Portland observer., January 08, 1992, Image 11

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Volumn II, Number I
“The Eyes and Ears o f the Community"
January 8,1992
Local Businessman Breaking The Stereotypes
BY ED JOSEPH AND NANCY GLINES
Henry Levert has been in the Eugene
area for the last 1516 years and has been
doing business as Graphic Innovators, Inc.
since 1977. In that time he has seen
changes in the minority community and
the positive one seems to be that there is
less crime. He feels that the position of
people of color in the community is ap­
proximately the same as when he came to
Eugene. There are fewer Afro-American
policemen and about the same number of
teachers in the school district. There are
more minorities living in this community
but the old stereotypes are still here and in
some cases seem to have gotten worse.
There are still many problems with stu­
dents in the school district and how the
police interact with the minority commu­
nity. Mr. Levert sees part of the reason so
few changes have occurred is that the city
manager has been here since 1980, and the
administrations of these facilities have
not felt the necessity to address the issues
of race.
To most people coming to Eugene the
Black community is a truly invisible one
in that there are no defined areas that are
predominately black. People in the rest of
the community don’t believe there is ra­
cism in this area because they are not the
recipients of racism. These same people
will tell a person of color, when the racism
issue is addressed, that they are too sensi­
tive or overreacting.
In order to gather the Black commu­
nity together there is a focal point needed
and that focal point could be the children.
How minority children are perceived and
how the community perceives these chil­
dren in a broad sense is important. The
children of color need to feel good about
who they are and the white children need
to feel good about who the minority chil­
dren are. He feels that the educational
system and the establishment deprives
both groups of children of this by the
reinforcement of stereotypes. There is a
need to work together to break down those
stereotypes. For example; all Blacks do
not play basketball, some have very good
business sense and some have ideals that
arejust as grand as any white person. The
system needs to acknowledge that the
minorities have a rich culture, a rich heri­
tage and have contributed a lot to this
community throughout the years. The
minorities need to take more pride in
themselves and the contributions that they
I
V
Picture by Ed Joseph
have made to this community as well as
nationwide.
There is a feeling among the minority
business community that there is no need
to join organizations such as the Chamber
of Commerce, the Ad Club, MEA etc. if
the same barriers are up and these organi­
zations aren’t helping to address these
issues. Mr. Levert said that he joined the
Chamber of Commerce and felt no special
outreach to get a minority perspective on
issues. At the same time he saw nothing
being done by the Chamber to help him in
particular or in general. In a business
sense he has the same general problems
that any other business has but also some
unique ones that do need to be addressed
especially when it comes to racism from
different purchasing departments. He said,
“ They just don’t look at me as a profes­
sional but as a minority. I have to win my
credibility from scratch. I’ve been in the
business for almost 10 years but that
means nothing and I have to prove that I
know what I know.” In these hard eco­
nomic times he feels that minority busi­
ness will survive because economic hard­
ships are a reality that most minority
people have learned to live with. He feels
that he would be a lot more successful if
he didn’t have to Fight additional artifi­
cial barriers that are put in his way be­
cause of his color.
In this community there arc overt
and subtle racial attitudes. Mr. Levert
feels that there is a lot of naiveness among
a lot of the white liberals in this commu­
nity that they’re not racist. It may be a
“ feel good” mind set but some of their
actions can be construed as racist be­
cause they don’t know enough about the
Black people and their culture to make
those judgements. According to Mr.
Levert, his meetings with the superinten­
dent of the 4-J School District, Margaret
Nichols, have not always been amicable.
“ I tell her the truth coming from a minor-
itty perspective and she doesn’t like to
hear it. She tells me that I am filled with
rage and anger,” said Mr. Levert. “ Usu­
ally if we agree with them it’s okay but as
soon as there is disagreement all of a
sudden it makes us not fit the mold they
wanted us in. I really take offense to that
when I’m dealing with an issue that is
personal. If I was so filled with rage and
bitterness I’d do like some of those wackos
and get a gun and to blow somebody’s
head off, so apparently I’m not filled with
too much rage and bitterness.”
Another example of racial attitudes is
in the matter of the Black Register Guard
reporter who was not allowed to cover the
recent racial incident that took place at
Sheldon High School. The story was
given to a white reporter even though
there was a chance to have a report from a
minority reporter on the incident. All of
the details are not known about the inci­
dent but when a delegation went to see
Margaret Nichols her answer to them was
that she wanted the minority community
to come up with a solution. Mr. Levert
said his fellings were that “ when someone
is getting paid as much as Margaret Nichols
is, there should be some solutions coming
from her. ” He also said that in his opinion
"The Register Guard evidently feels that
we arc not competent enough to be objec­
tive on a story that deals with race. The
Black reporter doesn’t have the right tools
yet to be objective about the race issue. I
know how biased The Register Guard can
be because I’ve had my falling out with
them in the past.”
When asked if he was considering
throwing his hat in the mayoral race, Mr.
Levert said that he didn’t think it would be
appropriate to comment on that at this
time because he wanted to play out all the
options. He indicated that there could be
several minority leaders contemplating
entering the race. There are minority
leaders that arc as well qualified as any to
enter that race. He feels that a major point
would be to get the same exposure from
the media of the minority condidates and
their abilites to the community as any
white candidate would get. Mr. Levert
said “ It wouldn’t hurt to shake up the
town and add some flavor to it and not be
putting so many people to sleep at those
meetings.”
M a rtin L u th e r King, Jr. S p e c ia l - N e xt W e e k