OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, APRIL 21, 2016
The danger of a single story
Founded in 1873
STEPHEN A. FORRESTER, Editor & Publisher
LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor
BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager
CARL EARL, Systems Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
HEATHER RAMSDELL, Circulation Manager
Ditching day care
would be a quake
Lil’ Sprouts partnership is essential
to parents and employers
much, but most studies
you have false allegiances.
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You must embrace the
That’s partly because most
approved story to show you
of the people who do seri-
Q 1LJHULDQ ZULWHU are not complicit in a sys-
ous crime are career crim-
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie tem of oppression.
Hillary Clinton is not
inals. Among inmates
gave a fabulous TED talk called naturally a single-story per-
released from state prison
³7KH'DQJHURID6LQJOH6WRU\´ son. But while she is con-
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ber of previous convictions
It was about what happens when trolling the delegate race
this
campaign,
Sanders
is
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complex human beings and situa-
controlling
the
conversa-
number of previous arrests
David
tions are reduced to a single narra-
tion and she is gradually
was greater than 10.
Brooks
tive: when Africans, for example, are coming around to his ver-
• Less aggressive
treated solely as pitiable poor, starv- sion of everything. For example, last policing means more crime. After
LQJYLFWLPVZLWKÀLHVRQWKHLUIDFHV week she came closer to embracing WKH UHOHDVH RI WKH KRUUL¿F /DTXDQ
Her point was that each individual a nationwide $15 minimum wage, McDonald video — which showed a
life contains a heterogeneous compi- though still with caveats.
Chicago cop killing him in cold blood
One true minimum wage story is ²WKHUHZDVDSHUFHQWGURSLQWKH
lation of stories. If you reduce peo-
ple to one, you’re taking away their that corporations are reaping record nonfatal shooting arrest rate and a 48
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humanity.
American politics has always of the unskilled. But another true rate. In the meantime, according to an
been prone to single storyism — can- story, embodied in the vast trove of analysis by Rob Arthur and Jeff Asher
didates reducing complex issues to research, is that if you raise the min- of FiveThirtyEight, nonfatal shoot-
simple fables. This year the problem imum wage too high, you end up ings rose 73 percent and homicides
punishing less skilled rose 48 percent.
is acute because Don-
workers. One study
ald Trump and Ber-
• While the overall system is
Every
found the modest hike steeped in structural racial inequality,
nie Sanders are the
in the national mini- parts of the system don’t seem that
giants of Single Story-
problem
mum wage between biased. As the criminologist Barry
ism. They reduce pretty
DQGUHGXFHG Latzer notes in his book “The Rise
can be
much all issues to the
employment among and Fall of Violent Crime in Amer-
same single story: the
solved by young people without LFD´ WKHUH LV QRW D ZLGH GLVSDULW\
alien invader story.
a high school degree between whites and blacks in time
Every problem can
finding
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served for various offenses.
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some corrupt or oppres-
• Moderate, bipartisan efforts
some
balance between those are reducing inequality. Decades
sive group to blame. If
corrupt or stories. Raising the ago, evangelicals like Chuck Col-
America is beset by
minimum wage to $15 son joined with a swath of progres-
wage stagnation it’s
not because of intricate oppressive may make sense in rich sives to reduce incarceration rates.
but in most of These efforts are having an effect.
structural problems. It’s
group to areas,
the country there will Total U.S. imprisonment has declined
because of the crimi-
be horrendous con- for the past seven years. The impris-
nal Mexicans sneaking
blame.
sequences for less- onment rate among black women has
across the border or it’s
because of this evil entity called “the VNLOOHGZRUNHUVWU\LQJWR¿QGMREV
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In the realm of criminal justice, the rate of imprisonment among
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Worse, the stories have become one true story is that America’s crim- ZKLWH ZRPHQ KDV ULVHQ SHUFHQW
identity markers. This is a phenome- inal justice system was constructed Male imprisonment trends are similar
non borrowed from campus political within a system of slavery and rac- though less striking.
correctness. In order to express your ism. It enables police brutality, often
As in life generally, every policy
solidarity with the virtuous team, of a racist sort. It has led to massive has the vices of its virtues. Aggressive
you have to embrace the socially over-incarceration, which has dev- policing cuts crime but increases bru-
approved story. If you differ from the astated individuals, families and tality. There is no escape from trade-
RI¿FLDOVWRU\²WKHZD\%LOO&OLQWRQ neighborhoods.
offs and tragic situations. The only
Yet there are other opposing sto- way forward is to elect people who
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crime story a few weeks ago — it is ries, also true:
are capable of holding opposing sto-
• Incarceration reduces crime. ries in their heads at the same time,
not so much a sign that you are wrong
(truth is not the issue). It is a sign that Experts disagree wildly on how and to reject those who can’t.
By DAVID BROOKS
New York Times News Service
I
t is understandable that city leaders would examine the
Astoria Parks and Recreation Department’s scope of
activities. For a town of 10,000, we enjoy a large inven-
tory of park land and facilities. Erick Bengel’s April 1
story outlined the discussions within the citizens advisory
committee that is tasked with evaluating the department’s
programs and resources.
Lil’ Sprouts, the child move the day care center
care program that the parks from the First Presbyterian
department operates within Church to Gray School,
Gray School is one of the where classrooms would
activities. As the commit- be remodeled for a new
tee and the City Council purpose. Within a year,
examine Lil’ Sprouts, it is the board of the nonprofit
essential to know the his- crumbled and the cen-
tory of how the city got ter desperately needed
involved with day care new management. Parks
management.
Manager J.P. Moss sug-
Some six years ago there gested that his department
was a crisis in Astoria day manage what was known
care when a budding non- as Lil’ Sprouts.
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Having a stable oper-
and needed a new home. A ator for a day care cen-
group of leaders convened at ter in a small rural town is
The Daily Astorian. They rep- rare. The city parks depart-
community
resented Clatsop Community ment’s role in Lil’ Sprouts Strong
was excited to attend a screening of
College, Columbia Memorial is part of a coalition that has
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cussion
afterward April 5 at the Lib-
Hospital, the U.S. Coast given the town’s parents
erty Theater. I was also excited to hear
Guard, the city of Astoria, and employers an essential of the organization Trauma Informed
the Astoria School District asset. This partnership is Oregon — I have already signed up for
newsletter — and that the move-
the Bank of Astoria and the something we can be proud their
ment to develop trauma informed
of. If the parks department communities is getting a foothold in
Astorian.
Out of those deliber- pulled out of Lil’ Sprouts, this county.
This is particularly evident in the
ations came an offer to it would be an earthquake. Warrenton School District, and in Jill
I
Open forum
I
Again .... a scary
leak at Hanford
t’s an example of a
culture at Hanford of
‘We don’t have problems
here. We’re doing just
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former Hanford Nuclear
Reservation worker Mike
Geffre told KING 5 this
week.
Geffre was reacting to
news that a supposedly
supersafe
double-walled
underground storage tank
for highly radioactive waste
has a major leak in the
space between its inner and
outer walls. Geffre warned
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potential for such an event,
but a response was ridicu-
lously slow in coming.
Washington
state’s
Department of Ecology
sought to allay public wor-
ries, saying there is no sign
that sludge created during
plutonium production made
it past the tank’s outer shell
into the environment. To its
credit, the state been a more
zealous watchdog than
other parties involved in
Hanford oversight. But its
reassurances are starting to
ring hollow.
‘I
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Geffre told KING 5. “This is
probably the biggest event
to ever happen in tank farm
history. The double shell
tanks were supposed to be
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far as keeping waste away
from people and the envi-
ronment. A current Hanford
worker said, “The primary
tanks weren’t designed to
stage waste like this for so
many years. There’s always
the question, ‘Are the outer
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Three of Hanford’s other
double-shell tanks have the
same design as the one now
in the news.
Millions live downriver
from Hanford. As massively
expensive as the cleanup
has been — around $40 bil-
lion so far, with maybe $75
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it will pale in comparison
to damages from a major
toxin spill into the air and
groundwater.
Citizens must use every
political and legal tool
to impose competent and
responsive management on
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Quackenbush’s work with our pre-
schoolers and Head Start. Kudos to them
for being our pioneers, for they are creat-
ing the road map for our community as
a whole.
I was glad to see many staff from
Tongue Point Job Corps attending, as
well as from Astoria School District. It
is likely other school districts were rep-
resented, as well, since this event was
well attended. As a parent of two Asto-
ria School District students, I can state
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who already practice the philosophy of
unconditional acceptance, nonjudgment
and in taking a nonpunitive approach,
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from this philosophy being enacted.
If the school district as a whole gets
on board, then this positive impact upon
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ripple effects will go beyond what we
could even imagine in terms of how they
will then impact their/our community.
I am also a mental health thera-
pist who is now in private practice, and
I think of Clatsop Behavioral Health-
care as being, in a way, my alma mater.
Therefore I was excited to see that Sum-
muer Watkins, CEO, was on the panel,
and to hear of all of the proactive work
that this agency is doing to provide
counseling services in our schools, and
to support the creation of a trauma-in-
formed community.
And last, a shout out must go to my
professional peer, trauma therapist Liz
Covey, for keeping it real. She’s right,
there is still much work to be done, both
in educating our community members
and in impacting our systems at the gov-
ernmental level. It really does boil down
to voting for people who are going to
raise our taxes. But the research is there
to support what we all innately know,
that when you strengthen even just one
community member, you strengthen the
whole community.
As an obnoxiously proud parent, I
can tell you that my girls are already sup-
porting this community and, by doing
so, providing an example to their peers.
This support is in part a result of our tax
dollars in action, and they are now, at just
15 and 17, in a position to not only say
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WYNNE PRESTON
Astoria
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Roosevelt in Seaside.
Or by mail to Letters to the Edi-
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extension at the end of last year. Now, a
SULQJKDVFRPHWRWKH3DFL¿F1RUWK- broad coalition of businesses, commu-
west, and many of us are getting out- nity leaders, and conservation groups are
side to connect with the lands, waters, working to make LWCF a permanent
wildlife, and great people that make this part of our nation’s legacy. The presi-
region so special.
dent’s budget calls for making this fund
Our region and the prospects of permanent, and the four senators from
maintaining these qualities for gener- both Oregon and Washington have con-
ations to come were recently given a sistently fought for permanency.
major boost from the White House. In
We are excited about the opportunities
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to Congress, President Obama made an our region. It is this type of collaborative
XQSUHFHGHQWHGLQYHVWPHQWLQWKH3DFL¿F conservation that shows how important
Northwest by proposing to fund some- making permanent the Land and Water
WKLQJFDOOHGWKH3DWKZD\VWRWKH3DFL¿F Conservation Fund is for our nation.
This large landscape, collaborative
GLENN LAMB
conservation project will protect and
Vancouver, Washington
restore tens of thousands of acres along
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River, from the John Day to the mouth Free press
of the Columbia. The $30 million ded-
he Daily Astorian editorial, “Fighting
icated in the president’s budget would
IRUSUHVVIUHHGRPDJDLQ´$SULO
be largest federal funding request for the is much ado about nothing. The actions
region in over 15 years. The projects in of the Arizona House of Representatives
Pathways will tie together a network of constitute no threat to a free press.
lands conserved and restored by federal,
While I agree that “government must
state and local agencies, and private non- DOZD\VEHZDWFKHG´LWLVDEVXUGWRDUJXH
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Land Trust.
the House is any potential threat to the
3DWKZD\VWRWKH3DFL¿FZLOOEHIXQGHG First Amendment.
through the Land and Water Conser-
The business of the people’s gov-
vation Fund, arguably America’s most ernment must always be open to public
important conservation program. Over scrutiny, but the demands of the press for
its 50-year history, LWCF has provided special seating privileges are not a con-
billions of dollars for parks, open space, stitutional concern.
wildlife habitat, agriculture, and forest
For a free press to be relevant, it
conservation, and is funded from fees col- must also be reliable. Sensationaliz-
lected by oil and gas leases, not taxes.
ing this minor snit as “barriers thrown
In our coastal region in Oregon and XSE\WKRVHLQSROLWLFDOSRZHU´EHWUD\V
Washington alone, LWCF has pro- that responsibility. As does the claim that
tected special places such as Cascade “by the time the Constitution was writ-
Head, Fort Clatsop National Memo- WHQ´DQ³XQEULGOHGSUHVV´ZDVRSHUDWLYH
rial, Nestucca Bay National Wildlife in America in the 1580s. It didn’t exist.
Refuge, Lewis and Clark National His-
I recommend that The Daily Astorian
torical Park, and the Willapa National take its own advice to “do our jobs effec-
Wildlife Refuge.
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Although Congress allowed the the most responsible thing to do.
50-year old LWCF program to expire
ROBERT JOHNSTONE
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Astoria
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