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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 30, 2002)
October 30, 2002 JJortlanò (ßbseruer Page A4 O pinion Opinion articles do not necessarily reflect or represent the views o f The Portland Observer , he Portland Observer __________ USPS 959-680_________ Established 1970 4747 NE Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd., Portland. OR 97211 3 E It I T O K - I H - C H I E r . P C » E I S H f » S T A F F c ' » f. 4 r f f « l)i n c r t i i Paul Neufeldt A L u ir n i Wynde Dyer Charles H. Washington E u i t a k Michael Leighton D l l T I I I V T I t S S I 4 A 4 ti E K s s o c ia t e H KITE», P h u t o c k a k h e k David Plechl Mark Washington P ostmaster : Send address changes to Portland Observer PO Box 3 1 3 7 , Portland, OP 97208 _________ P e rio d ic a l Postage paid In P o rtlan d , OR > S u b scrip tio n s are $ 6 0 .0 0 per year__________ 503288-0033 • FAX503288-0015 • FMA1L: newsdoortlandobsegsLSSin subschotion9Do rtlandobsetver.com adS@B 9dlan<tolfSWe LGSai Sniper Case Proves Fallacy of Stereotypes (AP) — For several w eeks, John M organ kept looking for a white Chevy A stro m inivan or a white box truck being driven by a w hite male w ho was resp o n sible for a string o f sniper-style killings in the W ashington, D.C., suburbs. So when police announced they had arrested tw o black men — John A llen M uham m ad and John Lee M alvo— driving a dark blue Chevrolet Caprice, Morgan, who is black him self, was flab bergasted. “W ith everything I had heard on television and w hat people were saying, everyone assum ed they were going to be white m en,” M organ, a telecom m unications engineer said Sunday before ser vices at Ebenezer A frican M eth odist Episcopal C hurch in this W ashington suburb. As the W ashington area cel- ebrated the end o f the killings, som e b lacks questioned their own strongly held stereotypes about blacks and the types of crimes they may or may not com mit. M any c rim in o lo g ists, p s y chologists and sociologists who profile serial killers and other c rim in a ls h ad su g g e ste d for w eeks that the sniper was likely a w hite m ale, probably in his 30s or 40s, w ho w as a loner with a background in the m ilitary or w eapons training. Beverly Foster, a 49-year-old black dentist from Arlington, Va., believed them , saying she d id n 't think blacks “killed like that.” “It ju st seem ed too senseless, too random . It ju st didn’t fit us,” she said as she left the A lfred Street B aptist Church in A lexan dria, Va. “I ’m not saying that we c a n ’t, but w ith all o f the past things that have happened, it just d id n 't seem like the type of thing we would do.” Black leaders said the arrests prove the fallacy of m ost stereo types. “None o f us thought that the sniper was going to be one o f us,” Rev. John O. Peterson told his Alfred Street congregation. "But this ju st show s that the devil, he has an affirm ative ac tion program .” Stewart Sm all, a 35-year-old America Online writer-editor from Alexandria, said he, too, was sur prised by the arrests. “T raditionally, m urders like this that have been taking place are — quote unquote — typical o f the w hite m ale, like Theodore Kaczynski, the U nabom ber, Ted Bundy, so I think a lot o f us figured that the sniper would fall into that pattern,” said Stew art. “When I found out, 1 was d efi nitely shocked.” M organ and Sm all both said they hoped that M uham m ad's arrest w on’t create more racism for black A m erican m ales. “Historically, it seems like if you pardon the pun, one bad apple spoils it for everyone else, and historically, it seems especially true for the black male,” Small said. The Portland Observer welcomes freelance submissions. Manuscripts and photographs should be clearly labeled and will be returned if accompanied by a self addressed envelope. All created design display ads become the sole property ol the newspaper and cannot be used in other publications or personal usage without the written consent ol the general manager, unless the client has purchased the composition of such ad. © 1996 THE PORTLAND OBSERVER ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART WITHOUT PERMISSION IS PROHIBITED. The Portland Observer-Oregon's Oldest Multicultural Publication-« a member of the National Newspaper Association—Founded in 1885, and The National Advertising Repre sentative Amalgamated Publishers, Inc, New York, NY, and The West Coast Black Publishers Association • Serving Portland and Vancouver. Encouraging Voters Students from the Portland area will be out in force this weekend encouraging people to return their ballots in this Tuesday's vote-by-mail General Election. The kids are taking part in the Vote forChildren project, a non partisan voter turnout effort. The group is working with 23 Port land public schools to raise voter tum turnout by five percent. Get out the vote walks are planned Saturday departing from Portsmouth and Ockley Green Middle Schools in north Portland and Binnsmead Middle school in southeast Portland. County elections officials must receive the ballots by 8 p.m. on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 5. Postmarks do not count. Official ballot drop sites are lo cated at all Multnomah County libraries and at some Fred Meyer stores, including Interstate and Peninsula. Democracy lesson: Why your vote counts E ditor’s note: The 4th grade class at King Elemen tary School in northeast Portland is getting a lesson in democracy with help from Vote fo r Children, a non partisan voter turnout effort. The Portland Observer is p le a se d to share their thoughts on voting in their own words: play sports. In the past, black people couldn’t vote and white and black people couldn't eat or live together. It is important to vote in Oregon so we can have better schools and more money.” B y S haminique C i . oman “Voting is important so people do not make bad laws, like girls not being able to B y M ai orinne T homas “Voting is important because in 1989 a Lansing, Mich, school district proposition failed when B y B rittany G oldsby “It is important to vote be cause the wrong person might win.” the final count produced a tie vote of 5,147 for and 5,147 against. The result meant the school district lost in trying to get more money to operate schools and the district had to reduce its budget by $2.5 mil lion.” B y F ordos J ahr “It is important to vote be cause schools could loose money for materials like paper and scissors. There could be shorter school days and fewer teachers - which is not a good thing.” Agents of Barbarism formative if it’s news or m VOU probably saw ÿgttlawft Recent tragedies symbolize capacity for evil by Surely, it is no ac H ugh B. P rice At first glance it cident o f history that s e e m s d e s p ic a b ly he a n d h is id e a s , profane to associate largely unknow n in the evil m urderous the W est until now, ram page o f the m et com e to our attention ropolitan W ash in g at this m ost danger ton, D.C. sniper at ous m om ent. tacks and the m on M any in the w orld strous terror bom b w ere lulled by the es ing in Bali, Indonesia tim able progress civi with the courageous lite r a te m a n y fie ld s sin c e h u m a n ity Imre K ertesz, this year’s Nobel L aure W orld W ar II into thinking that hum an ate in Literature, has practiced all his kind had largely rid itself o f its chilling life. capacity for the greatest cruelty the N a And I do not. Rather, I m ention them to contrast zis had taken to the depths o f depravity. these killers’ profound brutality with o f the 1990s in the Balkans and G uate the outstanding quality K ertesz’ novels m ala and R w anda and O klahom a City and essays are said to m ake so com pel- and so m any others places around the lingly clear. T hat is, as the Nobel Prize ju ry ’s the veneer o f civilization remains. H ow ever, we know now that the carnage w orld dem onstrates yet again how thin proclam ation stated, K ertesz’ w ork “up The barbaric arbitrariness o f history holds the fragile experience o f the indi took the lives o f hundreds o f thousands vidual against the barbaric arbitrariness in the last decade, as a half-century o f history.” As we contemplate with horror the earlier it had taken the lives o f m illions. catastrophe in Bali and, here in America, grief, have those who have perished at the sniper deaths, let us understand that the hands o f the killers in Bali and in this is the connection: the wrenching m etropolitan W ashington done to de juxtaposition o f good and evil— the inno serve this cruel fate? cent victims and the cowardly calculating W hat, one asks now , reeling w ith T his is the sam e question my col killers whose inhumanity has transformed leagues at the W all Street headquarters o f them into evil spirits in human form. the N ational U rban League asked 13 Both these tragedies sym bolize so m onths ago, as the W orld T rade C enter m uch o f hum an history— on the one com plex fell to earth less than a m ile from hand, the great capacity o f som e hum an our doorstep and the Pentagon exploded beings to com m it evil, and. on the other, in fatal flam es. Then, thousands o f lives the great capacity o f som e hum an be were taken in m om ents by a cabal o f men ings to live lives o f great, sim ple dignity. o f bottom less evil. A nd it is the question K ertesz, a H ungarian-born Jew , w it that loom ed large in my mind little more nessed and survived tw o o f the most than a w eek ago w hen I kept a speaking destructive exam ples o f the barbaric engagem ent in the W ashington suburb o f arbitrariness o f history. As a teenager, Bow ie, M aryland— w here the sniper had he was im prisoned in the Nazi death shot and w ounded a 13-year-old boy. cam ps o f A uschw itz and Buchenw ald. This is the same question that was asked A fterw ard, he lived in H ungary during about those who perished in the death the entire tim e o f its dom ination by the cam ps sixty years ago. It is the same Soviet Union. But, although he lived in an environ question that is asked about the victims ment where governm ent dem anded a ity for large-scale evil can have its way: rigid, stifling conform ity, Kertesz ex W hat did they do to deserve this cruel fate? pressed in his novels and essays a re W hy them? lentless resistance to unjust social and Hugh B. Price is president o f the National Urban League political conform ity. J lization has made in Hugh B. Price J whenever and wherever the human capac
