Portland observer., May 27, 2015, Image 7

May 27, 2015
Page 7
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O PINION
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Don’t bring
a gun to an
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T OM H. H ASTINGS
F OR THE P ORTLAND O BSERVER
On the campus where
I teach, Portland State
University, there has nev-
er been a mass shooting.
Indeed, as long as I’ve
been here—almost the
entire millennium! —no
one here has been shot.
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been unarmed the entire time and
managed to de-escalate or some-
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has arisen. Good job!
Meanwhile, the “normal” po-
lice across the U.S. have been
shooting and choking unarmed
people to death. Black America
is in a state of general disaffec-
tion with the high rate of unarmed
black people who get killed —
some say murdered — by beweap-
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including several in the last few
years in our town, Portland.
Then, in the fall of 2014, as
BY
the country continued to roil over
these deaths — and new ones like
the shooting of young unarmed
Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.
and then the chokehold suffoca-
tion of unarmed father of six, Eric
Garner, in New York — the PSU
Board of Trustees voted to create
an armed police force on
our campus. Can you see
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My campus is not diverse
— 60 percent white and a
mere three percent African
American, for example —
but the students and faculty
certainly aspire toward more of a
complex and representative mix
of humankind. Some eight percent
of students are international, many
from the Middle East, and anoth-
er 15 percent are either Asian or
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The new president of the stu-
dent body is a young Syrian-born
mother, a Muslim who is also a
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olution, specializing in nonviolent
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tion. Dana Ghazi is a minority
student but she was chosen by the
majority to lead. I asked her if she
had ideas about the campus secu-
rity situation.
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priority is to bring back the focus
on students’ voices in opposition
to arming the police,” she said.
one must wonder whose point of
view is compelling to the Board of
Trustees?
Ghazi asserts it’s not that of the
students, and while she is thrust
Since two polls of PSU students on
this issue show overwhelming student
opposition to the new policy, coupled
with the PSU faculty polling and
voting overwhelmingly against arming
campus police, one must wonder
whose point of view is compelling to
the Board of Trustees?
“This is the number one issue on
my platform and I intend to work
with all stakeholders on campus to
ensure that our campus is a safe
and inclusive space for all stu-
dents.”
Since two polls of PSU students
on this issue show overwhelming
student opposition to the new pol-
icy, coupled with the PSU faculty
polling and voting overwhelming-
ly against arming campus police,
straight into the center of this con-
troversy by her fellow students,
she feels amongst the marginal-
ized by the administration.
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woman of color I do not personal-
ly feel safer,” she said. “The truth
of the matter is that our commu-
nities struggle with racism, islam-
ophobia and sexism, issues rooted
in structural violence. It is enough
to pay attention to the national
news in the United States to grasp
the gravity of these issues. Addi-
tionally, the university is an edu-
cational space, a space for learn-
ing. I feel uneasy when I walk to
class in the morning ready to be
intellectually stimulated only to
pass by people in uniform with
guns on their waists.”
Ghazi said she’s traumatized
watching people here and abroad
being subjects to military and po-
lice violence.
“By this point the campus does
not feel like a welcoming space to
me,” she said. “I respect and sup-
port measures to ensure security
on campus, however, I do believe
there are alternative solutions that
haven’t yet been considered.”
Presumably, since the PSU
administration has made its deci-
sion, the question is settled. But
what social scientists know is that
to presume that is not to actually
know that. Questions that people
care about tend to persist and can
be revisited. The PSU community
has in some ways just begun this
conversation.
Tom H. Hastings is assistant
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Portland State University.
He Sang His Way Out of the Cotton Fields to Touch Us
Celebrating B.B.
King’s iconic
career
M ARC H. M ORIAL
As a young boy in
1920s
Mississippi,
Riley B. King—who
would one day come to
be known as legendary
blues icon B.B. King—
was introduced to the electric gui-
tar at Rev. Archie Fair’s church.
The introduction soon turned into
infatuation, with King deciding he
would learn to play a guitar. As
soon as King got old enough, he
ordered a guitar playbook from a
Sears and Roebuck mail catalog.
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was “You Are My Sunshine.” For-
tunately for us, it would not be the
last tune he would coax from his
yielding guitar strings.
King was born in 1925 on a
cotton plantation in the Mississip-
pi Delta. The future King of the
Blues — the son of sharecroppers
and the great-grandson of a slave
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picker at the age of seven and then
a mule driver. He aspired to be a
gospel singer like his mentor, Rev.
Archie, but fate had other plans.
BY
In a 1993 interview, King ad-
mitted to leaving Mississippi in
the early 1940s because of the
racial violence, lynchings and
hangings that were becoming
all too commonplace. King
moved to Memphis, Tenn.,
playing small gigs and work-
ing as a disc jockey at WDIA,
the local blues station.
The
station
manager
dubbed King the “Beale Street
Blues Boy,” which was short-
ened to “Blues Boy,” and then to
B.B.—and it stuck. It was at this
time that King made another mo-
mentous introduction, this time to
T-Bone Walker singing “Stormy
Monday.” King said it was the
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on an electric guitar and he was
determined to get one. He got that
electric guitar in 1946.
What followed was an endur-
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essentially American art form
with roots in African-American
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ituals. King carried its moans and
mourning to the four corners of
the earth.
The blues, set loose on the
guitar strings and growl of one
of America’s greatest musicians,
spoke of our universal experience
of pain and perseverance, tribu-
lations and triumphs. King once
remarked that, “Blues music ac-
tually did start because of pain.”
A pain he experienced at an early
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had come before him, King used
his talent to rise out of the dirt of
his humble beginnings to live a
life as industrious as it was incred-
a Presidential Medal of Freedom
and has been inducted in both the
Rock and Roll and Blues Halls of
Fame.
King seemed to always be per-
forming somewhere, playing an
average of over 200 concert dates
a year well into his seventies. In
1956, King and his band played an
astonishing 342 concerts. He nev-
er stopped doing what he loved
The blues, set loose on the
guitar strings and growl of one
of America’s greatest musicians,
spoke of our universal experience
of pain and perseverance,
tribulations and triumphs.
ible.
A 15-time Grammy Award win-
ner—the most Grammys ever re-
ceived by a blues singer — King
was also awarded the Grammy
Lifetime Achievement Award in
1987. In 1998, his most acclaimed
song “The Thrill Is Gone” was
awarded the Grammy Hall of
Fame Award. King also received a
National Medal of the Arts award,
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said “was bleeding the same blood
as me.”
King passed away peacefully in
his sleep at his Las Vegas home,
and yet, the thrill is far from gone.
His notes and innovative sound
gave birth to countless blues and
rock players, including Eric Clap-
ton, Carlos Santana and Keith
Richards, to name a few.
His contribution to the blues
can be heard, and will continue to
be heard, in jazz and rock. King’s
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on American music—cannot be
overstated. B.B. King is to blues
what Louis Armstrong is to jazz,
Elvis is to rock, James Brown is
to funk and Michael Jackson is to
pop. Like King, you cannot men-
tion these musical genres with-
out prominently mentioning their
names and substantial contribu-
tions.
Today I join the chorus of those
celebrating King and his icon-
ic career. He sang his way out of
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each of us—black or white, Amer-
ican or not—with his talent and
insight into our shared human ex-
perience. And it is, perhaps, from
his brand of soul music that we
can learn what found him in that
recording studio or night-club al-
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body wants to know why I sing the
blues. Yes, I say everybody wanna
know why I sing the blues. Well,
I’ve been around a long time. I re-
ally have paid my dues.”
I couldn’t agree more. Rest in
peace, B.B.
Marc H. Morial is president
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National Urban League.