04-24-2024  7:53 am   •   PDX and SEA Weather
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NORTHWEST NEWS

The Drug War Devastated Black and Other Minority Communities. Is Marijuana Legalization Helping?

A major argument for legalizing the adult use of cannabis after 75 years of prohibition was to stop the harm caused by disproportionate enforcement of drug laws in Black, Latino and other minority communities. But efforts to help those most affected participate in the newly legal sector have been halting. 

Lessons for Cities from Seattle’s Racial and Social Justice Law 

 Seattle is marking the first anniversary of its landmark Race and Social Justice Initiative ordinance. Signed into law in April 2023, the ordinance highlights race and racism because of the pervasive inequities experienced by people of color

Don’t Shoot Portland, University of Oregon Team Up for Black Narratives, Memory

The yearly Memory Work for Black Lives Plenary shows the power of preservation.

Grants Pass Anti-Camping Laws Head to Supreme Court

Grants Pass in southern Oregon has become the unlikely face of the nation’s homelessness crisis as its case over anti-camping laws goes to the U.S. Supreme Court scheduled for April 22. The case has broad implications for cities, including whether they can fine or jail people for camping in public. Since 2020, court orders have barred Grants Pass from enforcing its anti-camping laws. Now, the city is asking the justices to review lower court rulings it says has prevented it from addressing the city's homelessness crisis. Rights groups say people shouldn’t be punished for lacking housing.

NEWS BRIEFS

Mt. Tabor Park Selected for National Initiative

Mt. Tabor Park is the only Oregon park and one of just 24 nationally to receive honor. ...

OHCS, BuildUp Oregon Launch Program to Expand Early Childhood Education Access Statewide

Funds include million for developing early care and education facilities co-located with affordable housing. ...

Governor Kotek Announces Chief of Staff, New Office Leadership

Governor expands executive team and names new Housing and Homelessness Initiative Director ...

Governor Kotek Announces Investment in New CHIPS Child Care Fund

5 Million dollars from Oregon CHIPS Act to be allocated to new Child Care Fund ...

A conservative quest to limit diversity programs gains momentum in states

A conservative quest to limit diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives is gaining momentum in state capitals and college governing boards, with officials in about one-third of the states now taking some sort of action against it. Tennessee became the latest when the Republican...

Biden administration is announcing plans for up to 12 lease sales for offshore wind energy

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The Biden administration is preparing to announce plans for a new five-year schedule to lease federal offshore tracts for wind energy production, with up to a dozen lease sales anticipated beginning this year and continuing through 2028. The plan was to be...

Missouri hires Memphis athletic director Laird Veatch for the same role with the Tigers

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri hired longtime college administrator Laird Veatch to be its athletic director on Tuesday, bringing him back to campus 14 years after he departed for a series of other positions that culminated with five years spent as the AD at Memphis. Veatch...

KC Current owners announce plans for stadium district along the Kansas City riverfront

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The ownership group of the Kansas City Current announced plans Monday for the development of the Missouri River waterfront, where the club recently opened a purpose-built stadium for the National Women's Soccer League team. CPKC Stadium will serve as the hub...

OPINION

Op-Ed: Why MAGA Policies Are Detrimental to Black Communities

NNPA NEWSWIRE – MAGA proponents peddle baseless claims of widespread voter fraud to justify voter suppression tactics that disproportionately target Black voters. From restrictive voter ID laws to purging voter rolls to limiting early voting hours, these...

Loving and Embracing the Differences in Our Youngest Learners

Yet our responsibility to all parents and society at large means we must do more to share insights, especially with underserved and under-resourced communities. ...

Gallup Finds Black Generational Divide on Affirmative Action

Each spring, many aspiring students and their families begin receiving college acceptance letters and offers of financial aid packages. This year’s college decisions will add yet another consideration: the effects of a 2023 Supreme Court, 6-3 ruling that...

OP-ED: Embracing Black Men’s Voices: Rebuilding Trust and Unity in the Democratic Party

The decision of many Black men to disengage from the Democratic Party is rooted in a complex interplay of historical disenchantment, unmet promises, and a sense of disillusionment with the political establishment. ...

AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE NEWS

Ancestry website to catalogue names of Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The names of thousands of people held in Japanese American incarceration camps during World War II will be digitized and made available for free, genealogy company Ancestry announced Wednesday. The website, known as one of the largest global online resources of...

A conservative quest to limit diversity programs gains momentum in states

A conservative quest to limit diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives is gaining momentum in state capitals and college governing boards, with officials in about one-third of the states now taking some sort of action against it. Tennessee became the latest when the Republican...

Pro-Palestinian student protests target colleges' financial ties with Israel

Students at a growing number of U.S. colleges are gathering in protest encampments with a unified demand of their schools: Stop doing business with Israel — or any companies that empower its ongoing war in Gaza. The demand has its roots in a decades-old campaign against Israel's...

ENTERTAINMENT

What to stream this weekend: Conan O’Brien travels, 'Migration' soars and Taylor Swift reigns

Zack Snyder’s “Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver” landing on Netflix and Taylor Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department” album are some of the new television, movies, music and games headed to a device near you. Also among the streaming offerings worth your time as...

Music Review: Jazz pianist Fred Hersch creates subdued, lovely colors on 'Silent, Listening'

Jazz pianist Fred Hersch fully embraces the freedom that comes with improvisation on his solo album “Silent, Listening,” spontaneously composing and performing tunes that are often without melody, meter or form. Listening to them can be challenging and rewarding. The many-time...

Book Review: 'Nothing But the Bones' is a compelling noir novel at a breakneck pace

Nelson “Nails” McKenna isn’t very bright, stumbles over his words and often says what he’s thinking without realizing it. We first meet him as a boy reading a superhero comic on the banks of a river in his backcountry hometown in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Georgia....

U.S. & WORLD NEWS

Blinken begins key China visit as tensions rise over new US foreign aid bill

SHANGHAI (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has begun a critical trip to China armed with a...

The Latest | Germany will resume working with UN relief agency for Palestinians after a review

Germany said Wednesday that it plans to follow several other countries in resuming cooperation with the U.N....

Pro-Palestinian student protests target colleges' financial ties with Israel

Students at a growing number of U.S. colleges are gathering in protest encampments with a unified demand of their...

More deaths in the English Channel underscore risks for migrants despite UK efforts to stem the tide

LONDON (AP) — Five more people died in the English Channel on Tuesday, underscoring the risks of crossing one of...

Moscow court rejects Evan Gershkovich's appeal, keeping him in jail until at least June 30

MOSCOW (AP) — Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich will remain jailed on espionage charges until at...

UK puts its defense industry on 'war footing' and gives Ukraine 0 million in new military aid

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — The U.K. prime minister said Tuesday the country is putting its defense industry on a...

Julianne Malveaux NNPA Columnist

Research shows that this generation of young people, no matter of their race, are likely to do less well than their parents did.  Shackled by a trillion dollars worth of student loans and a flat labor market, the New York-based Demos organization says the student loan burden prevents young people from buying homes and amassing wealth.  While there are some racial gaps, many young people enter the labor market already behind the space their parents occupied.

As I spend time with young people, especially young African Americans, I understand their frustration.  They want to know what the civil rights generation has done to pass the baton of activism and improvement to them.  They want to know how they should move forward.  While they are willing to participate in marches and civic action, they want to know what's next.  And they want to know why their voices are not heard in Black leadership.

Those who are seasoned offer their history of activism as proof that they should lead. They forged the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and didn't ask their elders for permission.  They pushed elders to move to a more active position and when elders would not meet them, they pushed themselves.  There was no shame in their game.  Whether militant or moderate, they embraced parts of the Black Panther Party political program, which begins with these words, "We want freedom, we want the power to determine our destiny."  Too many of us, African Americans, young people, progressives, do not determine our destiny now.  We flow with the wind.

Too many have dropped the baton, but continue to act as if they are clasping it.  Too many mouth their interest in young leaders, but fail to bring them to the table.  Too many who are 40 and 50 describe themselves as young, but if you tell the truth and shame the devil, these folks are solidly middle aged.  So where are their protégées, those who will take, not snatch, the torch from them?

As I move around the country to speak, organize, motivate, I am stunned by events that focus on youth, but have only a few (and often no) young people present.  Imagine if young people had the opportunity to have meaningful exchanges with their elders. Too often young people are segregated into a "youth" program when interaction with adults would be both motivating and stimulating to them.  If we kick young people to the curb, we drop the baton that was handed to us.  We baby boomers have a responsibility to both Generation X and Generation Y.  We have shirked that responsibility.

I do not know how to describe Rev. Cecelia Bryant.  I could call her mentor, role model, or friend.  Or I could say that she is a great inspiration and, in a simple sentence, she has encapsulated the work that we must all to do move our community forward.  You have to replicate yourself seven times, she said, and you have to ask those you replicated to replicate themselves seven times.  In other words, there has to be an embrace, and a responsibility to embrace the next generation not only politically but also personally.

Who are the people who will come behind you?  Who will incorporate your work into their own? Who will understand that you put your hand on them because somebody put their hand on you, and who will feel obligated to put their hand on others?

The civil rights generation made massive progress, but in many ways they dropped the ball.  While they made it clear that there was work to be done, too many of them did not choose those who would do it.  Too much energy and focus has been placed on one or two people, and we need cohorts of the next generation to work together.

My Baby Boom generation has dropped the ball as well.  We have been beneficiaries of the Civil Rights Movement, but we have not passed our largess or our lessons on.  The Baby Boom generation has been, in many ways, one of the most economically privileged generations of African American progress.  So why do so many of us, who enjoy the legacy of this progress, fail to recognize the people and organizations that have brought us to this place.

Rev. Willie Barrow says that we are not as much divided as disconnected.  When the baton has been dropped, what can we expect but a generational disconnection?

 

Julianne Malveaux is a Washington, D.C.-based economist and writer.  She is President Emerita of Bennett College for Women in Greensboro, N.C.

 

The Skanner Foundation's 38th Annual MLK Breakfast