Speaker 1: M Hey everybody, I'm Robert Evans, and this is once
Speaker 1: again Behind the Bastards, the show where we tell you
Speaker 1: everything you don't know about the very worst people in
Speaker 1: all of history. And this week, of course, I'm in Portland, Oregon,
Speaker 1: on the seventeenth, which is to us tomorrow but to
Speaker 1: you in the past. There will be a rally from
Speaker 1: a group called Patriot Prayer, who you will be hearing
Speaker 1: a lot about in the next episode of this podcast,
Speaker 1: with some members of Rose City antifas guests in the day.
Speaker 1: Of course, my guest is My name is Marie L. Eaton,
Speaker 1: and I've lived in Portland for fourteen years and I
Speaker 1: do many different things here, including quite a bit of activism,
Speaker 1: quite a bit of activism. My main effort is with
Speaker 1: sexual and relationship violence prevention and victim advocacy, and I've
Speaker 1: done activism around that for about a decade now, and
Speaker 1: I am a victim advocate both in the university setting
Speaker 1: as well as independent organization setting. And you've also done
Speaker 1: quite a bit of anti fascist action in the street
Speaker 1: during which you you were photographed, uh and have become
Speaker 1: sort of a figurehead of anti fa for CNN's reports
Speaker 1: on the matter. So we're officially is officially an interview
Speaker 1: with Antifa. That's the Fox News chiron that would go across.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna be talking about Oregon, your lovely home state,
Speaker 1: which is one of the most beautiful places in the world.
Speaker 1: Uh and also way more racist historically, at least than
Speaker 1: most people would give it credit for based on Portlandia
Speaker 1: and currently. Yeah, it's not just macrobiotic burritos. And uh,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of something else. Hippie ash cars
Speaker 1: that run on garbage. Garbage, Yeah, yeah, garbage cars. It's
Speaker 1: it's it's a little bit deeper than that. So that's
Speaker 1: what we're gonna be getting into the day today. The
Speaker 1: bastard is the state of Oregon, which you know, Sorry, Oregon,
Speaker 1: I do love you, but let's get into it. So
Speaker 1: Peter Hardeman Burnett was born in eight no seven. He
Speaker 1: started out as a self educated which I think in
Speaker 1: eighteen o seven just means uneducated owner of a general
Speaker 1: store in Clear Creek, Tennessee. As a young man, Peter
Speaker 1: Burnett came to suspect that an enslaved black person was
Speaker 1: drinking from his stores whiskey barrel at night, so he
Speaker 1: set up a booby trap, a rifle that was rigged
Speaker 1: to fire when the windows shutter was opened. His trap
Speaker 1: wound up killing the poor man when the guy tried
Speaker 1: to break into his house. Burnett expressed remorse, but was
Speaker 1: not charged with any crime because it was eighteen o
Speaker 1: seven and that sort of thing wasn't really a crime
Speaker 1: in Tennessee back then. In eighteen forty three, Burnett helped
Speaker 1: organize and lead the first great wagon train to Oregon.
Speaker 1: So he was one of the pioneers who first discovered
Speaker 1: this territory Oregon Trail. You could say is a game
Speaker 1: about Peter Burnett, murderer and uh soon to be politician,
Speaker 1: because he was quickly elected to the provisional Legislature of Oregon.
Speaker 1: Now this before Oregan was a state, so it was
Speaker 1: still a territory, and he served as the territory of
Speaker 1: Oregon's first Supreme Court justice, chief Supreme Court Justice. So
Speaker 1: I'm guessing his qualifications were let a wagon train and
Speaker 1: was a murderer. So in either like you're our judge,
Speaker 1: you're you're in charge of this state right now. Um,
Speaker 1: So eighteen forty four, Peter Burnett was instrumental in passing
Speaker 1: what came to be known as the Burnett Lash Law.
Speaker 1: You heard of the Burnett Lash Law from you? Okay, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that we've talked this. Uh. I had not heard and
Speaker 1: not remembered that. I'm sure I've heard it, but I
Speaker 1: have not remembered that until you brought it up. It's
Speaker 1: a little bit famous, um it. Uh. It's essentially stated
Speaker 1: that all black people were required to leave Oregon County
Speaker 1: under penalty of being whipped quote not less than twenty
Speaker 1: or more than thirty nine stripes. Uh. This punishment was
Speaker 1: to be repeated every six months until they left the state.
Speaker 1: So one of the interesting things about Peter Burnett is
Speaker 1: that he's a classic example of someone winding up on
Speaker 1: the right side of a historical issue for tremendously wrong reasons.
Speaker 1: Because Peter Burnette was an outspoken abolitionist, not because he
Speaker 1: believes slavery was wrong, but because he was just that
Speaker 1: racist and he thought that if there was slavery, there
Speaker 1: would be people who weren't white in the country. That
Speaker 1: was his whole issue, which is there's a whole like
Speaker 1: chunk of the abolitionist movement which were just people who
Speaker 1: were too racist to own slaves. Um. It's kind of
Speaker 1: a little historical angle. It gets left out a lot
Speaker 1: of the time, but bizarre. So Burnett's law did include
Speaker 1: a grace period three years for black women and two
Speaker 1: years for black men, so we gave him some time
Speaker 1: to get out of the state. Burnett also pushed against
Speaker 1: Chinese migration to Oregon. He tried to ban it um.
Speaker 1: He later went on to become the first governor of
Speaker 1: the state of California, so he's my state's first governor
Speaker 1: as well. And of course his first action and governor
Speaker 1: of the state of California was I'm pretty sure you
Speaker 1: can guess he tried to ban all black people. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: what do you know? And then he tried to ban
Speaker 1: all Chinese people from California. Peter Burnett was a consistent man,
Speaker 1: if nothing else. Uh. And I got a picture of him,
Speaker 1: and he looks like we'll put it up on the
Speaker 1: site behind the bastards dot com. But he looks like
Speaker 1: the guy you would cast to play a generical Look
Speaker 1: at that four. That's a five head, Yes, that is
Speaker 1: maybe even a seven. I mean it is. It just
Speaker 1: keeps going and those little curls on the side the curls.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to go against them for the curls.
Speaker 1: I mean that's he seems like he might have. That's
Speaker 1: the only redeeming quality. And I mean it's a weird cravat.
Speaker 1: He looks like someone in a story who would like
Speaker 1: take off his cravat and his head would fall off
Speaker 1: in an old fable. Yeah, it doesn't look like a
Speaker 1: very happy person. No, no, he does not. He looks
Speaker 1: a little bit like the painting of the guy Vigo
Speaker 1: and Ghostbusters to the bad guy who's trying to steal
Speaker 1: that baby's body. Yeah, he's got that, he's got his
Speaker 1: eyes are doing that sort of thing. So you really
Speaker 1: owe it to yourself to look at a picture of
Speaker 1: Peter Burnett, a guy who looks like his goal in
Speaker 1: life was to ban people who aren't white from multiple states. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so Burnett's lash law did not last long, which is
Speaker 1: kind of hard to say. Ten times fast law did not.
Speaker 1: I'm not even going to attend it fair enough. So
Speaker 1: now the good news is that no black people are
Speaker 1: recorded to have been lashed under. It apparently was not
Speaker 1: used even in the eighteen forties in Oregon, and people
Speaker 1: were like, this seems a little bit too racist. That said,
Speaker 1: we're talking Oregon in eighteen forties. Who knows what happened,
Speaker 1: especially rural areas where the rural law was even less
Speaker 1: than it was in Portland. Whether or not it was used,
Speaker 1: the law reflected the values of the first white people
Speaker 1: who settled in the territory of Oregon. They wanted their
Speaker 1: state to be slave free, but because that was the
Speaker 1: only way to ensure the state had no black people
Speaker 1: at all, in eighteen forty eight, the Oregon Territorial government
Speaker 1: passed a law that banned any quote negro or mulatto
Speaker 1: from living in Oregon. In eighteen fifty, the Oregon Land
Speaker 1: Donation Act gave quote whites and half breed Indians six
Speaker 1: and fifty acres of land from the government. All other
Speaker 1: people of color were banned from receiving land grants. So
Speaker 1: Oregon was founded as a whites only state. It was
Speaker 1: seen as this is going to be just white people
Speaker 1: in this chunk. So that was the Pacific Northwest from
Speaker 1: the get go, almost two hundred years ago. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: there's this we'll be talking about. There's some people who
Speaker 1: still think that ought to be the way things work. Yes,
Speaker 1: So from the beginning, Oregon was a very rough place
Speaker 1: to be anything but a very very white person. There
Speaker 1: were some extraordinarily brave black pioneers who did try to
Speaker 1: make a life out here. In eighteen fifty one, one
Speaker 1: of them was Jacob Vanderpool. He was a former sailor.
Speaker 1: I think he came from the Caribbean Islands, but I
Speaker 1: don't think we know exactly, But he came to own
Speaker 1: a saloon, restaurant and boarding house in Oregon City. And
Speaker 1: a white guy named Theophilius Magruder, which is a name,
Speaker 1: quite a name in the name you would expect of
Speaker 1: a guy who's about to do or who did what
Speaker 1: we're about to talk about him doing, reported him for
Speaker 1: the crime of being black in Oregon Um and he
Speaker 1: was given thirty days to leave the state. Now, Magruder
Speaker 1: also owned a hotel and a bar in the same town,
Speaker 1: so it's entirely possible that his motive was as financial
Speaker 1: as it was racist, if not more so. But Jacob
Speaker 1: Vanderpool was forced to leave and forced to give up
Speaker 1: his business. In eighteen fifty seven, Oregon wrote a state
Speaker 1: constitution that enshrined its exclusion of black people into law.
Speaker 1: Quote no free negro or mulatto not residing in this
Speaker 1: state at the time of the adoption of this Constitution
Speaker 1: shall ever come reside or be within the state, or
Speaker 1: hold any real estate, or make any contract, or maintain
Speaker 1: any suit therein. And the Legislative Assembly shall provide by
Speaker 1: penal laws for the removal by public officers of all
Speaker 1: such free Negroes and Mulattos, and for their effectual exclusion
Speaker 1: from the state, and from the punishment of persons who
Speaker 1: shall bring them into the state, or employ them or
Speaker 1: harbor them therein. Yeah, so that's the initial law that
Speaker 1: Oregon is founded under eighteen fifty seven. In eighteen fifty nine,
Speaker 1: Oregon Territory finally becomes a state. It was the only
Speaker 1: state in the Union that was officially whites only. So
Speaker 1: this is the only time that this happened. You know,
Speaker 1: as much racism as there is in the history of
Speaker 1: the United States, We're going the only state to try
Speaker 1: to do this. So that's a fame. I guess. Texas
Speaker 1: has the Alamo and which is also pretty racist as
Speaker 1: kind of. I grew up in Texas and they always
Speaker 1: kind of smoothed over why the Texans were rebelling against
Speaker 1: Mexico a lot to do with the So they wanted
Speaker 1: to own people in Mexico. Didn't like people owning people. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they really hid that fat yeah always yeah. So, while
Speaker 1: Oregon initially ratified the fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which
Speaker 1: gave citizenship to all people born or naturalized in the
Speaker 1: United States, including former slaves. This is why we have
Speaker 1: birthright citizenship. It was they were trying to figure out
Speaker 1: a legal solution too. We've got all these people that
Speaker 1: were forced to be here and now they've got to
Speaker 1: be citizens. Yeah. So Oregon initially ratified the fourteenth Amendment,
Speaker 1: but then it almost immediately rescinded the ratification of the amendment.
Speaker 1: I guess people got angry. Oregon is also one of
Speaker 1: only six states that refused to ratify the fifteenth Amendment,
Speaker 1: which gave black men the right to vote. So fortunately
Speaker 1: Oregon eventually got it shipped together enough to finally ratify
Speaker 1: the fifteen Amendment. Do you want to guess when that happened.
Speaker 1: I've known this before, but I can't think of it.
Speaker 1: It was eight or nineteen fifty nine. Nineteen fifty nine,
Speaker 1: they were like, all right, we'll ratify the amendment. That
Speaker 1: let's black guys vote, just black guys. Uh. Yeah. It
Speaker 1: did not reratify the fourteenth Amendment until nineteen seventy three. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: I definitely remember that date. I think it's important when
Speaker 1: we talk about like why this stuff still lingers, because
Speaker 1: it didn't. It's not we're not talking about like, you know,
Speaker 1: a hundred eighteen sixty five. Really isn't that long ago
Speaker 1: when you talk about generations because the last Civil War
Speaker 1: widows pension just stop getting paid like three years ago. Absolutely. Um,
Speaker 1: but we'll say that all the time, like, oh, racism
Speaker 1: is done, slavery is over. Okay, interesting, let's talk about redlining.
Speaker 1: Oh well that was a long time ago too, we
Speaker 1: will be talking about Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah, Oregon ratified
Speaker 1: the amendment that gave birthright citizens ship to people fifteen
Speaker 1: years before. I was not that long. Disco might have
Speaker 1: been a thing. I don't know when that. I think
Speaker 1: that may have been a thing. Yeah, it's about as
Speaker 1: old as disco. It's about as old as disco. Although
Speaker 1: that does feel that that does feel old now. Disco
Speaker 1: actually feels older than white supremacy in orger Absolutely so. Um,
Speaker 1: it's probably not hard to see why the state of
Speaker 1: Oregon has stayed so white even though after eighteen sixty
Speaker 1: eight there was nothing legally the state authorities could do
Speaker 1: to keep black people out of Oregon. So again, it's
Speaker 1: not whites only after that point. By eighteen ninety there
Speaker 1: were only around a thousand black people in the entire state.
Speaker 1: By nineteen twenty, there were just two thousand. Now, the
Speaker 1: nineteen twenties would have been a rough time to be
Speaker 1: a black person in Oregon because Oregon was the highest
Speaker 1: per capita membership of the Ku Klux Klan of any
Speaker 1: state in the Union. They marched in, Yeah, they gathered
Speaker 1: in Portland proper all the time, thousands of them, thousands
Speaker 1: of the thousands. They're Claverns, I think, Yeah, that's the name.
Speaker 1: They're Grand Wizards, Burnings cross Burns Center in the city. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I prefer to it's easier to focus on the ridiculous names.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it was cross burnings and murders and yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we have to talk about that now, No, I mean
Speaker 1: we can. That's what we're here for, Yeah, that is
Speaker 1: what we're here. So Democrat Walter Pierce was elected governor
Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty two after receiving the enthusiastic endorsement of
Speaker 1: the Oregon Ku Klux Klan. In fact, it may have
Speaker 1: been why he won, According to an article in The
Speaker 1: Guardian quote photos in the local papers show the Portland
Speaker 1: Chief of Police, sheriff, District Attorney, U s Attorney, and
Speaker 1: mayor posing with klansmen, accompanied by an article saying them
Speaker 1: in we're taking advice from the clan. So again, really
Speaker 1: not weird that it took until the seventies to ratify
Speaker 1: the fourteenth raified it. Yeah, So World War two is
Speaker 1: when things really started to change demographically in Oregon. This
Speaker 1: was the first time that a large number of black
Speaker 1: people began to move to the state. And it was
Speaker 1: because America was in this whole war thing, and we
Speaker 1: need to build a shipload of boats. And if there's
Speaker 1: one thing Portland's great at, it's being a place to
Speaker 1: build a shipload of boats. You guys, we got our boats.
Speaker 1: If I ever need to build a navy, this is
Speaker 1: the city. I'm gonna build that navy and go for it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're here. I'm gonna crowdfunded like a like a like
Speaker 1: a go fundmate, but instead of for medical bills, for
Speaker 1: like a battleship or three. What are you going to
Speaker 1: use it for? I don't know. You'll sail around like
Speaker 1: what Elron Hubbard did, just sail around for eight or
Speaker 1: nine years. Podcasting, podcasting, podcast boat, a podcast boat, a podcast,
Speaker 1: cult boats podcast. I was going to say, uss past us,
Speaker 1: that's more catchy than mine, exactly catchy than mine. I'm
Speaker 1: not the namer in this well, in fairness, I'm not
Speaker 1: the name or either somebody else figured that out there. No,
Speaker 1: I I feel your pain. So, by the end of
Speaker 1: World War two, more than black people had moved to Oregon.
Speaker 1: Many of them resided in Vanport, a small city between
Speaker 1: Portland and Vancouver, Washington, calling it a city at first
Speaker 1: at least, yeah, small town, small town it was. Most
Speaker 1: of it was temporary housing that was built because they
Speaker 1: had so many workers coming in and they needed the
Speaker 1: ability to host them in. Portland was a very tiny
Speaker 1: city at this point. Still, here's how the Smithsonian described
Speaker 1: the creation of Vanport quote completed in just a hundred
Speaker 1: and ten days. The town, comprised of ten thousand, four
Speaker 1: fourteen apartments and homes, was mostly a slipshod combination of
Speaker 1: wooden blocks and fiber board walls built on marshaland between
Speaker 1: the Columbia Slough and the Columbia River. Vanport was physically
Speaker 1: segregated from Portland and kept dry only by a system
Speaker 1: of dikes that held back the flow of the Columbia River.
Speaker 1: So a little bit of foreshadowing there. This is built
Speaker 1: and basically the worst location you could build a town
Speaker 1: to keep it dry. Years later, Manly Maven, who grew
Speaker 1: up in Vanport, would describe it this way. Quote the
Speaker 1: psychological effective living on the bottom of a relatively small
Speaker 1: area dyked on all sides to a height of fifteen
Speaker 1: to twenty five ft was vaguely disturbing. It was almost
Speaker 1: impossible to get a view of the horizon from anywhere
Speaker 1: in Vanport, at least on the ground during the lower
Speaker 1: level apartments, and it was even difficult from upper levels,
Speaker 1: which I can't really imagine this. It sounds like almost
Speaker 1: something you'd see in like a dystopian movie, where these
Speaker 1: people just have these dikes rising like they're walled in
Speaker 1: on all sides. And this is the hub of you know,
Speaker 1: the black community in Portland. You know for the first
Speaker 1: time that it really has any size at all. Um So, yeah,
Speaker 1: the idea was that once folks had settled into Vanport
Speaker 1: and you know, worked at their jobs long enough and
Speaker 1: earn some cash, they would be able to rent your
Speaker 1: by homes elsewhere. It was not intended to be a
Speaker 1: permanent development, but discriminatory housing policy made it nearly impossible
Speaker 1: for black people to uh, you know, live anywhere else
Speaker 1: in the city. Um So, once the war ended, the
Speaker 1: Mayor of Portland wrote a newspaper article telling the black
Speaker 1: people of Vanport that they were no longer welcome in
Speaker 1: the state. Uh. This is the Mayor of Portland has
Speaker 1: basically put up a letter saying like, Okay, thank you
Speaker 1: for building the boats. You can go. You can go now. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The housing authority discussed tearing the town down. A nineteen
Speaker 1: forty seven Oregon Journal article described local attitudes to Vanport
Speaker 1: this way, too many Oregonians, Vanport has been undesirable because
Speaker 1: it is supposed to have a large colored population. Of
Speaker 1: the some twenty three thou inhabitants, only slightly over four
Speaker 1: thousander colored residents. True, this is a high percentage per
Speaker 1: capita compared to other Northwestern cities, but as one resident
Speaker 1: puts it, the colored people have to live somewhere, and
Speaker 1: whether the Northwesterners lie it or not, they're here to stay.
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot to dig into in terms
Speaker 1: of the phrasing. They're both that this this journalist rather
Speaker 1: than being like kind of confronting the racism, is like, well,
Speaker 1: they're not entirely accurate. It's only a quarter color. And
Speaker 1: then also, yeah, whether whether the Northwesterners like it or not,
Speaker 1: they are here to stay. That's the attitude in nineteen seven.
Speaker 1: So today you know Vanport as Delta park. Um. That's
Speaker 1: a sort of the land that it's that's on now
Speaker 1: because very little of Vanport City still remains um. In
Speaker 1: ninety eight, it started raining very hard on Memorial Day,
Speaker 1: Residents of Vanport woke up to driving rain. In this
Speaker 1: letter from the Housing Authority of Portland, the HP, Remember
Speaker 1: dikes are safe at present. You will be warned if necessary,
Speaker 1: you will have time to leave. Don't get excited. I
Speaker 1: do feel like if the government's sending you all caps
Speaker 1: notes that they don't get excited, she'd probably get excited.
Speaker 1: To get pretty excited. Should get pretty side it, I mean.
Speaker 1: And what happened next is uh horrendous, Yeah, horrendous and
Speaker 1: very predictable. The dikes did not hold. A hole opened
Speaker 1: up shortly after four pm, and roughly one day Vanport,
Speaker 1: Oregon's second largest city at the time, was completely wiped
Speaker 1: out by floodwaters. Eighteen thousand, five hundred people, sixty three
Speaker 1: hundred of whom were black, were displaced. Hundreds died, but
Speaker 1: we don't know how many, because it really seems like
Speaker 1: the HP may have secretly disposed of hundreds of corpses um.
Speaker 1: Even even with the predictability that you were mentioning, people
Speaker 1: often will trust authority figures, and even if it seems
Speaker 1: predictable in hindsight, at the time, it probably didn't. They
Speaker 1: probably really trusted that that they were safe. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: and I was sorry. I was not trying to say
Speaker 1: that people bandports should have predicted it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: The city shaded on something. They didn't give a ship
Speaker 1: with this place that was basically built underwater with the
Speaker 1: water held in by walls, and then the walls start
Speaker 1: getting flooded with water. Absolutely. Um, there's a rumor that
Speaker 1: four fifty seven dead people were shipped to Japan for
Speaker 1: some reason. There's a bunch of weird rumors around what
Speaker 1: that's very god Yeah, it's it's it's kind of hard
Speaker 1: to dig into. I heard they recover ups. I hadn't
Speaker 1: heard that. It seems like a reasonable guests would be
Speaker 1: somewhere between four and SI. But it's it's very hard
Speaker 1: to say. Yeah, let me see that cycle repeating itself
Speaker 1: with Puerto Rico. Yeah, where it's it's weird how things
Speaker 1: rhyme all of the time in history. Ye all, the
Speaker 1: speaking of rhyming, it's time for an ad break. That
Speaker 1: was a bad plot. But do you have any products
Speaker 1: and or services you'd like to plug before we get
Speaker 1: to the ones that paid us? Uh? So it gets
Speaker 1: to just kind of be anything anything you want. I
Speaker 1: usually pick random objects on the table because I just
Speaker 1: love advertising. All Right, I'm going to say that everyone
Speaker 1: should read Man Search for Meaning by Victor frankpl Oh.
Speaker 1: That is much more meaningful than the plug. I was
Speaker 1: going to go, so, yeah, read Man Search for Ye well,
Speaker 1: I was going Vino daily moisturizing lotion. Only daily moisturizing
Speaker 1: lotion currently on this table of it. Let's uh, let's
Speaker 1: let's move over to the products indoor services that actually
Speaker 1: paid us for. We're back. We're back back, and we're
Speaker 1: talking about racism Oregon. Now for something completely different. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean compared to your sponsors. Oh, yes, very different,
Speaker 1: because none of our sponsors support racism in Oregon for sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: pretty sure. I mean, like they make belts like Croup six.
Speaker 1: I don't see how a belt could be racist. Depends
Speaker 1: on where they're made. Should I be saying this? Should
Speaker 1: I be talking about consumerism under capitalism? Well, yes, I
Speaker 1: mean we do. It's one of those things we uh,
Speaker 1: this is the ocean that we live in. So you
Speaker 1: can't do anything but swim, but you can't try to
Speaker 1: pick products that you feel don't add to the problems
Speaker 1: as long as you're not sponsored by Amazon. We're not
Speaker 1: sponsored by Amazon, and I do believe that it's a
Speaker 1: general good to keep people's pants up. Yeah, let's get
Speaker 1: back into us. Continue. So there's a lot more to
Speaker 1: say in terms of Portland's history being terrible to the
Speaker 1: black people who lived there. There was the time when
Speaker 1: voters in nineteen fifty six approved the construction of an
Speaker 1: arena that necessitated the destruction of four hundred and seventy
Speaker 1: six films, half of which were black people's homes, And
Speaker 1: of course black people made up like less than two
Speaker 1: percent of the city at this point, so we're not
Speaker 1: talking about a proportional sort of Yeah, and the expressway
Speaker 1: as well. Yeah, that's exactly what I'm about to say. Well, actually, no,
Speaker 1: I was about to go into a completely different time
Speaker 1: that they did that. There's yeah, there was the time
Speaker 1: also in fifty six when the city of Portland used
Speaker 1: federal funds to expand a local hospital by bulldoz in
Speaker 1: seventy six acres black owned homes and businesses at the
Speaker 1: junction of North Williams Avenue and Russell Street, which at
Speaker 1: that point was considered Portland's black main street, which if
Speaker 1: I'm keeping track, is at least the third black main
Speaker 1: street in a city in the United States that was destroyed.
Speaker 1: Although since Portland didn't bomb their's, which is what happened
Speaker 1: in a couple of other states, I guess it's yeah,
Speaker 1: better than the air Force, I suppose. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it's not it's hard to tell better from worse. Slow
Speaker 1: deprivation is not always Yeah, I was reaching for a
Speaker 1: little bit of levity in a situation that doesn't deserve it.
Speaker 1: So tell us about this expressway, which I did not
Speaker 1: include it here. Yeah, So Anyone who's in Portland knows
Speaker 1: exactly what I'm talking about. But for people outside, there
Speaker 1: is this very long freeway project that goes past and
Speaker 1: around the Memorial Coliseum, which you just mentioned that was
Speaker 1: built the arena, and this expressway was initially going to
Speaker 1: be in the west portion of Portland. Anyone who knows
Speaker 1: Portland knows that the will Lambite River bisects east from west,
Speaker 1: and so it was initially going to be on the
Speaker 1: other side of the river. But then people over there
Speaker 1: were saying, oh no, like, we don't want that over here.
Speaker 1: And it was you know, predominantly white people who were
Speaker 1: saying that, and so they decided, yeah, exactly, and nimby, nimby,
Speaker 1: and so instead got placed right wrapped around right next
Speaker 1: to the Memorial Coliseum and resulted in the destruction of many, many,
Speaker 1: many many more homes and displaced people there. So it
Speaker 1: just goes straight around northeast Portland and up north. But
Speaker 1: I'm gonna guess most of those homes were upper middle class,
Speaker 1: you know, Caucasian, right, because that's most of that part
Speaker 1: of port Let me check hold on a second, No, really, yeah,
Speaker 1: are you surprised, racist? Racist? Oh my gosh, that doesn't
Speaker 1: sound like we're about to continue talking about Oh wait,
Speaker 1: I thought we were back to the sponsors. We're back
Speaker 1: to belts. No, we're not talking about we're not talking
Speaker 1: to milds. So yeah. Really kicking off in the nineties,
Speaker 1: seventies and eighties was a process called redlining. This is
Speaker 1: basically banks colluding to refuse mortgage loans to qualify black applicants.
Speaker 1: Would be the quick way to sort of sum up
Speaker 1: both of that process. An investigation published by The Oregony
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety journalism found that Portland banks were granting
Speaker 1: loans to black Oregonians at roughly one tenth the rate
Speaker 1: they were granting them to white people, um and one
Speaker 1: tenth the rate that they were supposed to be granting them.
Speaker 1: And for those who don't know, it's literal red lines
Speaker 1: drawn on a map, very specifically placed. And that's something
Speaker 1: that I think a lot of people are not aware
Speaker 1: of that it is. It really refers to red lines
Speaker 1: that were written on maps. Yeah, and they're resentally saying
Speaker 1: we want to keep black people out of its neighborhoods,
Speaker 1: we want to allow them to buy houses here. And
Speaker 1: it's not like that we're really granting a lot of
Speaker 1: loans to the black neighborhoods either, but like, yeah, they
Speaker 1: were basically trying to hymn them in. It was kind
Speaker 1: of like the zoning version of Kettling a little bit. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So there were also a series of police shootings of
Speaker 1: black men in the nineteen seventies and Portland's and in
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties, and investigation revealed that the local Portland
Speaker 1: police had been running over possums and leaving the corpses
Speaker 1: in front of black owned restaurants, which don't even know
Speaker 1: what to say. It's a thing that happened. So given
Speaker 1: all of that, it's probably not much of a surprise
Speaker 1: to listeners that for much of the nineteen eighties and
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties, Portland became known in the punk community as
Speaker 1: a haven for neo Nazi skinheads. Racist skins would be
Speaker 1: I think the I listened to a lot of that
Speaker 1: kind of punk music. Yeah, but yeah, there's a whole
Speaker 1: lingo here. I saw the movie Green Room. It's a
Speaker 1: fine film about Nazi skins in Oregon. Scary, scary. I
Speaker 1: left feeling all sorts of feels. That's how you're supposed
Speaker 1: to feel that's how you're supposed to feel real good racist. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That was quite close to home. Yeah, yeah, but I
Speaker 1: was going to say the possum imagery stayed really would still.
Speaker 1: You would still see people refer to possums in coded
Speaker 1: language even through the nineteen eighties, from racist skinheads. They
Speaker 1: would say keep the possums out. Yeah, it was still utilized.
Speaker 1: I did not have that. I just need that the
Speaker 1: police were doing this, have no idea. I thought they
Speaker 1: just like being dix and there were a lot of
Speaker 1: dead possums in Portland. But there's a racial element to
Speaker 1: the tape. Fascinating. Yeah, it was still used as a
Speaker 1: symbol of terror and racism. Wow, So from the cops
Speaker 1: to the punks. That's not usually how that goes. I
Speaker 1: know one thing about I'm not supposed to talk to
Speaker 1: cosh but yeah, yeah, but these are the these are
Speaker 1: the Nazi skinheadpots. They like to win. The cops were
Speaker 1: being racist. Yeah that's the thing they want cops doing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So on about a month after I was born, well
Speaker 1: lamb It Weekly published Young Nazis Portland's New Breed of
Speaker 1: Racists about the growing population of young fascists in the city.
Speaker 1: Reporter Jim Retten interviewed several of these guys and their
Speaker 1: Southeast Portland apartment and credit words due this was not
Speaker 1: like the New York Times profile and the Nazi next
Speaker 1: door thing like it was an important that was covering it.
Speaker 1: He seems to have done it a good job of
Speaker 1: doing it, at least from what I've read. He asked
Speaker 1: them about an assault on a guy named Sam Chin,
Speaker 1: a twenty seven year old Portland resid and originally from Singapore.
Speaker 1: Three skinheads had confronted Chin's family, beat up and stomped
Speaker 1: on him, and read and brought this up to the Nazis.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna read a quote from the article. Although they
Speaker 1: denounced the media's focus on violence, they are not unwilling
Speaker 1: to completely reject it. While they say the assault on
Speaker 1: Chin was not representative of their beliefs, they repeatedly stressed
Speaker 1: that they are willing to fight for their cause. We
Speaker 1: wouldn't beat up someone for no reason at all, says Kay,
Speaker 1: a tall male with a tattoo of a heavily booted
Speaker 1: skinhead on his left bicep. But we're ready to defend ourselves.
Speaker 1: Which I picked that quote because you can put those
Speaker 1: words in the mouth of patriot prayers. Joey Gibson. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: who's the guy running the rallies that have been fights recently.
Speaker 1: That's the same sort of sentiment that comes from oath keepers,
Speaker 1: three percenters, all of them. Yeah. So next we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about what happened on November when Muata Sarra,
Speaker 1: a twenty eight year old Ethiopian immigrant student at PSU
Speaker 1: and a father of one, was dropped off in the
Speaker 1: parking lot of his apartment complex by some friends. He
Speaker 1: was about to head into his apartment when a vehicle
Speaker 1: holding three racist skinheads and their girlfriends pulled up. And
Speaker 1: these guys have been drinking and handing out racist flyers
Speaker 1: from an organization called White Area and Resistance. Get a
Speaker 1: little bit more into that. A second one of the
Speaker 1: skins who I was originally going to use names because
Speaker 1: I usually do, but I do like your attitude of
Speaker 1: not giving these guys the benefit of their names. So
Speaker 1: I'm not going to name the skinheads. Yeah, but anyone
Speaker 1: who's curious can get the book. A hundred Little Hitlers.
Speaker 1: That's a good title. Yeah, that's a real good title.
Speaker 1: And so I'm all for community education learning about people.
Speaker 1: But there is a distinction of putting out the names
Speaker 1: and repeating them out loud over and over and over again,
Speaker 1: and forgetting the names of victims and heroes who have
Speaker 1: stepped in. Yeah, I agree, that's that's that's yeah, so Chips, Sorry,
Speaker 1: the things you can we'll bleep out. Yeah, we'll bleep
Speaker 1: that out. The bleep you heard was a name that
Speaker 1: we're not going to say. One of these skins lived
Speaker 1: in the same block of apartments all and I think
Speaker 1: one of the scripts I heard from a police officer
Speaker 1: was they could have strung tin cans on strings and
Speaker 1: talk to each other. They lived that close together. So yeah,
Speaker 1: the Nazis had been drinking heavily and putting up white
Speaker 1: supremacist posters around town. They shouted at Sara and his friends,
Speaker 1: and then while their girlfriends shouted for them to kill him,
Speaker 1: the Nazis jumped Mulaghetta Sarat. One of them hit Mulaghetta
Speaker 1: in the back of the head, I believe with a
Speaker 1: baseball bat, and there was no ball er mit in
Speaker 1: the car. They did not have that for baseball. No,
Speaker 1: they had it for me for Nazi reasons. The reason
Speaker 1: the Nazis carry based bats and he had the initials
Speaker 1: of the organization carved into the back. Really, so he
Speaker 1: had war carved in them. I don't think he had war.
Speaker 1: I think it was their own group, because they had
Speaker 1: their own Yeah. So this was a batmant for doing
Speaker 1: exactly what he did with committing violent assault and in
Speaker 1: this case, murder, because they continued to hit mulu Getta
Speaker 1: when he fell to the ground, and they also continued
Speaker 1: to stomp on him with steel toed boots. He died
Speaker 1: that night from blood force trauma. So they went to prison. Um.
Speaker 1: At the time, a big deal was made about the
Speaker 1: fact that one of them, the kid with the bat,
Speaker 1: was the frontman of a popular local band and also
Speaker 1: an actor who had worked with Gus Van Sant. Sort
Speaker 1: of a bunch of articles they were talking about this
Speaker 1: talented young actor and the terrible thing. It's like, well,
Speaker 1: he murdered a guy, doesn't matter that he was good
Speaker 1: at acting, right about that? And they still do that too. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, like I said, it's not hard to the
Speaker 1: way that perpetrators of various crimes depending on their race
Speaker 1: makes a big difference in the headline. Yeah, you see
Speaker 1: it every time there's a marked difference of what happens
Speaker 1: when one of these people commits a crime in the
Speaker 1: way that their report on them, or even if you
Speaker 1: are a young black boy like Tamir Rice a child
Speaker 1: and people are saying, oh, he was a big scary,
Speaker 1: he was manlike, it's horrifying yea. And yet then we
Speaker 1: see these white men committing crimes who actually did something
Speaker 1: and the way that they're painting and it is absolutely ridiculous. Well,
Speaker 1: and there's really old history to that. I remember reading.
Speaker 1: We did an episode where we talked about through the U. S.
Speaker 1: Occupation of the Philippines, and there was an island that
Speaker 1: the there's a massacre in the U. S. Military base
Speaker 1: where a bunch of US soldiers got killed, and then
Speaker 1: in response, they massacred. And the language they used was
Speaker 1: they killed all of the men over ten, which you're
Speaker 1: not a man at eleven, not a man at twelve,
Speaker 1: not a man at thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, maybe seventeen.
Speaker 1: But like it doesn't matter. I mean, massacring is wrong,
Speaker 1: but like just the language used any man over ten
Speaker 1: is like, I feel like you're not a man till twenty.
Speaker 1: But that's just my view. I think it usually takes
Speaker 1: more like maybe before I'll let you know when I
Speaker 1: hit that point. I'm at thirty right now, and I
Speaker 1: don't feel all the way there now. Mulgato Sura's murder
Speaker 1: led to a legal case against Tom Metzker, a shriveled
Speaker 1: little testicle of a man and the founder of White
Speaker 1: areaan Resistance or War. You can see a documentary of
Speaker 1: him made after this point with Louis Threw where he
Speaker 1: spends several days with him, and you get the feeling
Speaker 1: that he's a ridiculous kind And I think this is
Speaker 1: a problem. This caused a problem because I think that
Speaker 1: a lot of these people were covered that way as
Speaker 1: sort of like, look at this ridiculous. He's racist, and
Speaker 1: he's the things he says are terrible, but he's really
Speaker 1: just a crazy old thing. He's kind of cute. Look
Speaker 1: at this little guy. Yet, Now, what Tom had been
Speaker 1: doing is sending his son up to Portland and sending
Speaker 1: a significant amount of written propaganda up there that was
Speaker 1: not just propaganda on you know, not national socialism or whatever,
Speaker 1: but was specifically advocating violence and talking about ways to
Speaker 1: commit violence. I believe, you know, a little bit more
Speaker 1: about this than I do. Yeah, so War his white
Speaker 1: Arian resistance group had these newspapers they would give out
Speaker 1: that we're overtly, horrifyingly racist, and the cartoons that they
Speaker 1: would have on the covers were just absolutely disgusting. And
Speaker 1: they would send up stacks to Portland for these young
Speaker 1: groups of men who previously, we're not organized. They were
Speaker 1: just going around and they would get drunk and they
Speaker 1: would talk about being arian and racism and all that.
Speaker 1: Not to say they shouldn't have been taken seriously at all,
Speaker 1: but they weren't organized at that point. And it wasn't
Speaker 1: until Tom Medsker and his son stepped in that they
Speaker 1: began to have tools. They began to have these newspapers, flyers,
Speaker 1: they would pass out fake welfare applications that they would
Speaker 1: pass out to women of color and humiliate them and
Speaker 1: attempt to humiliate them. And it wasn't until that point
Speaker 1: that they actually had these tools and these means of
Speaker 1: propaganda to pass out that they began to feel organized.
Speaker 1: And this is where we're get into something that's really
Speaker 1: interesting me. It's a little bit difficult to talk about.
Speaker 1: Are you familiar with the concept of the fewer principle. UM.
Speaker 1: I don't think I've heard specifically about it, but I
Speaker 1: imagine it has to do with having a leader to
Speaker 1: organize you. That's an aspect of it. It was the idea,
Speaker 1: this was like the central idea behind the original nazis
Speaker 1: an individual can embody and electrify at people and bring
Speaker 1: them up and sort of use them as a tool
Speaker 1: almost that and that that desirable and good. And obviously
Speaker 1: that's silly when you start talking about like nations, but
Speaker 1: there's a little to it when you talk about something
Speaker 1: like you've got these disaffected kids in Portland who have
Speaker 1: no sort of organizing principle, and a guy like Tom
Speaker 1: Metzger who has just enough charisma, just enough vision to
Speaker 1: get them united behind a purpose, and then they become dangerous.
Speaker 1: And I think that you're seeing something similar with a
Speaker 1: guy like Joey Gibson, who has I watched his speech,
Speaker 1: is a good amount of personal charisma. He's good at speaking,
Speaker 1: he's good at organizing. UM. And these people, the people
Speaker 1: who show up these patriot prayer rallies, just like the
Speaker 1: people who murdered Mulugeta Sara, we're doing shitty, racist things
Speaker 1: in their personal lives beforehand, but it took a leader
Speaker 1: coming in and then they're a cohesive Yeah. Absolutely, So
Speaker 1: I think that's where it's important to understand that concept
Speaker 1: because that do you think it embodies something? Not that
Speaker 1: like the Nazi said that this was how everything worked.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's how everything work, but I think
Speaker 1: it's how Nazis work across time, and whether or not
Speaker 1: they call themselves Nazis or patriots or whatever, it's howies were.
Speaker 1: Um so digression um yeah. Even though Tom Metzger had
Speaker 1: not specifically ordered the Skinheads to commit that particular murder,
Speaker 1: he was seen as having vicarious liability for indoctrinated kids
Speaker 1: with racist ideology, publishing information on how to commit violent crimes,
Speaker 1: and sending people up to talk to them. So he
Speaker 1: was ordered to pay like twelve and a half million
Speaker 1: dollars in damages. Yeah, and he wound up with losing
Speaker 1: complately bankrupted him. He had to sell his house. He
Speaker 1: lost his house. Yeah. I had to pay amounts every
Speaker 1: single months. Yeah up to today, at age like eighties something.
Speaker 1: And they sold his house to a Hispanic family. Yes
Speaker 1: they did they or no, the I think it was
Speaker 1: it was Sara's family right who, No, it was not.
Speaker 1: Was it the A C l U who got it?
Speaker 1: Or Southern Poverty Law Centered was the one to sue them,
Speaker 1: if that's what you're asking. Yeah, And the neighbors were
Speaker 1: extremely happy to see the new family move in. They
Speaker 1: didn't like Tom Metzker really because gosh, what a likable
Speaker 1: guy he was. He seemed like he had a lot
Speaker 1: on the ball. Sure he's a bad neighbor, you're saying, Yes,
Speaker 1: I would imagine weird how nazis. Yeah, it's like neighbors
Speaker 1: don't like when a bunch of skinheads come in and
Speaker 1: out of somebody's own Yeah, okay, keep that in mind. Yeah.
Speaker 1: You know what else I'll keep in mind is these
Speaker 1: products and services that are about to support our show,
Speaker 1: and we're back, and we're back. You didn't hear it
Speaker 1: because what we just said will not be in the thing.
Speaker 1: But we just did a great plug for Microsoft that
Speaker 1: we're not going to repeat. No, absolutely not, you know,
Speaker 1: in our hearts, in our hearts. So let's get back
Speaker 1: into racism in Oregon. Soura Is murdered. His funeral is
Speaker 1: obviously a very big deal, very emotional time. A lot
Speaker 1: of activists come out for it, and there are rumors
Speaker 1: that before the funeral that three Nazi skinheads might show
Speaker 1: up to protest. This did not wind up happening, but
Speaker 1: in spite of the increased visibility of the city hate problem,
Speaker 1: Portland's racist skinhead problem only got worse during the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 1: In a two thousand seventeen article for The Guardian, reporter
Speaker 1: Jason Wilson quote cr And Malloy, a union organizer and
Speaker 1: anti fascist activist who was active during this period. In
Speaker 1: the nineteen there were multiple gangs and three hundred Nazis
Speaker 1: in a city of three hundred thousand. The anti racist
Speaker 1: youth were intimidated and isolated. The Nazis were just openly
Speaker 1: hanging out on the streets down in a Pioneer Courthouse Square.
Speaker 1: They would just gather and sit around, and people knew
Speaker 1: to avoid that entire block. Yeah, and then there's talk,
Speaker 1: especially talk from racists about the quote unquote no go
Speaker 1: zones in places like London rear Paris, which do not exist,
Speaker 1: and a lot of reporting on establishing that they're not real.
Speaker 1: There were no go zones in Portland for people of
Speaker 1: color in this period of time. Pioneer Square would have
Speaker 1: been one of them. Siern malloy added, quote, it's not
Speaker 1: hyperbolic to call it a war. There was intense fighting.
Speaker 1: So again, the street fighting that we're seeing right now
Speaker 1: in Oregon, that might happen literally the day after we
Speaker 1: record this podcast is nothing new. But fighting between racist
Speaker 1: and anti racist skinheads in Portland earned it the nickname
Speaker 1: Skinhead City during the nineteen nineties, which is a cool nickname.
Speaker 1: Beats it does beat Portlandia. Yeah, yeah, you guys are
Speaker 1: going to be carrying that right. I'm sorry what people
Speaker 1: out from l A keep doing. The nice cities in
Speaker 1: the Northwest. They destroyed Bend too. But I will say
Speaker 1: about Skinhead City, it's at least accurate, which is a
Speaker 1: heavy thing to say. But the whole Portlandia most you know,
Speaker 1: there's some truth to that show, But that show is
Speaker 1: for getting a very large portion of our population and culture.
Speaker 1: Part of what I wonder, depending on how all of
Speaker 1: this increased political violence goes, is how twenty or thirty years,
Speaker 1: if that show will just make no sense to people,
Speaker 1: I hope. So, yeah, well not in that way, oh ye,
Speaker 1: well yeah, if you're if you're going Okay, I see
Speaker 1: what you're saying. I see what you're saying. I was
Speaker 1: just hoping that we'll win this fight against Joey Gibson
Speaker 1: and then first Culture will actually be celebrated for the
Speaker 1: first time in Portland. Yeah. That would be nice. That
Speaker 1: would be nice. Yeah, yeah, I agree with you. Yes. So. Um. Now,
Speaker 1: the Nazi skins who infested Portland and who degree still
Speaker 1: invests both Portland and Oregon were obsessed with an idea
Speaker 1: that still holds much traction among the fascist right, the
Speaker 1: Northwest Imperative. The basic reasoning behind the Northwest Imperative is that,
Speaker 1: since Oregon is already super white and filled with fascists,
Speaker 1: why not try and turn it into a white ethno state. Um.
Speaker 1: From a Nazi point of view, the last two hundred
Speaker 1: years of Oregon history have already done a really good
Speaker 1: job of laying the groundwork for this. Oregon is currently
Speaker 1: the whitest state, in Portland the whitest big city in
Speaker 1: the United States. Yeah. There is today an organization called
Speaker 1: the Northwest Front dedicated to making the dream of the
Speaker 1: Northwest Imperative a reality. The about section of their website
Speaker 1: sums them up this way. Quote the Northwest Front is
Speaker 1: a political organization of Arian men and women in the
Speaker 1: United States and Canada of all ages and social backgrounds,
Speaker 1: who recognize that an independent and sovereign white nation in
Speaker 1: the Pacific Northwest is the only possibility for the survival
Speaker 1: of the white race on this continent. So that's the rhetoric,
Speaker 1: that's what they're angling for. The Southern Poverty Law Center
Speaker 1: identifies eighteen different hate groups in the state of Oregon.
Speaker 1: An outside of explicit hate groups, Oregon still has a
Speaker 1: lot of its old problems with hate. A two thousand
Speaker 1: eleven audit found that six of landlords and leasing agents
Speaker 1: in the city discriminated against black and Latino renters, giving
Speaker 1: them higher rents, forcing them to pay larger deposits, and
Speaker 1: levying additional fees against absolutely that's nuts. And with gentrification
Speaker 1: as well, the neighborhoods that have been most chicken shaken, chicken, chicken, chicken,
Speaker 1: most chicken they got shipped real good yes by gentrification
Speaker 1: in uh recent times are the same neighborhoods like I'll
Speaker 1: buy a neighborhood that we have seen a lot of
Speaker 1: the history you've talked about of pushing people of color
Speaker 1: to that center are now gentrified with huge condos and
Speaker 1: entirely unrecognizable. Yeah, it's uh, I mean, and this is
Speaker 1: the I mean, you can trace some of that back
Speaker 1: to Portland, to be honest. So black students in Portland
Speaker 1: are suspended and expelled at a rate four to five
Speaker 1: times higher than that of their white peers. And this
Speaker 1: brings us more or less to the modern era where
Speaker 1: we are today. Portland is a city with a lot
Speaker 1: of left wing political activism now and definite reputation is
Speaker 1: being quote woke. It's seen as a hippie to be
Speaker 1: sort of place. But you know, we've as we've covered,
Speaker 1: there's a very long history of discrimination and a very
Speaker 1: long history of racist organizing. Over the last two years,
Speaker 1: though Oregon has entered what maybe a different era. The
Speaker 1: fighting in the streets is bigger and bloodier than it
Speaker 1: has ever been before. The group behind it, Patriot Prayer
Speaker 1: and to a lesser extent, the Proud Boys, is harder
Speaker 1: to place and harder to get the mainstream to condemn
Speaker 1: than a man like Tom Metzger and an organization like
Speaker 1: White Arian Existance. Newspapers know what to do when you
Speaker 1: call yourself white or Area Resistance your Patriot Prayer, you're
Speaker 1: covered an American flag, you say you don't support hate,
Speaker 1: or if you're the Proud Boys and you're punching each
Speaker 1: other in naming cereals like it's harder for especially casual Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So that's where we are now, and that's what we're
Speaker 1: going to get to in the next episode, the coming
Speaker 1: of Patriot Prayer, the story of Joey Gibson and the
Speaker 1: bloodshed that has gone with it. But before we close
Speaker 1: out today, I would like to talk with you a
Speaker 1: little bit about one of what I think is the
Speaker 1: most promising attempts to kind of fix this problem that's
Speaker 1: very deep problem in Oregon of racism and Oregon, of
Speaker 1: of you know, white supremacy in Oregon. The rural organizing projects.
Speaker 1: You want to tell me a little bit about them. Absolutely, Well,
Speaker 1: first I want to just close out our conversation about
Speaker 1: absolutely with a lot of the viewpoints that people think
Speaker 1: that people in Portland have, and Portland's think that they
Speaker 1: themselves have. They have let a lot of this just
Speaker 1: go entirely under the radar, and I think it's because
Speaker 1: a lot of people in Portland, particularly white people, and
Speaker 1: I don't mean just particularly I'm talking specifically about white people.
Speaker 1: They are silent about this oppression. They think if they
Speaker 1: put a Black Lives Matter sign in their yard that
Speaker 1: they've done racial justice work. And that's just not how
Speaker 1: it's gonna solve all this. And so people need to
Speaker 1: get involved in organizations. They need to educate themselves, they
Speaker 1: need to read more about the history of Oregon, listen
Speaker 1: to podcasts like this, and uh change things. Yes, right,
Speaker 1: I did that just for you. I appreciate Rural Organizing Projects.
Speaker 1: So I haven't personally organized with Rural Organizing Project, and
Speaker 1: I want to say that upfront because I really think
Speaker 1: that getting a representative from their organization would be wonderful.
Speaker 1: But basically Rural Organizing Project focuses on underrepresented rural areas
Speaker 1: and Oregon that have been disenfranchised and ignored. Because a
Speaker 1: big reason why we see this current uprising and problem
Speaker 1: with these groups like the Oathkeepers. Three per centers in
Speaker 1: groups like Patriot Prayer will have this kind of sentiment
Speaker 1: in their mission statements that poor white people, especially poor
Speaker 1: white men, are not being properly represented. They feel like
Speaker 1: things are being taken away from them, and they feel
Speaker 1: like the right wing propaganda that they are getting radio
Speaker 1: stations they listen to, podcasts they listen to, and websites
Speaker 1: that they go on frequently. They feel like they are
Speaker 1: getting accurate information when they oftentimes are getting very tainted
Speaker 1: and biased information that is not telling the whole story
Speaker 1: of why we have gotten to this point within our
Speaker 1: hyper capitalistic system. And so Rural Organizing Project really tries
Speaker 1: to bring representation back to those areas. They try to
Speaker 1: organize with legislators to ensure that we are focusing energy
Speaker 1: and resources to make sure that people are not being
Speaker 1: left out in cold quite literally, um, not being left
Speaker 1: out um to just rely on these groups to take
Speaker 1: them in, but to instead feel like they are part
Speaker 1: of the Oregon community and that they are valued and
Speaker 1: that you don't have to be in a city to
Speaker 1: get those resources. And through that they are able to
Speaker 1: educate people on the dangers of these groups like oath keepers,
Speaker 1: three percenters, etcetera. And so the work that they do
Speaker 1: is so important because it is very true that we
Speaker 1: cannot ignore rural areas in our communities, not just to
Speaker 1: fight racism, but because they are human beings that deserve
Speaker 1: resources and deserve care, and rural areas have been hit
Speaker 1: hard by this hyper capitalistic automation and um jobs have
Speaker 1: been stripped away over the course of history, and so
Speaker 1: people have been just seeing jobs go away, and instead
Speaker 1: of being given the proper information of oh, the reason
Speaker 1: why these jobs have changed is for these reasons, they
Speaker 1: instead are told by somebody, Oh, you know why, It's
Speaker 1: because of that immigrant, it's because of of women wanting
Speaker 1: to enter the workforce, It's because of this and that,
Speaker 1: and so then they hold tight to these traditional ideas
Speaker 1: of what it is to be an American, which were
Speaker 1: never accurate to begin with if we really look at
Speaker 1: our history. But that is how they're able to be radicalized.
Speaker 1: So Rural Organizing Project takes that on and I am
Speaker 1: very proud to have them in Oregon. And it's it's
Speaker 1: my opinions as a journalist that low key and low
Speaker 1: key because it hasn't been covered enough. One of the
Speaker 1: most important stories going on in the country right now
Speaker 1: is the disintegration of society and rural parts of the
Speaker 1: United States. For example, cattle wrestling is the highest it's
Speaker 1: been in more than a hundred years. Cattle wrestling, agricultural
Speaker 1: theft is the highest it's been in quite a long time.
Speaker 1: You are seeing rising rates of poverty and a lot
Speaker 1: of chunks of rural America. What you're saying is a
Speaker 1: breakdown of social order in these places. And all of
Speaker 1: these things are number one, major contributors to the growth
Speaker 1: of fascist movements, major contributors to the growth of racist movements,
Speaker 1: and on a human lovel just terrible for the people there.
Speaker 1: And we most people listening to this probably live in city.
Speaker 1: It is important to pay attention to what happens out there.
Speaker 1: But because they're your fellow citizens, and because when their
Speaker 1: lives get worse, your lives get worse. Absolutely the way
Speaker 1: it works in a society. So listeners, if you've enjoyed
Speaker 1: this episode, if you find this compelling, please donate some
Speaker 1: bucks to the Rural Organizing Project absolutely look come up, yeah,
Speaker 1: look come up online. Will include the link to the
Speaker 1: website on ours So yeah, check that out, check out
Speaker 1: all of our sources behind the bastards dot com. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know, open up your wallet strings if you have
Speaker 1: a couple of extra bucks to give. And if you're
Speaker 1: in Oregon, volunteer, Yeah, volunteer with Rural Organizing Project absolutely uh.
Speaker 1: And if you're in Oregon in general, be more active.
Speaker 1: There's some stuff going on, this stuff going on going on.
Speaker 1: The only thing that will make it get better is
Speaker 1: the people who aren't, i'll say charitably on the shitty
Speaker 1: side of things, getting active or at least supporting the
Speaker 1: people who are being active in the streets, because that's
Speaker 1: really important too. So well, I'm working on a project
Speaker 1: to help make that easier for people to have access
Speaker 1: to what is needed in the area, and I'll send
Speaker 1: that to you once I have something awesome. Well, you
Speaker 1: got anything else you wanna you wanna pitch blood Man
Speaker 1: search for Meeting, Right yeah, Victor Frankel read Man, Search
Speaker 1: for Meeting Victor Frankel, Holocaust survivor, right yes. Check it
Speaker 1: all out. You can check out this podcast on our
Speaker 1: website behind the Bastards. You can check out all the sources,
Speaker 1: and of course tomorrow we will be talking about Patriot Prayer,
Speaker 1: Joey Gibson, and the most dangerous street gang in America
Speaker 1: that you probably haven't heard of, Patriot Prayer, So all
Speaker 1: of that coming up next in the week. Have fun
Speaker 1: with it. Check it out and you can find us
Speaker 1: on Instagram and Twitter at Bastard's pod and that's that's
Speaker 1: that's all I got for you. Go go do something
Speaker 1: positive for the world. Goodbye, And I love statistically about
Speaker 1: of you.