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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THuRSDAY, FEbRuARY 21, 2019
OPINION
editor@dailyastorian.com
KARI BORGEN
Publisher
JIM VAN NOSTRAND
Editor
Founded in 1873
JEREMY FELDMAN
Circulation Manager
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Production Manager
CARL EARL
Systems Manager
OUR VIEW
Understand racism to grasp crime numbers
W
hen I read the Chinook
Observer article about the
KKK posters that had been
posted around Astoria, I was nervous. The
KKK? Here?
However, when the culprit was
revealed to be a 20-year-old kid from
Ocean Park, those nerves subsided and
annoyance took its place. I do not know
this person (nor would I like to) but while
I was reading the arti-
cle in which he is inter-
viewed, a caricature of
him formed in my head.
A young, isolated
white guy; probably owns
a lot of guns (or wants
to); probably sees him-
ALLISON
self as some sort of self-
BAIR
made intellectual (may
even brag about his inter-
net-quiz IQ); probably doesn’t like the
idea of higher education (it’s a liberal con-
spiracy); thinks the rest of us are sheep.
It really goes to show how cool this
guy is when he called both neo-Na-
zism and communism “gay,” and “hating
blacks because they’re black is autistic.”
How edgy.
He also used the word “normie” to
describe “normal” people. This immedi-
ately confirmed his internet habits for me:
a Reddit and 4Chan dweller.
Both Reddit and 4Chan welcome
unpopular, offensive, graphic, and/or
otherwise disturbing content. I wrote
about the /r/Incels (involuntary celibate)
subreddit in March of last year, in the
wake of the Parkland shooting and how
the subreddit worshipped Elliot Rodg-
ers (a murderer with a manifesto) as their
hero. These websites are also inextricably
linked to the Charlottesville “Unite the
Right” rally, which ultimately ended in a
murder carried out by a white extremist.
It’s so easy to find like-minded individ-
uals on these sites because they are both
DATA IS GREAT, buT
IT’S ONLY A SMALL
PIECE OF ANY PuZZLE
AS COMPLEX AS ISSuES
WITHIN SOCIETY.
AP Photo/John Bazemore
Members of the Ku Klux Klan participate in cross burnings after a ‘white pride’ rally in
rural Georgia in 2016.
100 percent anonymous, so anyone is free
to spew their bile and attract other incels/
racists/homophobes/whatever much easier
than in the real world. And this kid is just
one of probably dozens (or more) people
who have the same mindset on our pen-
insula. Maybe he didn’t get exactly what
he wanted from it, a robust group of rac-
ists who could get together for hood-sew-
ing parties, but we’re still talking about
him. In fact, I’m giving him free press
right now.
Regardless of how the alt-right fina-
gled its way onto the peninsula, I’d like to
address one specific claim that our young
friend made. One that he seems to hang
his racist justification hat on: “Acknowl-
edging that blacks in America over-repre-
sent (sic) violent crime is just plain truth.”
Funny. A simple Google search tells
a very different story. I guess when you
consume only media from Breitbart,
Info Wars, and the like, the facts become
somewhat muddied. Who knew?
It is true that if you look only at prison
makeup, it would be easy to draw a false
conclusion about crime rates: black peo-
ple make up roughly 13 percent of the
United States population, and white peo-
ple make up 64 percent. Black people
make up 40 percent of the prison popula-
tion, and white people 39 percent. This is
a misleading piece of information how-
ever, because all it tells us are arrest and
conviction rates, not the crime rates. Data
is great, but it’s only a small piece of any
puzzle as complex as issues within soci-
ety. Without taking into consideration the
undercurrent that is “systemic racism,” no
one can even begin to grasp race relations
in the U.S.
Here are a few relevant examples of
systemic racism that I encourage every-
one to look into:
In the justice system: stop-and-frisk
laws, excessive arrests and sentencing, the
“Just Say No” campaign, crack vs. pow-
der cocaine sentencing laws, three strikes
rule, etc.
In housing: the Federal Housing
Administration and “redlining” loans,
not investing in infrastructure in commu-
nities of color, putting fewer food stores
and more liquor stores in majority-black
neighborhoods, heavily advertising alco-
hol and cigarettes in these same neighbor-
hoods, etc.
In education: less funding to commu-
nities of color, harsher treatment/suspen-
sion/expulsion rates for black kids (this
is apparent beginning in preschool!), the
school-to-prison pipeline, fewer scholar-
ships and more debt in higher education,
etc.
Look into each of these things, because
I do not have time to elucidate now.
The bottom line is that systemic racism
and race relations are such huge, almost
unfathomable concepts. Saying something
like “...blacks in America over-represent
(sic) violent crime is just plain truth,” is
dangerously misleading.
There are hundreds, probably thou-
sands, of books dedicated to the topic of
race, crime, systemic/institutional racism,
and America. I wonder how many of them
our friend with the KKK posters has read?
Allison bair is a columnist for the
Chinook Observer in Long beach,
Washington.
WHERE TO WRITE
• State Rep. Tiffiny Mitchell (D): State Capi-
tol, 900 Court St. NE, H-285, Salem, OR 97301.
Phone: 503-986-1432. Email: rep.tiffinymitchell@
oregonlegislature.gov. Web: oregonlegislature.gov/
mitchell
• State Rep. Brad Witt (D): State Capitol, 900
Court St. NE, H-374, Salem, OR 97301. Phone:
503-986-1431. Email: Rep.BradWitt@oregonleg-
islature.gov. Web: oregonlegislature.gov/witt
• State Sen. Betsy Johnson (D): State Capitol,
900 Court St. NE, S-209, Salem, OR 97301. Phone:
503-986-1716. Email: sen.betsyjohnson@oregon-
legislature.gov. Web: oregonlegislature.gov/john-
son. District Office: P.O. Box R, Scappoose, OR
97056. Phone: 503-543-4046. Astoria office phone:
503-338-1280
• U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D): 2231 Ray-
burn House Office Building, Washington, DC
20515. Phone: 202-225-0855. District office:
12725 SW Millikan Way, Suite 220, Beaverton,
OR 97005. Phone: 503-469-6010. Web: bonamici.
house.gov
• U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D): 221 Dirksen Sen-
ate Office Building, Washington, DC 20510. Phone:
202-224-5244. Web: wyden.senate.gov
• U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D): 313 Hart Senate
Office Building, Washington, DC 20510. Phone:
202-224-3753. Web: merkley.senate.gov
• Port of Astoria: Executive Director, 10 Pier
1 Suite 308, Astoria, OR 97103. Phone: 503-741-
3300. Email: admin@portofastoria.com
• Clatsop County Board of Commissioners:
C/O County Manager, 800 Exchange St., Suite 410,
Astoria, OR 97103. Phone: 503-325-1000.
EDITORIALS AROUND OREGON
A rare victory for open records
Albany Democrat-Herald
T
here is good news from this leg-
islative session regarding public
access to public records, and that’s
a rare enough occurrence these days that
we thought it was worth noting.
We’ve written before about Senate Bill
609, which would require anyone request-
ing public records to outline, “with par-
ticularity ... how the requester intends to
use the requested records.” Current law
does not require people requesting records
to offer any justification for making their
requests.
Sen. Betsy Johnson, D-Scappoose,
introduced the bill on behalf of for-
mer Rep. Deborah Boone. Boone told
The Daily Astorian newspaper that she
wanted to make sure that only “legitimate”
requests for records would be honored.
But the bill itself didn’t specify that — and
it didn’t say who would be responsible for
making the decisions about what requests
were legitimate and which ones were not.
Boone likely wanted to curb so-called
“fishing expeditions” by the news media
and members of the public — requests for
government records that are needlessly
broad and not very specific.
But here’s the problem: The govern-
ment has no business whatsoever asking
people making requests for public records
why they want access to those records. If
it’s public, it’s public — and that should
be the end of the story. In cases where a
government entity might have problems
dealing with an overly broad request for
records, it’s certainly within its rights to
suggest ways that a search could be nar-
rowed — but members of the public mak-
ing those requests are under no obligation
to say why they want the records.
The good news here is that Boone has
asked Johnson to let the bill die, and that’s
what should happen here — although
you never know for sure that a proposal
is completely dead until the Legislature
adjourns later this year.
Boone, as it turns out, was the subject
of a records request from The Oregonian
newspaper that yielded 1,800 or so pages
of her own correspondence. (Boone said
she had asked for the bill to be drafted a
few days before the newspaper made the
request.)
The newspaper, as part of a broader
investigation into state campaign finances,
was curious to find out why she had con-
tinued to fundraise after announcing her
retirement from the Legislature. The
newspaper discovered, in part, that Boone
had used her state email account to contact
state agencies about issues that involved
family members.
The Oregonian also used the records
to examine a curious campaign finance
practice in Oregon: the so-called “pass-
through,” in which donors give money
to an officeholder with instructions to
pass the dough along to another candi-
date under the officeholder’s name. In
an interview with The Oregonian, Boone
described a pair of donations from last
year that appeared to come from her but
came instead from other donors. Boone
said the practice is commonplace in the
Capitol.
It’s a practice that may violate state
law. But even if it’s legal, it doesn’t look
good. Legislative leaders need to take a
long long at reforming this practice, and
the sooner, the better.
But making a case for campaign-fi-
nance reform in Oregon is not our main
purpose today. Instead, we offer details
about this because the investigation offers
yet another reason why it’s important that
public records remain accessible to the
public. Forcing people seeking records
to state why they want the records easily
could have created a chilling effect — and,
in theory at least, could have given the
government entities holding those records
incentives to stonewall requests.
Over the last couple of years, Ore-
gon has started to regain some momen-
tum toward revitalizing its open records
laws, after decades in which advocates for
openness lost ground every time the Leg-
islature met. Senate Bill 609, in a single
stroke, would have jeopardized all those
gains. It’s a good thing that the measure
appears to be dead.