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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (July 1, 2015)
www . theskanner . com J uly 1, 2015 P ortland and s eattle V olume XXXVII, n o . 39 For The Skanner website scan this QR code cents Pacific NW The Skanner News presents our new regional edition, featuring more news and local information. C hallenging P eoPle to S haPe a B etter F uture n ow ‘Angry’ Image Down 25 PRIDE Oregon GOP’s FB image showed mob against a sunset By Donovan M. Smith Of The Skanner News See GOP on page 3 INDEX News ................1,3,9-10 Opinion .......................2 Calendars ................4,5 A & E ........................6-8 Bids/Classifieds ..........11 PHOTO BY SUSAN FRIED F rom April until late last week, the Or- egon Republican Party’s Facebook page had a cover image that raised a few eyebrows. The image features four dolls or action figures, standing side-by-side looking at the viewer. One bears an axe held high. Next to him is a man bearing a rifle. The next action figure clinches a pitchfork between his fist, while the last holds a club-like item in one hand while raising his clinched fist high. The image, uploaded on April 19, re- mained the party’s cover photo up until June 26, following some comments on the page asking what message the image meant to send. After receiving a call from a reader who said the image looked like a lynch mob, The Skanner contacted the Oregon Republican Party for comment. A woman identifying herself as the exec- utive director declined to comment but said she would forward us to the Chair Bill Cur- rier and vice chair Tyler Smith, who never followed up despite multiple attempts by The Skanner’s staff to make contact. A reverse look-up of the image using Goo- gle revealed the possible origins of the pho- to, which shows up as the first result when searching for “angry mob,” and is the illus- tration for the term “angry mob” on Wiki- pedia. “So Oregon Republicans are an angry mob now?” June 25 commenter Murray Sampson writes. “My Republican friends sure aren’t. I’d guess they’d be embarrassed by this pho- to.” The following day Carmen Carballo Bueck, the only other to remark on the pho- to on the group’s page expressed similar concerns writing, “Not sure how this is an appropriate representation of Republicans. I am new to the PNW, is violence or threats the method for getting things done in Ore- Deputy Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best takes a selfie with a parade watcher during the 41st annual Seattle Pride Parade Sunday, June 28 in downtown Seattle. Thousands of people lined the streets to celebrate “A Lifetime of Pride” and the recent Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide. As Session Ends, Frederick Looks Back Bills on minority contracting, racial profiling made it through By Christen McCurdy Of The Skanner News O regon’s 2015 legislative session wraps July 11, and Rep. Lew Frederick (D-NE Portland) is looking back on it as a fruitful one. “My bills have been remark- ably successful, not just because of me doing things, but for a number of reasons,” Frederick told The Skanner News. Some of the bills Frederick pushed forward for this session relate to issues he’s been talking about since he ran for the Mult- nomah County Commission in 2006. For example, Frederick says he’s been concerned for years about businesses that claim they are minority contractors, there- fore qualifying for certain pub- lic contracts – but which are of- ten not actually run by members of minority groups. House Bill 2716, which Fred- erick co-sponsored and which was signed into law June 10, requires public contracting agencies to provide as material condition of public contract that the contractor remain certified as disadvantaged, minority, women or emerging small busi- ness enterprise during the entire term of the public contract. Frederick also pushed to end racial profiling and improve police accountability. While far from a new issue, police ac- countability is the topic of heat- ed discussion nationwide, after the much-publicized killings of Michael Brown and Freddie Gray and the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement. House Bill 2002, which will re- quire law enforcement officials to adopt written policies and procedures around racial pro- filing, passed out of the Senate Wednesday afternoon. Frederick says his initial ef- fort, in 2011, to introduce leg- islation to curb racial profiling stalled in part because the issue was not recognized as a problem statewide. “I got told that this was only a Portland issue,” Frederick says. “One of the ways we managed to get past that is that CIO [the Center for Intercul- tural Organizing] did a remark- See FREDERICK on page 3 MacLaren Celebrates Juneteenth Youth correctional facility event focuses on Black history By Arashi Young Of The Skanner News W hite lines on the concrete carve path- ways to direct foot traffic. Vending machines hum in the background of the visitor’s center, and the signs flanking them say only guests of the inmates may use them. Symbols of restriction can be found every- where at the MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility. Immense stretches of chain-link fence bend in towards the grounds and mark the line between the incarcerated and the free. It seems an improbable backdrop for a cel- ebration of freedom, but also an appropriate one. On Sunday, more than 100 incarcerated youth celebrated Juneteenth at the Oregon Youth Authority facility. The commemora- tion brought together youth offenders, fam- ily members and community supporters to celebrate cultural pride. Juneteenth, also known as Emancipation Day, celebrates the freeing of the last Con- federate slaves after the Civil War. This year marks Juneteenth’s 150th anniversary. Roderick Edwards, the multicultural co- See MACLAREN on page 3
