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