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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 1, 1990)
\ ▼ Nawmbf 1990 ▼ Jwt out past new s March fuses diverse groups The Coffee Merchants ♦ The finest imported coffee beans, teas, chocolates, and beverage brewing accessories. ♦ THE BROADWAY COFFEE MERCHANT 1637 N E Broadway • 28s 9209 ♦ THE HAWTHORNE COFFEE MERCHANT 3562 S E Hawthorne • 230-1222 THE HILLSDALE COFFEE MERCHANT Hillsdale Shopping Center • 244-4822 The coalitions and friendships that were built cut through old prejudices by Dakota Stone T he activities and coalition-building Human Rights Commission (MHRC). Redwing, being part of the planning process marking the week of Oct. 5 through and not just invited to the party, assured that the 13 showed that despite broad diver sity, many Portlanders define dig gay and lesbian agenda was not only represented, nity in the same way. For the first but visible from the outset Jeannette Pai, execu time in the memory of those involved tive with director Dig of MHRC and one of the week’s key organizers, noted in retrospect that it made nity and Diversity Week, racism, anti-Semitism, sense and to involve the gay community and other homophobia, cultural oppression, sexism child abuse came under attack as the groups multiple in the planning stages and added that Portland needs to do more of that sort of net symptoms of a single serious illness: hate. Those who helped organize the week’s events working. “The coalitions that have been established are concede that if there was a wrinkle marring the celebration, it was that it took the trial of a ones that probably wouldn’t have been, histori known white supremacist to make it happen. It’s cally,” Pai said. The Rev. Gary Wilson, pastor of the Metro very likely that had Tom Metzger not been forced to answer in court on Oct. 8 for the beat politan Community Church which became a hub ing death of Mulugeta Seraw, the estimated for planning the Oct. 7 march and rally, agreed 3,000 marchers who took to the streets on Oct. 7 with the need for coalition-building among the wouldn’t have given voice to the community’s area’s diverse groups. “I think that’s what we unanimous demand for an end to crimes of op have to do more and more,” he said. “We can’t sit back and say we don’t like their politics or the pression. Donna Redwing, executive director of the way they comb their hair or the way they wear Lesbian Community Project, recalled an emo their jeans.” Wilson said it was a powerful expe tional moment on the day of the march as she rience to watch new alliances being forged be crossed the Burnside Bridge near the front of the tween the black and gay and lesbian communi procession. “I looked back, and there were ties, and between Hispanic and women’s groups. people from sidewalk to sidewalk, as far as I He also noticed that as police worked with left- could see,” she said. The marchers included rep wing groups, each respected the other at the resentatives of many ethnic groups, gays and table, even though they often disagreed. And he straights, children and the elderly — a united saw close personal friendships develop across the front that by Redwing’s reckoning broadcast a diversity of the community, as old fears and dis dual message: to the many skinheads from trust were shattered. “Any of those bonds devel around the country who came to Portland to ob oped benefit us in the long run,” he said. serve the trial, it said that Portland will not put up Echoing the sentiment of many, Pai deemed with the likes of Tom Metzger. And with the the week a clear success, especially in light of all help of the national media who covered the those who donned the rainbow-colored ribbons events and trial, it presented the world with a that symbolized the unity of the community in its picture more complete than simply Portland’s diversity. “One of the things plaguing our com "sleazy underbelly.” munity is a hesitancy to get involved,” she said. LCP was just one of numerous grass-roots “For some people, wearing the ribbon was the groups involved in organizing the week’s events. most they could do. It was the biggest risk they The steering committee included an eclectic as could take.” sortment of members, from USWest to the Black Pai said the week’s major accomplishment United Front, and from the New Jewish Agenda was bringing into focus a problem that the Port to the Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice land community has long had and denied. Most (SHARP). The groups worked hand in hand with people, she said, don’t want to hear that their city each other, with law enforcement officials and has a hate crime problem. (In fact, statistics show with such public agencies as the Metropolitan that Portland has one of the country’s highest y f > 1 m ¿■ 1 JmzSMk M *„ ' ¡ K ? a * 1 Á i jm m *: * ; top ! fi * r* 4 " 1 ‘ An estimated 3,000 marchers turned out to demand an end to crimes of oppression. Sylvia Wallula, an elder with the Warm Springs tribe says a prayer before the march begins. rates of hate crimes and violence against gays and lesbians.) Thanks in large part to Dignity and Diversity Week, Pai said, area residents can no longer run from the fact that a problem exists — and that individuals can be part of the solution. Although no one seems opposed to the idea of an annual Dignity and Diversity Week, it appears more likely that any broadcast of a simi lar message in the future will be in a format dif ferent from that instigated by the Metzger trial. Whatever form it takes, organizers acknowledge that the message will have to be delivered again and again and again. They expressed hope that such groups as the Coalition for Human Dignity and the Community Defense Coalition will carry on with the work begun this fall. And they were adamant that the week reflected a beginning, not a conclusion. “Nothing would have been accomplished if that’s the end,” said Jeffrey Hart, a member of ACT UP, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power. ‘The message got out loud and clear that Oregon will not stand for any bigotry and hate. But we have built-in forgetters. As soon as the pain goes away and the memory fades, we forget And the Metzgers are always out there.” Indeed Metzger’s recorded phone message following Multnomah County’s jury’s verdict against Metzger and the White Aryan Resistance said Portland aryans needed to get together to support their cause in Portland, the Northwest and Canada. “The foundation is alive and well. Don’t worry my friends, WAR-TV and WAR will con tinue . . . Metzger said. “Get ready for the in flux of Californian white racists fleeing the crap. And remember, this is WAR.” Metzger told members not to communicate with police or the media. He also gave the ad dress of rental property owned by Judge Ancer L. Haggerty, telling listeners that the rental was a suspected drug house and that maybe they should “check it out.” For more information, call the Community Defense Coalition at 232 2159 or ACT UP at 284-0262.
