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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.
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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,
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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.
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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
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“ 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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have been most critica l o f Charles
Jordan. But that’ s not the issue. The
issue is that a promise was made to
the Black community, not just Jor
dan. 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 .
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