Portland Charter Commission member Nasreen Sheikh-Yousef’s comments calling City Manager Jon Jennings a white supremacist are wrong and misguided.
I am also an African American, who worked closely with him for nine months as an intern in the executive department in 2019. In my time there, never did I once think or have any reason to believe he was a white supremacist. If I did, I would not have been there just for the experience and ignored the red flags if they were there.
Ms. Sheikh-Yousef and others serving on the Charter Commission have a responsibility to act like level-headed adults and understand the magnitude of what they say and its impact on how we think about individuals in our government. For the last decade in our nation, we have seen government officials spew dangerous rhetoric, which has led to more partisanship in our politics and lives being in danger. If people do not like Mr. Jennings’ policies or how he runs things at City Hall, that is fair to criticize, but character assassinations just go too far. If people get to know him, they will know that he is not racist.
I hope this is the end of this kind of misguided and drama-filled news coming from the Charter Commission. The words of individuals on the Charter Commission have meaning now, and they better start acting like it.
Reginald Parson
Portland
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