Page 2
November 16, 2016
Week
in
Review
The
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A dvertising M AnAger : Leonard Latin
Most Protesters Did Not Vote
Out of 108 Donald Trump protest-
ers arrested in Portland following
last week’s presidential election,
only 31 voted, in the election,
according to voter logs released
Tuesday by the Multnomah Coun-
ty Elections Division. Among the
72 who did not participate in the
election, 36 were not registered to
vote.
Wheeler to Protect Immigrants
“Moonlight,” is new movie portraying African-Americans as beautifully complex and not reduced to
the flimsy stereotypes so often presented on-screen.
A Rare Film to Embrace the Black Experience
o PinionAted
J udge
by J udge
d Arleen o rtegA
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“Moonlight” is the kind of art
that makes you ache what you
have been missing. It is the kind
of film that builds hunger for more
than we have been forced to settle
for, only because of the narrow
band of stories that make it to
screens in our neighborhoods.
A black boy who is sensitive.
Who hides from bullies. Who
barely speaks. A black man who
is both a drug dealer and a gen-
tle mentor and father figure to the
sensitive boy, a drug dealer with
a conscience. A boy who hardly
recognizes why he is “other,” who
scarcely can allow himself to rec-
ognize what others already see.
Who really has no one to protect
him from bullies, least of all his
teachers. And whose only visible
out is violence. The languorous
slow build of longing between two
black men.
Stories like these are no more
than hinted at in the films we see.
Black men and boys rarely have
the opportunity to enact roles be-
yond pimp, drug dealer, or violent
criminal, and then only the two-di-
mensional kind. Perhaps they
might play cops, though more like-
ly as a sidekick to a white police
officer who is the main character.
What a pleasure, then, to sink
into this story, which takes its time
building the pieces of a young
man’s identity. What a treat to
have the opportunity to linger long
enough to notice how sorrow and
fear manifest in a school-age boy,
what kindness looks like from a
complicated man who is both car-
ing and dangerous, the struggle of
a mother caught in the throes of
addiction and the specific signs
that her life is unraveling.
This story takes its time, and
feels lived in. It is the work of
two men who grew up in the
same housing project in Miami --
Tarell McCraney, whose play in-
spired this work, and Barry Jen-
kins, who also directed the film.
These men know some things,
and they have the skill to show
what they know in a way that
feels truer and more lived in than
most films, and certainly films
about people of color. All the
characters here are complicated,
and the film keeps them that way.
Their protagonist is played by
three different actors who don’t
look much alike but who manage
to convey a common thread. As a
youngster, he is known as Little,
a slight boy whose life appears to
c ontinued on p Age 4
Portland Mayor-elect Ted Wheeler
says Portland will remain a sanctu-
ary city despite President-elect Don-
ald Trump’s threats to withhold mil-
lions of dollars in taxpayer money if
cities don’t cooperate with his plans
to deport illegal immigrants. “Port-
land is a city that values inclusion,
diversity, and has been welcoming
to thousands of people from around
the world,” Wheeler told the Willa-
mette Week Tuesday.
Gwen Ifill Dead at 61
Gwen Ifill, the vet-
eran black journal-
ist and co-anchor
of PBS’ “News-
Hour” with Judy
Woodruff, died on
Monday of can-
cer, the network said. She was 61.
A former newspaper reporter, Ifill
switched to television and worked
for NBC News and PBS. Co-work-
ers called her “a standard bearer for
courage, fairness and integrity.”
Macy’s to Leave Downtown
The downtown Portland Macy’s
store, which occupies five floors
of the historic Meier & Frank
Building, will close this spring.
Industry observers say sales and
profits at Macy’s are on decline
and the retail giant is selling off its
most valuable real estate holdings.