August 19, 2020
Page 5
A Reckoning on Race
C ontinued From F ront
Lives Matter movement in part
because of its bastion of white
supporters, is so lacking in diver-
sity because of centuries of laws
that excluded and marginalized
Black people.
Early “exclusion laws” prohib-
ited Black people from settling in
Oregon, and by the 1920s, Port-
land was known as one of the most
segregated cities north of the Ma-
son-Dixon line and a hotbed for the
Ku Klux Klan. Later, real estate
laws and city planning effectively
crammed Black families in a few
pockets of Portland. Today’s soar-
ing real estate prices have scattered
those Black homeowners to the
fringes of the city and beyond.
“We do not have an area that’s
ours, and that was intention-
al,” Thompson said. “These are
the things we’re trying to work
through.”
Because of that history, some
Black people have felt a cogni-
tive dissonance when they see the
crowds of white supporters, many
of them arriving from homes in
neighborhoods that were once
Black havens.
“We live in a state that was de-
signed to be a white utopia, and
it is truly something remarkable
for Portland currently to be at the
Teressa Raiford, executive director of Don’t Shoot Portland, speaks
in front of a crowd gathered on July 17 in front of the Mark O.
Hatfield Federal Courthouse, downtown, an event that had several
religious leaders calling for non-violent protests and greater
accountability from local and federal officials. Other speakers
called for an end to racial injustice. (AP photo)
center of the nation’s attention for
Black Lives Matter,” said Camer-
on Whitten, founder of the Black
Resilience Fund, which has raised
$1.5 million this summer to invest
in the Black community. “I could
disagree with how they’re doing it,
but in the end, they’re putting their
bodies on the line to protect me —
and that is huge compared to what
we’re used to.”
While many Black residents
have embraced that enthusiasm,
the white crowds make retaining
ownership of the movement criti-
cal. That’s led to disagreements in
the Black community about what it
means to be a white ally.
Some, including the former
leader of the Black United Front
and the head of the local NAACP
chapter, have criticized white pro-
testers who vandalize police pre-
cincts amid their call to defund po-
lice. Some Black leaders also held
a news conference with Mayor Ted
Wheeler — the wealthy white sci-
on of a timber family — to say vio-
lence is distracting from the Black
Lives Matter message.
Those appeals from “gatekeep-
ers” in the Black community have
angered some Black activists, who
say that level of protest is neces-
sary to keep the pressure on elected
officials and pales in comparison
to the violence white people have
done to Black people.
“Why would I give a (expletive)
about property when we’re talking
about people that are losing their
lives?” said Teressa Raiford, who
experienced racism growing up in
Portland and founded Don’t Shoot
PDX, an organization pushing to
defund police.
“That is outrageous, and it’s
happening in 2020. That’s incred-
ible that that would happen, and
the world would view that and talk
about the damage on the sidewalk
or on a building,” she said.
Raiford was among those who
grew alarmed when the telegenic
Wall of Moms, a group of mid-
dle-aged, mostly white women,
rocketed to national attention as
they marched arm in arm at the
nightly protests. Media flocked to
their story, but the group implod-
ed within days over accusations
that their white founder wanted to
monetize the group and weaponize
it against President Donald Trump.
A smaller number of the self-de-
scribed moms still protest, joining
Black mothers under the group
Moms United for Black Lives.
They are led each night by Deme-
tria Hester, a Black activist who
was attacked three years ago by
a white supremacist on TriMet,
which some believe set the stage
for the city’s current racial reckon-
ing.
Hester, who was arrested last
week while protesting, said the
white moms 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.
“They’re working hard to edu-
cate themselves and educate other
people and help the Black commu-
nity. Our moms are wonderful for
even acknowledging the fact that
they have white privilege and the
system needs to change,” she said
after prosecutors dismissed her
charges.
“They’ve been arrested, they’ve
been tear-gassed, they’ve been hit
with rubber bullets,” she said of
the white moms. “They’re going
through just like what we’re go-
ing through — and that opens their
eyes to a whole other level of un-
derstanding.”