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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