#SK40YEARS
October 28, 2015 The Skanner 40th Anniversary Issue Page 21
OCTOBER 28, 2015
®
Portland and Seattle
Volume XXXVIII No. 1
—SECTION 2—
CHALLENGING PEOPLE SINCE 1975 TO SHAPE A BETTER FUTURE NOW
Education ............................... 22 Family ..................................... 30
Businesses ........................24-25 Empowerment ........................31
Health ..................................... 28 Vanport .................................. 34
40 Years of Service
Issues: Policing
State Sen. Avel Gordly speaking with Hollywood Community police offi cer Rosanne
Lee at Beaumont Elementary School
Portland’s fi nest gathered before the Albina Head Start building: top row: John Frater and Cliff
Madison; middle row: Marci Jackson, Shelly Kirkland, Andrew Kirkland, Derrick Foxworth; bottom
row: Rod Beard, Diane Avery (support staff ), Dorothy Elmore, Charles Moose, Kelly Lewis, Harry
Jackson
Portland Police surprised a local family with a new dining room set in October of 2014, and newly hired Police
Chief Larry O’Dea also repaired their old table — just before surprising the family with the new furniture.
I, too, am a white reader of The Skanner. I think The Skanner
is a necessary counterweight to The Oregonian and the
Portland Tribune, both of which passively accept police
narratives as true – including the insta-labeling of black
youth as gang members without evidence. Within 5 minutes
of any crime happening along MLK, for instance, there is a
police spokeman dropping “gang-affi liated” even before they
know what happened.
Issues
of concern
to the
black community that are
Add
to the
conversation
marginalized by mainstream media cannot disappear
use #SK40YEARS
Vera Pool (left) and State Rep. Avel Gordly looking over newly released policing manual during
Community Policing Forum at King School
because The Skanner elevates and highlights them.
Because systemic racism traps many African Americans in
poverty, The Skanner also tracks and highlights economic
justice issues that aff ect all Oregonians.
So yes, congratulations on 40 years and here’s hoping
that you continue at least 40 more as a counterforce to the
unending eff orts to trivialize and marginalize the concerns of
Portland’s black community.
—RuthAlice Anderson