CLINTON ST. QUARTERLY THE VIEW FROM NORTHEAST BY CAROL DIANE MILLER The Portland School Board elections in March has been described as the most important event in education in the city in 20 years. There is no question that it will be a critical election for the city’s black community — a community that has waged a constant, but little understood, battle over the past two years to gain some control over a school system that has often been insensitive and callous toward Black children. The spring election will determine whether Portland Blacks maintain what is perhaps their most important voice in a policy-making position in the city. Without a doubt, the Portland establishment would like to be rid of current School Board Chairman Herb Cawthorne after the election. The problem is that they don’t know quite how to- go about it without overtly stepping into the mine field of racial politics. Opponents of Cawthorne, who include the business-dominated group that tried to recall him and the other three board members who voted last spring to fire the late school superintendent Robert Blanchard, have tried and failed to sign up a credible black candidate, who they would also consider “ safe” to run against Cawthorne. Former school board member Evie Crowell was a failure when she had a job. Nick Barnett, former executive director of the Metropolitan Human Relations Commission, turned them down cold. The back room maneuvering would be comical if it did not demonstrate so tragically how little about the city’s black minority Portland’s so-called sophisticated and enlightened white leadership knows. Who are these people? They include the racists who believe th a t Caw tho rne , Wally Priestley, Sarah Newhall and Steve Buel capitulated to Blacks in getting rid of Blanchard. Included is the city’s business community, who lost the superintendent that they had easy access to and, as a result, lost control over a school board that they were assured would always do what was right for them. Cawthorne’s enemies also include a group of so-called Irvington liberals whose sense of racial justice does not go far beyond paternalism. And finally, Cawthorne will likely face the opposition of The Oregonian, which thought he was a safe Black to support but now can’t forgive him for not being grateful enough to follow the establishment line. Oregonian readers should be wary of the paper’s reporting and commentary on the upcoming elections. The paper demonstrated with its coverage of the Black United Front’s activities and the firing of Blanchard that it cannot analyze any issue beyond the establishment view. Needless to say, it has absolutely no understanding of what is happening in Portland’s black community today. The paper was extremely unfair to the board members who voted to fire Blanchard, both in its reporting and editorial commentary. In a particularly low tactic, the paper recently dubbed them the “ Gang of Four,” as if they were a bunch of radicals out to wreck the education system. Part of The Oregonian's problem is that many of its key personnel are too close to the major players in this affair, and the paper can’t resist the urge to manipulate the news when the stakes are high enough. The paper is suspected in some circles of playing a role in then board chairman Bill Scott’s announcement (that he would vote to retain Blanchard) before the board voted to fire him. Scott, a former Neil Goldschmidt hatchet man with little political courage or conviction, violated a pledge to his fellow board members in making an announcement before the board met. The announcement was timed to put as much pressure on board members as possible in the hours before they made their decision. Curiously, Scott made his statement that Saturday afternoon, yet The Oregonian managed a Monday morning editorial praising Scott, even though the paper is made up on Friday. Did Scott’s friends on the editorial board think his words so profound that they redid an editorial page made up on Friday, or had they known what he would say all along? It may be that no candidate will emerge to oppose Cawthorne — his enemies deciding that it would be safer to simply render him ineffective by supporting Charlotte Beaman and Dean Gisvold in their efforts to defeat ‘Newhall and Priestley. Neil Goldschmidt is not likely to enter the race, despite the fervent prayers of some in the community and his early hints that he would. Nevertheless, Cawthorne, Newhall and Priestley will be running against Blanchard’s ghost. The tone of the campaign was set during a memorial service for the former superintendent, who died suddenly of a heart attack in early November. Blanchard’s friends clearly designated him a martyr to be avenged. Blanchard’s friends and supporters are entitled to their grief, but they clearly suffer from severe cases of selective memory. Blanchard deserves praise and gratitude for his contributions to the city, but he did not serve the best interest of the community when he insisted on imposing a desegregation plan on Blacks without consulting them. He and Jonathan Newman surrounded themselves with Blacks who told them only what they wanted to hear and ignored the early voices of protest. Finally, Blanchard was a victim of his own arrogance. He refused to recognize the changing direction of education with the election of a new school board and to recognize that the new order had any legitimacy due his respect. The tone is set for a particularly nasty school board campaign this spring. It could fuel the city’s already strained race relations. The black community has had to face overwhelming white hostility to its desires in the field of education. The question now is, will they be able to hold onto the one black official in the city who truly has a strong base of support in the black community? ■ 46 Illustration by Issac Shamsud-Din
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