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Street roots
Feb. 3, 2012
Decolonize PDX applies education to practice freedom
BY W ALIDAH IM ARISHA
“Excuse me, I was wondering if we could
interview you? We’re with Decolonize PDX.
ere we go,” Hector muttered to me
Tonight we are commemorating the lives of
as we stepped out of the frigid New
people who have died at the hands of police
Year’s Eve night air onto the toasty-
violence. We’re specifically here to honor
warm MAX train. Ten of us spread out Oscar Grant, an unarmed young black father
through the car. It was 8 pm and the train
killed in Oakland by police two years ago
wasn’t crowded yet, but it had more people
tonight. He was waiting on a train platform,
than the one we let pass 20 minutes before.
just like you were a minute ago.
It was too cold to wait for the next one, so
“Would you mind holding this sign and
we figured might as well start now.
answering the question, while we film you?”
I plopped down next to a 40-ish white
The doors opened and another wave of
man with a beard. Christopher sat across
passengers got on the train, looking at
from me. We studiously avoided making eye
Hector and the picture frame curiously.
contact.
Michael eyed Hector a little suspiciously.
Hector said later he was incredibly
“What is this for again?”
nervous the first time he walked up to
This was part of the plan. Michael was
someone and started our street
acting the role of the reluctant participant,
performance. You wouldn’t have been able
so others on the train would feel more
to tell looking at him. He walked up to
comfortable in engaging when we asked
Michael, one of our “plants,” and smiled.
them.
Hector held up the gold empty picture
Hector explained again, raising his voice.
frame. We had taped a neon pink sign to the
He had the attention of the majority of the
bottom that said, “Should the cops have the
car.
right to murder me?”
The white man sitting next to me leaned
This was Decolonize PDX’s first
over. “Do you know what this is about?
independent action. We had participated in
What’s the sign say?”
the Portland Port Shutdown, and in the
I shrugged my shoulders, falling into the
Occupy Immigrant Rights March, but this
role of fellow bystander. “I can kinda make it
was our coming out, so to speak. Barely two
out from this angle. I think that guy said he
months old, the collective formed partially
was talking about police who killed someone
in response to Occupy, but really in reaction
down in the Bay area. They said they shot
to the global resistance movement. Our
him in the back as he was face down on the
group of about 25 radical people of color
train platform.”
work with communities of color on issues
The man shook his head. “That’s not
that affect our communities deeply.
right, that’s not right at all. It doesn’t matter
As we said in our founding statement,
if they’re police or not, unless their lives are
decolonization to us means “connecting to
being threatened, they shouldn’t have the
the traditions of our ancestors in order to
right to kill anyone. And then they should
create new forms of authentic interpersonal
have to prove it.”
engagement... healing from institutional and
I started, surprised. I chose to sit next to
systemic violence... and telling stories that
him_because I had pegged him as someone
emancipate our minds and dreams. It is
who would probably disagree with us, and
education as a practice of freedom.”
maybe even get disruptive. Instead, he not
It sounded great on paper. Here was our
only was he with us, he was, without
opportunity to take it out into the real
knowing it, now part of our street
world, and see what everyday folks thought
performance, as he began to engage the
about it.
people seated around him who were too far
C O N T R IB U T IN G C O L U M N IS T
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This action could not have been more
timely in Portland. We have the ongoing
federal investigation into police shootings
like Campbell and Keaton Otis. We also have
arbitration between the City of Portland and
the Portland Police Association (the police
union) about whether police officer Ronald
Frashour, dismissed after shooting 23-year-
old Aaron Campbell in the back with a
sniper rifle and killing him last January, will
be rehired or not.
Campbell’s case in particular has sparked
immense outrage in Portland generally, and
specifically in the Black community.
Campbell’s brother had died earlier that day.
Campbell, distraught, threatened to kill
himself with a gun he owned. His girlfriend
called the police for assistance. To save
Campbell’s life. Police negotiated with
Campbell, and convinced him to surrender.
He was walking backwards towards police,
with his hands behind his head, when
Frashour shot him in the back with a sniper
rifle. Frashour said Campbell was reaching
for a gun. Campbell was unarmed at that
time.
Police chief Mike Reese fired Frashour
last November after marches, protests, and
a takeover of City Hall by outraged
community members. But now many folks
who have worked on getting Frashour fired
say it’s inevitable he will be hired back at
the end of arbitration.
This arbitration process has already cost
$400,000 and is the most expensive
arbitration in the city’s history.
Back on the train, Hector smiled
winningly, and raised his voice as he began
the action.
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to hear Michael’s response, which was,
“They shouldn’t have the right to murder
me. Or anyone. If I went out and killed
someone because I was scared of my life,
justified it like they do, I definitely wouldn’t
be treated the same way police are treated.”
Michael went on to allude to the specifics
of Oscar Grant’s case. Police officer
Johannes Mehserle and others were called
to the BART station early in the morning on
Jan. 1, 2009 after a fight was reported. The
police pulled Grant out of the crowd and
began searching him, even though multiple
witnesses said he wasn’t involved. Mehserle
had Grant facedown on the ground, his knee
in his back, when Mehserle said he saw
Grant reach into his pocket. Mehserle said
he meant to pull out his taser, but somehow
mistook that for his.40-caliber handgun, and
continued to mistake it as he fired fatally
into 22-year-old Grant’s back. The shooting
was videotaped by multiple people on their
phones and quickly went viral.
Oakland erupted in protest when
Mehserle was convicted only of involuntary
manslaughter, and given the minimum
sentence, two years. Mehserle served less
than a year in prison.
In a statement on police brutality we
released Jan. 1 of this year, Decolonize PDX
wrote, “We see all of these murders by
police, and the use of police violence as a
whole, as a continuation of colonization. We
are clear we are already on land that has
been occupied for centuries. These tactics
of repression, containment and
subordination are the same used against
indigenous peoples before there was a
United States, and they are the same tactics
being used against indigenous peoples in
this country and around the world today.”
This was the catalyst for our nascent
Decolonize PDX to run around in the
freezing cold on a night most people were
thinking only of celebration and good times.
We started our ride at the Interstate/
Lombard MAX stop, chosen because it was
in the heart of the historic black
neighborhood that is quickly being
gentrified out of existence. We made stops
along the way as we rode down to Pioneer
Courthouse Square and back, engaging folks
on the platform as well as on the train.
We allowed anyone who was interested to
get on camera and say their piece: The
business man who had relatives who were
cops. He had to put down his briefcase to
hold the sign. He said if someone was doing
something wrong, like running away from
the police, then police should be allowed to
shoot them in the back. The young white
guy in a Guy Fawkes mask at the Square
who told us our question was “ridiculous.”
The two young black men waiting at the
Rose Quarter who wanted to make sure we
got their boisterous “Fuck the police!” on
tape.
As the evening progressed, my
assumptions about what people would say
based on what they looked like eroded away.
There was the soccer mom who said she
was scared for her life every time she saw
the police. The older woman who responded
to Hector’s request to film: “I don’t want to
be interviewed but I like what you have to
say... Thank you for being out here.” The
man who had spent many years homeless, a
friend of Portland police shooting victim
Jackie Collins. He told of police harassment
and brutality against the homeless
community as the train rumbled through
the Skidmore Fountain stop, where we
could see people bundled in doorways.
Decolonize PDX had hoped to just hand
out our statement about police brutality,
give out some Know Your Rights with the
Police cards, and not get too harassed on
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New Year’s Eve. Instead, we opened up a
public space for people to have
conversations that are too often hidden.
People told their experiences of police
violence with strangers, who listened
intently and gave them support. “I felt like I
could have easily died that night, I was
petrified,” said one young black man who
said he was falsely arrested and then beaten
by police while in custody. A young black
womin told a story of being in jail; she said
she watched police tackle, mace and Taze
another person in custody for “being too
loud ... And then for 10 minutes, they
argued about who was going to have to do
the paperwork.”
“Nine times out of 10 these cops who kill
people get to come back. It shouldn’t be
that way at all.” The soft blue eye shadow
augmented the woman’s beautiful dark eyes.
Her serious look framed her face even more
than the sign.
“I went to high school with Aaron
Campbell... (Officers who) have multiple
complaints by multiple victims... they should
be punished on the s p o t... You’re an officer,
you wear a badge, but that doesn’t give you
the right to beat people and totally
discriminate,” she said earnestly. “You take
a vow to protect our community, and you’re
doing nothing but destroying it.”
A short video of this action will be
released on Decolonize PDX’s website soon,
pdx.decolonize.org. The response has been
so successful, we are thinking about doing
the action again. So if you see a group of
brown folks with a camera and a picture
frame coming your way, be ready!
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