04-25-2024  10:06 pm   •   PDX and SEA Weather
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NORTHWEST NEWS

City Council Strikes Down Gonzalez’s ‘Inhumane’ Suggestion for Blanket Ban on Public Camping

Mayor Wheeler’s proposal for non-emergency ordinance will go to second reading.

A Conservative Quest to Limit Diversity Programs Gains Momentum in States

In support of DEI, Oregon and Washington have forged ahead with legislation to expand their emphasis on diversity, equity and inclusion in government and education.

Epiphanny Prince Hired by Liberty in Front Office Job Day After Retiring

A day after announcing her retirement, Epiphanny Prince has a new job working with the New York Liberty as director of player and community engagement. Prince will serve on the basketball operations and business staffs, bringing her 14 years of WNBA experience to the franchise. 

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. 

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 ...

Net neutrality restored as FCC votes to regulate internet providers

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday voted to restore “net neutrality” rules that prevent broadband internet providers such as Comcast and Verizon from favoring some sites and apps over others. The move effectively reinstates a net neutrality order the...

Biden celebrates computer chip factories, pitching voters on American 'comeback'

SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) — President Joe Biden on Thursday sought to sell voters on an American “comeback story” as he highlighted longterm investments in the economy in upstate New York to celebrate Micron Technology's plans to build a campus of computer chip factories made possible in part with...

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

Tennessee lawmakers adjourn after finalizing jumi.9B tax cut and refund for businesses

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee's GOP-controlled General Assembly on Thursday adjourned for the year, concluding months of tense political infighting that doomed Republican Gov. Bill Lee's universal school voucher push. But a bill allowing some teachers to carry firearms in public schools and...

Body-cam footage shows police left an Ohio man handcuffed and facedown on a bar floor before he died

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — An Ohio man who was handcuffed and left facedown on the floor of a social club last week died in police custody, and the officers involved have been placed on paid administrative leave. Police body-camera footage released Wednesday shows a Canton police officer...

Bishop stabbed during Sydney church service backs X's legal case to share video of the attack

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — A Sydney bishop who was stabbed repeatedly in an alleged extremist attack blamed on a teenager has backed X Corp. owner Elon Musk’s legal bid to overturn an Australian ban on sharing graphic video of the attack on social media. A live stream of the...

ENTERTAINMENT

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....

Cardi B, Queen Latifah and The Roots to headline the BET Experience concerts in Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Cardi B, Queen Latifah and The Roots will headline concerts to celebrate the return of the BET Experience in Los Angeles just days before the 2024 BET Awards. BET announced Monday the star-studded lineup of the concert series, which makes a return after a...

U.S. & WORLD NEWS

USC's move to cancel commencement amid protests draws criticism from students, alumni

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The University of Southern California's decision Thursday to cancel its main graduation...

With fear and hope, Haiti warily welcomes new governing council as gang-ravaged country seeks peace

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Haiti opened a new political chapter Thursday with the installation of a...

Tennessee lawmakers OK bill penalizing adults who help minors receive gender-affirming care

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee's GOP-controlled Statehouse on Thursday gave their final approval to...

Frustrated with Brazil's Lula, Indigenous peoples march to demand land recognition

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — Thousands of Indigenous people marched on Thursday in Brazil's capital, calling on the...

Burkina Faso's army massacred over 200 civilians in a village raid, Human Rights Watch says

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Military forces in Burkina Faso killed 223 civilians, including babies and many children,...

US to pull troops from Chad and Niger as the African nations question its counterterrorism role

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States will pull the majority of its troops from Chad and Niger as it works to...

By Lisa Loving of The Skanner News

You've almost certainly seen her work – she's currently showing her paintings and drawing at four different locations around town, plus on cars and exterior walls.

Or your kids have probably spent time engrossed in an art project she's led – including scores of students just in the past few weeks.
She's just as likely to be hanging her jewel-toned canvases in banks or government buildings as she is to be offering support to a grieving community through art, as she did in December at the Community Healing Ceremony organized by the Healing Roots Center for the Medina family after the death of their daughter and her young son.
Nevertheless you may never have heard her name. It's Mo – just Mo.
"I make a point of making sure that I'm involved," she says.
"I've taught out at the juvenile detention center for the past three years I just did a thing with Ockley Green where we did 80 self portraits with kindergarten through second grade, and instead of making it a visual portrait we did portraits about things that we like and things that we did representing us not what we look like."
Mo was the first African American Visual Arts scholarship winner at Portland State University – an honor her straight-A's allowed her to pull down four years in a row.
She received degrees in art as well as history, investing time in research on African American artists through history.
Her biggest mentors have been Portland State art instructor and muralist Isaka Shamshuddin, and her mother.
"The back of my mom's piano still has drawings from when I was five," Mo says. "My mother always doodled and she was always drawing eyes, and eyes are very important in my stuff."
Currently Mo has a whopping four shows.
A stunning all-ink show is at Paccini's Restaurant and Bar, 1717 SW Park Ave., that she describes as "busy crazy basically sharpie and paper."
Her other collections are on the walls at The Calabash 835 SW 2nd Ave., at the Salmon Street Studios in Southwest Portland, and a large Black History Month show is up at the Albina Community Bank in the Pearl District, at 430 NW 10th Ave.
Mo has a special relationship to the Internet, which she sees not as an isolating force, but an educational and empowering one which shaped her many canvases – some tiny, some huge — on important historical figures currently covering several walls of the Albina Community Bank.
"A lot of people on those walls are not necessarily celebrated as heroes, and they need to be," she says.
She lists Malcolm X, Carmichael, and many music and entertainment figures as worthy of more public attention and respect.
"Pretty much anyone on that wall – Paul Robeson, he should be known about," Mo said. "He has, out of the FBI files on people, the biggest file historically, as far as someone they were watching, and a lot of people don't know that, and we should. That's our history combined, all of ours."
Mo is also currently tutoring two young people at Jefferson High School as part of the Professional Artist Mentoring program that will culminate in an art show at the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center running Feb. 25 through March 20, Tuesdays through Fridays, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturdays noon to 4 p.m.
"We need to be involved in our community and giving back, paying forward, through the younger generation," she says. "We have gotten kind of cubicalized where we're really independent and self-centered in our thought process and our function without really thinking about the generations that are coming up underneath us.
"We wonder what's wrong with them – what's wrong with them is us, we're not giving to them like we're supposed to."



The Skanner Foundation's 38th Annual MLK Breakfast