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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (April 27, 2011)
www . THESkANNER . COM A PRIL 27, 2011 P ORTLAND V OLuME XXXIII, N O .26 25 CENTS i nSide Sonny Bonoho page 2 The Tea Party’s Monkey page 4 Black in Latin America C hallenging P eoPle to S haPe a B etter F uture n ow City ready to act as housing audit shows discrimination trends B lack and Latino Portlanders are treat- ed differently than White residents when searching for rental housing, a recent report found, and city officials say they’re putting together a wide-scale plan to address the issue. The Fair Housing Council of Oregon con- ducted the county-wide discrimination audit, focusing on how different potential renters were treated on the basis of race and national origin. While not a government agency, the FHCO holds trainings for landlords, proper- ty owners and members of the public; it also helps consumers lodge complaints against housing providers who violate local, state or federal civil rights laws on housing. Such laws are based on individuals’ status in legally-defined “protected classes:” race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status and disability. The council also serves as a watchdog on larger housing trends, and recently revved up its “secret shopper”-style audit testing program. The effort sends teams of “testers” – some all-White, some people of color, some with disabilities — to targeted areas to document how potential renters from differ- ent racial and ethnic groups, including from the “protected classes,” are treated in the marketplace. This year the FHCO researchers found African-American and Latino testers were quoted higher rental and moving costs, and more stringent lease terms. Of the race tests, 15 showed different treatment while 10 did not; whereas of the national origin tests 17 showed different treatment while 2 did not Auditing the tests unveiled differences in treatment across many areas of the rental screening process, including cost of renting units, move-in specials, moving costs, and deposit and lease terms, among others. “While discrimination may not be inten- tional, it has the same impact: people of color and immigrants face bias in the rental EastEr Eggs Marquess Huggins, 1, drops a couple of eggs he found into a basket during the Jefferson Community Center Egg Hunt April 23 in Seattle. Dozens of families and children took advantage of a beautiful day to enjoy a pancake breakfast and search for plastic eggs filled with candy and prizes. Hip Hop Clothing Line Entrepreneur Portland’s DreCut features more than a dozen original designs By Brian Stimson of The Skanner News W ell known among many hip hop artists in Portland, Bendrea Andrews decided to start a strictly promotional side to his music production business by printing shirts for his friends and family. Andrews, 22 years old, says he’d make 15 or 20 at a time to push his music. “It got that I was spending a lot of money for my family See houSing on page 3 indeX News ...................2,3,6 Opinion .....................4 A & E ......................5,6 Bids/Classifieds .......6,7 Photo BY SuSan Fried Racism and Rentals page 5 members to wear them as a pro- motional aspect,” Andrews said. “It really pushed into a clothing line when I wanted to put my face on it.” Now, Andrews presides over DreCut Clothing, featuring more than a dozen original designs, many with his likeness and personalized sayings such as “I Go Hard in the Paint,” “I Run My City,” “Rep Yo City.” But perhaps the most telling of Andrews’ designs is “Everything I Do I Do It Big.” “I was always taught, you turn 18, you get married, you get a job or join the Army,” he said. “It was never college or any- thing like that. If you graduated high school, that was a success. I see my brothers and that’s what they’ve done.” Now, in addition to operating his clothing line and doing work for such organizations as Nike, Alpha Broadcasting and Fox, Andrews is on the verge of fin- ishing his bachelor’s degree in music business from Full Sail University. Although he’s been taking online courses, He says the school is urging him to spend his senior year at the cam- pus in Winter Park, Fla. But with everything in Portland, the young entrepre- neur says he’s not sure if it’d be worth it. His ultimate goal is to have his siblings – and there are nine of them – to work for his com- pany. Lately, Andrews has been working with BET’s Big Mike ‘106 and Park’ to be featured on the show’s local Blaze the Stage See drecut on page 3 Affordable High-Speed Internet For All? At stake nationally is who controls what we see and read on the web K ansas City, Kansas, may soon be more famous for lightning-fast browser speeds than as the home of jazz legend Charlie Parker or wide-eyed soulstress Janelle Monae. When Google chose the city as the test site for its ultra- fast, internet network, it meant 150,000 lucky residents could soon have the power to upload files, videos and photos just as quickly as they can download them – at speeds of up to 1Gbs. That’s a download speed 20 times faster than the fastest available in downtown Portland right now. It’s an upload speed 100 times faster. And it’s hundreds of times faster than most of us have at home. For Portland and the other 1100 cities that hoped Google would choose them, the deci- sion means finding another way to bring high-speed Internet connections to their regions. And make no mistake; the stakes here are high. Cities need this vital commu- nication tool to compete in the global mar- ketplace. “Over the past decade, the jump from dial-up to broadband has led to streaming online video, digital music sales, video con- ferencing over the web and countless other See internet on page 6
