The Oregonain (Portland, Oregon) 
October 25, 2006 

PORTLAND WAKES UP TO THE POWER OF INCLUSIVENESS
By S. Renee Mitchell

Sometimes you have to step back to recognize the bigger picture taking shape in front of your rose-colored glasses.

Grass-roots leaders have always had to forge their own pathways to power. Now they're being welcomed in by City Council members and Mayor Tom Potter, who has been heralding inclusiveness since his campaign.

Not only has City Hall flung open its doors to people of color, but the faces behind the desks are more diverse, too. The mayor alone has hired a significant number of ethnic minorities -- still in their 20s and early 30s.

"This is the reality: Our city is diversifying," says Carmen Rubio, 32, Potter's director of community affairs. "Why not prepare for that? Why not develop our leadership now? Why not become accessible so we're not putting off dealing with issues of access down the road?"

A networking session at 6 tonight in the mayor's office seeks to encourage folks of color to sit on nonprofit boards and on government commissions. And in the next few months, Potter's staff will be inviting speakers to City Hall to share about their ethnic community because, Rubio says, "they can help us do our job better."

Based on the tone of the correspondence I receive whenever I write about race, I acknowledge that recognizing the changing landscape can be difficult, threatening and even offensive to some, even though Portland remains 82 percent Caucasian.

But the evidence is mounting that change is a'coming, whether folks are ready or not. Consider just last week's developments:

Exhibit One: The City Council approved implementing a strategy to reduce racial profiling by the Portland Police Bureau. The recommendation to have a commission in place by December was birthed from five "listening sessions" between Portlanders and rank-and-file police officers.

Exhibit Two: The city agreed to form a task force to look at the barriers faced by immigrants and refugees, such as school dropout rates, discrimination and living-wage issues.

Exhibit Three: The City Council agreed to re-create a human-relations commission that would address racial inequity, gentrification, lack of access to government and the lingering achievement gap.

Exhibit Four: The council voted unanimously to rename the four-mile Portland Boulevard to Rosa Parks Way, in honor of the mother of the civil rights movement. A final vote on the ordinance is scheduled for today.

Taken individually, these opportunities would be just a drop in the bucket of social justice. But together, they're a cultural tsunami that has jolted the city from its complacency.

"All of a sudden we wake up from our stupor and say, 'This isn't right,' " says Judith Mowry of Resolutions Northwest, which works with Portlanders to resolve neighborhood disputes. "It's always going to be our struggle to fight against the powers that say, 'Go back to sleep.' "

Dreams are necessary; they show us the possibilities. But our elected leaders are actually designing the systems that create the social change.

Under Potter's administration, an individual or a task force is being appointed to follow through on those community-endorsed recommendations that otherwise would have been politely received and then ignored.

And the mayor is changing city policies so that opportunities to challenge the status quo are built into the political process.

"This is like, wow," notes Jo Ann Bowman, former legislator and associate director of Oregon Action, a Portland-based social-justice advocacy group. "What's happened all of a sudden is people are paying attention and stuff is moving forward."

Rest assured, we don't have to like what we see. But it doesn't really matter, does it? Change, like gravity, doesn't require our permission. But it sure works out a whole lot better when we cooperate with the inevitable.

S. Renee Mitchell: 503-221-8142; rmitch@news.oregonian.com

©2006 The Oregonian