February 12, 2014
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fice is charged with recognizing
and rem oving system ic barriers to
the fair and ju st distribution of
city recourses. The goal is sup
porting hum an rights and oppor
tunity for everyone to achieve their
full potential.
Jam es says diversity is a com
ponent of equity. For exam ple, he
says public officials c an ’t be sat
isfied when a pool of job or con
tracting applicants lacks diversity,
“T hat’s where we come in and
look at where was the lack of ac
cess? W hat were the barriers?”
The office can ’t make city bu
reaus hire more people of color,
for exam ple, but it can influence
their hiring decisions, he says.
Studies show that in Portland
and M ultnom ah County, com m u-
photo by M ark
W ashington /T he P ortland O bserver
Dante J. James is the first bureau director for Portland’s Office of Equity and Human Rights.
nities of color, people with dis-
abilities and low-income residents
fare far worse than residents in
o th e r c itie s in e d u c a tio n a l
achievem ent, incom e and eco-
nom ic p ro sp e rity , h ealth out-
com es, and affordable, secure and
viable neighborhoods.
Jam es says he wants to change
Oregon as ‘Whitelandia’
c o n t i n u e d f r o m fron t
ing point of gentrification, he says
neither he nor MacDonald had been
clued into how deep these roots ran
until they began pre-production for
Whitelandia.
“We knew what we were getting
into as a couple of white people
telling the story,” Zodrow says, “We
wanted to make it clear that we had
the technical skills and know-how
to put a film together, [but] it
wouldn’t be our voice.”
To help ensure the story is truly
being given authentic voicing from
the c o m m u n ity , Z odrow and
MacDonald have linked with the
Oregon Association for Black Af
fairs as the film ’s official advisory
board. The partnership with the
social justice group, whose leader
Dr. Cal Henry, first suggested to the
two filmmakers that the documen
tary be made, ensures that all re
search, interviews, and content gets
the okay from OAB A members.
They’ve also partnered with the
Oregon Black History Museum in
Salem as reference checkers, along
with local activist, artist, author, and
teacher of Black Studies at Portland
State University, Walidah Imarisha the creative process, Zodrow says.
as an individual advisor.
As the Whitelandia documen
As part of the documentation for tary moves into full production soon,
the movie, Imarisha is interviewed the filmmakers are hoping they will
about Oregon’s black history, along be able to answer a key question in
with such other community stal the film: Did Oregon’s founders
warts such as Will Bennett of successfully create a “white home
G roundw ork Portland, and photog land?” If so, what does this mean for
rapher Intisar Abioto, whose blog the nearly two percent of blacks that
“The Black Portlanders” documents inhabit the state today?
black life in the metropolitan area.
One focal point of the film is
The NW Film Center has also Vanport City, the first and largest
partnered with Whitelandia as a housing project in the nation for war
non-profit organization, ensuring all workers. This construction was re
grants and loans to the film are tax sponsible for the biggest influx of
deductible, but yielding no say in blacks (and poor whites) to the state
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the narrative that Portland is one
o f the w hitest cities o f the top 50
cities in the country and therefore
c an ’t have significant issues with
race.
“That belies the fact that 25
percent o f the population o f Port
land are people of color, and that
half o f the students in the public
school system are people of color,
and 1 in 5 Portland residents are
foreign born,” he says.
Jam es was asked about the is
sue o f gentrification and the d is
placem ent o f people o f color from
their historical neighborhoods.
He said he’s never been any
where like Portland, where minority
communities have been bulldozed
out of existence.
“The abuse that occurred previ
ously needs to be accounted for as
we move forward,” he says.
James says while his office is
focused on barriers with regard to
race and disabilities, its success can
have a positive impact on other
populations.
“If you improve aspects on race,
you will improve results across all
the spectrums,” James says.
in its history, more specifically the
Portland area as many came in
search of shipyard jo b s during
World W arll.
“The film really takes a turn
there,” Zodrow says, “We kind of
consider that the jumping off point
for contemporary black history in
Oregon.
Vanport, infamously flooded in
1946 destroying that project, and
leaving its residents, many of them
black, without a place to live in a city
that did not want them inside its
borders.
Some of the subjects interviewed
for the film are the sons and daugh
ters of those who survived the flood,
as many of the original V anport resi
dents have since passed on.
“Those families are really impor
tant to us, the ones that are here, still
here in the [Albina] neighborhood,”
Zodrow says, as he and his partners
continue to search for possible
interviewees of that era.
As the filmmakers piece together
their scenes for the documentary,
Zodrow is becoming more sure that
the answ er to the question o f
whether the state has indeed be
come a “white homeland” is yes,
and has the even more sobering
revelation that it has “always been
state funded”.
“They’re getting very close to
that, and it’s always been state
funded, and always state sanctioned
from day one and continues to be
today. So it’s a hard story to tell, but
we’re trying for sure,” Zodrow says.
To contact the film m akers with
possible research for W hitelandia
or to appear in the film , contact
M a tt Z o d ro w at M z o d ro w
@uncolafilm s.com . Also be sure
to “like” the film on Facebook for
continued inform ation on its pro
g ressio n s.