FEBRUARY 10, 2016
Portland and Seattle Volume XXXVIII No. 19
25
CENTS
News ...............................3,9,10 A & E .....................................6-7
Opinion ...................................2 Race and Hollywood .......7
Calendars ........................... 4-5 Bids/Classifieds ....................11
CHALLENGING PEOPLE TO SHAPE A BETTER FUTURE NOW
SKANNER NEWS FILE PHOTO
PARENT INVOLVEMENT
The city has adopted a plan for the distribution of
$20 million set aside for affordable housing last fall.
City Adopts
Housing
Strategy
D
istribution of government dollars
often makes for a contentious de-
bate. But the pledge of $20 million
in Portland Development Com-
mission funds for affordable housing
was one of the more talked about issues
in 2014.
That move — a response to concerns
about affordable housing in the area —
led to the adoption of the North/North-
east Housing Strategy and an accom-
panying oversight committee charged
with creating a plan of action for the
funds.
Though the Portland City Council
voted unanimously Jan. 28 to adopt
the plan, which details how the dollars
See HOUSING on page 3
Movies
Opening
this Week
Reviews by Kam
Williams
page 6
Lack of Swift Action Due
to Cop Code of Silence
page 9
South Shore School student Badhatu Abdalla is welcomed to school Feb. 8 by more than 200 Black men. The welcoming of the students kicked off a day
of events celebrating National African American Parent Involvement Day. The men who participated included members of the Seattle Police and Fire
departments, college professors, elected officials, parents and community members.
Will Farming be the Future of Food Justice?
Advocates ask to change food system to include more Black producers
By Arashi Young
Of The Skanner News
C
onversations about
African Americans
and food often veer
toward issues of diet,
price and culture. The
problem of getting low-
cost, healthy food to Black
communities dominates
the dialogue.
At a food justice work-
shop in January, organizer
Edward Hill urged attend-
ees to rethink the entire
food system from seed to
beyond the plate. The ses-
sion, “Culture, Crops, Cash,
Commerce: The Future of
Food Justice,” proposed a
new food network that spe-
cifically benefits African
Americans.
Hill, the executive direc-
tor of the non-profit or-
ganization Groundwork
Portland, said food justice
has to push beyond food
access efforts.
“Food justice seeks to en-
sure the benefits and the
risks of where and when
and how food is grown,
produced,
transported,
distributed, accessed… are
eaten and shared fairly,”
Hill said.
He went on to describe
the current food system
as a network of food busi-
nesses. These are farms,
food processing plants,
restaurants, distributors,
farmer’s markets, grocery
stores, consumers and
waste management indus-
tries.
“Those are all industries.
It’s all money. It’s probably
half the world’s economy
right there in all of those
associated opportunities,”
Hill said.
But these opportunities
aren’t distributed equal-
ly along race and gender
lines. According to a 2011
report, “The Color of Food,”
from the Applied Research
Center, women and people
of color are overrepresent-
ed in low-wage jobs in the
Event to Honor First Heart Donor
Fundraiser pays homage to Black History Month
and Bobby Olive, who donated his heart in 1985
By Christen McCurdy
Of The Skanner News
W
hen Belinda Olive-Beltran
lost her brother in 1985, she
didn’t expect to gain anoth-
er family in the process.
Bobby Olive was shot at the age of
27 during an apartment burglary,
but had been struggling to turn his
life around. A father of three with a
pregnant fiancée, Olive was about to
start a new job when he died.
“He was in the wrong place at the
wrong time,” Olive-Beltran told The
Skanner News.
When doctors told Olive’s mother,
Martha Van Arsdale, that her son’s
brain had died, they also said there
was a man who was waiting for a
heart donation and could die soon
if he didn’t receive a heart for trans-
plant.
See HEART on page 3
food system, holding jobs
such as food servers and
factory workers in food
processing plants. White
men dominate the higher
paying management and
ownership roles in the
food network.
For African Americans,
the legacy of slavery and
Jim Crow directly affects
the present day food sys-
tem. In the work session,
Hill talked about the his-
torical obstacles affecting
Black farmers.
Hill said there were
100,000 Black farmers who
were farming more than15
See FOOD on page 3
PHOTO COURTESY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST TRANSPLANT BANK
By Donovan M. Smith
Of The Skanner News
PHOTO BY SUSAN FRIED
Plan to give preference
to those most affected
by gentrification
Bobby Olive, who died in 1985, was Oregon’s
first heart donor.