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This has (no surprise!) become the week's most "shocking!" ammunition a/g the "other" side, which, fair, and we cannot be expected to pay attention to the heated minutiae of every city. But this has far from come out of the blue. Portland has been priming for this for years...
The city, since I've been here (2004), has beamed to the world an image of itself as a place of inclusion, of tolerance, a place to live your ideals and set a place at the table for every citizen. Utopia always contains the poison pill, and around 2011, it started to leach...
I ran a reading series that year. A group of women sat in the back, knitting and talking loudly and over the reader, a designer who mentioned yellow was a hard color for most people to wear. One knitter started screaming the woman was a racist. I was flummoxed. I'm not anymore.
Whatever utopia people thought they were building curdled into a "you don't belong here." The "we welcome ALL... YOU are safe here..." posters that went up post-Trump/post-Charlottesville were made a mockery by those who thought their place at the table legit, yours a threat...
Don't get me wrong; people on both "sides" (a binary I reject) behaved badly; justified violence/hyperbole as what they needed to do to feel safe. Which, rancid but predictable. You know what happens next: the boot on the throat,or in PDX's case, maybe a Nike, haphazardly applied
.@tedwheeler made no secret of his alliances; @PortlandPolice were told to not break up demonstrations he felt antithetical to his/the city's politics, the insinuation being the people charged with keeping citizens safe are playing for the other team oregonlive.com/portland/2018/…
The loudest people in the room are receptive to this message. I will win no popularity contests by saying, I feel in some ways for the mayor, whose fellow council members are look look looking for every opportunity to see him as an oppressor wweek.com/news/city/2019…
But he also has himself to blame; making bets, whether out of desperation or conviction, I cannot say. I gave this some air in February reason.com/2019/02/12/por…
.@MrAndyNgo is a friend and colleague. I messaged w/ him when he got to the hosp; he was shaken and bloodied and glad to have walked away. To those who insinuate he was asking for a beating by walking into the fire, i will ask, how do you do your work? Also, how are you helping?
Things will get hotter in Portland, I will bank on it. I have never lived through a time/in an environment with as many people metaphorically bleeding from their teeth to prove their rightness...
You'll read more on this from me soon but for now: If you do not think this can happen to a place near you, you have not been paying attention
