Portland (Pbsvmer
Page A4
luly 29. 2009
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Racial Profiling in Portland
Portland is in dangerous territory right now on the issue of
race and racial profiling. Did you notice that, even though Port­
land City Com m issioners are is in the m idst o f a huge fight with
A frican-A m erican leaders from O regon Action and their allies
about w hen and how the city will actually do som ething m ean­
ingful about racial profiling by the Portland Police Bureau. M ost
people d o n ’t know that the C hief Sizer released a plan that has no
individual office accountability, that citizens have to get approval
from the office in question for review o f their personnel file to
take place or that Portland Police U nion is fighting tooth and nail
to prevent the plan from having any m eaningful im pact on the
behavior o f officers. A dditionally, M ayor A dam s refuses to m eet
with A frican-A m erican leaders on the issue, while sim ultaneously
leaving the C h ief’s plan unfunded. Finally, the new process for
resolving racial profiling now resides in the H um an Rights C om ­
m ission that is apparently seeking to discover love and harm onic
convergence in the cosm os. T he new ly m inted Com m unity Po­
lice R elations Com m ittee, (PPB screens, interview s, and selects
com m unity m em bers and outnum bers citizens 5-4) is ju st another
rehashed, tim e ^ o m strategy o f “if we could ju st get the Blacks
to understand how hard our jo b is, everything will be ju st fine” .
Portland, I think we can do better.
Ron Williams
Organizer, Oregon Action
Taking Care of Our People
M ari C astellanos
T h e fo lk s in the
C o n g re ss h av e been
burning the m idnight
oil these pas, few days,
trying to com e up with
a healthcare plan that
c a n p a s s b o th the
House and the Senate and make
it to the President’s desk for his
signature.
It’s a tough issue. Some say
too tough; esp ecially in this
ec o n o m ic en v iro n m en t. But
you know w hat they say hap­
pens w hen things get tough.
by
T he older folk used
to say th a t’s when
the tou g h get g o ­
ing.
It is time for some
to u g h lo v e . T h e
kind o f love that is
about truth telling.
L e t’s look at w here we as a
people, as a natio n , p u t o u r
money:
We put our money into weap­
ons with a defense budget o f
over half a trillion dollars a year.
By some estim ates the cost
of this y ear’s econom ic stim u­
lus, plus the Wall S treet and
auto industry bailouts, is higher
than the cost o f all w ars the U.
S. has fought in all its history,
com bined.
We p u t o u r m o n e y in to
sports: Last year Tiger W oods
m ade, $128 m illion, L eB ron
J a m e s $ 4 0 .5 m illio n , A lex
Rodriguez and Shaquille O ’Neil
$35 million each. The new Yan­
kee Stadium and the M et’s Citi
Field cost a com bined $2.3 bil­
lion.
A pair o f Lanvin trainers go
for $560; a 30 seconds Super
Health care is worth the investment
bowl ad for $3 million.
In contrast, the average pub­
lic school te a c h e r’s salary is
$51,000; a registered n u rse’s
$53,000; a firefighter $44,000.
The U. S. is the only industri-
a liz e d c o u n try w ith o u t a
healthcare plan that covers all
its citizens. A m ajor healthcare
crisis or a chronic illness can
devastate a fam ily and often
does.
W h e re is o u r tr e a s u r e ?
W here is our heart?
It’s tim e for som e tough love
o f country. Truth telling is an
A n a tio n c a n n o t p r o s p e r
ac, o f love. T his is a critical
tim e to let our elected officials w hen it does not take care o f its
know th at h ea lth c are fo r all p e o p le . P r e s id e n t O b a m a
people m ust be a top priority know s that healthcare is a na­
tional priority.
for the U nited States.
Tell your senators and repre­
We need a h ealth care plan
that covers all persons, is a f­ sentatives that you agree with
fordable for all, provides com ­ the P resid en t. O u r p e o p le ’s
p reh en siv e ben efits, o ffers a health and access to health care
choice o f physicians and other are w orth the investm ent o f our
health providers, elim inates ra­ treasu re, because o u r people
cial, ethnic and all other dispari­ are our nation’s heart.
Mari Castellanos is minister
ties for health care, w aives p re­
existing health conditions and fo r policy advocate fo r domes­
does not further im pose finan­ tic issues for the United Church
o f Christ.
cial barriers to health care.
Crossroads in Civil Rights, We are Not Alone
by M ari
H .M oriai .
In 1903, when the
s c h o la r an d c iv il
rights leader W.E.B.
D u B o is p r e d ic te d
that "the problem o f
the 20th Century will
be the problem o f the
color line," African A m ericans
had every reason to agree.
Seven years earlier, segrega­
tion and the since discredited
doctrine o f "separate but equal"
were legalized in the Supreme
C o u rt's in fa m o u s P le ss y v.
Ferguson decision. T hat out­
rageous decision se, the stage
for the civil rights struggles of
the last century.
It also helped give
b ir th to tw o o f th e
greatest defenders o f
equality in our nation's
history - the NAACP,
w hich was founded in
1909, and the National
Urban League, which
cam e into existence in 1910.
One hundred years later, both
the N A A C P and the National
Urban League are still opening
the doors o f freedom , insisting
on full adm ittance for the d e­
scendants o f slaves.
But, because o f the leader­
ship o f these tw o organizations
and countless others over the
last century, m any o f the legal
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The big challenges now facing
our communities are increasingly
the same as those facing the rest
o f the country.
barriers to equality have fallen.
D uBois w ould be astonished to
see that at the beginning of the
21st Century, A m erica elected
its first African Am erican Presi­
dent.
The election of Barack Obama
w as a w atersh ed m o m en t in
America's oldest and most diffi­
cult internal struggle. It indicated
how far we have com e since the
Supreme Court agreed with the
State o f Louisiana that a black
man could be jailed for sitting in
the "whites only" section o f a
rail car. And for the National
Urban League, it signals an im­
portant shift in both our mission
and our message.
Incidents like the expulsion
o f black children from a sw im ­
m ing pool in Philadelphia and
the w ide disparities in educa­
tion, crim inal justice and health
make it clear that the civil rights
struggle is not over.
But, we have reached a cross­
roads. T he big challenges now
facing our com m unities are in­
creasin g ly the sam e as those
facing the rest o f the country.
W h ile A fric an A m eric an s
continue to suffer d isp ro p o r­
tionately from the lack o f u ni­
versal health care, the epidem ic
o f housing foreclosures, and the
current economic meltdown, we
are not alone. These are chal­
lenges that affect every A m eri­
can and they require that we
com bine personal responsibil­
ity with sensible public policies
to m ake the A m erican D ream
real for everyone w ho is willing
to w ork for it.
T hat will be the over-riding
them e o f this w eek's National
U rban League A nnual C onfer­
ence in Chicago. In one o f the
most com prehensive line-ups of
w orkshops and speakers ever
assem bled, we will em phasize
that our path to pow er in the
21st century requires that we
lead beyond the narrow co n ­
fines o f traditional civil rights
for A frican A m ericans to speak
fo r every A m erican - Black,
W hite, H ispanic, A sian A m eri­
can , N ative A m erican - who
shares o u r vision o f equality
and justice for all.
As the great U rban League
leader, W hitney M. Young Jr.
once said, "every man is our
brother, and every m an's bur­
den is our own. W here pov­
e r ty e x is ts , a ll a re p o o re r.
W here hate flourishes, all are
co rru p te d . W h ere in ju s tic e
reins, all are unequal."
Marc H. Morial is president
and chief executive officer o f
the National Urban League.
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by J udge
G reg M athis
When family members
lay a loved one to rest,
they expect that the fi­
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body will the same as the
on e th ey en v isio n fo r
their soul: peaceful.
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The four people charged with
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the side. F am ily m em b ers are
h o rrifie d , and rig h tly so. So
m any have no idea o f k n o w ­
ing w here the rem ains o f th eir
loved o n es a c tu a lly are; th ey
can o n ly w ait for au th o rities
to id e n tify th e b o d ies.
F o r a tim e, B u rr O ak w as
are responsible should be pros­
ecuted to the fullest extent of
the law; life in prison for such
deplorable behavior is not too
much to ask.
If you aren 't familiar with the
story, the m anager o f Burr Oak
Cemetery in Alsip, III., a Chicago
suburb, and three grave diggers
dug up m ore than 300 grave
sites, reselling the plots.
B o d ie s
w ere
fo u n d
p o u n d ed dow n, b uried on top
o f one other, body parts w ere
s c a tte r e d a ro u n d a n d h ea d
sto n e s c a r e le s s ly to ss e d to
cago boy who was lynched in
M ississippi in ,9 5 5 for w his­
tling at a w hite w om an, is bur­
ied at Burr Oak. T he gruesom e
nature o f T ill’s death, and the
public funeral his m other was
determ ined to have, breathed
life into the civil rights m ove­
ment.
T ill's family reburied him in a
new cask et in 2004 afte r his
body w as exhum ed as part o f a
n ew in v e s tig a tio n in to h is
d e a th . H is o rig in a l c a s k e t,
view ed by m ore than 50,000 at
his funeral, should be consid--
ered an im portant piece o f civil
rights and American history and
treated as such. Instead, it was
found rusting in a shack on the
cem etery grounds.
T hat a com pany w hich origi­
nally show ed so much support
to the black com m unity could
show so little respect for one of
its m ost m em orable figures is
sh o c k in g . T h an k fu lly , T ill’s
gravesite was intact.
on e o f few c e m e te rie s n e a r
C h ic a g o th a t b u ried b la ck s.
Its e a rly im p o rta n c e to th e
A frican A m erican com m unity
m akes th is sto ry all the m ore
o u tra g e o u s. O v er th e y ears,
cem eteries began to tear dow n
th e ir c o lo r lin e s , a llo w in g
b la c k s to be b u rie d am o n g
w h ite s . H o w e v e r , A fr ic a n
A m erican s in the area co n tin ­
Judge Greg Mathis is vice
ued to rev ere B urr O ak. In r e ­
tu rn , the o w n ers v ic tim ize d president o f Rainbow PUSH
those w ho h av e su p p o rted it and a board member o f the
Southern Christian Leadership
fo r g en eratio n s.
Em m ett Till, the 14-year Chi- Conference.