Street roots
9
Sept 30, 2011
WILLIAMS from page 8
bigger investments.
There needs to be more time (sentence) for
someone who sells a child or woman than for
selling drugs, and currently you do more time
for selling drugs than you do for selling children.
You can sell a drug once, and it’s out of your
hands. You can sell a woman a thousand times.
It’s slavery, and it needs to end. I’m really
disappointed with media coming back and saying
it’s not that serious of an issue. They can’t prove
it. Come work with the people I work with every
day. Have people call you in the middle of the
night, and say, “I’m standing on a comer, and
I’m trying to get away.” Then tell me it’s not
that big of a problem.
Most strip clubs don’t hire employees, they
hire contractors. They don’t get Social Security,
workers’ compensation, or any kind of medical
benefits. They go into the jobs, and they pay the
house. Women who have little kids are danc in g
or lingerie modeling. There is not enough
oversight of the business because they are
pulling 7th graders out of the dance clubs. It is
a business that takes advantage of people. We
need to create living wage jobs for young moms.
Are we creating this substandard industry for
poor women, mostly women of color? Once
again, we go back to equity and race. \
J.T.: Tell us about your organizing work around
environmental justice, specifically the Columbia
River Crossing.
J.W.: I started organizing around
environmental justice around 1994 as a hotel
worker when I was exposed to toxic chemicals. I
was on an organizing committee for about eight
years. We founded a union for parking lot
attendants downtown, it was called the Urban
Workers Union, and we affiliated it with
Teamsters Local 206.1 went on to become the
executive director of the Environmental Justice
Action Group. We worked on issues on health
disparities in transportation policy and how they
create disparate impacts. : ;
High levels o f asthma, emphazema, and
cancer clusters are in Northeast, especially
around where you have arterials. The 1-5
freeway was put in a low-income community of
color. It doesn’t run through Beaverton. IPs the
same all over the country. We have this freeway
Day in-Day Out
By Ted Heath
End of the month
Elongated lines
Shuffle... shuffle...
Something on bread
All the people passing by
Pretending I’m not there
I give a smile, say ,“Hi”
Silence... empty silence
Pony soldiers spot my backpack
You can’t stand here
You can’t sit there
No lying on your back
Do you have any drugs
Do you have any booze
Drug free zone
“Fuck” I just want to snooze
End of the month
Elongated lines
Shuffle... shuffle...
Something on bread
All the people
All the people
through our community, and we created this
situation where we have tons of traffic going
through our community. The emissions rise
1,500 feet they move over about two blocks and
then they drop. We have benzene, diesel
particulates in those areas.
I sat on the Bi-State Transportation Task
Force (appointed by then Governor Ted
Kulongoski to look at healthier regional
transportation issues), and we defeated the
expansion of the freeway. Then we moved on to
Dèlta to Lombard where we won a million dollar
community enhancement fund. I now live in an
apartment where they just put in the crosswalks
from the fund. And then, we went on to the
Columbia River Crossing. We were called into a
meeting and told not to expect the things that
we got before. We were told we weren’t going to
have these conversations about environmental
justice, and they eventually just got rid of the
environmental justice working group we had
created. We forced them to recreate it, and they
got this hand-selected group of people that knew
nothing about environmental justice.
Where do I stand on the CRC now? I don’t
think that that big fat bridge is going to be built
in the way they think it’s going to be built. We
don’t have the money to get it done.
J.T.: The Portland Plan is guiding our city into
building 2(hninute neighborhoods, places where
people can get around quickly and easily. What do
you see as being the big obstacles with fulfilling
that vision?
J.W.: There are parts of Portland that just
aren’t created that way, especially the folks that
ljve out there in “the numbers” near Gresham.
How do we make this happen for everybody? I
don’t know that we can.
So I guess one of the big things is we need to
learn to listen more. I can’t tell you what a
Russian community out in Southeast Portland
needs. This cookie-cutter 20-minute
neighborhood might not meet everybody’s
needs, and we’re only talking about thé people
that we talk to. Portland is æ very progressive
vortex. You have a lot of people engaged, but by
no stretch of the imagination do we have
everyone engaged, like people whose first
language isn’t English, low-income people and
the homeless population, etc.
When the Portland Plan was started, I was
asked how to engage with communities of color.
I said, go build a relationship with them. People
will have coffee with them, and then they leave
the city government Six months later someone
asks how to do this again. We’re not taught as
city planners to think about a long-term
relationship.
J.T.: What ideas do you have for increasing the
stock of affordable housing in Portland?
JW: The 30 percent set-aside for affordable
housing, it’s an arbitrary number. Say you live in
a community where 70 percent of your people
need affordable housing, and 20 percent need
homeless accommodations, and you’re saying,
well, I have a 30 percent set-aside. There’s no
way that’s going to meet the needs of the
people in your community. We’re going to have
to revisit the 30 percent set-aside.
J.T.: Do you have ideas for sustaining revenue
for housing and social services?
J.W.: Other than raising the tax bases
because we’re getting people more jobs. I think
when you’re talking about increasing revenue
it’s forming partnerships, and I think for
government that means letting go of the control
a little bit and working more closely with faith-
based organizations. It’s about utilizing partners
we haven’t utilized yet, finding other nonprofits
and really focusing on the faith-based ones. The
city would have to cross that line of what they
see as a separation of church and state.
chipped away and is threatened with elimination.
Do you have any thoughts on how to preserve the
Free Rail Zone?
J.W.: I think we just need to do i t I also
support the Bus Riders Unite! with OPAL,
which has taken the lead on getting transfers
elongated so people can pay one amount for
their trip and get back home. I think that
possibly TriMet might be pricing itself out
Every time there’s an increase, you’re
preventing the opportunity for people to pay. I
don’t think it’s working for them. Who’s getting
the $175 tickets on the MAX? People who can’t
afford the two dollars. You’re making these
investments in cursing your community rather
than blessing i t I don’t have the answer, but it
has to be different from what we’re currently
doing.
J.T.: The video on your campaign website, which
is very candid and harrowing, said your pimp was
a gang member. Pd like to get your thoughts on
Portland’s gang problem.
J.W.: My first husband was really violent, and
when I left him and came out to Portland I was
missing teeth, I had zero self-esteem. I was
looking for work, and a girl who I met lived with
me, and she was trying to stay sober. She had a
crack addiction, and she let her brother move in,
and he forced me into working 82nd. He and
I still don't think that we're responding to
the reasons of why these kids are becoming
gang members in the first place. Their basic
needs aren't being met, their spiritual needs
aren't being met, their fam ily needs aren't
being met. Like anybody, you go to where
yon feel there is a place where you belong.
Even if it's not healthy. Even if it's
dysfunctional.
about 10 other gang members raped me, and I
was officially a gang member, and forced me to
walk 82nd every night
When I sit at the government level, and I
listen to people talk about gangs, I think we’re
getting to a deeper level, but I still don’t think
that we’re responding to the reasons of why
these kids are becoming gang members in the
first place. Their basic needs aren’t being m et
their spiritual needs aren’t being met, their
family needs aren’t being met. Like anybody, you
go to where you feel there is a place where you
belong. Even if it’s not healthy. Even if it’s
dysfunctional.
Many have grown up watching a ton of
violence and sexual violence on TV and think
the world is this way. And how am I going to get
ahead? I’m going to gang up with other people
so we have some sort of power in this world
that’s gone crazy for self protection. And then
you glamorize it in the media.
One thing is, if you have a City Council that
does not look like you, where is your hope? If
you have people making decisions about your
life in a forced way who don’t look like you, if
you don’t have anybody who’s never had your
experience, but is making decisions about your
life, where is your hope? That’s why you get into
gangs.
I kept my kids out of gangs. I have three in
their 20s. That doesn’t mean they weren’t
touched by a gang; that doesn’t mean they don’t
know gang members. They look at gang life
much differently than society.
Have we created a society of children that is
so numb that killing someone is like putting
gum in your mouth? Historically, minority
communities have grown up with so little
opportunity that the hope is gone. Sam’s mind
is not on that; Saltzman’s mind is not on th at
J.T.: Public transportation is getting more
expensive. The free zone downtown is getting
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