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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (July 15, 2016)
OPINION East Oregonian Page 4A Friday, July 15, 2016 OTHER VIEWS Founded October 16, 1875 KATHRYN B. BROWN DANIEL WATTENBURGER Publisher Managing Editor JENNINE PERKINSON TIM TRAINOR Advertising Director Opinion Page Editor OUR VIEW Tip of the hat; kick in the pants A kick in the pants to the city of Pendleton, whose poor communication and decision making led to the cancellation of Yoga Round-Up. Nearly everyone has been trying to get more use out of the Round-Up Grounds, one of the jewels of the city. So news that a Pendleton Whisky Music Fest was coming to town, bringing a big name band and thousands of people to the Grounds, was universally well-received. That is until we realized the stadium was double-booked for July 15. The Zac Brown Band was set to play on what the seventh annual Yoga Round-Up thought would be the second day of their weekend event. It seems as if Pendleton Convention Center staff, which divvies out 16 days of Round-Up Grounds use, made an initial mistake and didn’t realize it until it was too late. That’s a shame — Pendleton has plenty of weekends empty of big events. Good communication and leadership can allow events to grow, not just replace and cannibalize each other. And while the music festival will certainly bring in a larger crowd than the yoga event had planned to, Pendleton can’t afford to alienate events of any size. It’s unknown if the city is legally liable for losses, but a suit that taxpayers would have to pay for would add another insult to a city that cannot afford these unforced errors. A tip of the hat to Pokémon Go, the latest tech craze that has swept the nation and world. The phone-based virtual reality game has attracted all age groups, from tweens to those old enough to have been fans of the 1990s cartoon to their parents. Although it is probably just a passing fad, the game is the irst step toward melding the natural and virtual world into an environment that is fun and social and interesting. While that process will surely be illed with pros and cons, it sure is neat to be around to see it. And though there are clear bugs in the system, it is getting young people outside, exploring their city and their world, and lessening for at least a little while, insistence on a 24/7 social media presence. Even the most stalwart “kids these days” complainers should have trouble inding fault in a video game that exercises more than just your thumbs or swiping inger. And clever local businesses should be able to cash in on an audience actively exploring their town. Catch ‘em all, but watch where you’re walking. 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. YOUR VIEWS Planned depot development would harm wildlife I am among the many citizen volunteers who have invested time, energy and resources to the burrowing owl project on the Umatilla Army Depot since 2008. Volunteers have constructed artiicial burrows, trapped, tagged, recorded and released nesting owl pairs and offspring, and assisted in breeding bird surveys for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Army. The ongoing burrowing owl project has been more than successful, creating habitat for the largest continuous nesting colony of owls in the western United States. The proposed solar projects blessed by the Columbia Development Authority will eliminate 900 acres of the most important burrowing owl habitat on the Depot Wildlife Refuge that during the 2016 season saw 20 of the 29 successful nesting owl pairs. For further consideration, this land is also nesting habitat for long-billed curlews, loggerhead shrikes, grasshopper sparrows, horned larks, Western meadowlarks, lark sparrows; wintering habitat for migrating snowy owls and white-crowned sparrows; and home to badgers, coyote, redtail hawks, common ravens, black-tailed jackrabbits and other animals and birds. An ordinance signed by Umatilla County commissioners in 2014 designated the Umatilla Depot Wildlife Refuge Zone to preserve the natural shrub-steppe desert landscape, which is disappearing at a rapid rate, for wildlife habitat, environmental protection and public education. Although the ordinance does allow for commercial solar power generation for sale for public use within the Wildlife Refuge Zone with an approved conditional use permit, there are speciic conditions that must be met for the permit. Removal and destruction of burrowing owl burrows and placement of solar power structures on the 900 acres of the land is contradictory to the Wildlife Refuge Zone’s purpose. The CDA, in backing these projects, is in effect making a public land and resources grab for the beneit of proiting off the energy that would be sold to the power grid. Education and low-impact recreation by the public, shrub-steppe habitat protection and preservation, and the management and future uses of the area have not been addressed. The Department of Defense/Army has not yet transferred the land to the CDA. To further protect and manage the land for the public and to comply with federal environmental and cultural laws, the DOD should instead laterally transfer the land to another federal entity or to the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation for management, since they have cultural and environmental interests and historic ties to the land. A history of white delusion I n 1962, 85 percent of white other contexts he dreads the police: He told The Associated Press that after Americans told Gallup that black one trafic stop he was stretched out children had as good a chance as spread-eagle on the hood of a police white kids of getting a good education. car. The next year, in another Gallup Williams shows his admiration for survey, almost half of whites said that police oficers by sometimes picking blacks had just as good a chance as up their tabs at restaurants, but he also whites of getting a job. In retrospect, we can see that these Nicholas expressed his feelings for the police white beliefs were delusional, and in Kristof this way to The Washington Post: “I other survey questions whites blithely support you. I defend you. I will care Comment acknowledged racist attitudes. In 1963, for you. That doesn’t mean I will not 45 percent said that they would object fear you.” That’s a narrative that many white if a family member invited a black person Americans are oblivious to. Half of white home to dinner. This complacency among us white Americans today say that discrimination Americans has been a historical constant. against whites is as big a problem as Even in the last decade, almost two-thirds discrimination against blacks. Really? That contradicts overwhelming of white Americans have research showing that said that blacks are treated blacks are more likely to be fairly by the police, and 4 suspended from preschool, to out of 5 whites have said be prosecuted for drug use, that black children have the to receive longer sentences, same chance as white kids to be discriminated against of getting a good education. in housing, to be denied job In short, the history of white interviews, to be rejected by Americans’ attitudes toward doctors’ ofices, to suffer bias race has always been one of in almost every measurable self-deception. sector of daily life. Just as in 1963, when In my mind, an even many well-meaning whites bigger civil rights outrage glanced about and couldn’t in America than abuses by see a problem, many well- some police oficers may meaning whites look around be an education system that routinely sends today, see a black president, and declare the neediest black students to underfunded, problem solved. third-rate schools, while directing bountiful That’s the backdrop for racial tensions resources to afluent white schools. roiling America today. “If America is to be America, we have to Of course, there have been advances. In engage in a larger conversation than just the 1939, 83 percent of Americans believed that criminal justice system,” notes Darren Walker, blacks should be kept out of neighborhoods the president of the Ford Foundation. “If you where white people lived. But if one lesson were to examine most of the institutions that from that old igure is that we have made underpin our democracy — higher education, progress, another is how easy it is for a K-12 education, the housing system, the majority to “otherize” minorities in ways that transportation system, the criminal justice in hindsight strike us all as repugnant. system — you will ind systemic racism In fairness, the evidence shows black embedded in those systems.” delusions, too. But what is striking in looking Yet Walker is an optimist, partly because back at historical data is that blacks didn’t of his own trajectory. In 1965, as an African- exaggerate discrimination but downplayed it. American child in rural Texas, he was able to In 1962, for example, a majority of enroll in Head Start soon after it was founded blacks said that black children had the same — and everything changed. “It transformed educational opportunities as white children, and nearly one-quarter of blacks said that they my life and created possibilities for me and a had the same job opportunities as whites. That glide path,” he says. “It provided me with a life I would never have imagined.” was preposterous: History hasn’t discredited As Walker’s journey suggests, we have the complaints of blacks but rather has shown tools that can help, although, of course, that they were muted. racial inequity is complex, involving not My hunch is that we will likewise look just discrimination but also jobs, education, back and conclude that today’s calls for family structure and more. A starting point is racial justice, if anything, understate the for us whites to wake from our ongoing mass problem — and that white America, however delusions, to recognize that in practice black well meaning, is astonishingly oblivious to lives have not mattered as much as white pervasive inequity. lives, and that this is an affront to values that As it happens, the trauma surgeon running we all profess to believe in. the Dallas emergency room last Thursday ■ when seven police oficers were brought in Nicholas Kristof grew up on a sheep with gunshot wounds is a black man, Brian and cherry farm in Yamhill. A columnist for Williams. He fought to save the lives of those oficers The New York Times since 2001 he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1990 and 2006. and wept for those he couldn’t help. But in Many well- meaning whites look around, see a black president, and declare problem solved. Diana LaSarge Pendleton CONTACT YOUR REPRESENTATIVES U.S. Representative Senator Greg Walden Washington ofice: 185 Rayburn House Ofice Building Washington, DC 20515 202-225-6730 La Grande ofice: 541-624-2400 Governor Kate Brown 160 State Capitol 900 Court Street Salem, OR 97301-4047 503-378-4582 Bill Hansell, District 29 900 Court St. NE, S-423 Salem, OR 97301 503-986-1729 Sen.BillHansell@state.or.us Representatives Greg Barreto, District 58 900 Court St. NE, H-38, Salem 503-986-1458 Rep.GregBarreto@state.or.us Greg Smith, District 57 900 Court St. NE, H-482 Salem, OR 97301 503-986-1457 Rep.GregSmith@state.or.us 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. Send letters to 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com.