FEBRUARY 28, 2018
Seattle, Washington Volume XL No. 22
25
CENTS
News ................................ 3,6,8 A & E ........................................5
Opinion ...................................2 Inequality Persists .........6
Calendar .................................4 Bids/Classifieds .....................7
CHALLENGING PEOPLE TO SHAPE A BETTER FUTURE NOW
IMAGE COURTESY OF FAIR HOUSING
COUNCIL OF OREGON
FIGURING HISTORY
A restrictive covenant from a 1941 deed in
Portland’s Hillsdale neighborhood, states that “No
person of any race other those of the Caucasian or
White race shall use or occupy any building on any
lot” in the housing tract.
By Christen McCurdy
Of The Skanner News
his week the Oregon legislature
passed a bill that would make it
easier to remove racist language
from property deeds.
House Bill 4134 passed out of the
Senate Monday and heads toward the
governor’s desk this spring. Under
the new law property owners would
be able to remove discriminatory re-
strictions in their deeds by petitioning
their county’s circuit court with no fee.
The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Julie Fahey
(D-West Eugene and Junction City),
drafted the bill after buying a house in
Eugene and discovering the property
deed said the house could only be sold
to “members of the Caucasian race.”
“I went back and forth with the re-
altor and the title company to see if
it could get that language taken out,”
she said. She discovered the process
was “time consuming and expensive”
and not very accessible to someone
who could not afford a lawyer, partly
because the process requires that all
owners of record be notified.
“For me, part of the reason of bring-
ing the bill is to continue the conver-
sation in the legislature and the public
and continue the conversation about
our history of racist discrimination.
People know about redlining, people
know about discrimination by the fi-
nancial system, but they may not know
about this,” Fahey said.
Richard Rothstein, a research asso-
ciate of the Economic Policy Institute
and a fellow at the Thurgood Marshall
Institute of the NAACP Legal Defense
T
See LAW on page 3
BOOK REVIEW: When
They Call You a Terrorist
page 5
Jordan Allen studies a painting by artist by Robert Colescott at the Seattle Art Museum. Mr. Colescott’s is one of three artists whose work is featured
in the Seattle Art Museum’s exhibit Figuring History: Robert Colescott, Kerry James Marshall, Mickalene Thomas. The large paintings represent 3
generations of black artists whose work questions the narrative of American history. The exhibit will be on display through May 13.
Could Portland Adopt Municipal Broadband?
After net neutrality repeal, a local group is pushing for a public provider
Christen McCurdy
Of The Skanner News
small group of Port-
landers wants local
government to of-
fer Internet access
as a public utility. They
have the ear of a few gov-
ernment officials, one city
council candidate and the
co-chair of the Democratic
Party of Oregon — but the
plan is still in the nascent
stages.
Municipal
Broadband
Portland held a rally in De-
cember and one in January
to voice support for a mu-
nicipal Internet provider.
Those rallies were small:
the first attracted 40 and
A
the second attracted about
30, according to Michael
Hanna, an organizer with
the group. The Municipal
Broadband PDX Facebook
group currently has 1,800
members, though.
But Portland residents
are interested in the con-
cept again in part because
of the Federal Communi-
cation Commission’s De-
cember vote to repeal net
neutrality, opening the
door for private Internet
providers to block com-
peting applications, slow
connection speeds or offer
higher speeds only to cus-
tomers who are willing to
pay more.
“The repeal of net neu-
trality has sparked a wild-
fire across the nation,”
Hanna said.
Earlier this week Ore-
gon’s House of Represen-
tatives passed a law requir-
ing state agencies to sign
Internet service contracts
with providers that abide
by net neutrality practices.
While Municipal Broad-
band organizers support
net neutrality, they see net
neutrality as a symptom of
the bigger problem: that
two private companies,
Comcast and CenturyLink,
hold a near-monopoly (and
in some neighborhoods, a
monopoly) on Internet ac-
cess in the city. Advocates
for making Internet access
a public utility say access is
critical for daily life activ-
ities and for getting ahead
in society, that building
out and maintaining a fi-
ber network would cre-
ate jobs and that revenue
could help pay for needed
services.
The idea isn’t unique to
Portland, and the idea is
not new, said Russell Se-
nior, president of Person-
al Telco, a Portland-based
nonprofit wireless net-
work and member of Mu-
nicipal Broadband Port-
land. Russell, along with
Hanna and Roberta Phil-
lip-Robbins, are working
See BROADBAND on page 3
Parents Spooked By Abuse in Youth
Sports Set More Limits
By SALLY HO, Associated Press
SEATTLE (AP) — With Olympic
prodigies having just dazzled audi-
ences worldwide, parents in the U.S.
are reconciling the thrill of the gold
with their fears from recent sexual
abuse scandals in elite youth sports.
Shannon Stabbert said her 6-year-
old daughter wants to be a gymnast,
but the Seattle mother decided to
put her in a martial-arts program in-
stead.
“I have no doubt she will be quite
amazing at gymnastics,” Stabbert
said. “I just don’t feel like it’s a men-
tally, physically, emotionally healthy
sport for girls.”
High-profile cases of sexual abuse
and other predatory behavior in
gymnastics, swimming and other
sports have jolted many parents who
believe athletics can be an important
part of their child’s development.
See SPORTS on page 3
AP PHOTO/ELAINE THOMPSON
HB 4134 passed out of
the Senate Monday
PHOTO BY SUSAN FRIED
Law Makes
It Easier to
Remove Racist
Restrictions
From Deeds
In this Thursday, Feb. 15, 2018, photo, Lara
Mae Chollette, a coach of youth soccer and
basketball, runs a basketball drill with her
daughter Linda, 10, as her son Jaylen, 7, looks on
at a community gym in Seattle.
