Just out., October 19, 2007, Page 5, Image 5

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Should we be providing the best care possible
for our children whether their parents can afford
it or not? You bet! Should we be doing things to
encourage less use of tobacco products? You bet!
But raising taxes on cigarette smokers to pay
for our children’s health care seems almost irra­
tional to me. It also seems unjust and unfairly
punitive. 1 can’t think of one smoker 1 know who
wouldn’t have already quit if he or she could.
Why should they bear this burden? Health care
for our children is something for which we are all
responsible.
Yes! Let’s provide health care for our children!
If we really wanted to, we could find a way to fund
and pursue these programs. However, let’s not pay
for it on the backs of fellow citizens who have had
the misfortune of giving in to the stronghold of
tobacco addictions. Doing it this way seems as
wrong to me as not providing health care at all.
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To the E ditor :
K elly M c F arland
Portland
Fight for Your Right
to Be Here, Queer
To the E ditor :
1 recently returned home after the anti-fascist
rally.
It was fantastic! I would estimate the crowd at
200 or more concerned people, which was great,
considering that most of the people I talked to
about the event had no idea it was happening.
Thank you, Just Out, for your blog post; you were
one of few media outlets to publicize, and it was
very helpful.
There we were in the cold park, getting riled up
at the prospect of (once again) facing the neo-
Nazis and taking them down. Great, right? Well,
mostly. I had two issues, and I feel the need to share
them with all of you.
First, as an organizer, I can’t help but wonder
why more progressive groups weren’t there with
literature. We had so much righteous anger. Why
was no one there to direct us into meaningful
projects? I saw representatives of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored
People, the YWCA and Radical Women, but
none of the three was recruiting. At the finale of
the rally,'we were encouraged to disperse quickly
and in groups. Where was our time to discuss all
that we had heard? To talk about what actions we
could take? I’m sure all of the activists reading this
will agree and also shake their heads at the wast­
ed moment.
More importantly, the crowd was overwhelm­
ingly young and white. Go young white folks, and
welcome to the delightfully racially diverse town
of Portland. Where was everyone else? Just Out’s
readership is primarily older than 35, right?
Where were all of you? Why was the crowd large­
ly anarchists, punks and the like? Is fascism no
longer relevant to “normal” people older than 35?
The white middle class? I’ll give ya the benefit of
the doubt that the advertising wasn’t splendid,
but we all knew about it, and 1 knew about it
from this very publication. Those of you who
were in Portland, even Oregon, 15 years ago saw
what happens when our city is overrun by skin­
heads. We are not safe if they come back in any
force and are allowed to gain confidence. Not the
GLBT, not the self-identified queer, not people of
color, not Jews, not any of us. They don’t tell you
who they are, and our city is already teeming
Just a quick note to express my thanks for your
frank sharing of your thoughts on race, racism and
all the work we, all of us, still have to do [“What’s
in a Name?” Oct. 5J.
Regarding the street name, when my husband
and 1 moved to San Francisco in ’97, the only
apartment we could find happened to be on César
Chavez Street. It was not always called that. It used
to be called Army Street. In fact, we arrived short­
ly after the name change, after all the street signs
had been changed but before the Thomas Guide
and freeway off-ramp signs were. 1 had to know to
get off at the Army Street exit to get to César
Chávez and home.
From what I could gather, the name change and
the discussion that surrounded the name change
were contentious and painful. Having recently
arrived, I did not hear that discussion, but 1 could
sort of feel the aftermath and the lingering resent­
ment. Being a newcomer, I did not feel any kind of
ownership of any particular name, so I had no bias
upon arrival.
1 must say, however, that I began to like living
on César Chávez Street. It is so much better, from
my political perspective, than Army Street. Every
time I wrote César Chávez Street on the return
address corner of an envelope, I was glad 1 was
reminded of—and was reminding others of—the
proud history of resistance to oppression that
Chávez represents. He is a great hero to working
people, to working families, to “brown” immigrants
who toil for the American dream (I am descended
of such) and specifically to Latino communities
who are part of our communities. 1 would hope that
our Latino brothers and sisters would support
naming a street after a queer hero or heroine in
celebration not only of brave leadership but also of
ideals of fairness and equality. I, for one, am very
willing to celebrate the bravery and decency of
a man like Chávez, a symbol of goodness and hope
for my own community.
“Interstate” is a nice enough name for a street,
but “César Chávez” is downright poetic. To label
our thoroughfares “Martin Luther King” and “César
Chávez” is to live with daily reminders of our high­
est hopes and dreams for our society. These names
signify our willingness to stay open to growth and
change, to embrace our differences, to remember
others’ oppression and to remember that their fight
is our own.
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