February 28, 2018 The Skanner Page 3
News
cont’d from pg 1
“
their love of music.
After meeting in 1991,
when they both worked
for City Commissioner
Gretchen Kafoury, the
two struck up a unique
friendship and would of-
ten get together to sing.
“When she speaks in
public, what makes her
speeches so impactful is
that she’s direct and ev-
ery word means some-
In the same way that she’s
spellbinding when she
speaks, I’m spellbound when
she sings
Civil Rights Ordinance.
She was also the diver-
sity director at Cascade
AIDS Project, and in 2012
she accepted the Lifetime
Achievement from the
Portland Human Rights
Commission.
But when she wasn’t
on the frontlines of the
cause, Saadat was sing-
ing.
“I cannot remember
not singing,” she told The
Skanner.
“During World War II,
I lived with my grand-
mother who sang every
day, so my brother and I
sang with her.”
While Saadat said her
entire family had a gift
for song, she never gave
much thought to a career
in music.
“The closest to any
professional
training
I’ve had was one year
in my high school’s glee
club, about a year in the
children’s chorus at the
AME Zion church, and
with voice coach Susan
Dorn while I worked
with Thomas to do this
album,” Saadat said. “I
would guess there are
about 66 years between
the church and this expe-
rience.”
It’s no surprise that
Saadat and Lauderdale’s
almost 30-year long
friendship grew out of
thing,” said Lauderdale,
who formed Pink Marti-
ni in 1994 after stepping
away from a profession
in politics. “And that’s
how she sings, which
very few people do.”
Eventually, Saadat ap-
proached
Lauderdale
with the idea of record-
ing a few songs to share
with family and friends.
That was the seedling
which, six years later,
would become “Love for
Sale.”
“Each of these songs
on the album has a nar-
rative and her voice is
so rewarding to listen
to,” Lauderdale told The
Skanner. “In the same
way that she’s spellbind-
ing when she speaks, I’m
spellbound when she
sings.”
The album marks the
first time the activist has
recorded professionally.
“I never recorded any-
thing because I’ve nev-
er regarded myself as a
singer. I’ve never seen
myself as someone who
had a singer’s voice,”
said Saadat. “I don’t read
music nor do I play an
instrument, so I just con-
sidered my singing as
something I did mostly
for me.”
Broadband
Read the rest of this story at
TheSkanner.com
Law
cont’d from pg 1
(D-West Eugene and Junction
City), drafted the bill after buying
a house in Eugene and discover-
ing the property deed said the
house could only be sold to “mem-
bers of the Caucasian race.”
“I went back and forth with the
realtor 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 some-
one who could not afford a law-
yer, partly because the process
requires that all owners of record
be notified.
“For me, part of the reason of
bringing the bill is to continue
the conversation in the legisla-
ture and the public and continue
the conversation about our histo-
ry of racist discrimination. Peo-
ple know about redlining, people
know about discrimination by
the financial system, but they may
not know about this,” Fahey said.
Richard Rothstein, a research
associate of the Economic Policy
Institute and a fellow at the Thur-
good Marshall Institute of the
NAACP Legal Defense Fund and
of the Haas Institute at the Uni-
versity of California (Berkeley),
writes in the 2017 book, “The Col-
or of Law: A Forgotten History of
“
White home-
owners formed
neighborhood
associations
which enforced
the deeds
How Our Government Segregat-
ed America,” that restrictive cov-
enants were common in housing
deeds through the mid-20th cen-
tury and were part of a system
of legal tools that kept neighbor-
hoods segregated and prevent-
ed African American families
from owning homes and accru-
ing wealth. White homeowners
formed neighborhood associa-
tions to enforce the deeds. .
“Between 1935 and 1955 W.E.
Boeing, the founder of Boeing
Aircraft, developed suburbs
north of Seattle. During this pe-
riod and after World War II, the
South Seattle Land Company, the
Puget Sound Mill Company, and
others constructed more sub-
urbs. The builders all wrote ra-
cially restrictive language into
their deeds. The result was a city
whose African American popu-
lation was encircled by all-white
suburbs,” Rothstein wrote.
The book also notes that local
governments aggressively pro-
moted restrictive covenants and
that the Federal Housing Admin-
istration gave higher ratings to
mortgage applications if there
were no African Americans liv-
ing in the neighborhood.
The Skanner invites readers to
share their stories with restric-
tive covenants in Portland. Please
write to news@theskanner.com
or call (503) 285-5555, ext. 503.
Read more at TheSkanner.com
cont’d from pg 1
to form a 501(c)(4) corporation and po-
litical action committee.
According to the Institute for Local
Self-Reliance’s Community Networks
page, more than 750 American commu-
nities have built publicly owned broad-
band networks.
“When a community is served by a
municipal network, the infrastructure
“
PCRI Breaks Ground
Portland Community Reinvestment Initiatives, along with Albina Construction, Brett Schulz Architect and other partners broke ground
Feb. 27 on the first homes for purchase by first-time homebuyers as part of its Pathway 1000 Initiative. Four new townhomes will
be built in North Portland. These new homes, for sale to low- and moderate-income first-time buyers will be prioritized for families
displaced from North and Northeast Portland and families at risk of displacement.
Pictured here are Travis Phillips, Housing Development Director (PCRI) –Maxine Fitzpatrick Executive Director (PCRI), Dennis Harris
(Owner of Albina Construction, LLC.) and Brett Schulz, Bret Schulz Architect.
institute’s Community Broadband Net-
works Initiative.
Hanna sees the notion as a revival of a
Progressive Era notion of making cer-
tain utilities part of the public good.
“A hundred years ago there was an
effort to municipalize utilities, which
is responsible for the city life we know
today. There’s been a gradual chipping
A hundred years ago there was an effort to
municipalize utilities, which is responsible
for the city life we know today
is a publicly-owned asset, similar to a
road or an electric utility. There are a
variety of models from full retail, in
which the city takes on the role of an
Internet Service Provider like Comcast
or AT&T, delivering services directly
to residents and businesses, to Institu-
tional networks in which only munici-
pal facilities receive services,” said Lisa
Gonzalez, a senior researcher for the
away at that effort,” Hanna said.
Senior likened the potential creation
of a municipal utility to the creation of
the Portland Water Bureau in 1885, pri-
or to which there were a number of pri-
vate water companies in Portland that
failed to consistently provide clean wa-
ter as the city grew.
Last year the City of Portland re-
leased a Digital Equity Action Plan that
reported 15 percent of
Portland households
do not have Internet
access at home, citing
cost as a barrier.
“It
starts
when
young people have
homework they can-
not complete,” Phil-
lip-Robbins said. That
inequity perpetuates Advocates are pushing for a publicly-owned broadband network in
itself when low-in- Portland.
come people do not
have the necessary tools to search for be helpful, they can also be complex
jobs or housing. “If we want to close the and difficult to apply for, and that may
be why they are so under-utilized.
gap, this is a major opportunity.”
“The other part of this that’s really
The plan recommends making sure
compelling
is money stays in the com-
wi-fi is available at all public buildings
munity,”
Phillip-Robbins
said.
throughout the county, and outreach to
The
next
step
is
to
procure
$300,000
ensure private programs that provide
for
a
feasibility
study.
Advocates
said
Internet access to low-income people,
they’ve
had
interest
from
both
the
city
such as Comcast’s Internet Essentials
and
the
county.
program and CenturyLink’s Internet
Basics.
Read the full story at TheSkanner.com
Senior said while those programs can
BY PROJECTMANHATTAN (CC BY-SA 3.0)
and under-represented
groups including com-
munities of color, wom-
en, and LGBTQ people.
Saadat was appointed
Oregon’s affirmative ac-
tion director under Gov.
Neil Goldschmidt in 1987.
Later, she worked within
Multnomah County’s De-
partment of Community
and Family Services and
helped draft the Portland
PHOTO COURTESY OF PCRI
Saadat