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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 31, 2018)
January 31, 2018 The Skanner Page 3 News cont’d from pg 1 On Jan. 23, the gradual repatriation of the Ro- hingya from Bangladesh to Myanmar was set to begin, after an agree- ment was signed back in November. It’s since been postponed amid fears that the return of the ref- ugees would be neither safe nor voluntary. The same day, several U.S. Senators, including Oregon’s Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden, in- troduced a bipartisan Senate resolution con- demning the Myanmar campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Ro- hingya and calling for the “safe, dignified, vol- untary and sustainable return” of the refugees. Pfeil – whose work as a midwife with MSF has taken her to South Su- dan, the Ethiopian-Soma- li border, Haiti, and Papa New Guinea – spoke with The Skanner on her ex- periences with Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. This interview has been edited for space and clar- ity. at the Kutupalong refu- gee camp? Aerlyn Pfeil: It’s a stark contrast. The camp is an ocean of plastic sheeting and bamboo sticks and feces and mud. It kind of looks like hell on earth, honestly. And then you have the beau- tiful landscape of the for- est and Myanmar moun- tains. My first couple of days I spent out on the berm – this narrow strip – waiting for the border to be opened for people to cross over. There were about 14,000 people over that period of a couple days. It was a piece of land about as wide as one car lane and a mile and a half long, and it was just packed with thousands of people with nothing, because most everyone fled with whatever they had on. For a lot of them, it’s the first time they’ve ever had healthcare, so there’s a big education gap in understanding the free services. Certainly, there was sometimes a lack of awareness that we even existed at the camp. Part of that was due to how large the camp is and how hard it is to navi- gate. When we imagine a refugee camp, we often think of a flat expansive area with rows of tents. The Kutupalong camp doesn’t look like that at all. It’s these steep hill- sides that are all sand. The tents are stacked up on each other and the pathways go all over the place. There’s no real organization. I got lost in the camp a couple of times; so did colleagues. Patients were afraid to leave their shelters be- cause they feared they wouldn’t find their way back again. The Skanner News: What was your first im- pression when arriving Read the rest of this story at TheSkanner.com more than 60 nations. In Bangladesh, Pfeil spent two months offering services to incoming ref- ugees and survivors of sexual violence. The United Nations have called the brutali- ty against the Rohingya a campaign of “ethnic cleansing” – yet almost six months into the cri- sis, little has been done in the way of interna- tional intervention. BLM Political activist, author and scholar, Angela Davis will speak at this year’s 2018 ACLU of Oregon Liberty Dinner, which will take place March 9 at the Oregon Convention Center. An influential figure of the civil rights movement and co-founder of Critical Resistance, Davis came to be a prominent leader of counterculture activism in the 1960s. She continues to be a leading voice in conversations about feminism, social consciousness, and resistance. The Liberty Dinner includes a dinner and an auction, along with powerful conversations around the theme of Reimagining Justice. ASL interpreters and open captioning will be provided. Wheelchair, scooters, and hearing devices available upon request. TriMet cont’d from pg 1 (either at stores or through a smart phone app) an electronic card they tap at MAX kiosks or upon boarding a bus. Eventually, the agency plans to replace the paper tickets sold at kiosks with single-use tickets that can be scanned the same way — enabling access to the system for out-of-town visitors and others who might be unfamiliar with the system. TriMet is touting the system as a more seamless, flexible program that allows riders to pay as they go. It can also save riders money in some cases. Anyone who taps their card twice in one day will be granted a day pass by the system, where previously riders had to guess in advance whether to use a day pass or a ticket for a single trip. “Previously, I would go in, I would lay down $100, get my pa- per tickets and would leave,” said TriMet spokesperson Roberta Alstadt. “The next month [using HopFast Pass], I could lay down $100, and then I could have $97 [less $3 for the pass itself ] loaded on that card. It’s kind of the same experience than leaving the pa- per ticket. What’s different with Hop is you can lay down $20, you can go home and register it, you can set up auto-reload. You don’t need that upfront $100 for a pass.” Hop FastPass launched quiet- ly in 2017. Transit activists have been skeptical about the program since TriMet announced in 2016 that it would be launching an elec- tronic fare program. They worry that TriMet’s shift away from pa- per tickets — and possible shift away from cash fares altogether — will disproportionately harm transit-dependent populations. Activists also raised questions about how the new fare program “ Activists also raised questions about how the new fare pro- gram will work logistically will work logistically, especially for low-income riders. Nicole Phillips, a member of Bus Riders Unite and a represen- tative on TriMet’s equity adviso- ry committee, said some transit agencies have electronic fare pro- grams that allow users to manage multiple accounts from one card — so a parent boarding with sev- eral children can swipe one card and have the system deduct fares for each passenger in her group. Hop FastPass, on the other hand, requires each passenger over the age of seven to have a separate card and unique account. “Chicago does have a multi- ple-account card system,” Phillips said. “You just have to have the operator push a button for every- one in their group. It’s possible that the system [TriMet has] cho- sen doesn’t accommodate that. They’ve acknowledged that it is an issue and said that they will consider adjustments in the fu- ture.” Another problem? The new passes aren’t quite as easy to find as paper tickets or passes were. TriMet’s website — which used to sell paper passes and tickets to riders and could deliver them through the mail for a slight sur- charge — allows users to register their Hop FastPass cards and add more money to their accounts. (Accounts can also be managed using a smart phone app, or with cash payments at retail locations that support the pass.) But it doesn’t sell or mail the passes. Instead, riders need to go to a retail location or to TriMet’s tick- et office in Pioneer Courthouse Square. Read more at TheSkanner.com cont’d from pg 1 “Vancouver Public Schools has al- ways celebrated Black History Month and heritage commemoration months, but this year we’ve formalized what we do in collaboration with the Van- couver chapter of Black Lives Matter. Together, we’ve collected resources for teachers and schools that can be used in the classroom and are appro- priate for students at all levels. These resources include information about notable African-Americans and links to documentaries and articles,” said Vancouver Public Schools spokesper- son Amanda Richter in a statement to The Skanner. “We celebrate and honor a variety of groups, national holidays/observances and causes within our schools, includ- ing special celebrations and communi- ty service activities around the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, as well as sev- eral of our secondary schools’ longtime work with the local NAACP chapter,” said Evergreen Public School’s spokes- person Gail Spolar. “Ms. Towner has agreed to provide additional age-ap- “ There was noth- ing schoolwide, districtwide -- and there was no track- ing of what they were doing propriate Black History resources to our district that will complement the diversity and equity focus we already provide in our schools that happens not only in February, but throughout the school year.” Washington state’s social studies standards do require lessons on the Civil Rights Movement and slavery, but still fall short, according to the South- ern Poverty Law Center, which gave the state a “D” grade in its 2014 Teach- ing Tolerance report. Last year Ore- gon passed a law requiring the state to implement an ethnic studies curricu- lum by 2021, and the NAACP’s Seattle branch is urging Seattle schools to do the same. The Vancouver chapter of Black Lives Matter is relatively new – they held their first meeting in January 2016. Towner, a recent transplant, is hopeful the celebration will be a positive expe- rience for children of color in Clark County, where 76 percent of residents identify as White and just 2 percent identify as Black. “One of the goals is simply to do this and have it be a positive experience for all concerned,” Towner said. “It’s not that big a deal. It’s not meant to be that big a deal.” PUBLIC DOMAIN PHOTO VIA WIKIPEDIA “ Most ev- eryone fled with what- ever they had on Angela Davis to Speak at ACLU of Oregon Dinner PHOTO BY COLUMBIA GSAPP (CC BY 2.5) VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS Midwife This photo shows the entrance of Skyview High School in Vancouver, Washington. Vancouver and Evergreen Public Schools have partnered with Black Lives Matter Vancouver to more formally celebrate Black History Month this year.
