THURSDAY, JUNE 4, 2020
Baker City, Oregon
4A
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EDITORIAL
Calm,
not chaos
It lasted for only about an hour.
It was mostly quiet.
It was completely peaceful.
Perhaps most important, the vigil for George Floyd
that took place Monday evening at Baker City’s
Central Park proved that it’s quite possible to refl ect
on the tragic death of a person without the somber
event being marred by arson, vandalism and other
sorts of mayhem.
The vigil organized by Boston Colton of Baker City
was a welcome antidote to the scenes of chaos we’ve
been watching elsewhere for the past week or so.
Baker City, in common with other small towns,
is certainly much less prone to the kinds of violent
demonstrations that have plagued big cities such as
Portland and Seattle.
All things being equal, the fewer people, the lower
the odds that any group will include a handful of
malcontents whose only interest is damaging prop-
erty or looting.
But if 115 or so people can gather in Baker City
and do so without incident, there’s no legitimate
reason why 10 or 20 times that number can’t do the
same.
— Jayson Jacoby, Baker City Herald
OTHER VIEWS
Americans must
unite in standing
against racism
Editorial from The San Jose Mercury News and
East Bay Times
As a nation, we must wake up to, speak out against
and stop the racism that black Americans experience and
fear every day.
We must acknowledge that more than six decades
after the birth of the civil rights movement, we remain a
grossly unequal society in which people of color — espe-
cially black men — face disparate treatment because of
the pigment of their skin.
Disparate treatment most disturbingly from people in
power: From the Minneapolis police offi cer who held his
knee on George Floyd’s neck for about eight minutes as
he stopped breathing; the Georgia offi cials who ignored
the fatal shooting of jogger Ahmaud Arbery; and the
off-duty police offi cer who walked into the wrong Dallas
apartment and murdered Botham Jean.
Those are just some in an endless list of cases that
make many African Americans fear the people who are
supposed to protect them, worry about walking down
the street, agonize about the safety of their children and
hesitate at reporting crime.
We must speak up against the racism and against the
economic injustices that have historically made — and
continue today to make — it impossible to truly equalize
our society. We must speak up and speak out — but we
must do so peacefully.
Sadly, that’s not what we’ve witnessed on recent nights.
While most seek nonviolent tactics to make themselves
heard, once again some are determined to wreak havoc
on our cities.
The trashing of our communities solves nothing. It
only makes the economic injustice worse for it damages
the businesses that employ us and serve us all, and it
drains the already-scarce public resources needed to help
the neediest. The destruction is an indictment of wrong-
minded protesters bent on violence and should not be
taken as a refl ection on those who gathered with legiti-
mate cause.
The violence must be stopped. Ripping apart our soci-
ety is not the solution for fi xing it.
At the same time, there must be wide room for the
peaceful voices of protest to be heard. And it’s incumbent
on all of us to listen to those voices. To acknowledge that
we remain an economically divided nation — and that it’s
only gotten worse in the past four years.
It’s time for us to hear the pain and the feelings of
helplessness — surely exacerbated by weeks of quaran-
tine as a pandemic ravages our nation and disproportion-
ately attacks the very same minority communities that
also experience the worst discrimination.
This is a time for America to search its national soul, to
recognize the racism within and to work empathetically
to correct it. We’ve ignored it for too long.
OTHER VIEWS
Our union can outlast this, too
Editorial from The Dallas Morning
News:
The killing of George Floyd at the
hands of the Minneapolis police is a
single point in a larger narrative. It is
personalizing, once again, a seemingly
forever struggle, and it is testing anew
this nation’s commitment to justice on
the individual level and across a land
that always promises a brighter tomor-
row even as basic hopes too often seem
just out of reach.
Our country, at this moment, is fac-
ing a constellation of challenges that
touch fundamental precepts of our
society, and these are challenges that
need to be met head on with courage
and with commitment to the only val-
ues that can truly unite us — values of
respect for each individual person and
that foster a culture of inclusion and
opportunity for every person.
If this nation feels like it is pulling
itself apart, it is because Floyd’s death
is a Minneapolis story with a corollary
in every community.
It’s also because some would take us
down the wrong path. While the under-
lying frustration is something everyone
with an ounce of humanity should feel
in response to this injustice, those who
are responding with riots, violence and
looting are making change harder to
enact.
It’s also true that when the president
of the United States reacts to events
with tweets using such loaded words
as “thugs” and seeming to endorse
callous use of lethal force, he is stoking
fi res rather than offering constructive
leadership that can pull communities
together. And leadership that can unite
this country is what is sorely needed
right now. We are battling a disease in
racism that is as old as humanity itself
and that fosters nervous separation
rather than inclusiveness.
If ever there was a time we needed
the best America, it is now. Instead, it
feels as if we are getting the worst.
This was coming for a long time,
a slow train rolling in the distance.
We’ve spent years feeding our divisions,
instead of nurturing our unity. We have
made the other of one another. We have
looked out at our nation with eyes of
contempt and spoken with tongues
of enmity. We have closed our hearts
to one another. We’ve let ourselves be
isolated in the false world of our little
internet silos. We’ve created all the fuel
we need for our own burning. We just
need a match.
George Floyd’s killing should not be
that match. It should instead be an
awakening light. For this, we will insist
on justice. For this, we will bolster the
institutions we have created as a free
people to deliver that justice.
There is justifying the anger. There is
justifying the rage. There is no justify-
ing destruction. There is no justifying
stealing and hurting. Nothing about
George Floyd’s death should be used to
justify opening that door.
There are those who will say this is
the inevitable result of a system that
has failed a people. To them, we say you
are rejecting the history and the possi-
bility of America. We believe our nation
has struggled in blood and pain toward
equality and toward justice.
The work is far from fi nished. Each
terrible and evil killing is a wound
against our progress. George Floyd,
Ahmaud Arbery, Botham Jean,
Atatiana Jefferson, Breonna Taylor,
Trayvon Martin, Emmett Till, Medgar
Evers, Martin Luther King Jr. The list
of names stretches so deeply into our
history that we cannot know all the
names — as many as the stars in the
sky is all we know.
No, the work is not fi nished. It will
never be fi nished. But the best America
is the place where the work can be
done. It is where the work has been
done, from the bloody fi elds of Shiloh
to the Pettus Bridge of Selma. The best
America is a nation that embraces the
brotherhood and sisterhood of human-
ity in a shared dignity and a natural
freedom protected under law for all.
Many of our people are scared or
anxious about the future. They are wor-
ried and they are hurting. After all, we
are inundated with images that cause
trauma rather than healing, washed
over with words calculated to divide
rather than crafted to unify in common
purpose.
It’s important to remember, as we
scroll and scroll the images and the
words that bring the world so inti-
mately to us, that we can have another
reaction.
We can remember that we are to-
gether. We are still one as a people. We
are Americans, and that needs to mean
something good. It needs to mean that
we are people who seek justice for all,
who live to create a better nation, a
more perfect union.
That word, union, stretches so deeply
into our history. It was the Union that
rejected human bondage. It was the
Union that bled together against a re-
bellion committed to the evil of slavery.
It was the Union that stood against
tyranny in the world. It was the Union
that defeated imperial Japan and that
freed Western Europe from a genocidal
regime. It was the Union that stared
down the Soviet threat through de-
cades of fear and that restored nations
to their own people. It was the Union
that said enough to laws that codifi ed
our racist past.
It is our union now that will see us
together through these times. Lincoln
told us long ago that we could not let
ourselves be divided. We have to stand
with one another, hand in hand. We
do not have to agree on every mat-
ter. But we need to be united in the
understanding that our futures are
intertwined. As Lincoln reminded us in
a different but connected context, “We
are not enemies, but friends. We must
not be enemies.”
We are together. We are one with one
another. We are Americans.
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P.O. Box 807, Baker City, OR 97814
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CONTACT YOUR PUBLIC OFFICIALS
President Donald Trump: The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania
Ave., Washington, D.C. 20500; 202-456-1414; fax 202-456-2461; to
send comments, go to www.whitehouse.gov/contact.
U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley: D.C. offi ce: 313 Hart Senate Offi ce
Building, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C., 20510; 202-224-3753;
fax 202-228-3997. Portland offi ce: One World Trade Center, 121
S.W. Salmon St. Suite 1250, Portland, OR 97204; 503-326-3386;
fax 503-326-2900. Baker City offi ce, 1705 Main St., Suite 504,
541-278-1129; merkley.senate.gov.
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden: D.C. offi ce: 221 Dirksen Senate Offi ce
Building, Washington, D.C., 20510; 202-224-5244; fax 202-228-
2717. La Grande offi ce: 105 Fir St., No. 210, La Grande, OR 97850;
541-962-7691; fax, 541-963-0885; wyden.senate.gov.
U.S. Rep. Greg Walden (2nd District): D.C. offi ce: 2182
Rayburn Offi ce Building, Washington, D.C., 20515, 202-225-6730;
fax 202-225-5774. La Grande offi ce: 1211 Washington Ave., La
Grande, OR 97850; 541-624-2400, fax, 541-624-2402; walden.
house.gov.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown: 254 State Capitol, Salem, OR
97310; 503-378-3111; www.governor.oregon.gov.
State Sen. Lynn Findley (R-Ontario): Salem offi ce: 900
Court St. N.E., S-403, Salem, OR 97301; 503-986-1730. Email: Sen.
LynnFindley@oregonlegislature.gov
State Rep. Mark Owens (R-Crane): Salem offi ce: 900 Court
St. N.E., H-475, Salem, OR 97301; 503-986-1460. Email: Rep.
MarkOwens@oregonlegislature.gov
Baker City Hall: 1655 First Street, P.O. Box 650, Baker City,
OR 97814; 541-523-6541; fax 541-524-2049. City Council meets
the second and fourth Tuesdays at 7 p.m. in Council Chambers.
Loran Joseph, Randy Schiewe, Lynette Perry, Arvid Andersen, Larry
Morrison, Jason Spriet and Doni Bruland.
Baker City administration: 541-523-6541. Fred Warner Jr.,
city manager; Ray Duman, police chief; Sean Lee, interim fi re chief;
Michelle Owen, public works director.
Baker County Commission: Baker County Courthouse 1995
3rd St., Baker City, OR 97814; 541-523-8200.