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Honor
Diversity When I fell for Oregon, I fell hard. There's a lot about this state, and Eugene in particular, to love, especially for someone who grew up in the stretch of stucco-covered, tile-roofed, mall-pocked subdivisions between San Diego and Los Angeles, Calif. It dawned on me late in my UC college education that everywhere I looked, there was concrete and highway and traffic and people. Our last year of school, my best friend, Denielle, invited me to go on a roadtrip that would change my life. We and her boyfriend, Ken, would drive up to Oregon for a rafting trip down the Santiam River; it would be a big Memorial Day shebang with her family's friends up north.
On the second day of the drive we stopped in Medford, Ore. for breakfast at a diner called Apple Annie's, and I remember the spooky hush upon our entrance. We were a little puzzled at first, until it dawned on us that — ooooh, Denielle was black. Ken was a Mexican with long hair. And there I was, a Samoan sporting a pixie haircut. Among the plaid flannels, the Danner work boots and Lee jeans, among this roomful of crew cuts and white faces, we were suddenly very black, brown and different. I have never forgotten that self-consicousness, the way we stopped laughing and talking mid-sentence, how startled I was by the flash of fear that hit me with so many people looking at us in sidelong glances. It was really the first time I'd ever felt that the color of my skin could be a problem. Past that moment, in a raft on the Santiam, I fell in love — both with an Oregon boy and with Oregon itself: the mossy trees, the quiet riverbanks, the organic sensibility and security of the place. That moment in the diner comes back to me every so often now that I live here in Eugene, a place with both the tightness of a small community and the potential openness of a university town. This win-win combination obscures the fact that Eugene is in its adolescence, perhaps even in its infancy, in terms of ethnic diversity. Greg Rikhoff of the Eugene Human Rights Commission says, "It's easy to be lulled by our reputation as a liberal, progressive community… it can make us sleepy about issues on race and diversity." In truth, 88 percent of people in Eugene are white, according to the U.S. Census 2000. Almost five percent are hispanic; one and one-quarter percent are black or African American. Samoans come in at .04 percent, or 57 people out of about 133,000. I have nearly that many cousins on my father's side alone. The downside of this fine town is that I have a snowball's .04-percent-chance in Hades of seeing anyone around who looks like me. While I am not accutely worried about this the way you would be if you were poked with a sharp stick, it does create an undercurrent of concern, like waking up every day with a low-grade headache. It means at least eight times out of 10, I am the only face of color in the grocery store, at the mall, at concerts, potlucks, lectures and readings. Is this town ready for these numbers to grow, and to grow gracefully? My fear that the answer is "no" keeps me uneasy and uncertain about Eugene as a final destination, about Eugene as a home.
Stay or Go? The question of whether to stay or go comes up for every newcomer to a place, especially when that newcomer feels different from the population at large. Here in Eugene, situations of racial discrimination can leave a person of color wondering whether or not to set permanent roots in this town. Nigger — people still use this word — and not just in hardcore rap songs, not just in whispered hisses; they fling it right out onto the street, hock it up and spit it out like some gross, primordial loogey. Angel Jones, executive director of Library, Recreation and Cultural Services for Eugene, says someone flung this word at her when she first came to town four years ago. "I was standing on the corner — this is when my office was over at the Atrium — crossing the street to go into the parking lot. This lady, maybe mid to late 40s, came up to me and said, 'Get out of the way, nigger bitch.'" She pauses to shake her head, still in disbelief. "It just totally blew me away. And the only thing I could think to say was, 'Your mama!' You know, where that came from… I don't know." Might be tempting to say, "Isolated incident." But consider City of Eugene Diversity Manager and NAACP member Marilyn Mays' story: "… I don't recall ever being called a nigger walking down the street until I moved to Eugene. I was leaving work — you know, you're tired. I had to walk about half a block from City Hall; this truck drives by and this person yells out, 'Hey, nigger!' And you're just dumbfounded." As for her reaction, Mays says, "Later, I said [to a Caucasian friend], 'Well, I got called a nigger today while I was walking to my car…' She said, 'You did? That's terrible. You should have turned around and given them the finger, or yelled back…'" "I don't think people understand — that's a risk. … I mean, I don't know who this person was or what they had in their truck, what they might have done to me if I had said something back."
It is difficult to understand why someone would so blatantly and randomly disrespect another person. Rikhoff says lashing out this way, or in subtler ways, often "comes down to ignorance." But, he adds, "Beyond that, there's some real anger and hostility happening. People think, 'The world is changing…' And they look for an easy target." Racism moves in more and more subtly from here. Racial profiling — or assuming a person's intent based on the color of his or her skin — happens not primarily with police, but in all kinds of everyday situations. Jones says, "When I first arrived [in Eugene], I went around to all of the community centers to introduce myself... One of the first ones I went into, there was a big 'Welcome Angel Jones' banner posted. I was like, 'Wow, this really makes me feel welcome.'" But welcome quickly dissipated as Jones stood at the counter waiting to be helped. "I proceeded to wait for about five minutes. And I continued to stand there. There were a number of things going through my head. 'OK, am I totally being ignored here? Or are they that busy? Am I that invisible that no one sees me standing here?'" "So finally this lady who came in a considerable amount of time after me said, 'I think she's been here longer than I have.' The staff person turned to me and said, 'Oh, are you here for a job application?' And I was like, 'Noooo. I'm not…'" Jones was able to turn this incident into an opportunity to introduce and reinforce diversity training, and since that time feels that things have improved. Mays describes a situation that happened while shopping on her lunch hour. "I'm waiting in line," she says. "I'm dressed professionally, and there are a couple of other people in front of me who write checks — no problem. I get up there, and I'm asked for my ID." She rolls her eyes and sighs in exasperation. "I'm on my lunch break, I'm in a hurry, I show my ID, but I'm thinking, 'You didn't ask them for their IDs…'" "The store representative then proceeds to call Telecheck to verify my check. That's when I just lost it. There are times when I'll say, 'OK, I'm going to the mat on this one.' After I conveyed my concerns, asked to speak to the manager, went and talked to the manager, it was, 'Oh… well, we…' and they don't have a good excuse." "When I didn't get results locally," Mays says, "I
went to this store's corporate office up in Portland and … the
corporate office got involved, came down to Eugene, She smiles and says with satisfaction, "They also underwrote our NAACP three-on-three basketball tournament that year. … I've never had any other negative incidents with them. We call this company every year now to support our tournament, they're always very open to it, they want to send volunteers. So it was really a learning experience for them as well…" Ultimately, both Jones' and Mays' situations ended in a positive way, and each is determined to remain in Eugene — at least for now. But doesn't it sound exhausting to think that because your skin color makes up only five or one or less than one percent of the population, you have to leave your home every day preparing for some sort of trouble or other?
College Town More than once I've heard, "If it wasn't for the university, I could never live in Eugene." The University of Oregon affords this town an influx of culture and diversity that it would not otherwise have. But the UO also contends with issues of diversity — last winter's KUGN Voice of the Ducks fiasco was evidence of that. John Shuford of the Center on Diversity and Community says, "In October 2000, President Frohnmayer gave a rousing State of the University speech promising that UO would become a diverse institution. There have been a number of new diversity initiatives since then, with many good results. But we're running into a wall of economics and public perception that hinders fulfillment of that promise… It's a hard time for higher education in general, due to the shift in corporate and foundation interests and the major economic downturn." He says that these realities, and the perception in many circles that diversity and diversity issues are "peripheral" or "political," make it very hard to create meaningful institutional changes that will keep UO educationally competitive and serving the state of Oregon.
Carla Gary, university advocate and director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs, also has an insider's understanding of diversity at the UO. It frustrates her on some levels. She says, "We have become exceedingly creative in avoiding the elephant in the living room. But the longer it goes, the more space that elephant takes up…" But she is hopeful. "In many ways we have stepped to the challenge. We have accepted that diversity is core to the institution. We know that if we send out technically competent but culturally unconscious students, we have failed." Shuford says that within a 30-year period, the Census projects a major population shift in Oregon: In 1995 one in 10 Oregonians were non-white. By 2025, that number is going to be one in five or greater. But even now, he says, the UO struggles to keep apace of the demographic changes in the state. Both Shuford and Gary articulate what is, in theory, the university's sentiment on diversity, and what many students and faculty seem to agree on: that a diverse campus is powerful and empowering. It remains to be seen whether financial and administrative support will truly cultivate and encourage that theory. The UO, like Eugene at large, has had its share of the "revolving door" phenomenon, where people of color come and leave when diversity issues become too overbearing. But there are signs of hope: Gary says the university has launched a personnel search for a Vice Provost of Institutional Equity who will be, according to the job description "responsible for providing leadership, guidance, and direction for all university equity and diversity matters…"
Making a Difference Elliot Cooke, 30, walks into the coffee shop for our interview and his black dreadlocks swing a little around his dark face and beneath a nylon cap fit snug to his skull. Cooke moved to Eugene from Chicago with his family when he was 10. He had been a good student in Chicago, but that quickly fell apart here in Oregon. "I moved out here," he says, "and I'm instantly labeled ADD, problem child…" School administration just looked at him, he says, and saw "a black child from the ghetto of Chicago — boom — instantaneous 'He's going to be a problem…'" He bounced through two elementary schools, struggling mightily as the only black student around. Things finally came to a head when he entered Jefferson Middle School. In sixth grade, he says, "There was this picture drawn by a student. It was of a black man hanging from a tree, with a burning cross and KKK underneath. I'm looking at it, and I went to the teacher and asked, 'Is this what you're teaching in this school?' He looked at me and said, 'It's freedom of speech; there's a right to express that, and it's part of your history.'" In frustration with his teacher's dismissal, Cook went to the prinicipal's office with the drawing, where he was again rebuffed.
So he went to his mother. And from there, his mother took Cook and his brother out of school, and they were homeschooled. After that incident, Cook says, "Some heads rolled… some people were fired and the school became committed to being a racism-free zone." He smiles and says, "And now that's where I work as a staff assistant." Cook and Jefferson Middle School are just a few rays of hope on Eugene's racial diversity horizon. Springfield High School has a human rights club for students that packs a classroom with its meetings. Lane County Circuit Court Judge Cindy Carlson coordinates the Eugene chapter of Oregon Uniting, where interracial groups of 12 to 15 people communicate for six weeks in a weekly two-hour meeting. In these meetings, people can come together to build trust, which eventually leads to open communication, and eventually understanding. Greg Rikohoff says that some issues of discrimination stem from avarice, that people don't want to share the resources of the community. But Elliotte Cook says, "I am a person." This seems to sum up the general sentiment of all the people I talked to for this story: It isn't special treatment or the lion's share of resources that they seek; rather it is to be normal, pedestrian members of the community. The people in this story are only the tip of the iceberg: Latin, Asian, even Samoan communities all exist in this town. Is Eugene ready and willing to have them stay and flourish?
Home My favorite place in Eugene is the five o'clock No. 37 bus, packed as it is with students going home to Westmoreland student housing on 18th and others heading home from work. There are Japanese women in urban outfits and clunky shoes; Chinese men in white button-down shirts and high-water slacks in gray or brown. There are Middle Eastern women wearing sparkly gold jewelry and East Indians with skin and hair as dark as mine. There are punk rock kids with orange mohawks and pierced faces. A man in a North Face Gore-Tex raincoat balances two paper bags of groceries on his lap. There is a woman with a violin. Babies and children ride in tow with young parents; elderly folks teeter and shuffle on canes or walkers to the seats that people give up for them. At the back of the bus, three teen-aged boys in baggy Tommy Hilfiger and Ralph Lauren Polo discuss in their best city talk the "chick in Civics who is fine." They pronounce it "foyne" and they sound like rap stars on MTV. There are four black men behind me, tall and very dark. They speak energetically, sometimes all at once. I don't know the language, but it hints at some French and the lilt of something Caribbean. I think they are discussing classes or exams. It sounds like, "Tra la la, tra la la, tra la la, microbiology, tra la la . . ." The bus whooshes to a stop at Westmoreland and I stand waiting for a place in line to get off. One of the black men stops in the aisle and gestures broadly with an extended arm for me to go ahead. I smile and he smiles back. I love the No. 37 because it feels like the potential of Eugene, where people are different, yet safe and inconspicuous; it feels like a home where I could stay forever.
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