October 30, 2019
Page 9
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Code Change Badly Needed for Equity, Diversity
Proposal a
response to
structural racism
l ew C hurCh
I read with interest Diallo Brooks’
insightful column (Feeling pressure
to talk about structural racism, Port-
land Observer, Oct. 2 issue) -- par-
ticularly in light of the recent racist
violence by the Proud Boys-Patriot
Prayer contingent here in Portland,
along with the current dispute to
lessen the power of neighborhood
associations regarding a proposal by
City Commissioner Chloe Eudaly
and Suk Rhee of the Office of Civic
Life, which seems to center on the
question, ‘Who would oppose di-
versity and equity?’
Apparently, a May 2020 Prima-
ry challenger for Chloe’s seat on
the Portland City Council, Min-
gus Mapps is one, per the Portland
Observer’s cover story (“Candi-
date opposes former boss and code
change push, Oct. 9 issue.) To be
fair, Mapps doesn’t say he oppos-
es diversity and equity per se, but
that the code change process and
product are bad and a start-over is
needed.
Our PSU-based chapter of
Portland Gray Panthers, however,
heartily disagrees. The proposed
code changes are badly needed to
increase diversity and equity. To
that end, Panthers have scheduled
a series of five community forums
to address the ‘structural racism’
and social justice issues that Diallo
Brooks rightly raises.
Gray Panthers believe we need
to be ‘more intentional’ in creating
by
needed change. At Portland State,
for example, fall term has seen a
fight between the chair of the PSU
College Republicans, Philip Arola
and activist and anti-racist students
who have objected to his involve-
ment in a group photo taken at a lo-
cal bar with Trump organizer Roger
Stone and local Patriot Prayer orga-
nizer Joey Gibson, along with other
far right white men, all giving the
racist ‘okay’ hand signal.
A tie-vote to remove Arola from
PSU’s student fee committee failed.
The student body group helps de-
cide how to spend as much as $14
million in campus funds and student
judicial board members sought to
oust him as someone who was not
‘neutral’ in allocating the funds. For
his part, Arola insisted he was nev-
er a member of the Proud Boys, but
remains chair of the PSU College
Republicans.
Eudaly and Rhee have encoun-
tered a good deal of resistance
to their attempt to add nonprofit
groups like Kayse Jama’s Unite Or-
egon, the Latino Network, IRCO,
and Momentum Alliance, under the
Civic Life umbrella of stakeholders
in its decision making. In ‘liberal’
Portland, who would possibly ob-
ject to such inclusionary measures?
Gray Panther organizers have
found that attempts to limit the voic-
es of people in poverty -- along with
race -- fit into the calculation by
some of those opposing greater in-
clusion. The activists, for example,
noted some of the attacks against
diversity this year in relatively
more conservative Yamhill County,
where former KATU-2 on-air per-
sonality Mary Starett, now a county
commissioner, vigorously opposed
diversity and equity training for
Yamhill County workers, but her
opposition failed on a 2-to-1 vote,
and the workers will be getting such
training.
Libertarian and PSU economics
teacher Eric Fruits, who was both
chair of the Laurelhurst Neighbor-
hood Association for five years and
a frequent spokesperson for the free
market Cascade Policy Institute, is
another example. He has opposed
the code changes calling them an
attack on democracy. How so? Is
this the ‘structural racism’ that Di-
allo Brooks pinpoints in his article?
Felicia Williams, a white activist
who ran for City Council in 2018
and former chair of the downtown
neighborhood association, thought
that “considerations of color were
irrelevant” in her contest against
a diverse field of candidates also
running. As we know, the two Af-
rican-American women in the race,
Loretta Smith and JoAnn Hardesty
advanced from the primary to face
each other in the general election,
and now Hardesty is the first black
woman to ever sit on the Portland
City Council. A much needed im-
provement for equity and inclu-
sion!
Some opponents of the code
change cite Eudaly for simply want-
ing to “use the race card” to amass
power in some fashion. A local
neighborhood paper, the N.W. Ex-
aminer, for a year has featured car-
toons which lambast the commis-
sioner for being the “wrong size”
(not slender enough, evidently, for
the cartoonist!) and “acting like a
queen” with a crown on her head,
etc. I recently spoke with current
Downtown Neighborhood Asso-
ciation president Walt Weyler who
told me he found the cartoons lam-
basting Eudaly hilarious and fitting,
given his opposition to the proposed
code changes.
The current attempt by business-
men like Homer Williams and Jor-
dan Schnitzer to turn the never used
Wapato Jail in north Portland into a
homeless shelter—in opposition to
local government officials like Deb-
orah Kafoury and Portland Mayor
Ted Wheeler, seems relevant. So far,
those who represent houseless com-
munities are also opposed, insist
that “hiding” or “sequestering” peo-
ple who are sleeping on sidewalks
by shipping them off to north Port-
land -- fails to solve the problem!
Has a houseless person, for ex-
ample, ever been elected as presi-
dent of one of the 94 neighborhood
associations? At the Downtown
Neighborhood Association sever-
al of us voted for Bobby, a home-
less African-American man, to be
the chair of the group-- but Bobby
didn’t get enough votes to win that
election. Are the elders and others
sleeping outside or in tents who
have been priced out of housing or
foreclosed still our “neighbors” or
are they simply persona non grata?
Community members are invited
and encouraged to participate and
ask sharp questions at the upcom-
ing Portland Gray Panthers forums.
They will all be held Wednesday
nights at the PSU Chit Chat Café,
1907 S.W. Sixth Ave., from Oct. 30
through Nov. 27.
Lew Church is coordinator of
Portland Gray Panthers and found-
ing publisher and editor of two ac-
tivist papers, the PSU Rearguard
and PSU Agitator.
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