Opinion
Planning for Our Own Success
“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 Skanner Newspaper, established
in October 1975, is a weekly publica-
tion, published each Wednesday by
A
re we living in the last
days? If so, what are we
doing about it? It seems
the world is coming apart at the
seams. The Muslims are attacking
the Christians, the Christians are
attacking the Muslims; Africa is
under siege, the Earth is shaking,
the United States is waging war on
its African American citizens, but
why are you surprised? Yes, we
live in the land of the free and
home of the brave and are still not
equal. Now what? Do you think
we can make people care about us
before we can care about our-
selves? I am proud to see our
people finally coming together
and standing as one unit. Now
what?
Now that we all agree that we
are not going to let anyone come
into our communities and kill our
people without a fight, we need to
use the moment to improve who
we are and how we are perceived.
Our action plan has to include
more than threatening a march,
pointing a finger and waiting to
see if the Department of Justice is
going to convict officers for their
crimes. That is a distraction. It’s
more than tearing up buildings,
throwing rocks and dancing in the
street for minor victories. It’s not
about being interviewed for your
perspective on the problem of
police brutality. It’s succeeding
out loud. It’s about making our
money speak for us.
It’s about going back to the
drawing board to see what part we
play in making America a better
H IP H OP
U NION
Jineea
Butler
place for ourselves. The genera-
tion before us changed their status
by getting educated, by changing
their style of dress and their man-
ner of communication. They
outsmarted their opponent.
We have to change how we are
living. Point blank. Stop fronting
The world around us or ourselves?
My beef is while we are rallying
for justice we are leaving out a
few key factors that are necessary
for growth and development.
How are we jumping out in the
streets fighting the establishment,
but not changing how we spend
our money? Why is that not #1 on
the agenda?
Furthermore, if we are asking
them to grow then we have to
grow. We can’t spit in the face of
our oppressor and then ask them to
help us in the same breath. We
have to have a plan for our own
success.
We have to be real about the
Our action plan has to include more
than threatening a march, pointing a
finger and waiting to see if the
Department of Justice is going to
convict officers for their crimes
like these killings are not exposing
a bigger problem. We can’t expect
to be treated fairly when we don’t
even treat each other fairly. We
turn up our noses and look down
on our own people the same way
these cops and the rest of America
does. We just don’t kill people in
the exchange. We have become
complacent with a part of the com-
munity that is underperforming.
Everybody is toting signs say-
ing, “Black Lives Matter,” but
who are we trying to convince?
problem, because the same reason
you are not marching through the
hood and telling every drug dealer,
murderer and criminal that they
can’t occupy the hood and kill the
babies, is the same reason these
cops are on edge and quick to pull
the trigger. Because there is a
problem. I call it the Hip Hop
Dilemma. You know that intense
feeling you get when someone of
the urban persuasion walks into
your circumference. The feeling
you get when you wait to see if
they are a troublemaker, a fool or a
Hip Hop musician. The feeling
you get when you don’t want to
confront this person because you
don’t know if the response is
going to be negative or lead to an
altercation. This is the symptom
of those suffering from the Hip
Hop Dilemma. The cops are on
the front lines dealing directly
with this traumatizing experience
and it is affecting their work per-
formance.
If we work to change the narra-
tive of who we are, what we stand
for and how we live. The cops
will have to change how they are
policing
our
communities,
because they won’t know who to
profile, they won’t know who to
arrest, because we all look like
success. Sometimes we give the
underperforming members of our
community an excuse not to be the
best they can be by leaning on
white supremacy. It’s deeper than
officers abusing the law, the war
been going on and we have known
it.
Our response looks like a horse
and pony show because as soon as
the cameras arrive everybody
throws their capes on and swoops
in for the rescue, but the commu-
nity has been burning for years.
Why does everything become
more important when the TV cam-
era arrives? I’m fighting for our
everyone in our community to step
up and be better. We have to elim-
inate the reasons they are stopping
us in the first place. Change the
game.
IMM Publications Inc.,
415 N. Killingsworth St.,
P.O. Box 5455, Portland, OR 97228.
Telephone (503) 285-5555.
E-mail: info@theskanner.com
Ethiopian Jews in Israel Struggle for Rights
By Lekan Oguntoyinbo
NNPA Columnist
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.
© 2015 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
C
onsiderable fanfare greeted
Israel’s airlift of tens of
thousands of Ethiopian
Jews in the 1980s and 1990s. The
Israeli government sprung them
out of their ancestral east African
homeland in the midst of a famine
that led to the deaths of hundreds
of thousands of people.
To many, it was a powerful affir-
mation of Israel’s “Law of Return,
which grants automatic citizenship
to all Jews. It sent a strong signal
that Israel, a nation of immigrants
and children of immigrants from
more than 100 countries, was seri-
ous about its intent to create a
comfortable homeland for Jews
from around the world irrespective
of skin color.
But for most of these Black
arrivals and their children life in
their new homeland has been any-
thing but comfortable. Israel has
been less than welcoming to it
Black citizens.
Israelis of Ethiopian ancestry
number about 135,000 or about 2
percent of the population. But they
have higher rates of poverty,
unemployment,
incarceration,
divorce and suicide. As the New
York Times reported, Ethiopian-
Israeli youth are three times as
likely to be held in detention facil-
ities. Like blacks in America,
Ethiopian Israelis are the lepers of
society. They routinely encounter
discrimination, police harassment
and racist slights.
For several days earlier this
Page 2 The Portland and Seattle Skanner May 13, 2015
G UEST
C OLUMNIST
Lekan
Oguntoyinbo
month, in scenes reminiscent of
Baltimore and Ferguson, Ethiopi-
an Israelis took to the streets after
a video surfaced online of a uni-
formed Ethiopian-Israeli soldier
being beaten by police officers in
what was an apparently unpro-
another in a long line of griev-
ances by members of the
Ethiopian community. Despite
the kudos accorded Israel upon
the arrival of the Ethiopians 30
years ago, the decision to bring
them into their new home was not
without controversy.
For years debates raged over
the authenticity of their Jewish-
ness before the government
consented to bring them into the
country. Ethiopian Jews, also
known as Beta Israel, believe they
are the lost tribe of Dan. Their
roots in Ethiopia go back thou-
sands of years. For more than a
Ethiopian Israelis took to the streets
after a video surfaced online of a
uniformed Ethiopian-Israeli soldier
being beaten by police officers in
what was an apparently unprovoked
attack
voked attack.
For several days, demonstrators
threw bottles and rocks, shut down
a major highway and overturned at
least one police squad car. Scores
of people, including more than 50
police officers, were injured and
dozens of demonstrators were
arrested.
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin
hit the nail on the head when he
said the unrest revealed “an open,
bleeding wound in the heart of
Israeli society.”
The demonstrations were just
thousand years they were cut off
from the rest of the Jewish world.
Some scholars of Judaic studies
have asserted that their religious
practices are more authentic than
those of their European brethren.
Yet, when the Ethiopians first
started arriving in Israel in 1984,
many of the nation’s top rabbis
questioned their Jewishness and in
many instances demanded that
they “convert” before signing off
on their weddings.
In 1996, Ethiopian Jews demon-
strated after learning that health
authorities had thrown out their
donated blood over fears or suspi-
cions of HIV.
Some landlords refused to rent
to Ethiopian Jews. And there have
been reports of schools restricting
the enrollment of their children.
In 2013, Israel’s health ministry
all but admitted that doctors
“may” have injected newly arrived
Ethiopian Jewish women with
contraceptives without their con-
sent or without fully explaining
the effects of the drug.
If Israel fails to check this prob-
lem, here’s the kind of future it
could face: an Ethiopian-Israeli
former member of parliament
called for a variety of forms of
civil disobedience, including
refusing to serve in the military or
pay taxes if the situation for blacks
doesn’t change. The military is
Israel’s most strategically impor-
tant institution. Young Israeli men
and women are required to serve.
Ethiopian Jews have consistently
been diligent about serving.
Demas Fikadey, the soldier who
was beaten up by the police offi-
cers, had just left his military post
and was on his way home when he
was assaulted.
To his credit, Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu has moved
quickly to quell tensions. He has
met with leaders of the Ethiopian
Jewish community. He also had a
brief meeting with the Fikadey in
which he commiserated with him.
These are great first steps. But
the real work lies in ensuring that
the quasi-legal oppression of
Black Israelis is vanquished.