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J uly 1, 2015
P ortland
and
s eattle
V olume XXXVII, n o . 39
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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