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Committed to Cultural Diversity
Volume XXXIV, Number 48
Wednesday • December 8, 2004
County
Officer
Resigns
T1Week...
in
TheReview
Intel Bill To Pass
T he R e p u b lic a n -c o n tro lle d
House agreed Tuesday to vote
to overhaul the nation’s intelli
gence agencies now that Presi
dent Bush and House Armed
S erv ices C h airm an D uncan
Hunter have endorsed a provi
sion guaranteeing battlefield
com manders access to top-se
cret information.
Follows racism
complaints
Kanal Named
Afghan President
A fg h a n is ta n
K
_
fc
I
P r e s id e n t
Hamid Karzai
was sworn in as
I **ie country’s
, ' rsl demnetati
c a ll
’
™
l E B 'eai'cl Tuesday.
L e a d i n g a na
tion whose revival is threatened
by a surging opium trade and a
persistent Taliban insurgency,
he pledges to bring stability and
prosperity to Afghanistan even
as rebels staged attacks near the
Pakistani border.
ACLU Investigates FBI
The A m erican C ivil Liberties
U nion is seeking inform ation
from the FBI on why bureau
task forces set up to com bat
terrorism also looked into anti
war, animal rights and environ
m ental groups.
Texas Blocks Execution
Gov. Rick Perry blocked the ex
ecution o f a black woman two
hours before she could have
been put to death for the slayings
of her husband and two young
children, a move that will allow
for more testing o f forensic evi
dence.
photo by
M ark W ashington AT he P ortland O bserver
Jefferson High School Principal Larry Dashiell pauses in the halls with freshman Tainiqua Horsley-Brown as senior
DaRaysha Kennedy (left) chats with another student.
High Schools Fight to Make Grade
Jefferson, Roosevelt, Marshall, Madison in same boat
J aymee R. C u n
T he P ortland O bserver
by
Jefferson High School, which has been
at the forefront of public scrutiny, con
tinues to lead the pack in basketball suc
cess while trailing in high school aca
demics. However, school officials say
they are making gains.
Jefferson received an “unacceptable”
rating in new statewide report cards.
Marshall, Roosevelt and Madisoin high
schools received low ratings. Benson,
Franklin and Cleveland high schools are
also below standards but still qualify as
“satisfactory.”
Because o f a loophole, Jefferson’s
administration curtails the federal conse
quences of No Child Left Behind, which
could have resulted in the removal of the
principal and teaching staff. Jefferson
escapes this fate because of its recent
restructuring as “school within a school”
academies. This change put Jefferson in
its first year of No Child Lef' Behind
status, with consequences coming in four
to five year waves.
Rtxisevelt. another inner city school
challenged by an achievement gap with
disproportionately high populations of
minority, low income, special education
and non-native English speaking stu
dents, showed progress in the last test-
ing cycle.
“The report card doesn’t differentiate
the complexity o f the dem ographics that
make upeach school,” said Andrew Kelly,
principal at Roosevelt.
Kelly says he’s pleased that Roosevelt
students have improved, despite some
educational barriers. Roosevelt moved
from the “unsatisfactory” to “low" cat
egory. Kelly says he believes his school
will move to "satisfactory” in the next
testing period.
“W e’re certainly not where we want to
be nor where we believe we can be, but
MN
continued
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The Multnomah County Mental Health Director
stepped down Friday, two days after a black employee
accused him of intimidation. County Chairwoman Diane
Linn asked for his resignation. This suspension is on
the heels of a report released last month listing several
race-related com plaints against county leaders.
Linn immediately sent a strongly-worded e-mail to
county em ployees, stating that racial discrimination
will not be tolerated.
Dr. Peter Davidson, the mental health director who
revamped the county’s mental health system, signed
a docum ent in 2002, stating that he would lose his jo b
if he ever committed another discriminatory act while
working for the county. He was also ordered to un
dergo sensitivity training.
The disciplinary actions from his employment his
tory followed an accusation by a black employee that
he used of a racial slur in the workplace, calling African
Americans "mud people,” a claim he denied.
Now, that same woman, who works as senior pro
gram development manager in the mental health divi
sion, has filed a new complaint, alleging that Davidson
recently intimidated her from speaking to the media
about the 2002 incident.
In her complaint, the employee demanded that she
and Davidson no longer have contact in person or over
the phone and that Davidson not contribute to any
mental health programs involving minorities.
Davidson has faced other accusations o f cultural
insensitivity in the workplace. He was accused of
referring to a com mittee run by Com missioner Lisa
Naito as "Kabuki theater" and calling poor people
"Jerry Springer families” and “Les Schwab workers.”
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Doping Claim Probed
The Interna
tional Olym
pic Commit
tee opened
an in v e sti
gation Tues
d ay
in to
doping alle
gations against Marion Jones,
w ho c o u ld e v e n tu a lly be
stripped of her five medals from
the 2000 Olympics.
HIV Rate Steady
Despite the government ’ s prom
ise to “break the back" o f the
AIDS epidemic by 2005, about
40,(XX) Americans test positive
for the HI V infection every year
- the same number as a decade
ago.
Gays Challenge
‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell*
Tw elve g aysexpelled from the
m ilitary because o f their sexual
orientation filed a legal ch a l
lenge to the P entagon’s 11-
year-old “d o n ’t ask, d o n ’t tell”
policy.
Breaking
Cultural
Barriers
Advocates join
immigrant,
minority causes
by J aymee R. Cirri
T he P orti . and O bserver
Racial profiling hit too close to home for
some Portlanders when a well-known local
Muslim cleric. Sheik Mohamed Abdirahman
Kariye, was arrested at the airport on Sept.
8 ,2(X)2, claim ing his brother’s luggage con
tained traces o f explosives.
Charges against the spiritual leaderof the
Islamic Center of Portland were dropped but
secret surveillance of Muslims continued in
a backlash o f the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
In June of that same year, an FBI infor
mant infiltrated Kariye’s mosque, to secretly
record conversations for evidence against
the “Portland Seven” defendants. Many
practicing Muslims found this very unsetting
after fleeing from countries that had little
respect for freedom and human rights.
In a response to what they called a “witch
hunt” against im m igrants and Muslims,
Community Language and Culture Bank was
formed.
The facilitating group in northeast Port
land aims to connect immigrants and anyone
affected by cultural barriers with peace ac
tivists and the progressive community.
In Kayse Jam a's experience, the group
founder, peace advocacy agencies have much
in common with culturally-driven civil rights
photo by
M ark W ashington /T he P orti . and O bserver
Kayse Jama (from left), Stephanie Stephens, Andy Wheeler and Hirsi Dirir work for the rights o f immigrants, Muslims and
racial minorities as volunteers for Community Language and Culture Bank.
groups, without a bridge to connect them.
Jama himself has experienced inequities
in freedom as a refugee from Somalia, a
Muslim and an African American. He real
ized the struggles o f minorities and immi
Culture Bank. "W here white people act with
privilege in their daily lives, for immigrants
and people o f color, everyday is a struggle.”
Stephanie Stephens, com munications d i
rector for the group, identified some of the
Where white people act with privilege
in their daily lives, fo r immigrants and
people o f color, everyday is a struggle.
- Andy Wheeler, outreach officer for Community Language and Culture Bank
grants greatly overlap.
“ In both cases, there’s oppression,” said
Andy W heeler, the development and out
reach officer for Com munity Language and
barriers affecting com m unities o f color,
Muslims and immigrants as difficulty in se
curing housing, jobs, childcare, welfare and
safety from police brutality, hate crimes and
racial profiling.
Group members say Portland is a living
paradox for people o f color. While the repu
tation is welcoming and Portland is hailed as
a mtxlel city from an urban planning perspec
tive, the city if heavily segregated, with
minorities concentrated mostly in north and
northeast Portland.
“It's really remarkable that no matter how
much people talk about diversity, no one
knows how to do it," W heeler said.
Community Language and Culture Bank
brings people together through educational
forums and celebratory events.
A recent event that brought more than I (X)
volunteers together was the Sept. 12 C ul
tural Festival, themed “Hope Begins When
continued
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