Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 25, 2015)
Local News Tualatin continued from page 1 “Challenging People to Shape a Better Future Now” B ERNIE F OSTER Founder/Publisher B OBBIE D ORE F OSTER Executive Editor J ERRY F OSTER Advertising Manager L ISA L OVING News Editor P ATRICIA I RVIN Graphic Designer A RASHI Y OUNG D ONOVAN M. S MITH Reporters M ONICA J. F OSTER Seattle Office Coordinator J ULIE K EEFE S USAN F RIED Photographers the school—which is just over 20- years-old—has been engaged in over the last 8 years. “You see something like this happen and even though it might have been one student doing it as a joke, it really does send a loud reminder to us that we have a lot of work to do -- whether that is addressing the racial achievement gap or people making insensitive comments,” he says. “There’s still a problem with racism in our society, we still need to actively address it -- we can’t just think that the work is done because we’ve done a few work- shops with teachers.” The website Gawker reported a similar case in January as a hack in October 1975, is a weekly publica- tion, published each Wednesday by IMM Publications Inc., 415 N. Killingsworth St., P.O. Box 5455, Portland, OR 97228. Telephone (503) 285-5555. E-mail: info@theskanner.com World Wide Web site: http://www.theskanner.com Fax: (503) 285-2900 The Skanner is a member of the National Newspaper Pub lishers Associ- ation and West Coast Black Pub lishers Association. All photos submitted become the property of The Skanner. We are not re - spon sible for lost or damaged photos either solicited or unsolicited. © 2014 The Skanner. ALL RIGHTS RE SERVED. REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART WITHOUT PERMISSION PROHIBITED. To see The Skanner News on your smart phone go to theskannermobile.com or scan this QR code with your app. • • • • • • • • Local news Opinions Jobs, Bids Sports Entertainment Music reviews Bulletin board RSS feeds This Snapchat screenshot of an apparent hack into the Tualatin High School website shows tabs of the homepage replaced with racist rhetoric including “Niggers,” “lynching Highlights,” and “White Power.” The picture was shared more 100 times and favorited more than 80 on Twitter alone. Tigard-Tualatin’s minority student population doubled in the last decade to include more than a third of the district. In the city of Tualatin alone, the Black population saw a nearly 50 percent increase, from .79 percent to about 1.2 percent of the city’s 26,000 residents. At Tualatin High current statis- tics show enrollment at 1,752, with Black students accounting for 1.8 percent of the student body. The district’s racial equity plan, published in 2010, notes that any significant focus on systematic- inclusion only began happening as the suburban community saw a rapid uptick in diversity. “The major changes in our stu- dent demographics had occurred only recently. Our staff turnover had not occurred at the same rate, and certainly did not reflect our student population,” the plan reads. “It was obvious that we did not have the in-house skill to begin working effectively to close our racial achievement gap.” Despite these changes, Dinse says administrators are “contem- plating” how and if they will address the greater student body about the briefly viral sensation. “Teaching Tolerance is a pro- gram created by the Southern Poverty Law Center meant to fos- ter equity in schools across the nation. Maureen Costello heads the Teaching Tolerance program nationally, and says she would advise Tualatin High administra- tors against letting this issue go unaddressed—especially in the face of its relatively new plan for cultural competency. “It’s never a good idea to hope that it goes away,” Costello says. “Some people in that community probably feel really, really violat- ed by this. It happened. The best thing to do is address it.” the term “veteran.” The report recommended modi- fying the question to eliminate the use of the term veteran and including all components of serv- ice will increase data accuracy and identification efforts. The report noted that a combined involvement. Other work stemming from the Motion and subsequent report already underway in the Depart- ment of Adult and Juvenile Deten- tion include: • Ensuring incarcerated veterans have access to all services pro- al Veterans Initiative; • Providing criminal justice part- ners with training on the impact of incarceration on veterans; • Providing priority access and streamlined jail clearance for veterans justice partners through DAJD/DCHS partnership; and, • Initiation of discussions with the Washington State Criminal Jus- tice Training Commission on feasibility of inclusion of veter- an-specific information in Cor- rections Officer Academy Training. In all, the report made critical recommendations in the following areas: data gathering; incarcerated veterans access to programs; establishing a dedicated veteran’s housing pilot project; and, spe- cialized training on veteran’s issues for jail staff. The attack comes not only during Black History Month, but at a time when the Tualatin area’s communities of color are growing after a picture circulated of what appeared to be a Virginia school district website including the word “niggas.” Portland web developer Jim Dee explains how someone could make it appear that they had hacked a website without in fact doing so. The Skanner Newspaper, established “It's impossible to say, based on a Twitter photo, whether a website has actually been hacked,” Dee says. “There are many very con- vincing ways to go about produc- ing convincing fakes. Photoshop would be one. But, even easier and better would be for someone to make changes to the site's text and code on their local computer. That does not change the actual web site, and then they do a screen-grab of the supposed hack.” The attack comes not only dur- ing Black History Month, but at a time when the Tualatin area’s communities of color are grow- ing. According to The Oregonian, Veterans continued from page 1 report, the department has already implemented a series of changes that will allow for dedicated Vet- eran’s access to programs and bet- ter coordination of all the agencies that serve veterans who might be in jail. “By identifying military veter- ans who are in the criminal justice system and connecting them with the services they have earned, we can better help them to get back on track and succeed,” said Exec- utive Dow Constantine. The report also studied ways of improving Veterans data as the motion called for and according to the report, the review of best or promising practices for collecting veteran status data in jails sug- gests that DAJD’s current practice of asking the question, “Are you a veteran?” may be ineffective because individuals who served in the military may misunderstand ‘By identifying military veterans who are in the criminal justice system and connecting them with the services they have earned, we can better help them to get back on track and succeed’ approach is optimal as incarcerat- ed veterans may be reluctant to self-identify because they feel ashamed of their criminal justice vided by veterans justice part- ners and linkage to veterans services outlined in the Region- 25 at 3 p.m. at City Hall. Mayor Charlie Hales called his vote to re-join one of the hardest decisions he’s had to make in office. “It’s a choice of evils,” Hales told The Skanner News. “The FBI has done things I can’t condone, and the federal government has done and is doing things that I think are unacceptable. And yet we have to deal with this threat of our citizens being killed or injured by people who seem to have no regard for life and human free- dom.” Hales, who voted in the early 2000’s against joining the JTTF as a Commissioner, says that his cur- rent decision was “51-49” but that the City and police bureau will step up outreach with communi- ties that could feel especially threatened by the decision to become full partners. Commissioners Dan Saltzman and Nick Fish voted with the mayor to rejoin, while Commis- sioners Steve Novick and Amanda Fritz took a stand against. Hales says the two Portland Police officers who will be joining Task Force continued from page 1 zens Crime Commission of the Portland Business Alliance, that Council voted to re-join the JTTF,” wrote Portland Cop- watch’s Dan Handelman. In 2005, Portland became the first and only city to pull out of its partnership with the JTTF, only to re-join on a “case-by-case” basis in 2011 following the controver- sial plot to let of a bomb in Pio- neer Square a year earlier. City Council is sitting down to hammer out a Memoranda of Understanding, detailing the structure of the partnership Feb. Page 2 The Portland and Seattle Skanner February 25, 2015 the task force have yet to be cho- sen by Portland Police Chief Larry O’Dea. Mayor Hales—who is also the police commissioner--still will not have security clearance which would allow him better insight into the specific activities of the partnership. However, now he will have a non-disclosure agreement which he did not have before. The mayor says if he’s not satis- fied that he’s properly informed on the happenings of the JTTF he’ll “pull the plug” on the City’s involvement.
