BY CAMILLA MORTENSEN
• The nonprofit Community Veterinary
Center on Hwy 99 in Eugene provides low-cost
veterinary services for 1,500 animals each year
whose families are low-income. The clinic, which
opened in 2012, mainly focuses on animals in
Lane County. CVC has a special capital campaign
to raise money to add a sterile surgery because
currently clients needing such surgery are sent
to private veterinarians, and CVC must then raise
additional money to help its clients with that. CVC
has raised $10,000 of a $62,000 goal — $33,000
for the building addition, $12,000 for surgical
equipment and $17,000 to upgrade its film x-ray
to digital. To donate, go to communityvet.org or
send a check to Community Veterinary Center,
470 Highway 99, Eugene 97402.
• There will be a “Good Bye July” benefit for
White Bird Clinic and CAHOOTS 6 to 10 pm
Saturday, July 30, at Kesey Square. Organizers
say, “Celebrate our unique community space
and one of Eugene’s most important community
resources.” The event features music by Steel
Wool,
Gumbo
Groove
and
Mhofela with Musekiwa Chingdoza, plus
busking at 5 pm by Cardboard Carnival for early
arrivals. Voodoo Doughnut is making a White Bird
Doughnut and the CAHOOTS van will be on site.
The event is FREE but donations are accepted.
• Eugene Sunday Streets, which the city
says promotes “healthy, active living by
opening the city’s largest public space — its
streets — for people to walk, bike and roll
to discover active transportation in a safe, car-
free environment” is noon to 4 pm, Sunday, July
31 in downtown Eugene. The route runs down
Broadway from Monroe Park to Kesey Square
and the Park Blocks. The free gathering will
feature a Beautiful Bikes pageant and more. Go to
eugenesundaystreets.org for more information.
• Corvallis is in the direct path of next year’s
total solar eclipse, which will take place around
10 am Aug. 21, 2017. Eugene will experience a
partial but not full eclipse, according to Oregon
State University. There will be town hall 6 to 8 pm
August 3 to educate the community on the
MegaMovie project documenting the eclipse in
the International Living-Learning Center, Room
155, 1701 S.W. Western Blvd., at OSU. A team
from the Space Sciences Laboratory at the
University of California-Berkeley is hosting the
“Eclipse Across America Awareness Tour” to bring
together civil leaders, business owners,
scientists and other community members to
take photos during the eclipse and submit them
to stitch them together into the MegaMovie,
which is sponsored by Google’s new Making &
Science initiative.
LANE COUNTY AREA
SPRAY SCHEDULE
Oregon Department of Transportation is
spraying roadsides. Call 503-986-3010 to talk
with a vegetation management coordinator or
call 1-888-996-8080 for recent herbicide
application information. Hwys. I-5, 36, 105 and
126 were recently sprayed.
Weyerhaeuser Company, 541-744-4600,
plans to ground spray 440.1 acres in nine areas
north of Lorane and southeast of Lorane with
imazapyr, triclopyr, Foam Buster, Crosshair,
Hi-Light Blue, Insist 90, Liberate and/or MSO
Concentrate to kill competing vegetation. See
ODF notification 2016-781-09129 and call the
Veneta office of ODF at 541-935-2283 with
questions.
Compiled by Gary Hale, Forestland Dwellers: 541-342-
8332, forestlanddwellers.org
8
July 28, 2016 • eugeneweekly.com
CONTROVERSY OVER ALLEGED RACISM
CANCELS FESTIVAL OF EUGENE
“P
eople are comfortable with racism here,” Jamie
Clark tells EW. Clark moved to Eugene from
Texas in part to escape racism and now finds
herself in the middle of a firestorm after a rac-
ist Facebook comment attributed to Festival of
Eugene organizer Krysta Albert made the rounds on social me-
dia.
The Festival of Eugene, which came into being after longtime
staple the Eugene Celebration was canceled by Kesey Enterpris-
es in 2014, is now also canceled in the wake of social media re-
action. This is something that Clark points out was not of her do-
ing, but she says she is being blamed for it. “It’s hard to go in and
to be the person who closed down the Eugene festival,” she says.
The incident kicked off when Clark, who is of mixed race,
including black, commented on a July 20 Facebook post by her
friend Nancy Berge. Both Clark and Berge work with autistic
individuals, Clark says. In response
to a meme Berge posted calling for
girls to do things like, “Stop saying
‘Sorry,’ and start saying ‘Don’t in-
terrupt me,’” Clark wrote, “Thank
you for represen[ting] ALL women
and not just the females that present
right and play well at respectability
politics.”
Clark says her comment wasn’t
related to race but that Albert took it
that way on the thread. A discussion
ensued and according to a screenshot
captured by others on the thread, Al-
bert wrote, “U r exactly why we call
u people niggers.”
Clark says she didn’t know Al-
bert or know she was the Festival
of Eugene organizer. Albert blocked
her on Facebook before Clark could
report the hate speech. Clark, who re-
sponded to the remark with the meme
“Stay black and remain proud,” was
not the one who took a picture of the
exchange.
By the next day the screen cap-
ture was making the rounds on social
media, and Festival sponsors were
calling for a response or posting on
the Festival Facebook page that they
were withdrawing their sponsorship.
Clark says “White voices were am-
plified” and people called for reso-
lution for the sponsors, who were
embarrassed at being associated with
racism, rather than calling out the
racism itself.
Media outlets contacted Albert
for comment, but not Clark, the tar-
get of the racist remark.
In an email to EW about the incident, Albert writes of the rac-
ist post, “Suffice to say these allegations are untrue.”
Albert adds, “The Festival of Eugene, ran by a dedicated
team of volunteers, does not in the past, present nor future dis-
criminate against anyone for any reason; neither race, color,
creed, national origin, religious, sexual preference or orientation
or political. Nor has it participated in racism, bigotry or any other
type of discrimination or hate. The Festival is about celebrat-
ing diversity, social tolerance and inclusion of all. For those who
have participated in this event in years past know this to be true.”
Albert says in the email that recent posts are “under review”
by Facebook. In other posts she has written her account was
hacked, the screen capture was Photoshopped or that someone
else used her account.
Many of those on social media said they were aware of past
racist remarks or pointed to her support of presidential candidate
Donald Trump as an example of racist tendencies. Back in De-
cember, after Natriana Shorter, who is African-American, won
the crown for Miss Oregon, Albert commented on a KEZI news
story that, “I know this is going to sound racist and it’s not my
intention. But I can’t help but think it’s awfully strange that a
woman of color would represent [the] state of Oregon. The state
that has one of the smallest amount of minorities of any race
compared to other states. And yes, she is very beautiful.”
Kelly Asay, the publisher of the
website Eugene Daily News, posted
in Albert’s defense, calling her “a
friend to Eugene” and that she would
never condone or engage in “this
type of hateful behavior.”
Clark says, “Nobody uses the n-
word in public as a first-time racist.”
By July 22, the Festival of Eugene
— JAMIE CLARK
was canceled. Its Facebook presence
and website were soon deleted. An
email from the Festival of Eugene
account reads, “Racism cannot be
tolerated. The 2016 Festival of Eu-
gene is canceled. Our sincere apolo-
gies for those hurt and affected.”
Clark says that email “wasn’t
a direct apology,” nor was it an ac-
knowledgment, calling it “PR spin.”
She says the comment smacks of put-
ting public relations concerns before
“your good karma and your soul” in
the face of a serious human rights er-
ror.
Clark says she sees people in Or-
egon who are comfortable express-
ing racism and people around them
who don’t call them on it. She says
she sees people openly expressing af-
filiation with the National Alliance, a
white separatist organization, and a
man who drives around Eugene and
Springfield with “diversity is white
genocide” on his truck.
When asked what white allies
could do to prevent or respond to rac-
ist situations, Clark says to call out
friends on things, not let micro-ag-
gressions slide and not wait for rac-
ism to directly affect you before you
stand up. “Be vocal on the little things that are not little things.”
According to a 2015 Fortune magazine article, black women
are the fastest growing group of entrepreneurs and Clark, who
is a health care administrator, says that’s something this area
doesn’t want to miss out on, culturally and financially.
As EW goes to press, KVAL news is reporting Albert’s ac-
count was “compromised,” but Facebook has not responded to
a request for comment.
‘Nobody uses the
n-word in public as a
first-time racist.’