A9
Greensboro Daily News, Friday, April 23, 1971
Mission: Survival
Says A&T Speaker!
BY ANITA MEYER
Daily News Staff Writer
"We stand at a difficult time.
I We! stand where the Jews of
I Nazi Germany once stood.
"As the decades of the 1970*s
I broke open, the' country was
I officially but unconstitutionally
I engaged in two wars — one
s t the colonized colored
| people of • Indo China and one .
against the colonized black peo-
I pie of the United States."
Samuel Yette, Washington cor-
I respondent for Newsweek Maga-
:ine and author of "The Choice
- The Issue of Black Survival
n America," came to A&T State
I University yesterday to open the
i u a 1 Home Economics
| Spring Week-end with a discussion of. "The Relevance of" Ca-
His basic premise — "that We
are engaged, however untradi-
| tionally, in a war perpetrated
against the victims" — led him
| ultimately to ask his audience
"what relevance is there in ca-
I reers for people whose very sur-
ival is at stake
"Survival must be their ca-
| reer. The situation demands all
r talents, our devotion, our
I willingness to work harder than
r before.
We are the soul of a police
I state," Yette said. "The theoret-
1 ical Ame.rica of the Declaration
| of Independence and Constitution has been undermined."
He said he could draw a num-
I ber.'of parallels between where ,
I the black people stand today
I and where H i 11 e r 's victims
I stood. One example of this is
I the "gathering of psychic sup-
I port . . . for genocide" in an
1 idea that minority people are
("innately at fault, inferior, and
eighing heavily on the ma'jori-
1.
"Education and communica
tion must be recognized as the |
pie's capabilities either to perpe- I
trate the war or to pro
themselves nonviolently."
He expressed distress . i
finding young blacks using the I
libraries at the colleges he visits
around the country. Instead, he
must go into the "dark corners"
of the "hang-outs ... to find
my brothers and sisters.".
"The need is to educate bur-
selves, not the oppressors. How J
can the" uneducated 1 i b e
themselves, much less their people?"
Yette named several ways students could put their knowledge
to use in the quest for survival.
Home economists could help I
combat "health brutality"
-knowing how to make things I
grow and what is needed for |
proper nutrition.
Engineers should be able t
build schools, houses, whol
communities from the basic rai
materials of the earth.
Linguists can promote th
communication of people of dif- I
fering tongues but common |
"Survival i
be the_rniai
"Anything I
else would be a
A student reactor panel fol- |
lowed Yette's address. Today's
schedule includes seminars on
early childhood education, federal government careers, and careers in North Carolina Exten- j
sdon Service.
The week-end is sponsored by I
the A&T Department of Home I
Economics.
