opinion
Make Juneteenth Your Celebration
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P
ortland’s Juneteenth festival
connects us to Americans
across the country, as we all
celebrate together the abolition of
slavery. Scheduled this year for
Saturday, June 18, it commemo-
rates the date of June 19, 1865, the
day when African Americans
enslaved in Texas, first learned
that they were free. Of course, that
was two and half years after
Abraham Lincoln delivered the
Emancipation
Proclamation.
Why? Because until emancipation
was enforced by the U.S. military,
Southern slaveholders refused to
tear down that evil institution.
Many Blacks toiled without pay
for unrepentant slave-owners dur-
ing those years, which is all the
more reason to celebrate our free-
dom now. This is an important and
historic anniversary for all of us.
Clara Mae Peoples started
Portland’s Juneteenth celebration
in 1945 with an announcement
over the loudspeaker in the Kaiser
shipyards. A university graduate
from Oklahoma, and a resident of
Vanport, Peoples, now 84, drew
praise May 30 at an event com-
memorating the Vanport Flood.
f roM tHE
P ublISHEr
Bernie Foster
Attendees said she took dozens of
neighborhood children under her
wing, feeding them when their
parents were missing at the wheel.
In 1972, Peoples and teacher Ora
Lee Green organized a Juneteenth
celebration in Holladay Park that
soon added a parade and later
moved to Jefferson High School.
This year the parade will start
from Bethel AME Church on
Northeast 8th Ave. and Jarrett St.,
at 11 am. The party will run from
noon to 6 p.m. at Jefferson High
School.
In recent years the reputation of
Portland’s Juneteenth celebration
took a blow for its association with
James ‘Lonnie’ Yoakum, and Yam
Yams Southern Cooking and
Barbecue restaurant. Later he was
arrested for large-scale distribu-
tion of cocaine in 2009.
Since then new faces and new
energy have infused a fresh sense
of purpose and mission into the
Juneteenth
festival
board.
Juneteenth deserved this second
chance and it deserves our support
now.
To those who founded Portland’s
celebration we extend our deepest
respect. To those who have
worked to make it a success over
the years we offer our gratitude.
What we do not accept is that
any single individual can claim
this historic day as their personal
identity. Woody Broadnax, sir, we
thank you for your service; now
yield the floor. This festival is now
under new management, with new
leaders and fresh ideas. You are
not Mr. Juneteenth. I repeat. You
are not Mr. Juneteenth. If anybody
has a right to claim Portland’s
Juneteenth it would be Ms. Clara
Peoples. But Juneteenth is bigger
than any one of us. Juneteenth
belongs to all descendants of
slaves in America.
So folks, please come out and
enjoy this crucial day in our histo-
ry, this day of joy and unity for all
Americans. As this year’s grand
marshal, I am delighted to be part
of the 2011 celebration. We’re
going to have a wonderful time
with our parade and at Jefferson
High School. So come on over and
make Juneteenth a great American
holiday, as it was designed to be.
Does Juneteenth belong to any one
person, yes or no?
You can post your comments
on www.theskanner.com
Mexicans ‘Fed Up’ With the War on Drugs
The Skanner Newspaper, established
in October 1975, is a weekly publica-
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A
new, citizen-driven nonvi-
olent reality is emerging in
the escalated war on drugs
in Mexico. The international per-
ception of present-day Mexico is
one of disgust about the escalated
violence, thousands of fatalities,
mass graves and militarized
approaches to fight the powerful
drug cartels. Approximately
40,000 people have lost their lives
since Mexican President Felipe
Calderón declared the war on
drugs in 2006. That is slightly less
than the population of Dekalb,
Illinois. For a nation with which
we are so intrinsically linked it
seems rather significant. In fact,
we can speak about a social catas-
trophe.
When it comes to our role in the
violent escalation in our neighbor-
ing nation, it seems like we are
consciously avoiding confronting
some important aspects of what is
going on. First, the United States
is the largest consumer of drugs
produced in Mexico or smuggled
along the routes where the cartels
fight bloody territorial battles.
Second, a perverted historical and
present system of arms distribu-
tion through official and illegal
channels allows authorities and
criminals in Mexico to engage in
an open-ended spiral of violence.
The U.S. government and busi-
nesses directly support all parties
in Mexico’s drug war. U.S. mili-
tary aid to the Mexican govern-
ment is a weak yet not surprising
answer to a bi-national social
problem. The obvious concentra-
tion of gun shops in the
Southwestern United States border
regions and the high-power rifles
sold there certainly do not reflect
the so highly valued Second
Amendment of our constitution. In
fact, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco and Firearms emphasized
the need to monitor U.S. guns
stores and their role in providing
weapons to the cartels. Finally, the
United States role in laundering
Page 4 The Portland Skanner June 8, 2011
C oNflICt r ESolutIoN
Patrick T. Hiller
the profits of drug business is just
another indicator for the utterly
unethical conduct of many U.S.
banks. How can we as citizens not
see our role in the social catastro-
phe happening in Mexico?
The escalation of Mexico’s war
on drugs is blurry. Corruption, fear
hasta la madre”, “We are fed up”.
Rank and file citizens – and final-
ly the previously silent middle
class - are mobilizing. They are
mobilizing nonviolently from the
bottom because the top-down
approaches of fighting violence
with violence are failing. They
began by giving names to the
40,000 often unknown victims
whose names were reduced to sta-
tistics. They took back the streets
nonviolently when approximately
Corruption, fear and greed makes it
impossible to identify good and bad
and greed makes it impossible to
identify good and bad and more
and more innocents are caught in
the crossfire. An independent
research group called Equipo
Bourbaki conducted a thorough
investigation with the title “The
Human Costs of the War through
the Construction of the Drug
500 citizens did a four-day march
from Cuernavaca to Mexico City
where more than 90,000 people
joined in solidarity. Shouldn’t that
get our attention?
More than ever it is now time for
us to look south to be inspired but
also to see how we can change our
role to transform the drug debacle
Our government should seize this
unique opportunity to change its own
course of supporting militarization and
allowing the flow of weaponry into
Mexico
Trafficking Monopoly in Mexico”
(http://equipobourbaki.blogspot.c
om/). Among the many notable
results, two findings stood out.
First, organized crime and the
government are highly interpene-
trated on all levels. Second, gov-
ernmental repression is directed
more towards society than toward
organized crime.
In recent weeks, however, a new
escalation has been taking place –
that of Mexican citizens sending
the clear message of “Estamos
in Mexico. From June 4-10 a citi-
zen caravan will travel through
Mexico to maintain the mobiliza-
tion and demonstrate the citizens’
indignation with the existing
impunity, violence, militarization
and brutal public life in the nation.
At the caravan’s final destination
in Ciudad Juarez, the epicenter of
violence in Mexico, broad groups
of different civil sectors will con-
vene to sign a social pact. The
demands to be signed are basic:
truth and justice; end the war strat-
egy to one of citizen safety; fight
corruption and impunity; battle the
economic roots and profits of
crime; focus on the youth and cre-
ate effective actions to restore the
social fabric; enable participant
democracy and democratization of
mass media.
We should look south when the
citizens of our neighboring nation
are trying to re-create their social
fabric. It is time to look at Mexico
without thinking of illegal immi-
grants, border security, drugs and
violence but of a nation with citi-
zens who share the same funda-
mental needs. Even more so, once
we understand that the United
States is not only enabling but
fueling the absurd and useless war
on drugs. We don’t know what the
outcome of the mobilization will
be. We do know, however, that we
do well to support the nonviolent
mobilization of our neighbors, lis-
ten to them, and learn what we can
do.
By convening at the border in
Juarez, Mexican civil society is
rightfully bringing their problems
to our doorstep. Our government
should seize this unique opportu-
nity to change its own course of
supporting militarization and
allowing the flow of weaponry
into Mexico. It also should seize
the opportunity to stand with the
Mexican people – just like it did in
the Arab Spring with Tunisians
and Egyptians – to pressure the
government to change their course
and set the priorities right for the
people. Let’s be good neighbors
and not inconvenient neighbors as
poet and journalist Javier Sicilia
depicts the United States’ role.
Patrick t. hiller is Scholar-in-
residence at the Conflict
resolution Department of
Portland State university. he
serves on the board of the oregon
Peace institute and has lived in
Mexico on several occasions.