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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 5, 1990)
4 ♦ PORTLR ♦ ♦ ♦ • '« M k BSERVER 25<P Community Residents Claim Kwik-Mart Has Long History of Brutal Tactics and Disrespecting Customers W There’s No Place Like Home By McKinley Burt PAGE 2 Government Secrecy: Continued By Angelique Sanders PAGE 2 Opinion Building Healthy Esteem PAGE 5 Locker Room Mark Bryant Cliff Robinson PAGES hen 28 year old Charles E. Wil liams died after a scuffle with employees of the Kwik-martCon- venience Store at Martin Luther King Blvd. and Fremont St., this was just the latest in a series of incidents involving customers and store attendants, accord ing to protesters and some residents of the N.E. area. Williams death has been ruled a homicide by the state medical exam iner, who said suffocation caused by pressure on the abdomen was the cause of death. Williams was lying face down over a display of soda botdes when ambu lance crews arrived to administer emer gency treatment some three minutes after receiving the call. Dr. Larry Lewman state medical examiner, said the pressure on his abdomen caused by the bottles was the reason for suffoca tion. While the death has been ruled a homicide, no charges have been filed, pending a grand jury investigation. Williams is alleged to have of fered to sell marijuana to the stores 6 foot 5 inch 300 pound bouncer, who refused and walked away. Williams is then alleged to have jumped on the bouncers back which started the alter cation. According to Cleo Howard who accompanied Williams to the store, he also was beaten by one of the clerks af ter going inside to see what the fight Avel Louise Gordly: A Woman With Vision onday, November 26, 1990, M was about. Howard claims the beat him on the legs, threw him out the door and locked the store. Other neighbors, shop owners and community residents in close proximity to the Kwik-mart Convenience Store claims they have been treated rudely, manhandled or insulted by store em ployees merely because they “ Look First Interstate Bank Invites Children to See Santa First Interstate Bank again highlights the Christmas season with a special appearance from Santa and his helpers. To celebrate the happy occasion we are inviting children to come meet Santa and have one picture taken with him. Pep permint candy canes will be given to all children. Date: December 13,1990 Time: 10:00- 1:30 Place: First Interstate Bank of Oregon Walnut Park Branch 5730 NE MLK Blvd. Portland, Or. 97211 We invite you to come share this experience with us. suspicious . Two employees o f a local am bu lance company who asked to remain anonymous claim they witnessed two of the stores employees assault one cus tomer as he left the store. “ The guy walked past a car that was in the parking lot and the cars alarm went off,” stated the ambulance driver. “ They D pulled him from his truck and began beating him with clubs. I guess they thought he was trying to burglarize the car” , he added. At press time, a protest movement that began on Monday was picking up support as more and more community residents joined with picket signs. College Addresses Student Harassment Charges an Moriarty, president of Portland ors to discuss the incidents.” Community College, today an The students were apparently ap nounced the college’s plans for address proached on several occasions by youth ing incidents of alleged harassment of who allegedly voiced pro Neo-Nazi two disabled students. sentiments. It is not Known whether the “ The students filed a complaint with Perpetrators are students or campus in the college Public Safety office last truders. Wednesday, November 28. They stated “ Even though these appear to be that they had been verbally and physi isolated incidents, we will not tolerate cally harassed on campus by three or any kind of harassment of students on four males over the past two weeks,” any of our campuses, students have the Moriarty said. right to expect a safe environment in “ As soon as the comp laint was fi led, which to learn, and we will remove from the college sent public safety officers to campus anyone who interferes with that meet with the students and their counsel- right,” the president said. marked the date of a very im portant event. It was a cold and damp night, but there was a very diverse and joyus crowd of people, who had congre gated in the IFCC’s Meeting room, up stairs, to shake hands with the woman of the hour, Avel Louise Gordly. In the midst of the chatter and munching, Avel stood greeting her guest, as they entered and departed. The group lingered. Milling around and visiting with one another. I, for instance, ran into scads o f old chums. As the hour grew, Fred White found a lofty place and announced that we should all go into the theatre for the next part of the program. I know that you must be asking, “ What is this all about?” Well...! A » d L. Gordly has retired from the American Friends Service Center after seven years of total commitment to her post. Several persons rose to sing the praises of Avel. To herald her accomplishments. To capitalize on her diplomacy. Those per sons who found her there and even those persons who were present, when she initially arrived, all had nothing but good to share and some very humorous epi sodes which erupted from time to time. The American Friends Service Center was founded in 1917 so that young people, who did not choose to go into war, would have an outlet-way to work off their assigned military time by doing jobs in the community. Jobs which were located CONTINUED ON PAGE 7 Baseline Essays Attack--------- BY PROFESSOR MCKINLEY BURT L CLIFF ROBINSON INDEX News Religion Entertainment Locker Room His/Hers Opinion Business Classifieds Bids/Sub Bids Next Week Angelique Sanders Ex plores the Meaning of Christmas. paper’s editors beat all around the bu sh- "Jim, a black runaway, is one of the ast week I put it that the attack is more APPEALING characters in the coming from “ all quarters” . I book; more honorable than the whites” was quite right, for in the Friday, No and "Huckleberry Finn was a satirical vember 30 edition the editorial staff of attack on the racism of slavery ” --it is an the Oregonian joined the fray. Essay inescapable fact that had this book re author, Joyce B. Harris, is taken to task peated 300 times one of the ugly, de for protesting the use of a book the rogatory epithets applied by racists to newspaper describes as “ MarkTwain’s Jewish people, it would long since been American Classic” . “ banned” from use. And the Orego “ Stories such as Huckleberry Finn nian would have been leading the charge. reinforced society’s view and treatment Enough of the attackers for now, of black men as boys,” Harris stated in for truly, “ the emperor has no clothes. ” a language-arts essay. And the Orego The November 18 article by Bill Graves nian article quoted a Dallas, Texas teacher in the same paper is quite balanced and as having severe hang ups on teaching has merit • ee section DI). “ Portland the book since the text “ used this offen developed the Baseline Essays as the sive epithet (nigger) about 300 times” . first installment in a broader incomplete Harris further advises, “ The negative effort to infuse multicultural education images these book(s) portray outweigh throughout its curriculum” (early 1980s). any literary qualities they have- inclu “ The essays serve not as lesson plans or sion of this book in the curriculum should curriculum guides but as a base or reser be carefully considered.” voir of instructional information. Teach The Oregonian did not agree: ers EXPECTED to read the essays and “ And thus, deploying doubtful literary include information from them in their analysis and even more doubtful ‘pop daily lessons.” That’s what I thought, psychology’ Harris opens the door to too! closing the schoolhouse door on Mark It is in this process that the Twain’s American classic.” While the “ jokcr(s) in the deck” emerge. In a 2 3 4 5 8 9 10 11 series o f articles on this subject, written last spring, I pointed out that, as in the commercial world, ‘ ‘delivery of the prod uct to the shelves for the consumer is what it ; all about!--failurc to achieve this goal means that all of the time, effort and commitment has been wasted.” To emphasize this point, I drew paral lels from my experience in this world of commerce. The detractors of the Baseline Essays would not have been nearly so disturbed had they known of the fallouts and disruptions (dislocations) in the proc ess. These operational disabilities were never so clearly highlighted as they were during interchanges at the national con vention of the “ National Alliance of Black School Educators” held here in November of 1989. While the School District representatives (and some oth ers) were making impassioned pitches for the process as the greatest enhance ment of the African American educa tional experience to date, I was doing something elseentircly--I was running a shuttle between this site at the Hilton Hotel and the meeting facilities at the plant of one of these “ Partners for Suc cess: Business & Education” . I I was already prepared for the mindset I encountered among many of these black educators during three days and nights of exchanging experiences: “ But how do you get it into the class- room s?-W hat use is a Baseline Essay and all that expenditure of time and money if you can’t mandate a classroom delivery, curriculum, lesson plans? Your ‘monitoring process’ is toothless. We are not getting good responses on these questions from your administrators or teachers, there’s not much of the goods on the shclves-why in the world would you DECENTRALIZE THE DISTRICT CURRICULUM PROCESS when quite obviously you would need the tightest ship possible to implement such an inno vative program?” Believe me, most (but not all) were some of the most astute and experienced educators I have m et At the other end o f my shuttle, at the Beaverton plant of that “ Business Partner’ ’ in the education process, I was provided with meeting room and audio visual facililies-the same as was pro vided for me all during the seventies ind early eighties by the U.S. Forest Service. Once again I was speaking of the techno logical and cultural contributions (docu- mented) of both Africans and African Americans, but this time I was describ ing my problems in getting it on the shelf in the Portland School D istrict-and out lining how they could proceed if encoun tering similar inertia in their district. Several expressed amazement that my book “ B lack Inventors of America ” had been incorporated into curriculum by directive in many of their schools but not in my own district. One southern district administrator, whose system is now my client for the design of multicultural cur riculum, cracked: “ A prophet in his own land” . It ls interesting to note that a number of these educators anticipated the sound and fury of the current attacks on the Baseline Essays. I had just detailed the experiences of one of the principal con sultants, Ivan van Sertima, whose book, “ They Came Before Columbus” , was subjected to the very same type scurri lous assaults in the pages of the New York Times. His documentation was super. One of the reasons that I have the schools or districts of these educators for clients now is that I demonstrated that my research over the last twenty five CONTINUED ON PAGE 7