The NAACP leader in Portland describes his city’s two months of nightly protests as “largely a white spectacle”, caused by antifa and other left-wing activists, who have co-opted the Black Lives Matter movement.
The Rev. ED Mondainé, in an op-ed for The Washington Post, struck hard at what he calls privileged white Americans “with their own agendas” and calls for an “immediate refocus” on the true reason for the protests: the end of injustice racial and inequity.
Americans took to the streets after the police murder of George Floyd in what Mondainé describes as “a nationwide trial with the original and wild crime of slavery.”
“That monstrous crime finally reached us as a nation. I don’t think it’s a show time, “he writes.
“Unfortunately, ‘show’ is now the best way to describe the Portland protests. Vandalizing government buildings and launching projectiles at law enforcement agencies attract attention, but how do these actions prevent the police from killing black people? “, Writes. “What are antifa and other left-wing agitators achieving for the cause of black equality?”
Mondainé criticizes the Trump administration for sending federal troops to Portland to counter what he calls “mostly white anarchists.”
On Friday night, approximately 4,000 protesters shouted “the feds are going home” and “black lives matter.” Later, federal agents tried to separate the protesters after fireworks were fired.
“There is more at stake here than who appears most frequently on late-night television broadcasts,” he writes. “Right now, there are unnamed and unnamed federal forces kidnapping our citizens from the streets without justification or authority.”
Ultimately, Mondainé thanks “our white brothers and sisters” for their support, but asks them to consider whether their actions are “to advance the cause of justice” or “they are simply to show.”
“Is this another example of white cooptation?” he asks.
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