11-13-2024  9:23 pm   •   PDX and SEA Weather

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NORTHWEST NEWS

Family of Security Guard Shot and Killed at Portland Hospital Sues Facility for $35M

The family of Bobby Smallwood argue that Legacy Good Samaritan Medical Center failed to enforce its policies against violence and weapons in the workplace by not responding to staff reports of threats in the days before the shooting.

In Portland, Political Outsider Keith Wilson Elected Mayor After Homelessness-focused Race

Wilson, a Portland native and CEO of a trucking company, ran on an ambitious pledge to end unsheltered homelessness within a year of taking office.

‘Black Friday’ Screening Honors Black Portlanders, Encourages Sense of Belonging

The second annual event will be held Nov. 8 at the Hollywood Theatre.

Democratic Attorney General Bob Ferguson Wins Governor’s Race in Washington

Ferguson came to national prominence by repeatedly suing the administration of former President Donald Trump, including bringing the lawsuit that blocked Trump’s initial travel ban on citizens of several majority Muslim nations. 

NEWS BRIEFS

Multnomah County Library Breaks Ground on Expanded St. Johns Library

Groundbreaking marks milestone in library transformations ...

Janelle Bynum Statement on Her Victory in Oregon’s 5th Congressional District

"I am proud to be the first – but not the last – Black Member of Congress from Oregon" ...

Veterans Day, Monday, Nov. 11: Honoring a Legacy of Loyalty and Service and Expanding Benefits for Washington Veterans

Washington State Department of Veterans Affairs (WDVA) is pleased to share the Veterans Day Proclamation and highlight the various...

Nkenge Harmon Johnson honored with PCUN’s Cipriano Ferrel Award

Harmon Johnson recognized for civil rights work in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest ...

FBI offers up to ,000 reward for information about suspect behind Northwest ballot box fires

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The FBI said Wednesday it is offering up to ,000 as a reward for information about the suspect behind recent ballot box fires in Oregon and Washington state. Authorities believe a male suspect that may have metalworking and welding experience was behind...

Family of security guard shot and killed at Portland, Oregon, hospital sues facility for M

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The family of a security guard who was shot and killed at a hospital in Portland, Oregon, sued the facility for million on Tuesday, accusing it of negligence and failing to respond to the dangers that the gunman posed to hospital staff over multiple days. ...

Mississippi Valley State visits Missouri following Grill's 33-point game

Mississippi Valley State Delta Devils (1-1) at Missouri Tigers (2-1) Columbia, Missouri; Thursday, 7:30 p.m. EST BOTTOM LINE: Missouri hosts Mississippi Valley State after Caleb Grill scored 33 points in Missouri's 84-77 victory over the Eastern Washington Eagles. ...

Grill makes 8 3s, scores career-high 33 points to lead Missouri over Eastern Washington 84-77

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — Caleb Grill matched a career best with eight 3-pointers and scored a career-high 33 points to lead Missouri to an 84-77 victory over Eastern Washington on Monday night. Grill, who missed Missouri's final 23 games last season with a wrist injury, shot 10 of 13...

OPINION

Donald Trump Rides Patriarchy Back to the White House

White male supremacy, which Trump ran on, continues to play an outsized role in exacerbating the divide that afflicts our nation. ...

Why Not Voting Could Deprioritize Black Communities

President Biden’s Justice40 initiative ensures that 40% of federal investment benefits flow to disadvantaged communities, addressing deep-seated inequities. ...

The Skanner News 2024 Presidential Endorsement

It will come as no surprise that we strongly endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for president. ...

Black Retirees Growing Older and Poorer: 2025 Social Security COLA lowest in 10 years

As Americans live longer, the ability to remain financially independent is an ongoing struggle. Especially for Black and other people of color whose lifetime incomes are often lower than that of other contemporaries, finding money to save for ‘old age’ is...

AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE NEWS

Dutch lawmaker Wilders wants to deport those convicted of violence against Israeli soccer fans

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Hard-right Dutch political leader Geert Wilders on Wednesday blamed “Moroccans” for attacks on Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam last week, asserting that they “want to destroy Jews” and recommending the deportation of people convicted of involvement if they...

Black and Latino families displaced from Palm Springs neighborhood reach tentative settlement

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Black and Latino families who were pushed out of a Palm Springs neighborhood in the 1960s reached a .9 million tentative settlement agreement with the city. The deal was announced Wednesday, and the city council will vote on it Thursday. The history of...

Former West Virginia jail officer pleads guilty to civil rights violation in fatal assault on inmate

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A former correctional officer in southern West Virginia pleaded guilty Wednesday to a federal civil rights violation in the death of a man who died less than a day after being booked into a jail. Mark Holdren entered a plea agreement in U.S. District Court...

ENTERTAINMENT

At an art festival in Dakar, artists from both sides of the Atlantic examine the legacy of slavery

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — A whirlwind of color and art at the opening of this year's Dakar Biennale of Contemporary African Art in the Senegalese capital stood in stark contrast to the serious topic of slavery featuring in the artworks of guest artists from the United States. The U.S....

Book Review: 'Those Opulent Days' is a mystery drenched in cruelties of colonial French Indochina

It’s not often that a historical novel is set in the Vietnam of the 1920s, a period when the land in Indochina was occupied and exploited by French colonizers. It’s also unusual that such a novel would be a whodunit murder mystery. “Those Opulent Days,” the debut novel of...

Book Review: Reader would be 'Damn Glad' to pick up a copy of actor Tim Matheson's new memoir

Tim Matheson has portrayed a president and vice president. A police officer and military officer. And more than a few doctors. He's worked with Lucille Ball, Henry Fonda, Jackie Gleason, Clint Eastwood, Kurt Russell and Steven Spielberg. He appeared in episodes of everything from “Leave to...

U.S. & WORLD NEWS

Investigation into Chinese hacking reveals 'broad and significant' spying effort, FBI says

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal investigation into Chinese government efforts to hack into U.S. telecommunications...

US ambassador says Mexico 'closed the doors' on security cooperation and denies its violence problem

MEXICO CITY (AP) — U.S. Ambassador Ken Salazar lashed out Wednesday at Mexico’s failure to accept aid in the...

An overwhelmed Philippines braces for another typhoon, the fifth major storm to hit in three weeks

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The fifth major storm in three weeks approached the Philippines on Thursday,...

Biden is sending aid to help Ukraine keep fighting next year, Blinken says

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The Biden administration is determined in its final months to help ensure that Ukraine can...

Israel's West Bank settlers hope Trump's return will pave the way for major settlement expansion

BEIT EL, West Bank (AP) — As Donald Trump’s victory became apparent in last week's U.S. elections, Jewish West...

Investigation into Chinese hacking reveals 'broad and significant' spying effort, FBI says

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal investigation into Chinese government efforts to hack into U.S. telecommunications...

The Root

Sex Trafficking"He'd take wooden bats and hit me. I thought he loved me, but he'd turn around and beat me and all the girls in his house. But you just can't get up and leave. He would threaten me about my family… I was afraid of getting hurt, so I just stayed."

The speaker, who says she met her pimp when she was 11 years old, is seen in shadow to protect her identity. But you can tell that she's black, and she sounds like she's still young.

She's not the only one who fits that description. In another segment of a YouTube video projected onto a screen in a packed Washington Convention Center ballroom at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's Annual Legislative Conference session on Modern Slavery and Sexual Trafficking is "Erika." She says she was 13 or 14 years old when she was lured into forced prostitution.

"I was shaped like a boy. Very stringy, very thin, very underdeveloped. It flabbergasts me that the people who were coming to buy us -- the Johns, if you will -- they knew I was a child. "

When the screen goes dark, April Jones, the moderator of the two-hour "brain trust" conversation of experts on human trafficking, expresses what many in the room are no doubt thinking.

"The thing I noticed most about that video," she says, "is that everyone spoke perfect English. Everyone was from this country. This is not something that happened hundreds of years ago. It's happening here and now."

"It," of course, is slavery. From the point of view of panelist Ambassador Luis C.deBaca, director of the State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, to call it anything else is a euphemism just as avoidant as previous ones in American history like "servitude" or "our peculiar institution."

Today, he says, its victims are diverse. "It's a woman lured from her home in another country with the promise of a good job. It's the man recruited to work on a fishing boat, who, once land is out of sight, is forced to work 20 hours a day, who's made to eat the bait, who's raped by the ship's operator."

But in the United States, when it comes to sexual slavery, it's often girls like Erika.

Panelist Malika Saadar Sar is a hero of the anti-trafficking community for her work with the Rebecca Project for Human Rights. She worked to shut down Craigslist ads that led to kids being sold for sex. "People sold for sex in this country are American children who are disproportionately black and brown," she says. "They are between the ages of 12 and 13 -- middle school aged. "

Indeed, according to the most recent FBI report on the issue, 83 percent of victims of confirmed sex-trafficking cases were identified as U.S. citizens. Forty percent of the victims and 62 percent of the suspected perpetrators were black.

In some places, the demographic breakdown is even more dramatic, like in Houston. The jurisdiction of panel host Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee is what she calls a "hub" of sexual slavery. According to panelist Ann Johnson, Harris County, Texas, prosecutor and human trafficking specialist, the breakdown of victims there is "roughly 55 African American, 25 Hispanic and 20 Caucasian."

In individual cases, abuse and poverty at home may combine to make girls -- often runaways -- vulnerable to the men who see them as human capital, says Johnson. Just as often, says Saadar Sar, they're victimized when they age out of the foster care system and the state no longer keeps track.

In other words, as they're held against their will, often subjected to torture, earning money for pimps through forced sex, no one is going to come looking for them.

There's an even more insidious factor that compounds all of that. It's one that makes the victims feel as though seeking help would be futile, according to C.deBaca. "It's the notion that crime in the Hispanic community, in the black community, is not to be taken as seriously. Because that's not where law enforcement officers go, that's where the traffickers decide to go."

Those issues, plus a long-standing commitment by the Congressional Black Caucus to be a voice on Capitol Hill for the vulnerable anywhere, are why Jackson-Lee says putting a stop to human trafficking is a natural part of the mission of the group of African-American elected officials.

"I want to be clear that many of modern-day slavery involves sex, and that it's just as devastating as the slavery we're more familiar with," she told The Root.

On March 8, 2013, President Obama signed legislation that renewed the nation's most important tool to fight modern-day slavery, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act.

Lee says it's not enough.

"We need specific legislation -- more local and state law enforcement to be alert to issues of human trafficking in states and local jurisdictions. We need more trained law enforcement so that we can prevent this," she said.

For Saadar Sar the effort is a desperate one. "Many of these girls are the great-great-granddaughters of those who were enslaved during an earlier part of our history," she says. "We must do the work of building underground railroads away from this new form of slavery."

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