Eugene weekly., May 19, 2011, Image 6

letters
TO THE EDITOR
will and actually can recover salmon,
restore habitat, enhance communities and
gives back more than we take.
Sheena Moore
Eugene
HEROIN HILL
To the woman who said how heartless
it was to remove an illegal camp under
the Franklin Bridge: Our neighborhood
had a camp in an undeveloped property
between Moon Mountain and Augusta.
The landowner was made to clean it up
and fi lled a industrial dumpster with
massive mounds of feces, hypodermic
needles, stolen property such as a dozen
bikes being stripped down to sell, a burned
and stripped stolen car, lawnmowers,
patio furniture, a moped, potted trees and
plants, tools, cell phones, a wheelchair
and just about anything else that could
be stolen. Several of the campers had
warrants out for their arrest. A new
housing development nearby had 24-hour
security guards to prevent copper pipes
from being stolen.
After the camp was cleared out they
relocated blocks away to the I-5 Glenwood
exit area by the cemetery, referred to as
“Heroin Hill.” More than once the police
have gone up to take away dead, overdosed
people. Some of the evicted campers went
to camp under Franklin Boulevard and on
county land behind the Shell gas station
at the Glenwood exit. The sheriff’s offi ce
said they won’t go up there unless a crime
was being committed at the time.
The stealing continues in our neighbor-
hood around 4 to 5 am. In the morning
they head to the pawnshops in Glenwood.
We know that people have found some of
their items there the following morning.
Four bikes, a license plate and a big moped
were stolen in broad daylight in one small
cul-de-sac.
Mark Alaniz
Eugene
SPIRITS BUOYED
On April 16, a very soggy Saturday, a
number of us gathered at the Free Speech
Plaza in Eugene for our “I’d Rather Pay for
Peace than War” and “Fashion Resistance
to Militarism” event. We pitched canopies,
set up our casket replete with names
of corporations that profi t from arms
production, and undeterred by the rain,
bravely paraded through Saturday Market
and Farmers Market. We were led by
mourners for the wars and war expenses
that continue, followed by some in Fashion
Resistance to Militarism costumes, signs
and fl ags. We chanted, “We’d rather pay
for schools! We’d rather pay for farmers!”
down by the riverside
BY MARK HARRIS
Who’s the Target?
The Klan’s influence can still be felt
L
aura Archera Huxley, musician, psychologist, fi lmmaker, wife of Aldous
Huxley, once wrote a book fi rst published in the 1960s called You Are Not
The Target. In it, she counsels that one should not feel overly defensive
at the actions of others, because many people are really too concerned or
preoccupied with their own problems to be concerned with you. When they
do seem to strike out at you personally, it might not really be about you but
about what you represent, or who you remind them of. If you are targeted by an
institution, it may be about what you represent in terms of a truth the institution
doesn’t want revealed, but is in fact obvious — if not obvious to the mainstream,
at least to those who receive the brunt of the mainstream institution’s violence.
I try to remember this when asked to speak or act for others whose voices
are silenced. When revealing facts certain institutions don’t want revealed I try
not to be quixotic when lifting up Klan hoods using my pen (allegedly mightier
than the burning cross/sword). I expect that reactions will ensue. I try not to be
a stationary target.
One of the challenges is doing nothing, except to continue with a thankless task.
Thanks are rare, the more common reaction: It is less risky to attack messengers
than to address unjust institutions whose uncomfortable truths are revealed. A
colleague informed me one of the tar-baby name-callers is now on the state ethics
board for therapists, which speaks more about the institution than the person. I
have degrees in a fi eld that I was raised by activists to be an activist in — a fi eld
that named my ancestors as mentally ill because they tried to escape slavery.
I question my sanity in choosing to live in a state that banned free African-
Americans. I’m Native living in a county named for an Indian fi ghter. I choose
to live in a city and larger community where nearly 90 years after the historic
publication of the Ku Klux Klan membership list, prominent community members
can infl uence institutions to continue to have no public mention, or display of
that list. Why? If the Klan actually did die in 1924, why not show how far we’ve
come since then? If the UO-employed Klansmen actually lost their infl uence,
why ban the son of the Portland Urban League founder from living on campus
in the ’50s because he was black? Why were crosses burnt on the lawn of the
sorority of the white woman he dated and eventually married if the Klan was
dead? De Norval Unthank graduated, designed many buildings, raised children
and has a street named after him.
The Klan’s infl uence has not died, but mutated — a fact well known to many
outside the mainstream, whether I write or not. I got bored with the silence. Act
on the message, don’t shoot the messenger. I’m not the target.
Mark Harris is an instructor and substance abuse prevention coordinator at LCC.
6 MAY 19, 2011 EUGENE WEEKLY
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