European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - November 21, 1993, Darmstadt, Hesse                                 City races show that color is still part of the picture Clarence Page ome people incorrectly think i Don t like Rush Umbaugh just because i View him and Pat Buchanan As the Beavis and butt head of american political discourse. Not True. I appreciate people who disregard  not political correctness but rather what my Friend Tom Kochman a Chicago diversity consultant Calls the politeness  we to often want to raise burning questions about sensitive issues like race or gender but Don to for fear of being considered impolite. Not Rush. He Speaks his mind and gets paid handsomely for it partly because it is such a Relief even for those of us who usually Don t agree with him to hear candid views in these politically timid times. So to find out what members of his Mammoth an predominantly Young White male audience have on their narrow minds i eagerly tuned in to catch his slant on the recent mayoral election in new York City. That s the unlikely City in which the conserva Tive Umbaugh lives in about As much Comfort he says As a Monk assigned to Sodom. Rush did t disappoint me. In his unmitigated glee Over Republican Rudolph Giuliani s Victory he lashed out at Hep. Charles Range the Harlem Democrat who blamed mayor David Dinkins loss on White reluctance to vote for Blacks. Sour grapes said Rush of the remarks which matched those president Clinton made earlier at Dinkins Campaign rally. Tingling with excitement. Don t Channel Public Money into private schools Andy Rodney Idon t want to turn you off with a heavy handed Lead sentence but the Cornerstone of Edu cation in America the Public school system sin  Issue being decided in several states is whether parents should be paid by the government to Send their children to a private school of their own  would be the end of Public schools. In spite of the increasing popularity of the idea of profit making private schools like the ones being pushed by Christopher whittle and his commercially Umbaugh flashed a card that showed the racial breakdown of new York s 1989 mayoral race. Whites elected Dinkins with a whopping 30 percent of their vote while Giuliani received a piddling 6 percent of the Black vote Umbaugh pointed out. Interestingly when polls showed Dinkins solidly ahead in his first Campaign he barely won the actual count. Some voters lie to pollsters but it is an established fact that White voters lie More when race is involved whether it is Douglas Wilder or David  s that politeness conspiracy at work again. No matter How much we May try to hide it race has been a significant often crucial Factor in elections throughout american history even when opponents were of the same race and we re not rid of i yet. Instead we should Deal with it realistically. New yorkers including Umbaugh could learn from the Model left behind by the late mayor Harold Washington of Chicago. After squeaking through a minefield of race baiting to win narrow Victory in sponsored Channel one it s hard to believe Well Beso foolish As to abandon our Public school system flawed As it has become. If every religious sect and every nut Case preacher could Start his own Sci tool and get government Money to propagandize kids into his Way of thinking it would be a disaster. People who think of parochial schools As Catholic Don t understand that a Paro Chial school is one run by any religious group. A jewish school is parochial. A Muslim school is Paro Chial. If every religious oriented school got Public Money we d be divided by a thousand religious extremists trying to sell their own versions of god to our children. Someone whose name i can t recall said the separation of Church and state protects us not from religion but from the  some of our big City schools Are so bad that turn ing the whole thing Over to free Enterprise might sound like a Good idea but it would be the end Ozone of the single greatest things in our society the Public nonsectarian school. School Choice would provide better education forthe Best 25 percent of our students but they Aren t the problem. Our problem is trying to Knock som education into the Heads of the dumbest 25 percent. Crime and Lack of education go together. Lack of education and drugs go together. If All our Best students walk off take their govern ment Money and go to private school it will Ruev what s left of Public schools. Public schools would bereft with the hard Core uned Cable. It s happening  average College educated couple with Chil 1983, Washington unlike Dinkins did t try to fool every one of his Many diverse constituencies. In Stead he firmly nudged some of his most ardent Black supporters aside to devote his attention to As Suring Whites hispanic and Liberal swing voters As Well As mainstream Blacks that he would address their most pressing Community concerns. The result is what new York author Jim Sleeper Calls a civic identity or Rainbow  it s a new interracial coalition that expands the old Rainbow of minorities women labor and the poor to embrace common Middle class concerns like crime taxes economic development and reinventing government. Rainbow ii May lose a few of those who support Rainbow i but versions of it already have helped Lack mayors win predominantly White cities like Minneapolis Seattle and Kansas City. It helped re publican Richard Riordan beat Democrat Michael woo in lbs Angeles. Dren in new York City pays for school twice. The pay for the Public schools with taxes and they pay another $10,000 to $20,000 a year for private  parents do not Send their children to Public school in new York City. Presidents of the United states do not Send their children to Public school in Washington. There Are 971,000 kids i Public schools in new York City. There Are 264,000 in private schools. College educated parents is not a euphemism for White parents. College educated Black parents if they can help it Don t Send their kids to Public school in new York City either. I la hear from two who do it s paradoxical that i should be defending Public schools when i went to a private school myself an got a better education than 95 percent of the kids i grew up with who went to the Public schools. There was always a suggestion that those of us who went to the Academy were snobs. We denied it but i would t deny the snob charge today. I d ignore it and say instead that the world could use More educated snobs. It s the snobs who promote excellence in every Field. It s the music snobs who know goo music the literary snobs who read Good books the wine snobs who know chateau Lafite Rothschild from Gallo. There s a place for private schools in America Butanone of them should be supported by 5 cents Worth of Public Money. November 21,1993 sunday Page 9