Page A4 (Ehe |Jo rtlan ò (Ohseruer May 14. 2003 Opinion articles do not necessarily reflect or represent the views o f The Portland Observer O pinion rhe Portland Observer .ó _____________U S PS 9 5 9 - 6 8 0 ___________ 4 T I H ? Established 1970 4 7 4 7 N E M a rtin L u th e r K ing, Jr. B lvd .. P o rtla n d , OR 9 7 2 1 1 E n i r o a -i s -C h i c i . P c a i i s h c a Charles H. Washington E o i r o k Michael Leighton D is r a ia c r io s Saturday, May 17 10 am - 4 pm C a £ a t i ► í The Portland Observer-Oregon’s Oldest Multicultural Publication- -is a member of the National Newspaper Association-Founded in 1885, and The National Advertising Representative Amalgamated Publishers, Inc, New York, NY, and The West Coast Black Publishers Association • Serving Portland and Vancouver. D i a r. c t o a Posnusrra: Send address changes to Portland Observer PO Box 3 1 3 7 , Portland, OR9 7 2 0 8 Paul Neufeldt O rn ct Periodical Postage paid In Portland, OR M a sa cra Subscriptions are $ 6 0 .0 0 per year Kathy Linder A ssocrarr E o / r o a Wrnde Dyer GAMES AND CRAFTS Learn how to attract w ildlife io your yard using w ildflowers! 5 0 3 -2 8 8 -0 0 3 3 Kendra James’ death requires open investigation \ The fo llo w in g is an editorial from The No wonder questions flew after the first for­ Four days after the deadly traffic stop. Police ChiefM ark Kroeker could provide littleon what happened. OREGON ZOO £ According to the sketchy pol ice account, James M E T R 0 TAKE MAX TO THE ZOO! CALL 503-238-RIDE 1 I - w. I the NAAC'Pand the Albina Ministerial Alliance for taking this incident so seriously. Sen. Avel G ordly was disturbed that it took four days to interview the police officer who three police officers were engaged at the car. The fatal shot followed another attempt to get During a memorial service Sunday on the Skidmore Street overpass where the fatal shot her into custody with the use o f a stun gun. ended James’ life. Sen. Margaret Carter demanded We join the chorus o f African American justice, cal ling on “the dignity and integrity that is leaders and others who are outraged. With no given to the best o f us, also be given to the least o f us. C h ief Kroeker prom ises African American James wasjust 21-years-old. Shewasam other leaders that he will push for "intense community oftw o who weighed just 110 pounds. She had no dialogue" and “a revisiting o f everything we do history o f violent crime. How could she be as an organization.” considered dangerous? Why d id n 't policejust T h at’s not enough if police policies d o n ’t move away from the car and keep them selves outofdanger? change. It’s not enough if more people o f color are not a part our public safety system - that Unfortunately, the details are withheld as the means more pol ice o f color, more firefighters o f Multnomah County District A ttorney’s office color, more prosecutors o f color and more j udges o f color. presents the case to a secret grand jury. W hat’s really needed is an open and public process. The few scraps o f information in this case are AT A CROSSROADS W IT H G AM BLING? We thank our African American leadership, fired the fatal shot. death was excessive and unj ustifiable. .......‘ will find an officer at fault when he or she uses deadly force. was shot and k i lied when she tried to drive o ff as evidence to the contrary, it appears that this I breeding contempt for the justice system. Unfor­ tunately, there is no history to believe a grand jury mal response to the police shooting o f Kendra James. ■ '■’h r f FAX 5 0 3 - 2 8 8 - 0 0 1 5 adSBQ'tiandobsener.com • ciassifieds@cioaiandobserver.com Portland Observer: ww w.oregonzoo.org • newst3>Dortlandobserver.coni • suO§cngtionixirtlandobserver.com Ju stifia b le O utrage Free W ith Zoo A d m is s io n r M a sa cra Mark Washington The Portland Observer welcomes freelance submissions. Manu­ scripts and photographs should beclearly labeled and will be returned if accompanied by a self addressed envelope. All created design display ads become the sole property of the new spaper and cannot be used in other publications or personal usage without the written consent of the general manager, unless the client has purchased the composition o f such ad. C 1996 THE PORTLAND OBSERVER ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART WITHOUT PERMISSION IS PROHIBITED. We can only hope the truth behind Kendra Jam es’ death will eventually be known. May peace and justice prevail. !» A World Turned Upside Down Government drops compassion and protection from duties B y M ilton J. L ittle J r . If your gambling is getting out of hand, there is a new program that can help you take it in a different direction. The Gambling Evaluation And Reduction Program (GEAR) is an educational, phone-based counseling program designed for people who want to steer away from potentially dangerous gambling patterns - without traveling to a treatment center. GEAR is free, confidential and it ’s easy to enroll. Call the toll free problem gambling help line at 877-278-6766 today and an advisor will help determine if GEAR is right for you. Choose the road to a brighter future Sponsored by the Oregon Lottery in coniunction with the Department ot Human Services. I In the “old days,” from the early 1930s to, say, the mid-1990s, it was accepted that part o f government’s duty was to be compassionate to­ ward and protect those Americans who were the poorest and neediest among us. Who among us will say now that government in America intends to maintain that obligation? Instead, more and more, we see the transfor­ mation of government from protector of the working and middle classes to their scourge, as some seek to reserve all the “compassion” in the society for the wealthiest of Americans, who, it is glibly asserted, are being “victimized" by an unjust tax structure. That change of heart is apparent in the draco­ nian budget cuts in social services rolling like a tidal wave through state legislatures. Perhaps the most dismaying example of this change, however, is the Internal Revenue Service's new proposal to target for intensive investigation those poor American workers who claim the eamed-income tax credit. During the past quarter-century this program, limited to families with total earnings less than S35.OOO, has helped millions stave off poverty and given them an incentive to continue to work and be productive members of society. Now. the Bush Administration, arguing the program is bogged down with error and fraud, has proposed onerous new rules that are certain to reduce the number of poor workers who will both I apply for and receive the tax credit. We’re all for minimizing waste in government programs. But this action doesn’t make sense— especially given the far, far larger tax amounts the I.R.S. has shown comparatively little interest in attempting to collect from individual taxpayers, offshore accounts, and corporations. In the last two years, more than 2.6 million jobs have disappeared—525,000 of them in the last three months alone. Now nearly 9 million Ameri­ cans are out of work, and nearly 2 million have been without work for 6 months and more. More than 4 million former jobholders have stopped looking for work altogether, and thus aren’t offi­ cially counted in the employment/unemployment calculations. There's a seeming paradox in citing all these numbers. They sketch the magnitude of the economic difficulty choking the nation. But they also tend to obscure the wrenching plight o f individuals— those elderly or ill or disabled now being cut o ff o f Medicaid, those children left in the lurch by cuts in school aid, those able- bodied jobless workers who’ve spent months and years now in a fruitless search for work. These are people, our fellow Americans, who’ve seen their world turned upside down. What are they to do? Let me put that another way: What are we to do? Milton J. Little Jr. is the interim president and chief executive officer o f the National Urban League.