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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 21, 2012)
Street roots Dec. 21, 2012 These are deeply rooted emotional and psychological [pause] infections that have us look at the world in certain ways. To rid ourselves of these we need to talk. We need to think, and we need to do high levels of introspection. So I think we are ahead of the game in some things, but we still haven’t learned yet what to do about application of the theory we hold. A lifetime in pursuit of equality J. T.: You sa id that the dialogue does not direct itself to solutions. W hat k in d o f solutions do we need a n d what kin d o f problems would they address? Kathleen Saadat reflects on her career as the city ’s equity chief and the solutions yet within our reach K. S.: [Sighs] Solutions have to do with changing the systems in which we operate. So that means you need to look at those systems on several levels. Look at the history, look at the policies, look at the procedures, look at the people. If you can find within those things barriers to equity, barriers to equal treatment, then that’s where you focus your efforts to change. You can move a policy. You can rewrite a policy. You can say it blocks, for instance, people from disabilities from getting through your hallways, then you change it. But there’s a piece that we don’t touch very well, and that’s the personal piece. That’s the piece that requires me to do introspection. That’s the piece that requires that I do some sort of acceptance of the reality of the history of this country as it has treated people of color and women as it has treated the mentally ill and the physically disabled. There is a history there that we refuse to acknowledge because we absolve ourselves of any responsibility. Now I’m not saying that people are responsible for the past, but they benefit from it or they suffer from it. And that’s a conversation that we don’t have very well, the one that requires us to look at ourselves and see what our role is in all this. BY JAKE THOMAS STAFF WRITER n Dec. 10, Kathleen Saadat accepted the Lifetime Achievement from the Portland Human Rights Commission. The award comes as Saadat, 72, prepares to retire from her position as diversity development/affirmative action manager for the city of Portland. Saadat has long been a presence in Oregon working to advance equality and social justice. Originally born in St. Louis, Saadat passed through Oregon on a trip to Anchorage, Alaska, in the late 1960s to visit her brother who was stationed there in the military. She fell in love with the beauty of the area and moved to Portland in 1970. She has occupied a litany of positions during her career, bfte Cascade AIDS Project, served as the state stigma. That means more of us need to be director of affirmative action, was an talking about it with our friends about what assistant to Portland City Commissioner we think we could do. People need to get Gretchen Kafoury and strategic plan tested, too. coordinator for Multnomah County’s Department of Community and Family J. T.: What did you mean by the politics o f Services. She has also served on Portland’s Human Rights Commission, and has sat on a sexual behavior? range of boards and committees. K. S.: Well, sex is a big political issue in Saadat also helped organize Portland’s this country. I mean just look at the past first gay rights march and was active in election and all this stuff around women and opposing Measure 9, an anti-gay ballot whether or not we should have trans-vaginal initiative that was voted down in 1992. ultrasounds. Gender and sex are all through everything, and it’s a struggle when you are Jake Thom as: You’ve worked with laboring under stereotypes about your Cascade A id s Project. You’ve been working on sexual behavior, and then something the issue o f A I D S fo r a long time. What are we touches you like AIDS or HIV and the getting right and what still needs im proving? stereotype is exploited to your disadvantage. So if you’re seen as promiscuous, as gay K athleen Saadat: The thing that needs men are, period, then that stereotype comes to happen, from my perspective, to more to haunt you when you begin to talk about effectively address AIDS is to give better remedies for HIV and AIDS. If you’re seen sex education starting with children. It isn’t as oversexed, as many African American just about AIDS. AIDS is a sexually men are, then that stereotype begins to transmitted disease, but we don’t protect haunt you when you begin to talk about our children by letting them know about education and preventative measures in the sex, sexuality, sexual behavior, the African American community. consequences of their sexual behavior and the politics of their sexual behavior. So we J.T.: Portland’s demographics have changed need to start there. We need to remove the O considerably over the last two decades. D o you think Portland, as a city a n d culture, has a good grasp on how to celebrate or even engage that diversity? K.S.: No. But I don’t think they’re the worst on the block. I think Portland works hard at trying to celebrate, embrace and live with diversity. Portland is certainly ahead of a lot of places, in that we have lots of conversations going on here about diversity and the impact of racism and the impact of sexism. There’s lots going on here, which means there’s an opportunity for dialogue. You can go to McMenamins once a month and listen to Race Talks, which is the program that McMenamins support. You can go almost anywhere in this city and find somebody talking about lesbian and gay issues or women’s issues or older people’s issues. The problem is not the dialogue. The dialogue is good. The dialogue frequently does not point toward some action that will remedy the situation. That is one of the problems. The other problem is people tend to think that these issues are simplistic: that all one has to do is raise your hand shout, let it be done, and it’s done. It’s not true. J. T.: You served on the city’s H um an Relations Committee. In retrospect, do you think it helped? K. S.: Yes. Yes. It was a place that was willing, where the people were courageous enough to say, let’s look at immigration, or, let’s have a hard look at how our local government is interacting with the federal government with these immigration cases. It was courageous; it was public. It would say, let’s have a look at what’s going on with the police here in Portland. So, yes, I think they’re an incredibly important as a voice that reminds us of the direction we say we want to go and that holds us accountable by ensuring that people who ordinarily wouldn’t be heard are heard. J. T.: Affirm ative action has become a loaded term over the years. What does it mean to yo u ? K. S.: Affirmative action is a tool. It’s a tool that was introduced as a remedy to past discrimination and the impact of past discrimination. The people who have been resistant to equalize things have often made See SA A D A T page 5 Street Roots is a proud partner with Jesuit Volunteer Corps Northwest and Americorps.
