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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (June 11, 1981)
I • Portland Observer June 11,1001 Page 0 Citizens march on City Hall Grassroot News N.W. - Last Thurs day, 500 people surrounded them selves w ith chants o f “ Freedom, Justice and E q u a lity .” Blacks, whites, young and old, m obilized under the sponsorship o f the Black United F ro n t, to show the dis satisfaction with the reshuffling o f City Commissioner Charles Jordan. Ronnie Herndon, Co-chairman o f the Front explained the premise o f the march. “ Mayor Ivancie has broken his promise to the Black em m unity. He said that Jordan could have the bureau as long as he wanted it. He seems to be playing the Black com m unity cheap, and has appointed a man who has a very poor reputation in the Black com munity. He has yet to speak out on the whole possum issue. Because o f all this, we’ re saying to him that the Black community is not asleep. Yes, he has the power to make those decisions, but we are not going to sit back and accept injustices.” Sports Talk By Ron Sykes Sports Editor The NBA held it's annual draft o f college talent on June 9th and ap parently they forgot to invite the Trailblazers. There are some sur prises, some disappointments and a few steals. Surprisingly OSU’ s Steve John son lasted until Kansas City selected him No. 7 o f the first round. They never figured on getting him and what they got was a big strong pivotman. And Kansas City will cer tainly be able to go to war next year. Steve w ill back up Sam Lacey and Kansas City now w ill have a center that can play down deep. Boston pulled the “ disquis” act by picking B Y U ’ s Danny Ainge. Ainge s till owes the T o ro n to Blue Jay three years on a baseball contract. But when yo u ’ re batting only .152 as Danny is, then perhaps Red’ s pick just may become fru itfu l before 3 years. Who knows? Mark Radford and Ray Blume weren’ t picked as high as their talent would indicate. Mark was claimed by Seattle in the th ird , while Ray was taken by In diana, then traded to Chicago. M ark’s going to Seattle doesn’t give him much o f a chance to make the team. Seattle already has Freddie Brown, V innie Johnson, Paul Wesphal and a returning Gus W illiam s. It would appear that Mark would have almost no chance baseball for life ,” screamed a Los o f making that squad. W ith a return fine. And no one asked for his ex- Angeles T.V. sports commentator, to a 12 man squad, both Jeff Lamp plusion. Where’ s the justice? who claimed to be speaking in sup and Darnell Valentine, P ortland’ s port o f the d ignity o f empires. two first round choices should easily Madlock said he touched up Craw stick. • ford’ s face unintentionally, but, his The New Jersey Nets are making It seems that Blazer super star word didn’t carry much weight. some smooth deals. They acquired Billy Ray Bates is at it again. Bates A National League executive who Otis Birdsong from Kansas City via was recently seen partying hard at worked for the Chicago Cubs when the trade route, then drafted Buck one o f P o rtla n d ’ s worst H onky M adlock was a Cub star made a W illiams, the super rebounder and Tonks. B illy Ray is a professional statement about M adlock’ s “ tem A1 K ing, the p ro lific scorer. The and it would be nice i f he conducted per.” Nets already strong w ill now himself accordingly. Whether Bates become a legitimate contender in the realizes it or not, he is a hero to the East. Black youth o f the community. B ill M adlock, a baseball star, • As we see it, this d ra ft did very suddenly had become a fo o tb a ll little for Portland. Lamp is hardly The rolling city o f Chicago should end, and all these holier-than-thou the player that Calvin Natt is, and people took great delight in kicking be proud o Isiah Thomas and Mark Valentine can only hope to become him around. Aguire. What other city can boast the fourth guard. Since the Blazer o f having produced the top two Chule Neeney, President o f the guard corp is so very young, the picks in the NBA? It should be ex National League, decided that the question here is, “ Why the need for tremely g ra tifyin g to the Thomas flickin g of-the-glove was w orth a the 6-1 Valentine? Especially when family since Isiah escaped the gang 5,000 fine and 15 days suspension. Jack Ramsay found it hard, during wars o f the early 70s to make M any media people and sport the regular season, to find enough fans were reminded o f the Madlock something o f himself. • playing time for the talented Billy incident after Oakland manager Ray Bates. B illy M a rtin , whose record o f Thursday, June 25, there w ill be a • “ violent aggression" on and o ff the boxing card in Los Angeles The truth o f Doc Young: Young diam ond, is well known, bumped u featuring Sugar Ray Leonard and states the in e q u ity 'given B ill um pire T erry Cooney during an Thomas Hearns in separate bouts. M adlock, the Pirates th ird argument, kicked dirt on his shoes Sugar Ray Leonard, WBC champ, baseman. After Madlock, “ flapped and then, while Cooney was walking will fight Aqub Kalule for the world his glove into umpire Gerry Craw away from him , scooped up more junior middleweight title. Kalule 36- fo rd ’ s face while arguing with him dirt with both hands and threw it on 0, is an African now boxing out o f during a game last year, certain Cooney’ s back. Denmark. baseball auditors wanted to throw For this act o f aggression, M ar Thomas Hearns, the W BA the book at him. tin, a white manager, received only champ, will face Pablo Baoz, o f the “ He should be barred from a five day suspension and $1,000 Dominican Republic. Cel! Talk N ote: Next week, the Observer will carry the final installment o f the Peter Alarid story. 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A ll we got was a Sunday evening massacre; Jordan's out and Still is in.” M r. H erndon continued w ith reservations about the new police adm inistration: “ Ivancie and S till came out in opposition to Jordan’s plan for getting more Blacks on the police force. A ll the plan calls for is two lists. There is no mandatory language in that proposal and these cats have come out against having two lists. Grassroot News asked M ayor Ivancie how he felt about the march and sentiments against him, in both the Black and white communities. “ People have the right to demon strate. T alk is fin e , but le t’ s get down and get a job done,” he said. Responding to a question about breaking his promise, along with the reason for removing Jordan, Ivan cie said, “ No M ayor makes a promise to any Commissioner that they can have an assignment per- manetly. I t ’ s just not done. The re reasons for removing Jordan is that the Bureau has gotten its e lf in a situation where morale were low, which meant we weren’ t getting production out o f the workers. The question o f administrative direction left something to be desired. I felt a change was necessary in lig h t o f these circumstances.” Internal movement w ith in the police bureau increased follow ing the possum incident. “ ,t was a case o f tim ing that showed the police department has a large number o f problem s. We d o n ’ t th in k the problems have been addressed and his firing o f Jordan won’t change a thing,” Mr. Herndon predicted. The march started at the down tow n precinct and ended at C ity Hall. Here Mr. Herndon addressed the crowd which provided the back ground sounds o f “ Recall Ivancie.” M r. Herndon said, “ Yes, 1 publicly “ They say that we have not done our part; well Bruce Broussard has done this C ity a favor by holding Police/Com m unity forums so that people could say what they wanted about the police. So you cannot ac cuse this community o f not trying to open up the dialogue w ith C ity H a ll," Mr. Herndon concluded. The sentiments on this issue runs high and the h u rt, as expressed at this march, is deep. A young man p a rticip a tin g in the march said, “ Charles Jordan was doing a job to show the people o f Portland that he was trying to make this C ity wake up to the Black problem. The police and the Mayor did n ’ t want that to happen, so they got rid o f the only Black hope we had.” Police/ Community Relations Forum The Police Bureau w ill respond to a com m unity request to present proposals to improve police w ork in the Black community. Chief S till and other public o f ficials will be there. You are invited to participate. By A smar A bdul SeifuUah A ka Joe W est» 40404 It would require a miracle to ef fectively screen from the jury room all o f the beliefs on racial myths and fears that social scientists have found premeate society. So n o t withstanding the sworn impartiality, the specific instructions to view the facts objectively, and the earnest ef forts by white jurors, studies show that racial considerations do in fluence jury decisions. It has been proven through a number o f studies that juries hold Blacks to be a less strick standard o f conduct when the victim was also Black. This illustrates the white myth that Blacks are expected to cut and shot one another. It is only when the victim is white that juries loose their sense o f liberal fairness - which is often replaced by outrage and indignation at the though that a Black would be bold enough to per petrate a crime against a white. In a poll o f 225 jurors, conducted in the mid-1950s, shows clearly that many people brought th e ir racial prejudices to the ju ry box. As one juror reported: “ Niggers have to be taught to behave. I feel that he hadn’ t done th a t, he’ d done something else probably even worse and that he should be put out o f the way for a good long while.” Clearer and ce rtainly more ob vious p ro o f o f ju ry discrim ination lies in racial cases. For example, the fear that Black men pose a direct threat to white women. This inherent fear on the part o f whites is clearly exhibited and can be read in statistics prepared by the U.S. Bureau o f Prisons fo r the years 1930-1962. O f 446 persons found guilty and executed fo r rape in the United States, 339 were Black, 45 were white, and 2 were other races. The disproportionate numbers o f Blacks executed fo r rape as com pared to whites leave little for the imagination but despite the clearly evident racial influence, the courts have refused to find the juries in question g u ilty of race discrimination. The crime o f rape stands out clearly as a area o f crim e where Black defendants are zealously pro secuted, and sentenced to ex cessively long prison terms. Violent crimes are always hard to swallow and there is no ju s tific a tio n fo r them but to let white paranoia dic tate the course of justice because the defendant is Black and the victim was white is definitely wrong. The disparity in sentencing o f minorities as compared to whites, the degree o f prosecution o f minority defendants as compared to whites, the actual tim e spent inside prison by minorities as compared to whites - all illustrate race discrimination. “ It is virtually impossible for a Black to get a fa ir tria l in M ultnom ah county,” stated a white public de fender. The recent news o f police corrup tion in the narcotics division was not a shock to the Black com m unity. The P ortland Police Departm ent has always employed tactics adverse to the Black community. But it took the death o f a white police officer and the conviction of a white man to bring much o f it to light. It should now be asked how many Black men were sentenced to the state peniten tiary as a result of police corruption. It is far easier to frame a Black man than it is to frame a w hite - how many o f the 56 pardons that the District Attorney is seeking w ill go to Blacks? Multnomah County has fo r years been the th ie f o f Black civil rights - ask yourself, how well do you know the system and is that system w orking to protect your rights? The practice o f excluding Blacks from juries - p a rticu la rly where Blacks are charged w ith crimes against whites - is based, insubstan tial in part, on the expectation that an all white jury will return a verdict that accords with racial standards and views held by the white com munity. O f course, it is illegal to ex clude people from juries because o f race or color. However, it is the practice o f pro secutors to strike Blacks first and it is a long standing practice in M u lt nomah County, in particular. The exclusion o f Blacks on Juries in Multnomah County has long been a sore spot fo r Black prisoners but since Black prisoners are the only ones affected by it, the practice w ill probably continue. But how can there be justice for Blacks in while courtroom s when responsible Blacks d on’ t see the need to par ticipate in the proceedings? The principals are the same as they were fo r school segregation, bussing, housing and employment, the struggle must be continued and broadened to include the crim inal justice system. In conclusion it should be noted that the jury system leaves much to be desired. U nfortunately it is the only system that we have and until a better method is introduced we’ re stuck with it. At this point it is im portant that Black people fous at tention and place pressure on the crim in a l justice system; a system that can fairly be called or labelled white justice. Black genocide! Saturday, June 20th, 9:30 A .M . Bourbon Street Restaurant Sponsored by the Portland Observer MMM| INTERESTING FACTS I Brought To You Every Week By A MERIC A N STATE BA NK England once had a King who was less than 1-year old. Henry VI became King of England when his father, Henry V, died in 1422. Henry VI had not yet reached his first birthday. • The average human heart beats over 100,000 tiems every day. • Who was the last U.S. President who w asn't a member of either the Democratic or Republican Party? Answer: The 13th President, Millard Fillmore, who was in the Whig Party. Í Í
