PORTLAND, Oregon. – Black community leaders are urging local protesters to shift the focus of the protests to the Black Lives Matter movement and away from what has largely become a “white show.”
Standing in front of a large banner with a picture of Representative John Lewis, the black civil rights icon who died last week, the Rev. ED Mondainé, president of the Portland branch of the NAACP, told protesters that “the Focus has moved from where it’s supposed to be and made to be a show, a debacle. “
“This is not something new that we are experiencing. We have seen it from the beginning of time, “said Mondainé. “Four hundred years we have struggled as black people in this nation … We have been made to be the last to be informed but the first to be affected.”
Throughout the week, protesters have argued among themselves about the tactics used to denounce the continued presence of federal officials in Portland. Some have called for non-violent actions, while others have thrown fireworks and fires out of federal court.
The ongoing riots, which started in late May after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, initially started as a series of protests against racism and police brutality. After federal officials under the command of the Department of Homeland Security came to defend the United States Courthouse Mark O. Hatfield, they became the focus of the protests.
Lost in the confusion were the millions of black lives suffering from systemic racism and injustice, said Lakayana Drury, executive director of Word is Bond, a Portland-based nonprofit.
“I want us to remember why we are here,” Drury told protesters Thursday. “What happens in the center is not a black problem. This is a battle between two white supremacist entities: the Trump administration and the local city of Portland. “
In most white cities, black people make up only 6 percent of the population, according to the latest available numbers from the US Census.Many of those residents live far from the city center, where thousands of protesters have descended every night for almost two months.
Drury said that instead of drawing national attention to what happened outside of federal court in recent weeks, protesters should speak about communities of color, which are subject to increased vigilance and a lack of economic opportunity.
“Black problems exist very far from here,” he said. “It is in the classroom when we have black students in eighth grade who are not at an eighth grade reading level. So we should go. “
The Portland NAACP has repeatedly denounced the actions of federal forces in Portland, but has also criticized “mostly white anarchists” for inciting violence during the protests. Much of the national scrutiny in recent weeks has focused on hand-to-hand combat that breaks out every night after small groups of protesters start a cat-and-mouse game with the police.
Over the past week, the protests have been set in a cycle that starts early in the evening with peaceful protesters singing and chanting “Black lives matter and” The feds are going home. “Recently, Portland parents have led a short procession from the Justice Center to the neighboring federal court. There, the Wall of Moms unites the weapons and forms a barrier between the protesters and the building. Members of the PDXDadPod wear gas masks and carry large leaf blowers to help disperse the inevitable tear gas used by officers against protesters.
Sometime around midnight, a small group of protesters, usually dressed in black and carrying makeshift shields and umbrellas, start launching fireworks toward federal court or lighting small fires nearby. On Wednesday and Thursday nights, after the police erected a steel fence around the perimeter of the court, people attacked the barricade by shaking it or trying to climb it.
Once the fence is broken, federal officials leave. They throw tear gas at the crowd and use projectiles. No one standing near the scene is spared, not even Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler.
Images from Wall of Moms, PDXDadPod and mostly white aggressive protesters have dominated much of the news coverage. Last week, a photo went viral showing a confrontation between the police and a naked white woman, later nicknamed “Naked Athena.”
While these images may speak to the constitutional debate created when federal agents use force against protesters on US soil, they do not address the larger issue of systemic racism against black communities, civil rights leaders say.
In an opinion article published in the Washington Post, Mondainé denounced what he called the “white show”.
“Unfortunately, ‘show’ is now the best way to describe the Portland protests,” he wrote. “Destroying government buildings and firing projectiles at law enforcement is striking, but how do these actions prevent the police from killing black people? What are antifa and other left-wing agitators achieving for the cause of black equality?
Still, some black leaders in Portland say any attention to inequalities is a step in the right direction.
Reginald Richardson Jr, pastor of Your Bible Speaks Seventh-day Adventist Church, who describes himself as “nonviolent,” encourages white allies to act as shields for blacks who have a historically strained relationship with the police. .
“Black men and women will go to jail at a higher rate than our white brothers and sisters,” he said. “It is time for our white brothers and sisters to stand up and be that barrier.”
