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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
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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