WHITEWASH
DEAR MERCURY—Your response to last week’s letter
regarding the crypto-racist I, Anonymous [“Spanglish Anguish,” Feb 26]
is a janky copout [Letters, March 5]. It doesn’t take a genius to note
that your publication, an English-language alternative rag, primarily
targets white, English-speaking hipster Americans as its core
demographic. For those of you who nervously refer to Portland as a
“white city,” trust us: If you moved to Oakland, all your friends would
still be white.
-Team Daisuki
YOUR RACISM IS SUB-PAR
DEAR MERCURY—In response to I, Anonymous’ “Nazi Nice”
[March 5], I had a very similar experience regarding equally
dick-wadding cowards. Two months ago I was standing at a bus stop on
East Burnside and 30-something when a car full of white guys drove by
and one of ’em yelled at me, “Nigger!” And I thought to myself, “Wow!
People are still doing that?” C’mon. Yelling out of your car at
someone on the street is literally the easiest thing in the world to
do! Now, I grew up in Georgia most of my life, and what I can tell you
is, racists here in Portland really aren’t any more or less worse than
racists in Columbus, Georgia. The only real difference is, Portland
racists are waaay more chicken-shit about it. This city may indeed be
weird (not), but I find the racism here to be not at all
impressive.
-Damos Abadon
STOP LIGHT
DEAR MERCURY—I’m a law-abiding biker—the kind
that actually stops at signs and traffic lights [“Stop! Ish…,” News,
Feb 26]. However, the concept that a biker should have to put a
foot down to qualify as a “full stop” is preposterous. Imagine if
the same were required while I’m driving. Perhaps Portland’s police
could drop their vendetta and return to fighting real crime: arresting
street thieves who steal bike lights might be a nice start.
-Capra
HOW DO SOCCER FANS GET SUCH BAD REPUTATIONS?
Wow is the photo of the inbox borderline propaganda [“Would Soccer
Take $$$ from Poor?” Blogtown, March 9, which includes a screen shot of
Commissioner Saltzman’s email inbox, filled with emails from citizens
encouraging him to back off of proposed plans for a Major League Soccer
stadium—see pg. 6 for more.]! You’re showing, what, 40 emails
from a city of half a million, all sent within a minute of each other!
We are not stupid, asshole, so don’t try these kind of tricks—you
are trying to tell a story with that picture seconds after an email
campaign was launched. Ironically you are stepping on the poor, using
maliciously misleading images. Fuck your yellow journalism!!!
-Posted by ACES on blogtown.portlandmercury.com
SILENT GREEN
DEAR MERCURY—Portlanders absolutely will not accept a
12-lane freeway anywhere in our city, especially not on a hideously
ugly bridge to Vancouver [“Greenwashing the Columbia,” News, March 5].
Although it may not seem like it at times, there are plenty of people
here who are ready to stand up for a tough fight to defend what
Portland means to us. We perceive the idea of this 12-lane
monstrosity as nothing less than a siege on our little slice of
independence; its construction would be an outright invasion of our
culture and consciousness by the forces of conservative uniformity,
manifested as an army of eight-passenger vehicles with a solo occupant
and Washington plates.
-Conrad J. Burke
CONGRATULATIONS TO CONRAD for piping up to remind us that the people
of Portland are not afraid to stand up to city
government—passivity is so passé. Conrad wins two tickets
to the Laurelhurst Theater and lunch at No Fish! Go Fish!, soon to be
more conveniently accessible from Vancouver.
If the state of Oregon and the city of Portland would eliminate the traffic blocks in I-5 (I know they are widening I-5 where it crosses over Columbia blvd) the onle bottleneck left would be on the north bound side at Jantzen Beach. Perhaps then we would not need as wide a bridge. As far as light rail is concerned, by reading various blogs, it would appear that the majority of people in Clark county are vehemently opposed to bringing light rail into Vancouver. At least to Clark College, which I admit, doesn’t make much sense to me either. If light rail must come to Vancouver, it should go to the downtown area and out to the fairgrouns to offer more service to the Portland environs. We have a mayoral election coming up, and maybe Pollard and his cronies will be voted out of office, I hope.