Page 4A
OPINION
East Oregonian
Tuesday, June 28, 2016
Founded October 16, 1875
KATHRYN B. BROWN
DANIEL WATTENBURGER
Publisher
Managing Editor
JENNINE PERKINSON
TIM TRAINOR
Advertising Director
Opinion Page Editor
OUR VIEW
International
trade agreement
will avert chaos
Anyone who doubts the value of
farmers around the world.
Before long, trade would grind
comprehensive international trade
to a halt. Ultimately, food shortages
agreements should go to France.
would emerge, but not until
That nation recently prohibited
the importation of cherries from
irreversible damage had been done
any nation that allows the use of
to farmers and ranchers.
All because an agreement that
the insecticide dimethoate. Mind
sets the ground rules for trade does
you, the insecticide doesn’t have
not exist.
to be used on cherries; just the fact
It’s not just
that it could be
about the French
used in the U.S.
Many critics of the and cherries. U.S.
is suficient for
oil is slapped
French oficials
TTIP have emerged olive
with a $1,680 per
to block U.S.
ton duty when
cherries.
in Europe and
We won’t
entering the
elsewhere. They European Union.
comment on
French politics.
that to
prefer the current Compare
All we know is
the $34 a ton duty
the French do not
system, which ap- the U.S. charges
allow their farmers
for European olive
pears to rely on oil entering this
to use dimethoate,
so they decided no
country.
sticking it to the
one should.
U.S. apples face
The fact that
U.S. whenever and a 7 percent duty
going to
U.S. cherry
wherever possible. when
Europe, while EU
growers don’t use
apples face no duty
it is immaterial,
when imported
according to
French reasoning. They igure that if into the U.S.
French farmers can’t use it, nobody
Now in the negotiation stage
can.
is the Trans-Atlantic Trade and
Because only a relative handful
Investment Partnership between
the U.S. and the European Union.
of U.S. cherries — about a half
a million dollars worth last year
Besides addressing market access
— goes to France, the impact will
and tariffs, it would harmonize
likely be small.
regulatory standards, such as those
But what would happen if every
related to food safety and the use of
country started making up its own
pesticides.
trade rules, based on the vagaries of
Many critics of the TTIP have
local preferences?
emerged in Europe and elsewhere.
The answer is chaos. If Nation A
They prefer the current system,
won’t allow a crop because a certain which appears to rely on sticking it
pesticide is allowed elsewhere,
to the U.S. whenever and wherever
what’s to stop Nations B, C and
possible.
D from doing the same — adding
Like the Trans-Paciic Partnership
pesticides or practices to the list?
that was completed last winter, the
Soon U.S. farmers who ship their TTIP will not be perfect. But it will
crop overseas would face a gridlock be much better than the alternative,
of prohibitions. So would other
which is chaos.
Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board of Publisher
Kathryn Brown, Managing Editor Daniel Wattenburger, and Opinion Page Editor Tim Trainor.
Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not
necessarily that of the East Oregonian.
Culture Corner
School segregation was something
we were supposed to have left behind.
Along with Jim Crow laws and poll
taxes, school segregation is supposed
to be a vestige of America’s racist past,
something that was tidily eradicated
with Brown v. Board of Education and
the Civil Rights Act.
New York Times Magazine writer
Nikole Hannah-Jones has made a career
out of exploring the adverse effects
of segregation, with two recent pieces
providing a deep explorations into how
a series of policy decisions and court
rulings have largely re-segregated
many of the country’s school systems.
Hannah-Jones recently won the
George Polk Award for “The Problem
We All Live With,” a 2015 report she
did for the public radio program This
American Life.
Hannah-Jones’ story is set in the
Normandy School District, a school
system that borders Ferguson, Missouri.
Poorly funded, poor performing
and largely black, Normandy lost
its accreditation in 2012, giving its
students the option to transfer to an
accredited district.
Following Missouri state law,
Normandy provided busing to Francis
Howell, a majority white school district
26 miles away.
What followed was a massive
resistance from Francis Howell
administrators and parents.
Although Hannah-Jones wrote about
Normandy in 2014 for ProPublica, the
audio telling of the story is rendered
more powerful as clips from a Francis
Howell public forum on the matter
show parents angrily predicting that
Normandy students will bring crime
and ignorance to their community’s
schools.
Living in a liberal enclave of a
liberal city doesn’t prevent segregation
either, as Hannah-Jones details in the
June New York Times Magazine article
“Choosing a School for my Daughter in
a Segregated City.”
Hannah-Jones, who is African-
American, deftly blends her personal
experiences with segregation’s larger
implications as she details her and her
husband’s tough decision to send their
daughter to Brooklyn’s Public School
307, a school heavily comprised of
black and Latino students, only to
see the same political lines drawn
when New York City Public Schools
considered sending some children from
an afluent white school to P.S. 207.
Hannah-Jones backs her story up
with hard facts about the power of
integration, citing research that shows
that not only do black students perform
better when attending a desegregated
school, they’re healthier, wealthier, less
likely to be in jail and more likely to
attend college.
Both stories tacitly ask the same
question: Although we may approve
of integrated schools in theory, what
happens when it’s brought to our front
door?
— Antonio Sierra,
Pendleton reporter
LETTERS POLICY
The East Oregonian welcomes original letters of 400 words or less on public
issues and public policies for publication in the newspaper and on our website.
The newspaper reserves the right to withhold letters that address concerns
about individual services and products or letters that infringe on the rights of
private citizens. Submitted letters must be signed by the author and include the
city of residence and a daytime phone number. The phone number will not be
published. Unsigned letters will not be published. Send letters to Managing
Editor Daniel Wattenburger, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email ed-
itor@eastoregonian.com.
OTHER VIEWS
Blood on Obama’s hands
O
years old.
N THE GUATEMALAN-
MEXICAN BORDER
Two of Carlos’ classmates, both 14,
— Cristóbal, a 16-year-old
were also asked to join the gang but
Honduran refugee leeing a drug gang
refused. Their corpses were found with
that wants to kill him, has never heard
the number 13 carved in their chests, a
of anyone named Barack Obama.
reference to the gang’s name. Another
Neither can he name the Mexican
classmate, Alan, 13, was invited to
president, Enrique Peña Nieto.
join the gang and accepted. Carlos said
But Cristóbal, along with many
Nicholas Alan’s irst assignment was to murder
others, could end up being murdered
Kristof three men.
because of these two presidents he is
Here on the Mexican-Guatemalan
Comment
unaware of. Obama and Peña Nieto
border I’ve heard many stories like
have cooperated for two years to
Carlos’ and Cristóbal’s. The details
intercept desperate Central American refugees are typically impossible to conirm, but I
in southern Mexico, long before they can
approached the youths rather than the other
reach the U.S. border. These refugees are then
way around, and Carlos was initially reluctant
typically deported to their home countries —
to share the story; at one point he cried when
which can be a death sentence.
he spoke of the murder threat against his
“If I’m sent back,
brother.
they will kill me,” says
It’s unconscionable to
In effect, we have
Cristóbal, who is staying
put refugees like Carlos
temporarily at a shelter for
pressured and bribed and Cristóbal back into
unaccompanied migrant
mortal peril, yet that’s what
kids in Mexico. He says he Mexico to do our dirty is happening. In the last
was forced to work for the
years, Mexico and
work, detaining and ive
gang as a cocaine courier
the U.S. have deported
deporting people
beginning at age 14 — a
800,000 people to Central
gun was held to his head,
America, including 40,000
leeing gangs in
and he was told he would
children, according to the
be shot if he declined. He
Honduras, El Salvador Migration Policy Institute.
inally quit and led after he
Last year, Mexico deported
and Guatemala.
witnessed gang members
more than ive times as
murder two of his friends.
many unaccompanied
Now the gang is looking
children as it had ive years
for him, he says, and it already sent a hit team
earlier, and the Obama administration heralds
to his home.
this as a success.
Yet he may well be sent back under a
“It’s been a good thing, because it’s
policy backed by Obama and Peña Nieto. I
discouraging people from making a
admire much about the Obama administration, very dangerous trip,” said a senior State
including its ine words about refugees, but
Department oficial who would speak only
this policy is rank with deadly hypocrisy.
anonymously.
In effect, we have pressured and bribed
It’s true that the old system, of refugees
Mexico to do our dirty work, detaining and
undertaking a dangerous journey across
deporting people leeing gangs in Honduras,
Mexico, was awful. But we took a deplorable
El Salvador and Guatemala. This solved a
situation and made it more appalling.
political crisis Obama faced with refugees in
So what should the U.S. do? Most
2014, but it betrays some of the world’s most
important, it must work at the highest levels
vulnerable people.
with Honduras and El Salvador to address the
The American-Mexican collusion began
chaos in those countries, particularly because
in 2014 after a surge of Central Americans
the U.S. bears some responsibility for the
crossed into the U.S., including 50,000
problems: The Central American street gangs
unaccompanied children. Obama spoke with
were born in the United States and traveled
Peña Nieto “to develop concrete proposals” to with deportees to countries like El Salvador.
address the low. This turned out to be a plan
Instead, as with Syria, Obama has been
to intercept Central Americans near Mexico’s
disengaged. The U.S. could also do more
southern border and send them home.
to encourage Mexico to screen refugees
Washington committed $86 million to
rigorously and provide asylum to those who
support the program. Although Obama
deserve it; instead, according to Human Rights
portrayed his action as an effort to address a
Watch, less than 1 percent of Central American
humanitarian crisis, he made the crisis worse.
children in Mexico receive refugee status or
The old routes minors took across Mexico
formal protection.
were perilous, but the new ones adopted to
I asked Salva Lacruz, coordinator of a
avoid checkpoints are even more dangerous.
human rights center in Tapachula, about
The victims of this policy, deported in some Obama’s eloquent speeches on refugees and
cases to their deaths, are refugees like Carlos,
immigration. “It’s just words,” he scoffed. “A
a 13-year-old with a scar on his forehead from lot of hypocrisy.”
the time a gang member threw him to the
Carlos has no doubt what will happen if
ground in the course of executing his uncle. I
Mexico, encouraged by the U.S., returns him
met Carlos in Mexico after he had led — on
to Honduras: “They will kill me for sure.”
his own — from Honduras to save his life.
■
“In my hometown, I was asked to join a
Nicholas D. Kristof, a columnist for The
gang,” Carlos told me. “They wanted me to
Times since 2001, is a two-time Pulitzer Prize
be a lookout. They said if I didn’t, they would
winner who writes op-ed columns that appear
kill me and my brother.” His brother is just 6
twice a week.
YOUR VIEWS
Another about-face
In a typical move, the Pendleton City
Council went back on its word at (the June
7) council meeting. During WWII, the
U.S. Army built Sergeant City and for the
last 60-odd years, the city has done little
to rid the community of the well-known
public eyesore. Now, even though the
council agreed to limit the Pendleton
Heights development to 72 units, they have
backtracked on this agreement and now have
approved an increase to 140 units, adding ive
20-unit apartment buildings and essentially
creating a new Sergeant City, another public
eyesore.
Check it out yourself. There is only
one entrance/exit to the complex, but the
city engineer states that the increased
trafic should not be a factor on the already
congested Southgate. This makes me wonder
what kind of engineering degree the city
engineer actually has. It certainly can’t be
in trafic. Bob Patterson tried to quell some
of the concerns stating that there is a plan
for the north side of exit 209, however, a
conversation with ODOT concluded that
there was really no good plan as of yet for the
south side of the freeway.
I have to hand it to Neil Brown as the
only one on the council that questioned the
wisdom of continuing this project without
a concrete plan. With the city bending over
backwards to accommodate the contractor’s
wishes, the brand new street has become a
parking lot and the promise of a park seems
to have slipped through the cracks. Though
there were doubts expressed by other council
members, it was pretty obvious that the
mayor pulls their strings or they just plain
don’t care because they don’t have to deal
with the trafic situation on a daily basis.
So far, though there have been many fender
benders, we haven’t had a fatality. How long
will our luck continue? The other council
member representing Ward 2 is retiring and
most likely leaving the area. No help there.
The real astounding statement came from
the mayor himself when he implied that we
should welcome the trafic congestion as
a sign of progress, and another statement
by Chuck Woods that he thinks it shows
progress when you have to hunt for a parking
place downtown. With 64,000 square feet of
empty space and probably half the parking
we once had, I simply don’t see that as
progress.
With a growing credibility gap between
the people and city hall that’s wider than
the Grand Canyon, it’s no wonder people
don’t lock to “Coffee with the City” or other
city meetings. I noticed that “Ask the City
Manager” has been also removed from the
city web site. Hmmm ... .
Rick Rohde
Pendleton