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M ARCH 28, 2012
P ORTLAND , O REGON
V OLUME XXXIV, N O . 13
25
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C HALLENGING P EOPLE TO S HAPE A B ETTER F UTURE N OW
Trayvon
Martin
Killing
SKITTLES, TEA AND JUSTICE
A crowd of people wearing hoodies gath-
ered in Peninsula Park in North Portland
early Saturday to express support for the
family of Trayvon Martin, the Florida teen
who was shot dead Feb. 26 on a trip to the
store to buy candy and an iced tea.
Organizers Mary Hill and Teressa Raiford
had invited several pastors to speak, includ-
ing Rev. J.W. Friday, Rev. Leroy Haines and
Pastor Julia Neufeld. The mics were open
for any community member who wanted to
talk to the crowd, and many people spoke
out. The chant, "no justice, no peace," was
heard several times during the rally.
"Hoodies up," said Pastor Friday before
making a prayer for the slain teen and the
assembled crowd.
Speakers expressed sadness and voiced
support Trayvon Martin’s family in their
call for the arrest of George Zimmerman,
the volunteer neighborhood watch captain,
who told police he acted in self defense,
when he shot the 14-year-old high school
student.
“How is it you can shoot a man down,
shoot him down with the neighbors hearing
him cry out ‘Help?’ The law let him go
home with the gun in his hand,” said one
speaker.
Speakers connected the shooting to simi-
lar events in U.S. history – the murder of
14-year-old Emmett Till during the Civil
Rights era – as well as to more recent shoot-
ings in Portland. The deaths of Kendra
James, Keaton Otis, James Chassie and
Aaron Campbell were among those remem-
bered.
Hill, a mother of five children under 13,
said the Martin’s death has touched her pro-
foundly. “I am a changed woman for ever. I
will never be the same,” she said. She urged
the crowd to sign a circulating petition, say-
ing, “This Zimmerman, he needs to be
locked up.”
One speaker who identified herself as a
Hispanic woman, said racism was to blame
for the shooting and that she felt shame that
See TRAYVON on page 3
INDEX
News ...........2,3,6,7,10
Opinion ..................4,5
A & E ......................8,9
Bids/Classifieds ........11
PHOTO BY SUSAN FRIED
Portlanders fill
Penninsula Park to
protest ‘lynching’
Trayvon Martin’s cousin, Cedric President-Turner, 18, from Tacoma, led hundreds of people on a march to Martin
Luther King, Jr. Memorial Park March 25 to celebrate the life of his cousin.
School Discipline: Keeping Kids in Class
‘Restorative Justice’ could have saved Trayvon Martin’s life
By Helen Silvis
Of The Skanner News
Trayvon Martin was a typical
Black teenager. And one of the
ways he was typical was that he
had a history of suspension from
school. This week the world
learned that the Florida teen was
on a 10-day suspension for hav-
ing in his possession a pipe and
an empty baggie.
In fact, that’s why the 17-year-
old Florida teen was living at his
father’s fiancée’s gated commu-
nity on the fateful evening when
he lost his life.
“We know that excluding kids
from school doesn’t work,” says
Tammy Jackson, an administra-
tor in Portland Public Schools’
Office of Student Services.
Schools in the Portland-metro
area are pioneering a new
approach to school discipline
that aims to prevent suspensions
and expulsions. Restorative
Justice takes an educational
approach to discipline. Support-
ers say it is our best hope for
keeping students of color in
school and on track.
Trayvon Martin had been sus-
pended from school twice
before: for being late and for
skipping class. Read the com-
ment threads of news articles on
the case, and you’ll find that
some people believe those facts
mean that Martin was “a juve-
nile delinquent” a “drug addict”
or even a “thug.”
It’s too late now to prevent
Trayvon Martin from being sus-
pended. Yet if his school had
used Restorative Justice instead,
he might never have encoun-
tered George Zimmerman.
Civil Rights
National studies tell us that
school discipline is a bedrock
civil rights issue.
In fact, as Lisa Loving report-
ed March 6, in her article for
The Skanner News, “Suspen-
sions and Expulsions: The
School to Prison Pipeline,”
kicking kids out of school as a
form of punishment is an all-
too-common rite of passage for
African American students,
especially Black boys. From
pre-school on, Black students
See JUSTICE on page 10
PFLAG’s Edwards on Marriage Fight
Anti-gay group worked to split Democratic vote against Obama
By Lisa Loving
Of The Skanner News
Democrats and marriage equality advo-
cates are in an uproar over newly unsealed
documents showing an anti-gay organiza-
tion’s strategy to discredit the president –
and pit Black and Latino leaders against gay
voters.
The document, a 2008-09 report to the
group’s Board of Directors, squarely places
the discrediting and electoral defeat of Pres-
ident Obama in 2012 as a priority, including
a section called, “Sideswiping Obama,” to
which the group appears to be suggesting a
$1 million financial commitment.
The NOM is currently suing the Maine
Ethics Commission and its chair, Walter
McKee, over disclosure requirements under
Maine’s election laws; NOM has lost
repeated attempts in court to keep secret its
donor list, and the documents were released
as part of the court records in that case,
which the U.S. Supreme Court has refused
to take up since 2010.
The document, which is stamped through-
out with the word “CONFIDENTIAL,” lists
the defeat of Proposition 8 in California as a
See MARRIAGE on page 3