June 27, 2018 The Skanner Page 3
News
cont’d from pg 1
“
This situ-
ation has
reached a
crisis level
al law enforcement the
ability to simultaneously
enforce the law and keep
families together.”
“Without this action by
Congress, lawlessness at
the border will contin-
ue,” the department said.
Sabraw, an appointee
of Republican President
George W. Bush, said
children under 5 must
reunited with their par-
ents within 14 days.
He also issued a nation-
wide injunction against
further family separa-
tions, unless the parent is
deemed unfit or doesn’t
want to be with the child,
and ordered the govern-
ment to provide phone
contact between parents
and their children within
10 days.
The case was brought
by the American Civil
Liberties Union, which
sued in March on behalf
of a 7-year-old girl who
was separated from her
Congolese mother and a
14-year-old boy who was
taken from his Brazilian
mother.
“Tears will be flow-
ing in detention centers
across the country when
the families learn they
will be reunited,” said
ACLU attorney Lee Gel-
ernt.
More than 2,000 chil-
Inequality
dren have been separat-
ed from their parents in
recent weeks and placed
in government-contract-
ed shelters — hundreds
of miles away, in some
cases — under a “zero
tolerance” policy toward
families caught illegally
entering the U.S. Many
are from drug- and vio-
lence-wracked Guatema-
la, Honduras and El Sal-
vador.
Amid an international
outcry, Trump last week
issued an executive or-
der to stop the separa-
tion of families and said
parents and children will
instead be detained to-
gether.
But parents already
separated from their
children were left in the
dark on when and how
they would be reunited,
and Homeland Security
seemed only to sow more
confusion over the week-
end.
“The facts set forth be-
fore the Court portray
reactive governance —
responses to address a
chaotic circumstance of
the Government’s own
making,” Sabraw wrote.
“They belie measured
and ordered governance,
which is central to the
concept of due process
enshrined in our Consti-
tution.”
Since Trump issued
the executive order, the
administration has been
casting about for deten-
tion space for holding
families together and has
asked the courts to mod-
ify a 1997 settlement that
generally bars the gov-
ernment from keeping
children locked up with
their parents for more
than 20 days.
Officials say with more
than 2,000 still in custo-
dy, the task ahead could
be monumental.
Read the more at
TheSkanner.com
Constructing Hope Open House
Constructing Hope held its first-ever open house June 19 with a tour of the Constructing Hope training Facility, a view of the expansion
plan and words from past graduates. There were also special remarks from Kimberly Branam, executive director of Prosper Portland
and David Drinkward, Hoffman Construction. Pictured here are board member Bob Boyer (left); Patricia Daniels, executive director of
Constructing Hope; board member Art Hiemstra (First Interstate Bank ); Kimberly Branam; Kimberly Moreland, project manager at
Prosper Portland; David Drinkward and Architect Anne Raccine Fishe.
Dixon
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Democrats, being one of two Af-
rican American women to have
ever held an executive position
for the local party. (The first,
former chair Lakeitha Elliott, re-
signed in 2013.)
“
Eighteen
months ago, I
was uber posi-
tive and excited
“Eighteen months ago, I was
uber positive and excited,” Dixon
told The Skanner last week. “Now
I’m energized but I’m not as opti-
mistic.”
Dixon, a Pacific Northwest na-
tive who worked on John Kerry’s
political action committee and
two campaigns for former pres-
ident Barack Obama before re-
turning to the Northwest, wants
to see the local party focus on
more issues of importance to
people of color, women, LGBTQ
communities and the other stake-
holders who have made up the
Democratic voting base for the
last several decades. She’s advo-
cated for the party to write reso-
lutions in support of issues that
matter to stakeholders, such as
addressing the backlog of untest-
ed rape kits that have made local
headlines in recent years – or ma-
ternity pay, equal pay or repro-
ductive rights.
She contends the party has
done a poor job of reaching out to
stakeholder groups — including
minority groups, but also young-
er Democrats — and of keeping
them in the room when they do
show up.
Last fall Dixon formed a race-in-
formed social justice committee,
which, she said, was very produc-
tive in coming up with ideas – but
found they were often drowned
out by people explaining why
those ideas wouldn’t work. Often,
people of color who came to at-
tend meetings were too discour-
aged to come back, she said.
“This kind of allyship eventu-
ally drives people away,” Dixon
said.
She was also critical of the
organization’s emphasis on ad-
dressing racial justice issues with
education or awareness-raising
sessions. While it’s important to
know, for example, Oregon’s rac-
ist history, those events duplicate
the diversity training being done
at recurring events like Race
Talks or the diversity training
sessions led by local activist Cam-
eron Whitten. A political party
should emphasize policy.
“There’s so many people in our
city who are under siege, and the
answer can’t be to study their
pain,” Dixon said.
Dixon’s term is up in January
2019. She intends to finish her
term, and keep fighting and or-
ganizing. She hopes to see the
Multnomah County Democrats
engage the community more ac-
tively, by attending and recruit-
ing for members at multicultural
festivals, getting the party’s docu-
ments translated into languages
other than English.
She also hopes to see larger
numbers of people color coming
to meetings to shift the dynamic.
She believes the Democratic par-
ty can still be a “big-tent commu-
nity.”
cont’d from pg 1
tive — one where prosperity is not eq-
uitably experienced by communities of
color.
“Leading with Race” highlights the
issues most relevant to people of color
today, while breaking down common
misconceptions and relaying the per-
sonal stories of its community mem-
bers.
Among the report’s findings:
• Vietnamese and Filipino workers
have lower incomes at similar levels
of education as White workers.
• Black high-income home loan appli-
cants are 86 percent more likely to
have their application denied com-
pared to their White counterparts;
Latino applicants are 125 percent
more likely.
• Somali-speaking students are 197
percent more likely than White stu-
dents to be expelled or suspended
from school.
• 68 percent of Native American single
mothers with children are in poverty
in Washington County, a higher rate
compared to 48 percent of Native
American single mothers in poverty
in the US.
In the section on African Americans
in Washington County, “Leading with
Race” found that while the Black com-
munity has grown by 36 percent from
2005 to 2015, only 2 percent of the total
population is Black. Of that 2 percent,
44 percent are 18 years or younger.
Even so, the outlook for Black youth
is grim.
First off, representation is scarce. No
African American person has never
held elected office in any jurisdiction in
Washington County. In 2015, according
to Oregon Department of Education,
only 2 percent of public school teachers
across all districts in the county identi-
fied as Black.
Meanwhile, Black students in Wash-
ington County are 100 percent more
likely to be expelled or suspended than
White students. African Americans
also have the highest incarceration rate
of all the racial groups in the county —
662.3 people out of 100,000 were likely
to be jailed compared to 190.5 White
people.
The poverty rate, too, among the
Black community is more than double
that of Whites in the county, with one
of every five Black residents in poverty.
“The impacts of racism and oppres-
sion over time in Washington County
carry weight and burden,” said Justice
Rajee at the report’s official release on
June 18 in Beaverton. Rajee was one of
several African American focus group
participants during the report’s re-
search.
“This has to change and that we all
have a part to play in making this
change possible,” he continued. “No de-
cisions about policies about our lives
and outcomes can be democratic and
just if it does not involve those most im-
COURTESY OF THE COALITION OF COMMUNITIES OF COLOR
problems for the admin-
istration, and it was un-
clear how it would meet
the deadline.
Health and Human Ser-
vices, which is in charge
of the children, referred
questions to the Justice
Department.
The Justice Depart-
ment said the ruling
makes it “even more im-
perative that Congress
finally act to give feder-
PHOTO BY JERRY FOSTER
Families
Shweta Moorthy (right), CCC Researcher, at the
publication and release of “Leading with Race:
Research Justice in Washington County.”
pacted. We must be part of removing
barriers and dismantling deeply root-
ed racist institutions and practices.”
Over the next few months, the CCC
and its steering members will be co-
ordinating presentations across the
county to discuss the report’s findings.