killed. The elections were part of general Abdul Salami Abu Bakar's plan to step down in May ending 15 years of military rule. The troops with assault rifles man the checkpoints and patrol the streets of the state

capital, where life is returning to normal after demonstrations by ethnic youth demanding their fair share of the region's oil wealth. A black history footnote, the Norwegian cruise lines will dedicate the first ever sports illustrated cafe in memory of Olympic gold medalist Florence Griffith Joyner. She'll be honored with a plaque on the door of the new cafe ship Norway. The Norwegian cruise line has also announced a donation to Joyner's seven -year -old daughter's educational fund, the Mary Ruth Joyner Trust Fund. Up next on PowerPoint, Uganda's foreign minister Amama Babazi joins host Kenneth Walker in the studio for a discussion about Uganda and issues throughout the Central African region. Anyone wishing to weigh in on the discussion can do so by calling 1 -800 -989 -8255. For PowerPoint news and information to empower the community, I'm Furnah Avery Brown. Welcome back, I'm Kenneth Walker.

Uganda is one of nine African nations involved, one way or another, in the war in the former Zaire, the so -called Democratic Republic of the Congo. While the war lasts, it is nearly impossible that these nations can resume the urgent development of their own countries in the region of Africa with perhaps the most resources and most people. Yet Uganda is one of the lights on the continent with a growing economy, and Uganda was one of the stops President Clinton made during his historic visit to Africa last year. And that's our focus this hour, the Great Lakes region, one of the most important in Africa, and the part of it that is Uganda. To help guide our exploration, we are pleased to have Mama Imbabazi, the foreign minister of Uganda, who is visiting Washington and Uganda's ambassador to the United States, Edith Simwala. You can join this discussion by calling a PowerPoint hotline at 1 -800 -989 -8255. That's 1 -800

-989 -8255. Mr. Foreign Minister and Madam Ambassador, welcome, welcome to both of you to PowerPoint. Thank you. Assistant Secretary of State Susan Rice was in your country just a couple of days ago, and you're here in Washington now and to the layperson, it might sound like something's cooking. What's up? Unfortunately, I missed her when she came to Uganda because I was in Europe. We were in London as an East African delegation to talk about the East African community that is in the making, and Uganda is the current chairman. I've been chairman since 21st January. So I missed her and this arrangement of my visit had not taken an account that she would be visiting Kampala. So there's no urgent bilateral talks about any of the bilateral issues involved going on?

Not urgent as such. These are routine consultations that we are carrying on between ourselves and the American government, and my visit here is intended to educate the public as well, and that's why I'm here today, about Uganda, about the region. I had you refer to the region as the Great Lakes region. This is the creation of the media, that there is a region called the Great Lakes region, and that Uganda is part of it. Of course, this is not true. Uganda is part of a region called East Africa, and the Great Lakes region is co -inaged by the late President Mobuto, and referred to the Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Dwanda and Rundi. I feel constrained to raise this explanation because when you talk about the Great Lakes region being in Tamil, the assumption is that Uganda

is in Tamil because we are not East Africa is an island of peace. Then how is it that Uganda is managed to maintain this island of peace in a situation that at least to a lay person seems fraught with instability? Nine nations, including Uganda, are involved in the conflict in the Congo. How do you maintain the distance? Because first of all, we've stabilized the Uganda as a country, but in the East African region, we've given a lot of attention to stability. This East African region consists of Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. Recently, we've signed a memorandum of understanding that is aimed at maintaining the stability of that region. I mean, for example, we have established at the East African Secretariat a defense unit whose purpose is to receive information about defense,

disseminate information, moving towards collective security in order to avoid being infected by the instability around us. So sometimes, because Uganda is indeed involved in the Congo, people tend to think that Uganda itself is unstable, but actually this is not the case. How is it that Uganda has managed to become one of the lights of the continent in terms of its economy at least to what do you attribute this turnaround to? Enlightened leadership, correct policies? Such as. Basically, in the economy, we, through experience and our assessment of the performance of the African governments in the past, came to the conclusion that the best way forward was to follow the private enterprise

as the main thrust of our economic management. And really, this has been the miracle. This has been the magic behind our success. And your economy is growing at what annual rate now? On average, we've grown at 6 .5 % for the last decade. That's got to be among the highest on the continent. Yes, it's the sixth highest growing economy in the world. Let's talk about the Congo for a minute. Is there any light at the end of the tunnel there? Yes, I think so. What might that be? First of all, I think it's important for people to understand the nature of the conflict in Congo. Okay, as you see it, what's the nature of it? Yes, basically, it's a domestic problem. It's a political problem among the Congolese themselves. They have developed contradictions and the leadership has not been able to manage these contradictions and it has

deteriorated. These differences have deteriorated into conflict. And they've sucked our scene from outside. The reason why Uganda is in Congo is mainly because of our security concerns. The Congo has been used in the past as a springboard for attacks on Uganda. In fact, the reason why we moved against Congo in the time of Mobutu, when to our stills are here, was because Mobutu had actively corroborated with the Sudanese government, which is soon to destabilize Uganda. And Mobutu had allowed his territory to be used by the Sudanese to attack us in 1996. That's why we moved against President Mobutu. Secondly, President Mobutu had allowed the inter -Hammu, the inter -Hammu. The Hutus? Yes, the Hutu militia. They were mainly Hutu, but actually there were

Tutsi as well. You see, when people talk about Hutu and Tutsi, it tends to criminalize a whole group of people, which is actually not true. Whereas there were mainly Hutu, the majority of the Hutu were good people and they did not participate in the genocide. So I don't like calling them Hutu myself. I just call them inter -Hammu, the genocide theirs. These went into Congo, then Zaire, and they were reorganized into fighting units and they were planning to attack Rwanda again. And of course, having witnessed the 1994 genocide, we are not prepared to have that. And that was one of the reasons why we moved against Mobutu. So because of our own security considerations, the fact that Congo was being, as a territory being used to destabilize us, and because of this threat of Mobutu unleashing the inter -Hammu in Rwanda again, we moved against him. Now, of course, President Kabirah was a

direct by product of that effort. He came about because we moved against Mobutu. You have put him in office? Yes, that's true. And we, the clear understanding was that this problem, which had taken us into Congo in the first place, would be solved. It was not solved. Instead, unfortunately, President Kabirah started to corroborate with the inter -Hammu, especially. In our case, in the case of Rwanda, he had agreed that we should send in troops to handle the threat from the ADF, ADF, or the allied democratic forces. Fighting Uganda? Using Congo to fight Uganda. And he had allowed us to take in two battalions to fight these groups, the terrorist groups sponsored by Sudan. So in a way, it was not, when we

moved in, it was not that he was supporting them. But that he was supporting inter -Hammu, the genocide of Rwanda. And that's how this whole problem sucked us in. So why are you optimistic that a problem solution can be found to what's going on in the Congo? Well, we have been having meetings. President Mandela has been trying to pass away all the parties, sort of the problem peacefully. The region has put up a mechanism under President Chiruba Uzambia to try and negotiate the settlement. And so far, the signs are good. What's going on? You obviously know something that we don't, because in terms of reading what we can and do and get about the conflict, there didn't appear to be any movement at all. Well, about a fortnight ago, the core group of countries, that is

the countries that have troops in Congo, which means Angola, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Uganda and Rwanda, made in Namibia in the capital of Vinog. And an agreement was reached between them. First of all, to have a ceasefire. They all agreed to ceasefire. They agreed to have the rebels involved in the negotiation for the ceasefire. They agreed to have an international peacekeeping force inter -posed between the various forces. One ceasefire has been signed. They agreed that the Congolese themselves should have a national conference, sort of their political problem. And finally. And Kabirah's government agreed to obviously. And no, the Kabirah government was not there. And they agreed finally that all foreign forces, that is all of them, the countries that were participating in this meeting, should withdraw once this

arrangement was in place. Of course, President Kabirah was not there, and the rebels who are not there. But the understanding was that all of us who have connections with one side or the other would exert whatever influence we had to assert the parties to accept the negotiated settlement. And we have no reason to believe that they would not comply. What's your best estimate on when, for example, a ceasefire might come in place? Our technical staff are already in Osaka. They went there a few days ago. They are discussing the details about the ceasefire agreement. They are working out, they are putting into technical form, the agreed positions of Vinhoek. They will report to a ministerial meeting, and the ministerial meeting will report to your summit. And in my opinion, in another two, three weeks time, we should be seeing the signing of an agreement. Ambassador Sampala, what

is the position of the United States about the involvement of Uganda in that conflict? United States would like to see all countries withdraw from the Democratic Republic of Congo. They have made that very clear, and we support that position as long as Uganda's security interests are taken into account. Is the United States any more involved in terms of trying to provide advice and or assistance to make any of this happen? Well, really, what United States has been doing is to support regional efforts. They are supporting President Kiruba's efforts, and they, as you know, Assistant Secretary Susan Rice and Gail Smith have been in the region, and they went to all the countries involved and concerned. So the idea, really, I think, as we understand it from United States, is to support

regional efforts, because they believe that that's the only way that can bring about sustainable peace. We're talking with Mama Mubazi, the foreign minister of Uganda, and Edith Sampala, the Ugandan Ambassador, to the United States. You can join this discussion on PowerPoint's ambassadors roundtable by calling the PowerPoint hotline at 1 -800 -989 -8255. That's 1 -800 -989 -8255. Let's talk about Uganda proper for a moment. The United States, when President Clinton was there, gave $120 million announced $120 million in assistance for education. I think the World Bank has kicked in maybe $150 million for education. One of the long -term difficulties, as I see it, for many African nations is this problem with

primary education. That in many other countries is neither mandatory nor free. How has Uganda attacking that problem? Well, as I said, we really have an ambitious program, first of all, of economic recovery, and secondly, of industrialization of our country. We realized that we cannot achieve this without skilled labor force. We have embarked on a comprehensive program of training our people, giving them general education so that everybody becomes literate. We've started what we call the universal primary education, and this is what President Clinton and others have been supporting. All children are by law. I'm not sure that we have

passed legislation to enforce this, but anyway, all children are compulsory. Supposed to attend primary education from P1, the beginning, to P7, which is the end of 13 years. Then, after that, some would branch off, of course, into the academic field, but we put a lot of emphasis on what do you call it? Not sure. Basic primary education. We are emphasizing skills, vocational training, to go into skills, so that we have the skilled labor force that is required to take off this industrialization. That's what has been supported, and it's true that, of course, it has not been a common feature in African education

policy. What's the government's position on elections? The Uganda, I understand, has a referendum next year on whether to have multiple parties, but what about the election of government officials themselves? Well, we go through elections, the regular interval. Our parliament is five -year parliament, and at the end of every five years, we go to elections. All ministers, the President himself is directly elected on the universal adult suffrage, and he picks his cabinet from elected members of parliament. All those who are not, he can pick from outside parliament, but once picked, then they would go into parliament. So that's how government comes in, and this is reflected all the way down through the hierarchy down to the grassroots. The southern African correspondent, or the sub -Saharan African correspondent for the

Washington Post, Lendoup, had a piece just this past Friday in the Washington Post, indicating that a number of the countries in the region, including Uganda, are suffering from what she calls the Congo effect, which she defines as some kind of instability of one sort or another in each of these countries. And in the case of Uganda, she claims that this instability is manifest itself in the form of a serious problem with corruption. How would you respond to her? She's not well -informed. I'm afraid. Of course, from outside, there is a perception that corruption is a serious problem in Uganda. It's true that corruption is actually the rampant in Uganda today, but what is not true is the perception that it's worse today than it had been in the past. The difference between now and the past

is that in the past, there was no freedom to talk about corruption. If a journalist talked about corruption or wrote about it in the newspaper, he or she would end up six feet below ground, dead, so nobody talked about corruption. Secondly, corruption at that time was right from the top, so it was state -inspired. Now, there is a difference. There is freedom to talk. This government has clearly condemned corruption. We have allowed freedom of expression. The media is completely free. They talk about it. They have been in the forefront in the fight against corruption. Parliament is, of course, independent and free. It's talking about corruption. So every day, there is talk about corruption in Uganda, but what actually this has achieved is push corruption

into hiding. Whereas in the past, people were proud to be corrupt. People were hailed by their societies for having ripped off the state. These days, you have to consider your corruption in order to succeed. The problem we have at the moment and why the fight against corruption is not completely succeeding is because of lack of capacity to investigate. And this is a capacity we are trying to build up. Once this is in place under this government, corruption will be a thing of the past. It will be at the same level, like you have in America or other societies. Is there any danger at all given the post cold war and the presence of these vast resources, mineral and otherwise in the region that African leaders themselves will become in perhaps increasingly violent competition for a land grab even. Some have suggested, for example, that Zimbabwe

among the reasons it's involved in the Congo is because of the relationship some in the president's family have to the diamond concessions in Congo. Is there a danger of a resource land grab among the countries in the region there? Well, I've had that story about Zimbabwe and in fact, I've had a story about even Uganda. I can't talk for Zimbabwe, I want to know. But I have no other interest apart from what I told you in the Congo. Our interest is just to safeguard our security. That's all. And in fact, as we operate in the Congo, our forces are under strict instructions not to engage in business. We're talking with Amama and Babazi, the foreign minister of Uganda and Edith Sampala, the Ugandan ambassador to the United States on this edition of PowerPoint's Round Table. You can join the discussion by calling the PowerPoint

hotline at 1 -800 -989 -8255. We're coming up on 29 minutes into the hour, which means, of course, we have to take a break. But our discussion will continue in a moment. Internet services for PowerPoint are provided by World African Network, offering news, information, sports, and entertainment for African and African -American communities through broadband and new media technologies. The web address is www .wainonline .com. That's www .wainonline .com. You're listening to Public Radio, and this is

PowerPoint with Kenneth Walker. Welcome back. Once again, this is PowerPoint's Ambassadors Round Table, our first edition of 1999, and we're speaking with the foreign minister of Uganda, Amama and Babazi, and the ambassador, the Ugandan ambassador to the United States, Edith Sampala. Once again, our focuses of Uganda and the East African and Great Lakes region. The PowerPoint hotline is 1 -800 -989 -8255. That's 1 -800 -989 -8255. We are going to go to the phones now, and we'll speak with Laura Lynn. She's in Boston, listening through station WUMB. Welcome to PowerPoint, Laura Lynn. Hello, Mr. Williams. Thank you for having me on. Actually, I'm in the Faults People's Republic in Cambridge, right next door to Boston. I have a question for the ambassador, excuse me, for the foreign minister. I have two

questions for you. I really want to ask them in the kindest way that I know how, and yet I think that they must be asked. The first has to do with your responses to the host in terms of the stability of Uganda, and also the host assumption that there's such great economic growth in Uganda, and your responses leveraging the invasion of the Congo by Uganda in concert with Rwanda actually states that you get this in order to protect your borders or for security. So I think that without mentioning the rebels from Sudan and the internal rebels, quote unquote, and Uganda that both of those things probably cannot be. And I wondered if you were aware that there is just an abundance of

information coming from inside the region which supports that it is not true that Uganda is all that stable or that it is so secure economically and so on and so forth. And then I have a second quick question. Go right ahead, Mr. Foreign Minister. Thank you very much. It's true that as I mentioned, the problems we've had have been sponsored by the extremist Islamic group in power in Katoom. And in Sudan? Yes, in Sudan. And that the time when we got problems with Congo, then Zail was when President Mubu Tadeen agreed to collaborate with them to destabilize Uganda. And it's true that this Sudan, with which we share border in the North, had been trying to destabilize us from

this Sudan. And they still try to do. There is this group calling itself the Lord's Resistance Army. I'm sure you've heard. Yes, I do. I'm sure you've heard about them. Yes, there I have. The ones that cut people's lips and noses off. The ones that cut breasts of women off. The ones that cut off the limbs of people. Yes. Those are the Lord's Resistance Army. They used to be fairly serious threat because they were operating from the other side of the border when the Central Government of Sudan was controlling that territory. But of course, the SPLA, the Sudanese People's Liberation Army, which is opposed to the Central Government of Katoom, has taken over most of this territory. So, although they still infiltrate through the SPLA control territory and cause some problems, this is a law -intensity sort of thing at the border with the Sudan and it's true. I had not mentioned it, but it's there. But you cannot say, and everybody who knows this area knows that they have not really been a cause

of instability either to our economy or even to law and order. But it would appear that we went from there to protecting the borders, to leveraging the rebels and war against our President Luangabila and destabilizing the entire region so that now there are six or seven African nations and worlds in a really violent, violent slaughter of one another. And that leads me to my second question, I guess, Your Honor. And that question has to do with this. I am an African American. There is a great, great African population also here in America. And of course, as you know, the African diaspora, in general, is just here in great numbers. We have great, great hopes for Africa because that's where we are from. So, in order to be the best that we can be, we have to

have Africa with all of her great resources, rich in everything, being the best that she can be. Mr. Foreign Minister, have you or your government any idea of how disappointed we are about the war, given President Clinton's program, opportunity Africa, given? Lauren, let's let's let's let the, you know, you're bunching a lot in there and you've raised some very fundamental, very good questions and I want the ambassador to have a chance to respond. She raises an interesting point, Mr. Ambassador and will you have you listen off the air to the answer, Lauren, thanks for the call about the African American especially aspirations for Africa and the disappointment, keen and heartfelt. That many feel about what they continue, what they see as a continuation of insignificant battles and wars when there's so much important business to be done. How do you respond to

that as you move around the United States and hear those kinds of sentiments? Well, of course I do understand these sentiments. I for appreciate the sense of disappointment that people fear when they hear about war in Africa and of course I must tell you that we don't like war and we don't wage war for the sake of war but war is not always a negative thing. I mean if you take Uganda as an example the growth you hear, the stability we have, the idea that we are now in a modern state is from the position of a country that was synonymous to violence, it's synonymous, a country that was synonymous to horrendous violation of human rights. You remember it I mean? Very well. In fact, these people, the Lord's resistance army that

I've talked about, the ones that cut off limbs and things like that, these are remnants of that that era. So I mean we had to wage war to bring about sanity in our country to bring about development. So war should not be looked at in the context of destruction and in a negative sense. In Congo itself we all know that President Mubutu had been powerful more than 30 years. In those 30 years he completely planned the country that potentially is the richest in Africa. When you go to Congo now there are no roads. You can't move with the car to move 10 kilometers takes a whole day if you must move in a vehicle and yet that's a country end out with all these riches that you've heard about. So in our opinion since there was no peaceful way of bringing about change in Zaid then it was positive that he be pushed out by war.

So I don't share the pessimism that war itself in a society is a bad thing. I think we are going through transition. We have been under the yoke of neo -colonial structures. We are trying to assert ourselves the new generation of leaders. We want to have self -confidence and take matters in our own hands. And that's precisely what is expressed in what is going on. And it's not necessary. Sometimes it's not good to have war sometimes. Even this war in Congo now could be avoided. It's not necessarily necessary. But I wouldn't say that having war in itself is always a negative thing. We're going to talk with Barry now. He's in Houston and listening at station KTSU. Welcome to PowerPoint Barry. Good evening sir. Unless the American ambassador be forgot. I got a question for her and one for the

foreign minister. I think we learned our lesson in Somalia. I'm hoping the United States position on this is that no American laws be sacrificed. This is not worth sacrificed in the innocence. If the Africans want to have added, let them. Is that the United States position here? Mr. Foreign Minister. We can't answer for the Americans. The United States ambassador is not here. What we have is the Uganda ambassador to the United States. She's representing Uganda in the United States. She's their ambassador here in Washington. I'm planning for the United States position here in terms of American troops. Have you received any indication, Ambassador Sampala, that the U .S. government is contemplating the insertion of American troops under any guys in the region? No, absolutely not. We haven't had that. The region hasn't asked for

it and we have not had any proposals to that effect. Okay, very good. A question for them. To answer the host question, I believe that in the Congo, there is no light at the end of the tunnel. I believe that this situation is absurd and it's getting worse daily. I believe the Ugandan gentleman is optimistic and that might be good enough itself. But what makes him think that these ethnic and tribal conflicts that have their roots and long ago thousands of years ago are going to come to an end now. And what is it different today that's going to stabilize the Congo? Okay, Barry. You can take the answer off the air, but thanks for the call and we'll listen to the Foreign Minister for his reply. Well, thank you. Mr. Barry. Yes, for that question. Because again, there is a perception that actually what he's going on in Africa is just primitive tribal sort of thing, clash going on. You know, this is not true. These are serious issues that transcend tribalism.

You know, sometimes tribalism can be used, of course, by some of these dictators. But I am not aware I'm an African, I've always lived in these places. This is my second or third time to come to America. I don't know if we have tribes or not. We do. But we do not have anything like inherent antagonisms between tribes. They don't exist at all, anywhere in Africa where I've been and have been around for a while and have visited quite a few places. I think this tribalism thing is something that had been used by colonialism to divide us and is something that is being used by people who don't wish us well to keep us down, to keep us divided. It's true that we have tribes. It's true that some people try to use these tribes, but it's also true

that they try to use religion. Christian, against Islam, Catholic, against Protestant, among Christians, and so on and so forth. These are things that exist which people are trying to use, like the use poverty, like the use and other excuse in order to push a particular point. So I don't agree that for instance in Somalia, I think he's the one who mentioned Somalia. Somalis are one tribe, are one religion, but they have been killing each other. They use the clans, the location, things like that. So I think it's a question of bad leadership. People that have wrong intentions, that have bad policies who clang clinked something that pushed their end. And I think what really we require to do is to identify them, isolate them and expose them and isolate them completely. We're going to go back to the phones now and speak with Moassi in Columbia, South Carolina, who's listening at station WLTR. Welcome to PowerPoint, Moassi. Okay, thank

you. I had three short questions. Quickly, please. Okay, in the past the African community or rather the three countries in the African community, Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania had sort of economic union. And I believe it was in the late 70s, it broke up. And I wanted to know what was different this time in the organization and what the long -term girls are in terms of the political situations and social to ensure that there's unity. Okay, my second question concerns me because I'm a citizen of one of the countries in the African community from Kenya. And I wanted to know what efforts are being made to ensure that there's continuity in the leadership that's strong and sound because there's also a lot of concern about leadership training. And we've seen problems where you have a strong community being

established when it falls back because there's a lack of strong leadership. And my third question concerns communication between the three countries. I believe the official language being used by the three countries to communicate is English. And currently Kenya and Tanzania share common language of Swahili and to some extent in Uganda. And now we have Rwanda and Burundi being admitted, understand their plans to admit them or either they've already been admitted into the community. So what efforts are going to be made to promote a language such as Swahili because I believe it has been discussed before. Okay, Mwasi, thank you so much. You can take your answer off the air, Mr. Foreign Minister. Thank you, Mr. Mwasi, Abadi. The East African community, it's true Brock in 1977. And the main reason was because of political differences.

Secondly, the three countries followed different economic policies. And thirdly, the community then was the creation of leaders without the involvement of the local people, the population. Now the different community we are establishing is one based on first of all, the community of policies. We have similar policies, for instance, and the management of the economy. We all have adopted private enterprise. Our economies are established in the formulation of this new community that we're trying to establish. We now have an East African corporation,

which is going to be upgraded to an East African community common market. We intend to sign the treaty at the end of July. In fact, the plan had been signed this treaty in November last year, but because we had not had enough consultations with the population, we delayed it until July. And right now, all these three countries are very vigorous, going through interaction with the population in order to get their opinions. So we think that, and secondly, and thirdly, we have taken a bit of time. We started with the East African corporation. We are harmonizing our policies, monetary and fiscal policies and all other policies. We are trying to create a zero -tariff area for our three countries. We are trying to take into account the question of

imbalance, the question, the fact that some countries have a higher level of development than others. So that when we form this community, really, it's quite beautiful. We're coming up on 48 minutes, 30 seconds into the hour, speaking with Amama Humbavasi, the far -administer of Uganda and Ida Sampala, the Ugandan Ambassador to the United States. Our discussion will continue in a moment. Here's what's coming your way next week on PowerPoint. Elegant, prophetic, visionary tune in next week for a discussion with Black Science Fiction Writer, Octavia Butler, and speaking of the future, author Faraya Chidea will discuss her new book, The Color of Our Future, all that in PowerPoint news with Verna Avery Brown. This is Public Radio and you're listening to PowerPoint. Our program will continue in just a moment. Ida Sampala,

ëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëëë On this edition of Powerpoints Ambassadors Roundtable, we are speaking with the Ugandan Foreign Minister, Amama and Babazi and Ithasampala, who is the Ugandan Ambassador to the United States. Mr. Foreign Minister, you mentioned the East African community and the common market that you are developing. What hope is there for that kind of cooperation on a sub -Saharan scale? I mean, there were people like in Krumah, who advocated that kind of a United States of Africa. Is there any hope at all

that that ever will happen? Yes, certainly. You think so? Yeah, I have no doubt. And in my lifetime. In your lifetime? Yes. Why on earth? How can you be optimistic about that? I mean, obviously, once again, you know something the rest of us don't. Well, it's Africa. Take your Africa as an example. You see, we have a common history, our relationship in this region predates colonialism. Some people think that because the South Africa had all been colonized by the British maybe and we speak a common language as the question Mr. Mashi said in English, that that's what binds us together, but that's not true. We had much closer relationship that existed before colonialism set in. And what we are trying to do is build on that history, because you see, even when the South African, the previous South African community collapsed, actually the people never accepted

that this had broken up. And the aspiration of the people is not only to have a common market, but to have political union. And ideas are already floating and indeed President Museveni has written to his colleagues, making proposals about forming a union government in the very near future. President Mui, at a summit of the East African Heads of State, only 10 days ago, announced publicly that after signing this treaty in July, our aim is to attain political federation. So this is very, very strong among not only the leaders, but the population as a whole. And the question I had also asked one or two other small points, one of them, about continuity of leadership, he asked how can you ensure that there will be continuity of good leadership, where there is no

other way, no better way known than democracy. And we have made it a point, a qualification, but for you to join this community, you must adhere and practice universal accepted principles of democracy. And this is what we are promoting. And as long as the people have a choice, the role is choose the right leaders and the language. The question of language, it's true that Rwanda has applied to join, Rwanda has not applied yet, and Rwanda's application was considered at the last summit, and the decision was taken to accept it in principle. But since the treaty has not been signed as an informative, it was decided that we wait until the treaty is signed in July, then Rwanda would be admitted. And Rwanda Rwanda will speak Swahili, Kenyam doesn't speak Swahili, Uganda, it's true, it's not as widespread as in the other countries, but actually we are promoting it now in schools, we expect to catch up with the rest. Great, let's try to get one more call in here and talk with Errol in

Baltimore, who's listening at station WEAA. Welcome to Powerpoint Errol. Yes, thank you so much for taking my call. I have to say two quick questions, I think we're going to have to limit you to one because we're running out of time. Yes, fine. My main one question about the warring factions throughout Africa, the African nations, what foreign countries or countries are responsible for supplying the warring factions with their weapons? And also, will the East African common market adopt a euro as we reserve currency as opposed to the dollar? Thank you. Two excellent questions Errol, thanks a lot for both of them, Mr. Foreign Minister, where I don't know about the supplier of weapons to warring factions in Africa, but you know we must have some idea. The arms market is worldwide and open. I wouldn't be in point in a place, but for governments of course

they deal with governments, but for illegal organizations, I don't know. Now adopting the euro, I'm not sure about it. Or a common currency, I believe is what he is. Yes, our intention is to adopt a common currency. We had a common currency before, we had one currency board, so we hope to achieve that. In these declining moments on this edition of Powerpoint Ambassadors' round table, we wanted to pay tribute to our technical director, Debbie Williams, who is leaving us after this broadcast, to go to Africa. Return, I should say, to work. She will be sorely missed. Debbie, what do you hope to be doing in Malawi? Thank you, Ken. I'm going back to Malawi to work with the Electoral Commission there as a media consultant and really wanted to take this opportunity to say thank you. I hearty thank you to all of the listeners of Powerpoint for being thoughtful and intelligent. And I'm making this show one that reflects all of America. So I also want to say thank you very much to Tom Woodward and

Eric Lewis, my right hand and my left hand in the studio, Neil T. Vault, K. Marshall on the phones. We have a new person with this Tony List strap and our ever -present intern, Rashida. But most importantly, I want to thank the makers of Powerpoint, those who labored long and hard. This program has been about four years in the making. And I wanted to say, Reggie Hicks, thank you. Thank you and thank you, Tony. Regusters for your vision and thank you, Verna Avery Brown for your news. So goodbye and I'll be back soon. So it's not so long. Thanks, Mr. Ambassador. Mr. Foreign Minister, Mr. Ambassador, thanks for your participation. Godspeed to you, Deb. This has been Powerpoint. I'm Kenneth Walker. If you would like a tape or transcript of this or any past edition of Powerpoint, or to make listener comments or program suggestions, please call Powerpoint toll -free at 1 -888 -682 -6500. That's 1 -888 -682 -6500. The creators of Powerpoint include senior

producer Tony Regusters, producer director Debbie Williams, news anchor Verna Avery Brown, and associate producer Tom Woodwood. Powerpoint's phone producer is Kay Marshall. Our broadcast production assistant is Eric Lewis. Powerpoint's NPR broadcast technical director is Neil Tevolte. Legal affairs for Powerpoint are handled by Theodore Brown. Our program announcer is Candy Shannon. Powerpoint's theme is from the CDF stops by Craig Harris. The executive producer is Reggie Hicks. I'm Kenneth Walker. Thanks for listening. Powerpoint is made possible by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's Radio Program Fund. This is Powerpoint, a production of Hicks and Associates. Powerpoint is made possible by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's Radio Program Fund.

Powerpoint is made possible by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's Radio Program Fund.