PORTLAND, Oregon. Near the front line of the protests in downtown Portland, Black Lives Matter activist Danialle James recently found herself behind a large group advancing toward federal court, chanting “The feds are going home! “
James said that was when he realized that federal intervention had “overshadowed” the original reason why protesters flocked to the city streets every night for more than 50 days: police killings of black people.
Aggressive crowd control tactics by officers dispatched to protect federal buildings have revitalized protests in Portland, which has seen daily protests since George Floyd’s death on May 25. Although the initial protests were mostly composed of young people, newly formed groups of mothersparents military veterans, medical workers and others have formed human “walls” against federal agents.
The protests have now spread to other cities in solidarity with protesters in Portland.
Several longtime black activists in Portland told The Hill that while the federal intervention has brought thousands of additional protesters to the streets, it has also diverted attention from the original aims of the protest: racial justice and reform. from the local police.
Trump administration officials have cited nearly 50 days of protests as justification for the president’s deployment of federal officials, but local activists note that the focus of the previous protests was on local police, not federal officials. Since the officers arrived, the protesters’ attention has shifted from the local police headquarters to the nearby federal court.
On the front lines on Friday, James said she screamed as loud as she could, trying to remind people around her of Floyd’s death. While he was able to lead the crowd in a brief chant of “The Lives of the Blacks,” the crowd’s attention quickly turned to federal agents.
“While we are angry at the influx of federal police on our streets, they are not the original reason we are here,” said James. “The focus here should still be on George Floyd, it should still be on the local police.”
Tony Hopson, founder of Self Enhancement Inc., a local nonprofit organization that provides youth programs and social services for the black community in Portland, said the federal intervention appears to have changed the motivations that led many of the protesters to the streets.
“You have a whole mix of peaceful protesters, grandmothers and a little bit of everything now protesting the feds, but none of these, in my opinion at the moment, are very supportive of Black Lives Matter,” Hopson said.
“I think the motivation for the people who are there now that they are good and positive, but we are losing the message of what this whole demonstration originally was,” he added.
Hopson said opposition to federal agents has been a “second setback” for the slowing protests, but called federal agents a “distraction” from talks about how to improve the lives of blacks in Portland.
“We are not having that conversation,” he said. “Now, it’s all about Trump and the feds.”
Cameron Whitten, who has been involved in the Portland protests since the Occupy movement in 2011, agreed that activists were beginning to feel “exhausted” when federal agents arrived, but said the intervention has “fueled a fire.”
Whitten said that while the protests still support Black Lives Matter, the federal intervention “is making it harder for the message of these protests to be heard.”
“Members of our community, the people who have been on the front lines on the streets, faced brutality even before federal agents arrived,” Whitten said. “It is very sad to see how difficult it is to work locally to address the realities of racialized violence, and now we are dealing with this at the federal level.”
Gregory McKelvey, an activist who has organized Black Lives Matter protests for five years, said the federal intervention has given local leaders the opportunity to divert attention from local police reform.
Mayor Ted Wheeler (D), who is also a police commissioner, took in federal tear gas With protesters on Wednesday, but local activists said their officers had deployed the irritating chemical dozens of times in recent months.
“It has been frustrating to see our elected officials blaming federal agencies as if that was the person who has been oppressing us,” said McKelvey. “I am concerned, as a history student, that when people look back on this moment, we will have missed the opportunity to really have a reckoning both locally and nationally.”
Portland police deployed tear gas multiple times during the first month of protests, though its use has declined after lawsuits against the city and a new state law passed on June 30 that limits departments using the gas to situations in those that declare disturbances.
McKelvey said that 30 minutes after Wheeler left the front lines Thursday morning, Portland police declared the demonstration a riot and threatened to deploy tear gas and impact weapons. Ultimately, they were not deployed either.
Portland police and Wheeler’s office did not respond to requests for comment on what conditions changed from the time Wheeler was in the crowd to the riot declaration, though the department said in a statement Thursday morning that had declared a riot due to “violent behavior by the large group creates a serious risk of public alarm”.
Teressa Raiford, a lifelong activist who has been involved in organizing the Wall of Moms, said she was frustrated by the way that opposition to federal agents has garnered media attention.
Raiford said the Moms Wall was originally formed not out of opposition to federal intervention, but out of discontent with local police. She said many of the mothers attended the protests after attending a nearby vigil asking police to solve the murder of Shai’India Harris, a black woman who was shot in southeast Portland on July 10.
“Moms have been saying they are crying right after the protests and I think it’s because of the pepper spray and they’re like, [they] I was wrongly quoted, they didn’t talk about Shai’India, “said Raiford, founder of local advocacy group Don’t Shoot PDX who ran for mayor of Portland in the officially nonpartisan primaries in May, but was unable to advance to a second round. against Wheeler.
Mac Smiff, another black activist who said he has been on the streets nearly every afternoon of the protests since late May, described city leaders as taking a stance of “‘we are going to work on [the federal intervention] and then we are going to work on police reform. “
Smiff said he expected protesters to continue to take to the streets, even after federal agents finally left Portland.
“The city is the one with the police,” he said. “When the feds leave, the cops are still going to gas us.”
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