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Fred Meyer
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The Week ¡n Review
PHOTO BY C A R I H a CHMANN/T h E PORTLAND O BSERV ER
World flags dangle above the circle o f community members who gather at David Douglas High
School to take on the issues o f gang violence and demands for a more peaceable future,
It Takes a Village
C lassifieds
page 15
C ari H achmann
T he P ortland O bserver
by
R eligion
M
ay
page 16-17
C alendar
page 19
F ood
page 20
t » t i t t » < 4
Community gathering confronts gang violence
“Like it or not, we are losing as
a community,” Sam Thomson, a
local business owner and speaker,
implored during the meeting at
David Douglas High School in
response to unwavering gang vio
lence and a community’s demand
for a more peaceable future.
World flags dangled above the
recent gathering as a double circle
of community members met in
the auditorium of the southeast
Portland school. Experienced el
ders and tender-aged youth made
up the inner circle while resi
dents, teachers, families, and par
ents closed in the outer circle.
A frican A m ericans, the
forum’s majority, listened as Th
ompson prompted a discussion
on how to restore an aching com
munity, hit hard by a recent uptick
in gun-related incidents, and
gentrification and recession in
duced losses of solidarity, moral
cohesion, economic opportunity,
city support, and the death of too
many young lives.
Statistics proved his point. Just
51 percent of African Americans
graduate in P ortland Public
Schools. Seventy-five percent of
students at David Douglas are
from families with incomes low
enough to qualify for free school
lunches. And while the city spends
$500,000 on gang outreach, it
doles out $20 million to build bike
lanes.
In 2010, zero people died in
bike-related accidents. Since Sep
tember, gang-related shootings
killed five young people.
“The reason things are the way
they are is because we tolerate it,”
said Thompson recognizing that
the only way the African-Ameri
can community will receive help
is if they help themselves.
In the background stood a
lunch room table saturated with
obituary cards from the funerals
of local African American youth,
representing just one third of
gang-related deaths in recent
years, and serving as a cold re-
continued
on page 5