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(Ehe |Jo rtlan ò (Ohseruer
May 14. 2003
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GAMES AND CRAFTS
Learn how to attract w ildlife
io your yard using w ildflowers!
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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.
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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.
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Mark Washington
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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.