Page 12
November 20, 2019
F OOD Slow Cooker Mock Lasagna
Ingrediants:
shredded
• 1-10 oz pkg lasagna broken • 1 12-oz carton cottage cheese
• 2 6-oz cans tomato paste
into bite-size pieces
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 lb. ground turkey
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 lb Italian Sausage
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 1/2 tbs dried parsley
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 12 oz Mozzarella cheese, • 1 tsp basil
Directions:
Cook noodles according to package
directions until tender; drain. Brown
ground turkey and sausage; drain. Put
in lightly greased Crock-Pot. Add all
remaining ingredients. Stir to mix thor-
oughly. Cover, cook on low 7 to 9 hours
(high: 3 to 5 hours). Makes 6 servings.
Death and Dying as a Black Studies Professor
C ontinued From p age 9
thinking what an important mes-
sage my friend was sending to our
students and faculty. A cultural
group who is ostracized across our
country is being put front and cen-
ter within the university. He was
truly practicing equity.
About six years ago, Portland
State went through restructuring.
The Multicultural Center ‘coor-
dinator’ position was shifted to a
‘director’ title and my friend was
summarily removed with no offer
to be considered for the director
position. I recall that the universi-
ty hired a white lesbian to do this
restructuring work (This policy
of bringing in underrepresented
groups to implement racist poli-
cy is something I have noticed in
other parts of the Portland area.
Recently, for example, the Port-
land Police Bureau hired as their
chief of police a Black woman
from Oakland.) My friend was
made to disappear from PSU. Two
years ago, I received an email
from a colleague telling me my
friend had died of a stroke. I was
very upset. My friend was under
much pressure as a Black African
person coordinating the Multicul-
tural Center. I wonder how it felt
for him to be removed from his
position with so little apprecia-
tion? My friend was in his early
60s when he died. Was it his bad
eating habits and lack of physical
activity that killed him or might
it have been the stress that came
with his job and being summari-
ly removed that contributed to his
early death.
While I know of no other deaths
of Black people who worked at
PSU, two of the previous chairs
of Black Studies are both showing
signs of wear. One has cancer and
had to retire and the other is suffer-
ing from physical ailments. He too
has retired, but continues to teach
as an emeritus professor. One of
the current professors in the Black
Studies Department is also suffer-
ing from health issues and is going
to have to retire this year. Anoth-
er Black colleague of mine, who
worked in the School of Urban
Planning, has fallen sick and had
to retire. I attended her retirement
‘party’ during the summer. As far
as I know I do not have cancer or
some other disease. I regularly do
get check-ups for prostate cancer
because my dad died of this. Black
men have the highest prostate can-
cer rate in the country. I did though
have to take a leave of absence be-
cause of the stress I have felt work-
ing at Portland State. I have twice
now admitted myself to the hospi-
tal because of chest pains to see if I
was having a heart attack.
The Black Studies Department
is a stressful place to work. Our
students for example are constant-
ly expressing to us the racism they
experience in their classrooms. We
regularly have to beg for resources
to hold events. Being the small-
est department on campus means
if one of us fall sick or leaves, it
causes a huge disruption in the
daily running of the department
compared to larger departments.
Lastly, teaching about Black life
(inequality, resistance, death, joy)
takes its toll on you. Similarly, a
professor who worked in the Black
Studies Department, but left last
year because he found PSU to be a
toxic place, also had to take a leave
of absence due to stress. Last year
alone 10 Black administrators and
faculty left Portland State Univer-
sity joining the many others from
previous years. I talked to most of
them and asked why they left and
each expressed to me they ‘got
out’ because they did not feel sup-
ported. The anti-Black racism on
campus is so thick and unacknowl-
edged that they did what is best for
them and ‘got out’. I completely
understand.
This year the Black Studies
Department is supposed to be cel-
ebrating and honoring 50 years of
existence at Portland State. I am
the chair of the department and I
am the lead organizer of the events
we are going to put on. The pres-
ident of the university provided
5,000 dollars to the Black Studies
Department to support the 50th
Anniversary. PSU is a large public
university with over 27,000 stu-
dents. The money allocated would
easily be used up in expenses for
food, flying a speaker out, paying
for their room board, providing an
honorarium and paying for the ven-
ue. I see this as more than a slap in
the face.
PSU regularly uses the Black
Studies Department and the Chi-
cano/Latino Studies and Indig-
enous Studies programs to tout
itself as addressing diversity. If
you look at the university’s main
website Black and other people of
color are usually central. Howev-
er, the Black Studies Department
is the smallest department on cam-
pus and the other two do not even
have departmental status. The last
time I looked we are on Indige-
nous land and the Latinx popula-
tion is the largest non-white pop-
ulation on campus. Portland State
likes to claim it is the most racial-
ly and culturally diverse universi-
ty in Oregon, but it does little to
substantively address the needs of
Black students and faculty. Black
students have the lowest gradua-
tion rate on campus (their grades
are on par with other groups. They
mostly leave due to stress and fi-
nancial reasons), but there is not
one university wide initiative to
address this. The one initiative
they do have focusing on Black
people is providing opportunities
for mostly white students to come
into prisons to teach writing class-
es to Black and brown inmates.
Why don’t they invest in Black
students so they don’t have to go
to prison in the first place?
Last year, two of the faculty
that left PSU came from the Black
Studies Department. The admin-
istration of the university has re-
fused to offer to hire new faculty
so that Black Studies can replace
these positions. The administra-
tion’s answer to my request for
replacements is ‘budget deficit’.
Black Studies has lost half of its
tenure line professors, while other
departments that are much larger
have been able to replace theirs.
So, in celebration of Black Study’s
50th year in existence, we also get
to watch its death. Without the fac-
ulty to run the department, Black
Studies will not be able to fulfill
its course rotation, student advis-
ing and research responsibilities.
It will disappear. An external re-
view conducted by Portland State
two years ago on the Black Stud-
ies Department found that faculty
in the department are “exhausted”
and “overextended” and without
new faculty, the department is un-
sustainable.
Like my friend who was made
to disappear from his position, and
the death of the South African pro-
fessor who was here before me,
and the many others that are sick,
including me (I suffer from depres-
sion because of this job), Black
Studies under the stress of denied
white supremacy is on death row.
Ethan Johnson is Associate Pro-
fessor and Chair of the Black Stud-
ies Department at Portland State
University.