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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 19, 2020)
Minority Contractors Achieve Equity Beloved Boxing Coach Dies at 88 Chuck Lincoln was a champion fighter and community mentor Convention Center work surpasses expectations See story, page 2 See Metro, page 6 Established in 1970 PO QR code ‘City of Roses’ Volume XLVIV • Number 19 www.portlandobserver.com Wednesday • August 19, 2020 Committed to Cultural Diversity A Reckoning on Race Police stand outside from The Cheerful Tortoise bar near Portland State University after the June 29, 2018 shooting of Jason Washington, a black Navy veteran, father and postal worker who was shot and killed by Portland State University police when a gun he was legally able to carry fell to the ground while trying to break up a fight. Thursday, PSU announced it will disarm its campus police force to meet community expectations. PSU to Disarm Campus Police School changes course after ‘listening to many voices’ Portland State University will disarm its campus police force more than two years after officers from the depart- ment shot and killed a Black man who was trying to break up a fight close to campus. Willie Halliburton, the university’s new campus safe- ty chief, and a retired police officer from Portland’s Af- rican American community, said he thinks his decision, announced Thursday by university officials, will bring healing to the PSU campus. He said PSU public safety officers will no longer car- ry guns, confident they “can do an effective job without weapons.” “This is a historical event in the world of police work,” Halliburton said in a video release to the community. “I understand it will have its challenges. But it is the right thing to do for Portland State.” PSU President Stephen Percy said campus officials will find new ways to protect the safety of its campus commu- C ontinued on P age 11 Demetria Hester, second from left, leaves the Multnomah County Justice Center after being arrested on Aug. 10 during a protest and then having the charges dismissed. Hester, who survived a racist attack by Jeremy Christian on TriMet three years ago, works with white moms in Portland’s racial justice movement, women she says have impressed her with their commitment to “getting woke” — educating themselves about Portland’s racist history and the extent of their privilege as white Americans. (AP photo) Sparks fly in role of allies in justice movement g illian F laCCus (AP) -- More than two months of intense protests in Portland have captured the world’s attention and put a place that’s less than 6% Black at the heart of the conver- sation about police brutality and systemic racism. Since May, nightly demonstrations in Oregon’s largest city have featured overwhelmingly white crowds — from middle-aged mothers marching arm in arm to the mayor getting tear-gassed by federal agents to teenagers dressed in black smashing police precinct windows and tossing fireworks at authorities. The weeks of often-chaotic protests have transformed Portland into a microcosm of the national debate on race and police brutality. It’s also prompted introspection about the role of white demonstrators in the Black Lives Matter movement and what it means to be a white ally in this transformational moment. The violence and vandalism that have marked the protests, often done by white people, have divided the Black commu- nity, along with a debate over what’s next. Some want to keep marching, while others want to use the momentum to work with elected officials on cementing long-term change. by “It’s a perfect storm with everything that’s been hap- pening, and add to that the attention of the world being on Portland, Oregon, right now — we have a unique space,” said Sam Thompson, who founded the group Black Men and Women United last month to push the movement to- ward long-term Black resilience. “If those people weren’t there and they weren’t protest- ing to the level they are now, we wouldn’t be having this conversation 2 1/2 months later,” he said. As white people see the protests, “when the person that looks like you is breaking the windows and starting the fires, you deal with that a lot differently than when it’s someone who doesn’t look like you.” Portland’s movement has carried a current of tension as the Black community and white protesters navigate a complex racial calculus: In one of the largest majori- ty-white cities in America, how can white residents sup- port Black rights without making themselves the story? That’s a delicate question in a progressive city with a deeply racist past. Portland, a focal point of the Black C ontinued on P age 5
