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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 7, 2016)
Page 2 The Skanner September 7, 2016 ® Challenging People to Shape a Better Future Now Bernie Foster Founder/Publisher Bobbie Dore Foster Executive Editor Jerry Foster Advertising Manager Christen McCurdy News Editor Patricia Irvin Graphic Designer Arashi Young Reporter Monica J. Foster Seattle Oice Coordinator Susan Fried Photographer 2016 MERIT AWARD WINNER The Skanner Newspaper, es- tablished in October 1975, is a weekly publication, published every Wednesday by IMM Publi- cations Inc. 415 N. Killingsworth St. P.O. Box 5455 Portland, OR 97228 Telephone (503) 285-5555 Fax: (503) 285-2900 info@theskanner.com www.TheSkanner.com The Skanner is a member of the National Newspaper Pub lishers Association 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. ©2016 The Skanner. All rights re served. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission prohibited. Local News Paciic NW News World News Opinions Jobs, Bids Entertainment Community Calendar RSS feeds BE A PART OF THE CONVERSATION #SkNews Opinion We Say No to Wapato Jail as a Homeless Shelter T he Mental Health As- sociation of Portland opposes Multnomah County commissioners siting any shelter for people who are homeless, for people who have mental illness, or for people with addictions, at Wapato Jail. For decades Multnomah County evaded addressing chronic homelessness, men- tal illness and addiction. Evasion let good programs unfunded or crippled, dis- couraging participation, and undermining eforts of the state, city and outside advo- cates to support and fund oth- er solutions. The result is the public health disaster we see on our streets today. Commissioners ignored best practices; let primary care disconnected from men- tal and addiction health care; maintained contracts to agen- cies which failed to provide worthwhile services; disre- garded advice of expensive experts; and frittered away time with costly causes which The Mental Health Association of Multnomah County Guest Column delayed and denied attention to people who are homeless. Instead of inding solutions, Multnomah County commis- sioners smoothed the path for sellers of tobacco, alcohol and marijuana to proliferate throughout the community “ wouldn’t be killed by cops. The legacy of Multnomah County is damage and despair for people who are homeless as a result of untreated ad- diction and mental illness. Tens of thousands have been harmed, and in many cases the harm is probably unix- able. The decay has crept into their families, their children, even friends and neighbors. And now they bring us Wapato Jail. Commissioners, our friends relied on you to Wapato Jail is just an excuse to say you provide suicient shelter and therefore can en- force a no-sleeping-in-public- places ordinance. The answer to homeless- ness is not emergency shel- ters in abandoned jails at the edge of town. The answer is supportive housing — small apartments attached to sup- portive services. Yes, it’s more expensive and compli- cated than a cold hard cell with steel bars for a door, but it’s not inhumane. It’s not a dismissive “let them eat cake.” And supportive housing actually solves home- lessness. Recovery from homelessness begins with hope. Hope is a promise things can get bet- ter. Getting better is efective drug treatment. Getting bet- ter is sanctuary where we can get real help. Getting better is peer support. What burns trust and extin- guishes hope is the message you belong in jail. Instead of providing help, Multnomah County commissioners made it impos- sible for people in mental health crisis to navigate the service system which expanded the public health crisis of addiction. Instead of providing help, Multnomah County commis- sioners made it impossible for people in mental health crisis to navigate the service system, get efective help, re- duce their symptoms so they protect them by providing ba- sic services — and you failed. Wapato Jail continues your legacy of failure. To claim, in the midst of a so-called “emergency,” you’ll allow homeless people to stay in Wapato Jail is nothing short of disgusting. Ofering To Be Equal: Hillary Clinton Stands on the Shoulders of ‘Unbossed’ Shirley Chisholm “Women in this country must become revolutionaries. We must refuse to accept the old, the traditional roles and ste- reotypes…We must replace the old, negative thoughts about our femininity with positive thoughts and positive action airming it, and more. But we must also remember that we will be breaking with tradi- tion, and so we must prepare ourselves educationally, eco- nomically, and psychologically in order that we will be able to accept and bear with the sanc- tions that society will immedi- ately impose upon us.” — Shirley Chisholm T he nation has marked the historic occasion of the irst woman in American history to win the Presi- dential nomination for a ma- jor political party. While Hillary Clinton has come further than any wom- an Presidential candidate, she is not the irst. Victoria Wood- hull ran as the candidate for the Equal Rights Party in 1872. Margaret Chase Smith chal- lenged Barry Goldwater for the Republican nomination in 1964. More recently, Pat Schroeder in 1988 and Carol Moseley Braun in 2004 vied for the Democratic nomina- tion. But the most historically signiicant forerunner to Hillary Clinton was Shirley Chisholm, the Brooklyn-born trailblazer who was also the nation’s irst African Ameri- Marc H. Morial National Urban League can Congresswoman. The daughter of work- ing-class immigrants from the Caribbean, Chisholm be- came interested in politics while serving as the director of a child day care center and an educational consultant for the New York City Divi- “ Black,” she said. She announced her candi- dacy for President at a Bap- tist church in Brooklyn. In an article about her candidacy, the Associated Press wrote, “Ironically, her major head- ache seems to come from Black politicians.” “They think that I am try- ing to take power away from them,” she said. “The Black man must step forward. But that doesn’t mean the Black woman must step back. While they’re rapping and snap- ping, I’m mapping.” She competed in 14 states, ‘As there were no Black Founding Fathers, there were no founding mothers — a great pity, on both counts’ —Shirley Chisholm sion of Day Care. She served three years as a New York State Assemblywoman before running for Congress in 1968 with the slogan: “Unbought and Unbossed.” “My greatest political asset, which professional politi- cians fear, is my mouth, out of which come all kinds of things one shouldn’t always discuss for reasons of political expe- diency,” Chisholm said. Chisholm hired only wom- en for her staf, half of whom were African Americans. “Of my two handicaps, being female put many more ob- stacles in my path than being winning 28 delegates to the convention. As a symbolic gesture, candidate Hubert Humphrey released his 83 Black delegates to cast their votes for Chisholm. With the votes of several other dele- gates at that contentious con- vention, Chisholm inished fourth in a ield of 13, with 152 delegates. It is hard to imagine, in this era of sharp division in poli- tics, the remarkable moment during that campaign when she visited her segregation- ist rival, Alabama Governor George Wallace, in his hos- pital room ater he was shot and wounded. “What are your people going to say?” he asked her. “I know what they are going to say,” she said. “But I wouldn’t want what happened to you to happen to anyone.” She recalled that her words moved him to tears. Chisholm retired from Con- gress in 1982 and remained an outspoken activist for civil rights until her death in 2005. It would be diicult to overestimate the impact and inluence of Chisholm’s Con- gressional service and Pres- idential candidacy. While Congress remains dispropor- tionately White and male, one-in-ive members of the current House and Senate are a racial or ethnic minori- ty, making the 114th Congress the most diverse in history. The nation’s irst African American President is wind- ing up his second term, and a woman — a former senator and Secretary of State — has just won the Democratic nom- ination for President. In her acclaimed speech on the Equal Rights Amendment in 1970, Chisholm said, “The Constitution they wrote was designed to protect the rights of White, male citizens. As there were no Black Founding Fathers, there were no found- ing mothers — a great pity, on both counts. It is not too late to complete the work they let undone. Today, here, we should start to do so.” Marc Morial is the president and CEO of the National Urban League.
