www . THEskANNEr . COM
A ugusT 31, 2011
P OrTLAND , O rEgON
V OLuME XXXIII, N O . 44
25
CENTs
I NSIDE
Labor Day=Jobs Day
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Child Poverty
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Zendaya
C hallenging P eoPle to S haPe a B etter F uture n ow
County official says
Kyeron Fair ‘not
beaten by jailers’
lisa loving
of The Skanner News
A
teenager hospitalized in the Oregon
Health and Sciences University car-
diac intensive care unit last year
while in Multnomah County Sheriffs cus-
tody, has suffered a mental breakdown dur-
ing plea bargaining on Measure 11 charges
against him.
Kyeron Fair, 18, was taken by his family
to Providence Behavioral Health in Portland
Tuesday and admitted for treatment.
Fair’s court-appointed attorney, Gary
Bertoni, had been negotiating with the
Multnomah County District Attorney’s
office, discussing a possible plea deal. The
attorney was pushing for an 8-month jail
sentence for charges that Fair was present
during the armed robbery of an alleged pot
dealer, Fair’s mother told The Skanner
News.
In his original Measure 11 charges, Fair
was not suspected of holding a gun or driv-
ing a getaway car, but rather accompanying
others who did.
Since his release on bail last February,
Fair – who has no prior legal record — has
followed through with counseling, parole
hearings, court dates and drug tests, in addi-
tion to enrolling at Grant High School for
Fall, 2011. His arrest and subsequent physi-
cal and mental health problems caused him
to miss what would have been his senior
year at Parkrose High School.
Throughout, he has maintained that he did
not participate in the alleged robbery, and
that he could not remember exactly how he
ended up in the ICU.
“The pressure of these plea negotiations
was just too much,” his mother, Kelli
Jarrell, told The Skanner News. “Eight
months? For what? He never hurt anybody.
They are nickel-and-diming him.
“Now he doesn’t know what day it is, you
wouldn’t recognize him if you saw him,”
Jarrell said.
Summer
League
The Jamal Crawford Foundation
summer ProAm featured an incredible
line up of professional and college all
stars like Nate robinson, Jamal
Crawford, Isaiah Thomas, and Tony
wroten Jr., Aug. 27 and 28 at the
rainier Vista Boys and girls Club. On
saturday the summer league Hawks
played the Mavericks followed by a
close game between the Bulls and
the sonics. sundays festivities
included a three point shootout and
slam dunk contest, followed by an all-
star game.
Muslims Feel Targeted by Terror Policies
Report details harassment, targeting by law enforcement, others
By Hope Yen
the associated Press
WaSHINGtoN (aP) —
More than half of Muslim
Americans in a new poll say
government anti-terrorism poli-
cies single them out for
increased surveillance and mon-
itoring, and many report
increased cases of name-calling,
threats and harassment by air-
port security, law enforcement
officers and others.
Still, most Muslim Americans
say they are satisfied with the
See tEEN on page 3
INDEX
News ......................2,3
Opinion ..................4,5
A & E ......................6,8
Bids/Classifieds ..........7
PHoto BY SuSaN FrIED
Teen
Back in
Hospital
page 6
way things are going in the U.S.
and rate their communities
highly as places to live.
The survey by the Pew
Research Center, one of the
most exhaustive ever of the
country’s Muslims, finds no
signs of rising alienation or
anger
among
Muslim-
Americans despite recent U.S.
government concerns about
homegrown Islamic terrorism
and controversy over the build-
ing of mosques.
“This confirms what we’ve
said all along: American
Muslims are well integrated and
happy, but with a kind of linger-
ing sense of being besieged by
growing anti-Muslim sentiment
in our society,” said Ibrahim
Hooper, spokesman for the
Council on American-Islamic
Relations, a Washington, D.C.-
based Muslim civil rights group.
“People contact us every day
about concerns they’ve had,
particularly with law enforce-
ment authorities in this post-
9/11 era,” he said.
Muslim extremists hijacked
four passenger planes on Sept.
11, 2001, crashing them into the
World Trade Center, the
Pentagon and a field in
Shanksville, Pa.
In all, 52 percent of Muslim
Americans surveyed said their
group is singled out by govern-
ment for terrorist surveillance.
Almost as many - 43 percent -
reported they had personally
experienced harassment in the
past year, according to the poll
released Tuesday.
That 43 percent share of peo-
ple reporting harassment is up
See tError on page 3
PCC Offers Black Literature Courses
Professors join to examine African Diaspora within the classics
J
ust about everyone knows that African
American musicians have put their
stamp on music everywhere. That’s
true in America, where Gospel, blues, jazz,
rock and Hip Hop were born, but it’s also
true around the globe. What’s less well
known is that Black writers also have exert-
ed a powerful influence on world literature.
That’s the territory Portland Community
College instructor Consuelo Romanski will
explore in a class on offer this fall.
Romanski will teach English 256, which
studies early African American literature,
from 1p.m. to 2:50 p.m. Mondays and
Wednesdays on the Sylvania campus. She
says she will focus on both the African
American experience and the international
influence of Black writers.
“A lot of people have read ‘The Three
Musketeers,’ but very few know that its
author Alexander Dumas had African ances-
try,” Romanski said. “That’s just one exam-
ple of the international reach of the writers
we will be discussing.”
PCC’s Christopher Rose will teach anoth-
er class, English 258, which looks at African
American literature from the Harlem
Renaissance to the present day. That class is
See lItEraturE on page 3