I
'ri'f jjortlattb Observer__________________ March 21.2012
Page 8
O pinion
Spend a Morning with a City Worker
We need these
vital services
and the jobs
by J erry
J ohnson
As a sew er utility w orker with the
C ity o f P o rtlan d ’s m aintenance b u
reau for 22 years, I w ake at the crack
o f daw n to start my day. B ecause
I'm dealing w ith the pain o f a spinal
cord injury from a traum atic fall in
July 2 0 1 1 ,1 need extra time to shower,
stretch, and loosen up for the day
ahead.
A s I grab my keys to head out the
door, 1 say goodbye to my w ife
Angel, and hug my children Yazm en
and J ’lynn tight, w ishing them a
good day at school. In the c ar I
notice that because o f the n ig h t’s
heavy rain all the street drains are
clogged. But as I head up the street,
m y eyes locate our city vactor truck
(a m assive sew er cleaning system
on w heels) and I w ave to the crew s
City of Portland sewer maintenance worker Jerry “J J ” Johnson
uses a bullhorn at a rally to spread the world about the impact of
city budget cuts on the community.
heading tow ard the clogged drains.
I’m sure they w ere called in before
shift to handle the flooding catch
b asin s.
As I turn onto W illam ette B oule
vard, I notice a tw o m an paving crew
pouring hot asphalt m ix in several o f
the holes I hit last night on the w ay
hom e. T his crew is responding to a
call, helping drivers avoid accidents
before the m orning rush hour.
A s I approach N orth V ancouver
A venue, heading north tow ard the
m aintenance bureau, 1 w atch b eau
tiful autum n leaves fall to the ground
w ith the rain. T h en I see the convoy
o f flashing lights and heavy m a
chinery sw eeping and collecting
slippery leaves that w ere causing
problem s for the bicyclists and p e
d estrian s.
As I pull into w ork, I w atch our
traffic electrical crew hanging teth
ers for signals that w ere dam ag ed in
a car accident in the early m orning
hours.
This morning I am filled with pride
as I see the w orkers o f the C ity o f
P ortland doing th eir best to m ain
tain the infrastructure o f the city.
W e get up in the early m orning to
respond to em erg en cy calls no m at
ter w here o r w hy. I really appreciate
o ur dedication to m aintaining the
livability and quality o f life in the
C ity o f Portland. From street c lea n
ing, to paving and traffic signals,
the em ployees o f the C ity o f R oses
respond, repair, and m aintain the
infrastructure that keeps the city
m oving.
U nfortunately, the w ork w e do is
th reaten ed .
C ity C ouncil is planning to cut
o u r budget and lay o ff m any o f the
w orkers w ho m aintain the streets
and parks o f Portland. But we w ill
not stand by and let C ity H all throw
in the tow el on o ur services. W e are
on your side, fighting to protect
P o rtlan d ’s future.
B ecause o f m y injury, I am d eal
ing w ith serious pain and m obility
issues, but I refuse to give up on
m yself, ju s t as I refuse to give up on
Portland.
As a h u sb an d and fath er I have to
fight for a full recovery, and I have
to fight for m y jo b and the services
m y co w o rk ers provide to the c o m
m unity. P lease jo in m e. Join m y c o
w orkers. W e are your neighbors.
Let C ity C ouncil know w e need so
lutions, not cuts.
Jerry “JJ" Johnson o f Portland
is a member o f Laborers ’ Local483.
Fooling Some of the People All of the Time
Especially if they want to be fooled
by L ee A .
D aniels
£
N a tu r a lly , th e
lio n ’s share o f com - < ■
j
m en tary ab o u t the
Republican primaries
la st w e e k h as fo-
—OS l E
I
cused on divining the m eaning o f
R ick S an to ru m ’s unexpected defeat
o f both N ewt Gingrich and M itt R om
ney in A labam a and M ississippi.
But I’ve been struck by the one
response o f likely R epublican v o t
ers in the tw o states to one question
on the Public Policy Polling survey
that w as released the day before the
vote.
T he response underscored the
w isdom o f an observation that, as a
child, I heard my m other say from
tim e to tim e. Y ou can fool som e o f
the people all o f the tim e, she w ould
quietly exclaim . In tim e I cam e to
realize there w as an unspoken co d a
to this observation: especially if they
w ant to be fooled.
In that regard, B arack O b a m a ’s
presidency continues to re-affirm
w h a t’s been proven to m e m any
tim es in the past: M om w as a w ise
wom an.
S o , fo r all th o se A m e ric a n s
w h o ’ve show n these past four years
their hunger to be fooled all the tim e,
I w ant you to look at the acco m p a
nying photo (right).
T his photo proves that B arack
O bam a, ourcurrent C hief Executive,
an d his im m e d ia te p re d e ce sso r,
G eorge W . B ush, have been allies in
a decades-old conspiracy to ...
I know you can fill in the rest,
because y o u ’re the kind o f people
w ho can believe - o r disbelieve -
an y th in g .
T he latest confirm ation that hard
core O bam a-haters w ill disbelieve
any facts that cast him as a norm al
A m erican and believe any claim , no
m atter how preposterous, that casts
him as “ u n -A m erican ” is right there
in Q uestion 22, respectively, o f the
sep arately -co n d u cted public policy
surveys. It asks: “ D o you think
B arack O b am a is a C hristian, o r a
M uslim , o r are you not sure?”
T he results: nearly h a lf o f the
states’ R epublican voters, 45 p er
cent in A labam a, 52 percent in M is
sissippi, say they believe B arack
O bam a is a M uslim .
It gets w orse. O f the rem aining
G O P voters, only 14 percent o f A la
bam a R epublicans and 12 percent o f
M ississip p i R ep u b lican s b eliev e
O b am a is, as he has said repeatedly
he is, a C hristian. In A labam a 41
percent o f R epublicans say they
d o n ’t know w hat O b a m a ’s religion
is; in M ississippi, it’s 36 percent.
Perhaps one sh o u ld n ’t be su r
prised. A fter all, as a group, A la
bam a and M ississippi w hite voters
are am ong the m ost conservative in
the country. In both states, nearly
h a lf o f those answ ering the polling
su rv ey d e sc rib e d th e m selv e s as
“ very” conservative, and another
q uarter to a third said they w ere
“ som ew hat” conservative.
B oth states w ere the m ost racist
o f the O ld C o n fed eracy during the
Jim C row era and the m ost resistant
to the C ivil R ights M ovem ent o f the
1950s and 1960s. In 2008 voting
to ta ls s h o w e d th a t
less than 15 percent
o f w hite voters in e i
th e r state cast th eir
ballots fo r O bam a.
N o n e th e le s s , o n
one level, it is asto n
ishing that, after all the
vetting o f candidate
O b a m a ’s background
during the tw o -y ear
long m arathon to the
N o v em b er 2008 e lec
tion, and all the fu r
th er discussion o f his
b a c k g r o u n d s in c e ,
i » »
» » » » • »
som e sm all but significant n um ber
o f w hites eith er insists that O bam a
is a M uslim , or declares they “ d o n ’t
kn o w ” if he is o r not.
Both o f these groups o f voters
are grasping at straw s. O r, rather,
figm ents: the figm ents o f a racist
im agination.
B elieving that B arack O bam a is a
M uslim , o r “not k n o w in g ” w hether
h e ’s a C h ristian are acts o f extrem e
self-deception, o f not w anting to
know the truth. I t’s the m odern-day
eq uivalent o f the segregationist cry
o f the Jim C row era that black s who
p ushed for civil rights w ere “co m
m u n ists” th em selv es o r dupes o f
w hite com m unists. As that tw isted
reasoning had it, th eir N egroes ju st
w o u ld n ’t th in k o f u p settin g the
peaceful relations that ex isted b e
tw een southern blacks and w hites
by d em anding racial equality. T hat
had to be the w ork o f outside ag ita
tors.
T hus, one w itn essed the ab su r
dity o f segregationists, w ho w ere
fo rever declaring w hite S o u th ern
ers the “m ost patriotic” o f all A m eri
cans, labeling the great m ovem ent
to expand d em ocracy fo r all a co m
m unist plot.
In o th e r w o rd s, b iz a rre c o n
spiracy theories and im plicit o r ex
plicit assertions that black A m eri
cans a re n ’t really A m erican citizens
are an old tradition in A m erican life.
N ow , as before, som e w hites are
trying to h o ld on to th eir racist p re
cepts b y im agining blacks as th e y ’d
like them to be. T h at these w hites in
A lab am a and M ississippi, and else
w here, w ould, I ’m sure, vigorously
claim their feelings are sincere in no
w ay u n d erm in es the reality that
th e y ’re absurd.
T hen, o f course, there are the
c y n ic a l O b a m a -h a te rs, the ones
w h o ’ve tried one ploy after another
to appeal to the w orst instincts o f
w hite co nservative voters.
The latest new taw dry conspiracy
theory co m es from the m edia fac
tory o f d eceit once ruled by the
no w -d ead A ndrew B reitbart.
B re itb a rt's su cc e sso r recen tly
ch arg ed that the late D errick B ell,
one o f the m ost d iscerning analysts
o f post-W orld W ar T w o A m erica,
w as a racist, and that O b am a is, too.
T he evidence: Bell w as a professor
at H arvard Law School w hile O bam a
w as a student there, and O bam a
praised B ell and briefly hugged him
w hile introducing him at a student
ra lly s u p p o rtin g B e ll’s p ro te s t
against the absence o f black w om en
faculty m em bers at the law school.
T hat p rofoundly absurdist claim
w as quickly seconded by that m as
te r o f logical thinking and speech,
Sarah Palin, w ho ad d ed that “W hat
O b am a seem s to w ant to do is go
back before [the Civil W ar] w hen w e
w ere in d ifferen t classes based on
incom e, b ased on co lo r o f skin.”
In short, Palin declared that the
nation ’ s first black President o f m ixed
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