 |
  |
 |
||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
||||||||||
|
FAKE DIVERSITY It is a load of garbage for Mark Harris in his interview of 12/23, to say that minorities are not represented in Eugene. It's also a crock to mislead people into believing that profiling by the police only happens to ethnic minorities. I grew up in the west side of Las Vegas, and as the only light-skinned kid in all of my schools (from second grade, to 11th), I can say with conviction that there is more representation in Eugene for more groups of minorities than in any major city in the U.S. I live in Eugene because of its tolerance, yet have become disillusioned by its fake diversity. People are so wrapped up in their unwillingness to step on other people's toes, that they don't even realize they are perpetuating the continued separation of all peoples. Mark also seems incensed that white, suburban teens would borrow from African American terminology and culture. Well Mark, exposure, curiosity, and a longing for change in one's situation is where diversity (sometimes good, sometimes bad) comes from. Furthermore, mixing and blending helps us evolve, and changing cultures go along with that beautiful package. In my own opinion, Mark's views on representation are also sorely distorted. You can say that having representation is essential, and a black student union helps disadvantaged students of color by giving them a voice and helping them find grants and opportunities; but guess what the white kid from a low socio-economic background thinks when he's struggling to find help, and walks past that very same office? Do you care about his representation? Or, what do you think the homeless white guy feels, when he's been economically profiled by the police, and sees that there is no real legal help for him, because that kind of profiling doesn't outrage people. Or better yet, what if a guy's been battered and finds out that the court system is only set up to help women and he can't go in to receive the same assistance that his spouse would if he beat her, because he is the wrong gender? These agencies scream for equality of the races, genders, and ethnicities, yet it is quite clear that this isn't what people are really after. (And don't pawn off any of that, well, it's mostly white men that do these things crap onto me, because, that, in and of itself, is the very same kind of profiling that everyone is whining about). I have been discriminated against because people thought (mistakenly) that I am white, and somehow my ancestors committed crimes upon theirs. My ancestors were, in fact, as oppressed as theirs. The difference lies in the fact that my race wasn't deemed valuable enough to exploit, so they were simply murdered. What kind of public outrage do you think would come about if I should start my own white-looking mixed blood heterosexual married male outreach center? Sure, there is a lot of work to be done on how minorities are treated, but the answer doesn't lie in creating more boundaries to cross. In fact, it lies in not stomping out discrimination with discrimination, but with finding the commonalities. Mark is a very good drug counselor and instructor, but there are many facets to discrimination, not just the ones he describes. Sean Westcott , A student of Mark Harris
COURAGEOUS ACTS Whiteaker Community Council's Executive Committee wishes to thank the women of our neighborhood who came forward and testified in open court against the police officers who preyed upon them. Your courage and integrity helped get these criminals out of the Eugene Police Department, off the street and in jail where they can no longer victimize vulnerable women. The community is in your debt. As a neighborhood association, Whiteaker Community Council has addressed police issues since the 2002 SWAT raid here (59 officers plus tank). In May 2004, our general meeting called for independent, external police review. Thanks partly to the Magaña/Lara debacle (and these women), there is now a clamor for external review. Neighborhoods will be working with Chief Lehner to develop community policing. External review is not unrelated. As Lehner said to the City Club, "Trust between the community and its police department is absolutely fundamental to being able to deliver community policing in Eugene. Civilian review can help build that trust." Now the question is what type of external review. Will it have teeth? Community members can help determine the answer. We urge everyone to get informed about the various civilian review models and take part in the public process by giving your input to the Police Commission. For too long the word of these women was not trusted, and they could not trust the system. By supporting strong external review, all Eugeneans can join us in thanking these courageous women of Whiteaker. Majeska Seese-Green , Gwen Jaspers , Whiteaker Community Council
ON SCHOOL CHOICE Thanks Nancy Willard (1/27 cover story on school choice). You're right. America is so foolish with all these individual rights and freedom of choice. You're so smart to figure out that only the white and wealthy can test well in school. Imagine a poor kid being smart or a non-white kid having a loving, nurturing home that participates in the growth of their children. How impossible. And could you imagine that a rich, white kid could have a struggling home environment and test poorly in school? Now that would be ironic! But we know that would NEVER happen. It's brilliant of you to suggest wiping out school choice, so kids are locked into their neighborhood school. I'm excited to see your plan to make the South Hills and Sheldon communities transplant themselves to the Whiteaker and River Road neighborhoods to balance out the class and race populous in our city. I'm sure you will receive lot of letters of thanks for helping so many of us understand the big picture. Your vision of a perfect gray race is all we can hope for. I was so silly to believe that parents should be the ones held accountable for the education of their children. Who knew that it is the district and government's fault for not monitoring and controlling the learning that needs to happen at home for children to succeed? I feel like such a fool for believing I was doing a very good job with my own children without any 4J or government help. Chad Winkler , Eugene
HIRED GUNS How would you like to die at the end of your days? Would you like to be bound and shot in the head by a stranger in front of your children, or would you prefer to have yourself, all your possessions, and your family destroyed in a fiery explosion? Perhaps you would like to be diseased by foul water, or poisoned by radioactive material? Not very appealing, you say? You want to die in peace, you say? Why, then, do you visit these horrors on your neighbors? Why do you hire, through your representative government, at great expense to yourself, killers to do this savagery for you? Do you pretend to be a moral person when you have bought the services of someone who has been trained to view human beings just like you as unfit to live, someone who has been trained to commit the act of murder in cold blood, someone who occasionally admits they actually enjoy killing? Do you think there is no balancing act in the universe, that a great forgiveness will envelope you at the end of your days, and that your death will somehow be more noble than the death you have repeatedly visited on your brothers and sisters? You don't want to think about it? Well, then, look at yourself in the mirror sometime, for you are dead already! What you have done to your fellow human beings you have done to yourself. David Hazen, Eugene
MORE THAN MEAT Tom Schneider (2/4) shows just how disgustingly anthropocentric and patriarchal people can be. He states, "farmers who grow their free-range animals slaughter it humanely." First, farmers don't "grow" animals, they domesticate and kill them for profit. Second, there is no humane way to slaughter an animal. Murder is murder. I agree that a diet based largely on processed soy-products is not the answer, but certainly an animal-free diet based on local, organic whole foods is. The annihilation of non-human animals is not healthy for humans, non-humans, or the environment. Just because your "meat" once lived in an open space rather than in a factory doesn't mean that you or the farmer has a right to eat and kill that animal. Just as "we" once blatantly (and still do, less overtly) considered women and people of color to be subservient or inferior, we should now realize that animals, too, deserve to be more than just meat. Ashlee Peters, Eugene
VISUAL REMINDERS To the kind soul who has taken on the task of awakening those who are asleep. Bringing to our awareness and consciousness the importance of love, kindness, thoughtfulness and living a conscientious life. In our daily life as part of community, we must remember. And in our delicate presence as global citizens we must remember. As I drive around Eugene, I encounter those beautifully painted sign on the telephone poles that reminds me of my humanity. This visual reminds me of the importance of living consciously. Of how many still have a heart. How we are all connected. Reminds me every day of how precious our thoughts are. How precious our actions are. How it is such an honor to be alive today with the profound ability to make a difference with every word, deed, action and thought. What a profound privilege to be a part of the earth family. To be a part of the human family. To that remarkable person who has invested her or his time, money and energy to awaken our consciousness and keep us awake, by your actions I thank you. You bring heart to our community. Blessings, you are a great and noble spirit! Celia Maximin, Eugene
REAR END VIEW I was walking down the sidewalk the other day, when an SUV burns a U-ey in the middle of the street to grab a parking spot on the opposite side of the street. Since the SUV's turning radius was too wide to complete the U-turn, the driver simply drove up onto the sidewalk, causing me and the other pedestrians to freeze and look for an exit strategy. The driver then backed off the sidewalk into the street and completed the parking maneuver. What an asshole, I thought. Contemptuous of the rules of the road, only thinking of number one, ignoring the welfare of others. Sure enough, when I could see the SUV's rear end, there it was: Bush/Cheney '04. Doug Hintz, Eugene
A SHAMEFUL TALE Recently the multimillion dollar Giustina land and Timber Company asked to have their timberland removed from the newly formed Lane Library District (Creswell). Although the estimated tax on their revenue producing timber land was only $500, their position was that they already paid taxes to cover schools and that they had to draw the line somewhere since there were no dwellings on their lands containing people who might benefit. The appeal was granted by the Lane County Boundary Commission. In essence, the commission logic appeared to be that granting the request was required since the withdrawal of the lands did not appear to materially financially jeopardize the Library District at this immediate point in time. The issue of whether this action might in the future jeopardize the district was swept under the carpet with statements implying that the commission did not have a responsibility to attempt to anticipate future events and that other small landowners probably wouldn't put up much of a fight for withdrawal as Giustina did. Unfortunately both Giustina and the Boundary Commission failed to appreciate that property taxes of this type are not generally treated as use taxes and that the educational services that are funded indirectly benefit the whole community. More importantly, the position taken was directly contrary to a founding democratic principal of this country that one has a civic responsibility to support services that benefit the community at large. In this case the creation of the Library District was decided by public vote. Behavior such as this impoverishes small communities such as Creswell where major proportions of their tax base can be locked up in non socially contributing but private money producing timber lands. There is also a clear fairness issue in that by Giustina's and the Commission's logic the local merchant or gas station owner should also be exempted from tax since there are no library users living in their places of business. In fact the illiterate should be excluded since they can't read! Thankfully, neither Weyerhauser nor Rosboro have yet seen fit to engage in such economic vandalism against the Library District by using this dodge. Imagine where we would be as a country and community if all business argued that their business property should not be subject to taxes that provide for the health and welfare of their working populace. Robert A. Olsen , Eugene
THE KING IS DEAD To prime my pump, I have culled relevant articles from The New York Nation and The New York Times and also purchased and scan-read in a relevant issue of the ambiguously named journal Race Traitor to the end of addressing an issue that is for the most part a back-burner one now for the media: the still vexed plight/situation of the Palestinians. Of course it was old warrior Yasir Arafat's death last November, obliging an election that brought the Palestinian situation back, intermittently, to attention. Among other reasons, because he had been a "terrorist," Arafat was in many eyes a persona-non-grata leader, and he was the majoritarian Fatah leader often blamed and at times even subjected to Israeli attacks because of militant Hamas retaliatory attacks on Israel. I am not prone to esteem rulers; Arafat has been called absolutist, he'd likely done some horrendous things, and effectively his death is already ancient history, but I render my tribute to a man who held firm through decades of often almost trench-warfare conditions to assert the rights of his also-embattled people. The king is dead, long live the king, he being Mahmoud Abbas, Arafat's successor, elected easily this January. Abbas is apparently sufficiently laundered to suit that loathsome duo, Sharon and Bush. General Palestinian battle fatigue facilitated his election. Abbas' big election smile is unlikely to last long, and he is unlikely a politician's politician, but, whatever Abbas may or may not be, I wish the best for the Palestinians. Paul J. Green, Eugene
WAR ON MISERY Let us as Americans improve our democracy. Freedom is a blessing, however absolute freedom can be like absolute power, it can corrupt absolutely. On one hand, we have limitless opportunity; the downside is less order, and more crime! The criminal element in this country has had a heyday. They rampage through our nation's streets preying on innocents. This must stop, for real progress to succeed. We need a new social contract, and a new united conscience! At least some crime is based on poverty, despair, and lack of opportunity, but most is because criminals feel they can get away with it. Let's unite and declare war on both crime and human misery! The war in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last three years has still has produced less deaths, on both sides, than just six months in our own streets! Our own home-grown rapists, child molesters, inner-city gangs, racist groups, murderers, and robbers represent more of a threat then any al-Qaeda terrorists could ever dream of. Let's demand action, and not let our governmental bureaucrats use the excuse of budget concerns to prematurely release repeat offenders from jail. Most average citizens can not afford electric fences and elaborate security for protection, yet we also have more taxes, however we also have more votes as well! Let's create a better nation for ourselves before we attempt to revolutionize the world! Tom Bush, Eugene
LETTERS POLICY: We welcome letters on all topics and will print as many as space allows. Please limit length to 250 words, keep submissions to once a month, and include your address and phone number for our files. E-mail to editor@eugeneweekly.com (please put "letters" in the subject line), fax to 484-4044, or mail to 1251 Lincoln, Eugene 97401.
|
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||
|
|
 |
|||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||
