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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (March 22, 2007)
• Racial slurs and insults directed at black athletes and visitors from Portland’s Roosevelt High School are drawing a lot of press, but not much attention is being directed at Oregon and Eugene’s long history of racial discrimination (see News Briefs this week). A strong community response to such incidents is a good step toward overcoming our shadowed past. We cannot outlaw ignorance and hate, but we can certainly confront bigotry when we find it at the dinner table, on the school yard, in the workplace, at sporting events, in churches, on the streets — wherever we go. Bigotry is learned behavior, and it can be unlearned, or at least silenced, through social pressure and education. What hope can we have for finally eradicating overt and covert racial discrimination? Hope lies with future genera- tions, so it’s disturbing to hear young people today parroting the hatred of their parents and grandparents. It’s up to each of us to break the cycle. • Lane County at its best last weekend — big peace march in downtown Eugene and the annual daffodil festival outside Junction City. EW went to both. While the demonstration against the endless war is covered elsewhere in this issue, we also want to report that cars lined up on Ferguson Road for the sun-drenched festival at the Long Tom Grange. Crowds came to see antique cars, the petting zoo, arts and crafts booths, dazzling quilts and daffodils of all shades, sizes and smells. The daffs sold by the armload. Another hot item was the cinnamon roll, so big it was beyond calories, traditionally made by the women of the Grange. Maybe most interesting was the booth of famous men autographing their respective months in the celebrated calendar of the Long Tom Grange. The signers were all fully clothed. • Dan Savage got a warm welcome during the less than 24 hours he spent in Eugene last week, and we appreciate all the people who enthusiastically jumped in to make the arrangements and fill the WOW Hall for one of the liveliest and most memorable events we’ve seen all year. And of course we are grateful to Savage for volunteering to fly down from Seattle to defend EW and his column from critics. Where were the critics? We didn’t hear one disparaging word all evening, which is a shame. Savage is happy to talk to those with different viewpoints. So, is his col- umn corrupting youth with sex talk? Savage says younger children aren’t interest- ed in any newspaper content, but when kids reach adolescence, they need to learn all about sex in terms and language they can relate to. Meanwhile, when it comes to blatant, in-your-face sexual content, it looks like EW is falling behind the compe- tition. Earlier this month the R-G ran a 16-page glossy ad insert from J.C. Penny full of women in skimpy underwear. Didn’t see it? Check under the mattress in your teenager’s bedroom. KEZI-TV recently broadcast ABC’s hour-long, prime-time Victoria’s Secret fashion show. Cosmopolitan magazine online now offers readers an interactive, illustrated “sex position of the week.” • Honk for peace on Mondays? We hear a Eugene group is preparing to go public with a national, maybe even international, campaign to help end the war in Iraq using car horns and bicycle bells. The as-yet unnamed organizers sent an email to EW this week saying they were inspired by the “honk for peace” signs at the March 16 protests downtown, which received plenty of response. The campaign is called Monday Out of Iraq Honk, and uges people to make a short ruckus at noon every Monday (except near hospitals) until the occupation of Iraq ends. The group is calling itself World Live in Peace and hopes to have a website soon. WHO YOU GONNA BLAME? • Ernie Kent sounded like a coach angling for a new job when he told a sports- caster on national TV after the Oregon-Winthrop win that his Ducks will do well against UNLV if they do what they’re coached to do. Subtle, maybe, but Kent usually is more generous to his talented players than to the brilliant coaching in his post-game interviews. Both The Oregonian and R-G sportswriters offer some version of the story that Ernie has an agent, likes the University of Michigan head coach opening and points to his successful Detroit recruiting as a draw. (Google the Detroit Free Press for more of this story.) Ironic that a rugged ride to the “sweet 16” should end in a job search, but there’s persistent chatter on the street that Phil and Penny Knight are holding back their bucks for a new Mac Court until Kent leaves. Sportswriters fuel the speculation with ink about the link between UO’s new AD and Mark Few, Gonzaga’s super coach with Oregon roots. So where does this all take us? Back to the NCAA tourney couch on Friday night to cheer the Ducks — and their job-hunting coach. EDITORIAL Editor Ted Taylor News Editor Alan Pittman Reporter Camilla Mortensen Arts & Music Editor Molly Templeton Performing & Visual Arts/Copy Editor Suzi Steffen Calendar Editor Chuck Adams Contributing Editor Anita Johnson Contributing Writers Jason Blair, Jes Burns, Martha Calhoon, Brett Campbell, Rachael Carnes, Michael Cockram, David Constantin, John Dooley, Rachel Foster, James Johnston, Sarah Mazze, Sharleen Nelson, Mary O’Brien, Aaron Ragan-Fore, Vanessa Salvia, Steven Sawada, Sally Sheklow, Lance Sparks, Eva Sylwester, Adrienne van der Valk Interns Amanda Burhop, Nicole Fancher BUSINESS Director of Sales and Marketing Bill Shreve ART DEPARTMENT (personals): personals@eugeneweekly.com Art Director/Production Manager Kevin Dougherty Graphic Artist/Webmaster James Bateman Graphic Artists Todd Cooper, Barbara Cooper Contributing Photographers Kurt Jensen, Paul Neevel ADVERTISING National Sales Manager Mark Frisbee Display Marketing Consultant Jennifer Donohue, Nate Krusi, Rob Weiss Advertising Traffic Coordinator Drew “Rockstar” Harrison Classified Manager Jennifer Donohue Classified Marketing Consultant Janus Brezsny, Aspen Rosen Circulation Manager Danica Stiles Controller Paula Hoemann Distributors Bob Becker, Matt Bryson, Margaret Garrison, Tobin Herrera, Susan and David Lawson, Tim Risch, Quick Draw, Pedalers Express Printing Signature Graphics HOW TO REACH US BY E-MAIL: (letters): editor@eugeneweekly.com (advertising): ads@eugeneweekly.com (classifieds): classy@eugeneweekly.com (calendar): cal@eugeneweekly.com (music/clubs/special shows): music@eugeneweekly.com (art/openings/galleries): visualarts@eugeneweekly.com (performance/theater): performance@eugeneweekly.com (literary arts/readings): books@eugeneweekly.com (movies/film screenings): movies@eugeneweekly.com (circulation): distribution@eugeneweekly.com Eugene Weekly • 1251 Lincoln Street • Eugene, OR 97401 • 541.484.0519 • fax 541-484-4044 8 MARCH 22, 2007 news briefs RACISM COMPLAINTS Complaints about racism from Portland black students visiting Eugene for a high school basketball tournament surprised many in Eugene. But many others were not so sur- prised. Eugene is one of the whitest, least diverse cities in the nation, according to the latest U.S. Census. Among the nation’s 249 largest cities, Eugene is the 18th whitest. In Eugene, 88 percent of residents are entirely white. About 92 percent say they’re white or at least part white. Only 1 percent of Eugene’s popu- lation is black. The vast majority of people in Eugene have little contact with African Americans in their neighborhoods. No Eugene census tract is more than 2.5 percent black. A section of Bethel between the railroad tracks and Crocker Road has 4,059 residents; only 12 identified as black. In south Eugene between Willamette Street and Lorane Highway, seven blacks live among a population of 2,053. In all of the new neighborhoods out- side Belt Line stretching from West 11th around to I-5, there are almost 29,000 resi- dents, but only 228 are African American. Nor are young Eugeneans likely to meet many minorities in their formative school years. The district has known for three decades that Eugene’s system of alternative school choice results in segregated browner and poorer neighborhood elementary schools but hasn’t taken major action to solve the problem. The city’s high schools are more evenly mixed. South Eugene High School is 23 per- cent minority, North 29 percent, Churchill 22 percent and Sheldon 23 percent, according to the latest comparative data. Roosevelt High School in Portland, where the racism com- plaints came from, has 58 percent non-white students. Complaints that the city racially profiles minorities also date back three decades with- out significant reform. An EPD study showed that Eugene cops stop black drivers at a rate 2.3 times higher than white drivers and search them at a 37 percent higher rate. — Alan Pittman THE BIG HULT GORILLA How do Eugeneans in the arts view the Hult Center? “It’s both the crown jewel and the entity that absorbs most of the resources available,” said Marc Goldring at a meeting on Monday, March 19. In a preliminary draft, Goldring’s firm WolfBrown (formerly Wolf, Keens & Co.), the consultant group hired by the city of Eugene to help create recommen- dations for the future of Eugene’s arts policy, laid out a plan for the future of the arts com- munities in Eugene, including a restructuring of the Hult Center that alarmed at least one of the Hult’s constituent groups. The Mayor’s Cultural Policy Review (CPR) committee met with the consultants from noon to 4:30 pm, and a public meeting began at 6:30 pm. Tina Rinaldi, mayor’s committee co- chair, opened by saying that Eugene’s partic- ipation in the cultural review process has im- pressed the consultants by being “far greater” than in any other city that has gone through the process. Indeed, Goldring said, the mayor’s committee ended by setting up an- other meeting to discuss the preliminary draft, which he called “emblematic of the way this community has engaged in the cul- tural policy review.” While the draft recommends some seem- ingly common sense changes such as ensur- ing coordination of K-12 arts education and cooperation among the city, the UO and LCC (“separate silos” of arts activities now, Goldring noted), one of the recommenda- tions includes “Conduct a thorough opera- tions audit of the Hult Center to develop a new operating model that will support the fa- cility’s mission in a financially stable way.”
