THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, January 25, 1995 TAG: 9501250006
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 40 lines
As a concerned African American, I looked at the cover of your MetroNews section Jan. 14 and silently shook my head when I read about the $550,000 my people want to spend to build a monument to honor Martin L. King Jr.
I shook my head because I realized my people are trapped in some sort of surreal time zone. While they marched, crooned and sweated in the Metro section, Governor Allen sat cucumber cool on the front page discussing his plans to remove 36,000 low-income teens from Medicaid and to end benefits to 48,000 welfare recipients after two years.
Since Allen's selfishness, shallowness and insensitivity are old problems, might I suggest new solutions? To those who are earnestly concerned about continuing Martin Luther King's dream, instead of spending $550,000 to construct a 15-foot-tall monument to honor him, use those funds to build up people's lives.
To honor Dr. King, spend a portion of that $550,000 to develop an incubation center that will house new small businesses which will provide jobs to the 48,000 targeted welfare recipients. Meanwhile, spend the rest to develop some sort of health facility for the targeted Medicaid recipients. Ask concerned doctors to accept lowered fees; to pool their resources and talents. Ask concerned people to donate the building. Charge a sliding-scale fee to those who have to use the facility. Use that $550,000 as seed money, then build the monument from the proceeds.
In other words, come out of this dream world. Put teeth into Dr. King's dream! Sick, hungry, poor people need jobs and health care more than they need cold marble monuments and warm platitudes.
SANDRA TYLER
Virginia Beach, Jan. 14, 1995 by CNB