Eugene weekly., January 20, 2005, Page 4, Image 4

TO THE EDITOR
JUS’ CAIN’T WIN
RACE INDUSTRY
Me and a couple of old cowpokes was set-
tin’ around the pickle barrel down at the
Horsehead, with me tryin’ to figure out how
to drum up some bidness. Feller from Eugene
Weekly sold me some ad space, but that don’t
seem to work none neither. Maybe startin’ up
a John Birch Society branch for Tuesday
evening meetings might help. Don’t know,
but I gots to find me some way of payin’ off
these bills.
So I looks up and this here tour bus is
pullin’ up. Bunch of rednecks come tumblin’
out. Dressed kind of funny with these white
sheets and hoods on, but they had them plenty
of cash money. So I go out to be neighborly.
“Say, where y’all from?”
“Pulaski, Tennessee,” says one. “We seen
a article by some Jerry Harris guy on the
Internet (12/30). Said the Horsehead was the
place to be.”
“Internet? That some newfangled way of
runnin’ trot lines for catchin’ catfish?”
He shrugged.
“Just set up some Rebel Yell. No ice.”
So we got to drinkin’. Till after a while
one of them starts fussin’.
“Hey, what’s with that queer bartender
there?”
“And that Samoan guy checkin’ the IDs?”
says another.
“Ease up, boys. That Injun gal behind the
bar there’s half Polack.”
Durn, if the head redneck don’t stare
straight at me.
“That’s still Catholic or Jew, you
know.”
Dadgummit! I just can’t seems to win for
nothin’.
Tom Tracey
Eugene
The principle reasons that a “diversity or
race industry” exists at all in this country are
500 years of native genocide, easily 300
years of slavery followed by 100 years of
legal segregation, which only legally ended
in 1965, but is still practiced covertly because
it is profitable to discriminate. All of this pre-
ceded by millennia of sexism and easily cen-
turies of heterosexism in some quarters.
Professionally my largely volunteer work in
this state has been exclusively in promoting
the recovery of culture, sobriety, and promot-
ing healthy non-addictive living.
I’ve participated in school district, com-
munity, county, and state task forces on
gangs, racial justice, prevention coalitions,
disproportionate minority confinement, as
well as the Police Department’s Citizens
Academy.
In 20 years in Oregon I’ve received less
than $5,000 for in-state diversity work — why
take money from people who won’t listen to
you for free? I got into diversity work because
of health disparities in the local, state, and na-
tional substance abuse industries.
Jerry Harris (letters, 1/6) inaccurately cast
me with Jesse Jackson, though I do share his
contempt for the current civil rights establish-
ment. More accurately I am down with the
public health gang of Jocelyn Elders and
David Satcher. Health disparities are real —
they are scientifically and medically docu-
mented along lines of class, race, sex, and
even perceived sexuality. I don’t apologize
for working for health equity. It’s easier to
talk smack than stop smack. I’d just ask my
critics: “How many people are alive because
of what you did today?”
Mark Harris
Eugene
NO TO FLUFF
In reply to the (1/6) article “Hardest
Working DJ”: Dear local DJs, With all re-
spect to hip hop, dance hall and reggae music
and its uprising, let’s talk about under-repre-
sentation. We have listened regularly to this
town’s hip hop DJ spin sessions and although
we appreciate that they bring any musical
flavas to this town at all, real hip hop and reg-
gae get crowded out by the MTV-Top-40-
KDUK crap every time.
Among the underrepresented remain:
Wyclef Jean (How is a DJ from Jersey play-
ing no Wyclef or Fugees or Missy Elliott?)
Common, Blackalicious (you don’t think
people would dance to this?), Talib Kweli,
Shelley Thunder, Sister Carol, Tippa Irie and
Half Pint.
We need more Mos Def please, and even
the most recent Beastie Boys album bumps
and you don’t play it! We’ve heard Sean Paul
represented at least 116,000 times and
Beyonce gets enough airplay on KDUK!
Turn your UO clientele requesting the top 40
Milkshake songs on to what you know is bet-
ter! See who else might show up.
Why do we have to go to Portland for hip
hop? And if you really want to hit people with
BY SANDY JENSEN
Turning Pages
Together
It’s nearly time for Readin’ in the Rain.
R
ip-roarin’ Readin’ in the Rain is back to buck the February blues with another
book for the whole gang to pore over together. Popular Portland novelist Molly
Gloss scored a slew of awards for The Jump-Off Creek because there’s not a
thinking, breathing soul amongst us who can’t relate to lead lady Lydia’s quest for self-
sufficiency against the Oregon odds.
You think we have fragmented community? Lydia Sanderson’s closest neighbors
were a couple of crusty cowboys a mile away, and it was a full day’s ride to visit the near-
est female neighbor. You can live right next door to someone in Eugene and have the
same feeling of isolation, but you gotta ask yerself: If you and your neighbor had both
read the same book, say, The Jump-Off Creek, might you not have a mite more to say to
each other? And having talked once about something other than “Wasn’t this recycling
day?” can a sense of local community be far behind?
This is the thinking of the Readin’ in the Rain folk who brought you Ken Kesey’s
Sometimes a Great Notion in Feb. 2002 as healing antidote to the suck-in-a-deep-breath
days of 9/11. “When it’s Rainin’, it’s Siporin” followed that in 2003, showcasing local NPR
reporter-turned kick-butt novelist Alan Siporin and his Fire’s Edge; then the mega-watt,
high-profile Ursula K. Le Guin in 2004 with her book and film, The Lathe of Heaven.
Molly Gloss stands on the shoulders of these giants, but the view is great: a whole
month of events constellating around the RIR theme of “Celebrating Frontier Oregon.”
RIR began as a Eugene neighborhood event and exploded to fire the entire metro
area with readin’ fever. February 2005 is comin’ atcha full steam with what are always
the major features of One Book festivals: a book reading and signing with a major au-
4 JANUARY 20 2005
thor — Molly Gloss for us — and a series of free programs. Everyone
is invited to participate by reading The Jump-Off Creek, joining in a
book group discussion and attending the programs.
M
olly herself, of course, is very, very cool. In a recent inter-
view, she said that whenever she felt the reader was antici-
pating a traditional genre scene, she made efforts to give
the rug of preconception “a good hard yank.” There’s an ice-storm scene, a marauding-
bear scene, a bar-room brawl, a shoot-out, and nary a one re-run of “Gunsmoke.”
Instead, we have what one woman had to do to survive, and the more we read, the more
familiar it feels. One hundred and ten years ago sounds like a big number, but our his-
tory is only a heartbeat behind us; there’s still plenty to learn about where we’ve been,
how we got here, and who we are now.
Addressing some of that history will be UO History professor Jeffrey Ostler’s job,
who will give a big-picture perspective on westward expansion along the Oregon Trail at
7 pm Feb. 8, at the Knight Library. “Two-Way Seeing: Pioneers and Native Oregonians”
will be a storytelling performance at 2 pm Feb. 12 at Eugene Public Library, with
Kalapuya elder Esther Stutzman and Shannon Applegate, historian of the famous
Applegate pioneer family. At 7 pm Feb. 22 at the Springfield Public Library, we hear from
Susan Butruille through journal readings and song about “Women and Freedom in the
Pioneer West.” There’s an Umbrella Opening with an insightful lecture by guest scholar
— moi — on Feb. 1, and Molly will be in town at 7 pm Feb. 18 at the First United Methodist
Church for a reading and discussion. Still hungry? visit www.rain-read.org
Readin’ in the Rain is February’s version of the Eugene Celebration, events that every
year bring us together. It’s organized and sponsored by a consortium of bookstores, li-
braries, businesses, and book-lovers, so thanks to them, we can enrich our souls.
Welcome to February: Read in the rain, enjoy your brain.
Local writer and Road Scholar Sandy Jensen specializes in teaching Women Writers of the West. You can reach her at
sajensen@linfield.edu