WEBVTT - Episode 1: Uprising: A Guide From Portland: Why Portland? 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:03.320 The NFL is back and the NFL app has you covered. 0:00:03.560 --> 0:00:06.400 So get ready for football all season long and just 0:00:06.559 --> 0:00:09.600 tap into the NFL app NFL maybe if app. Just 0:00:09.680 --> 0:00:12.160 tap in to watch your local and primetime games all 0:00:12.160 --> 0:00:16.680 season now from Super Bowl fifty to get up to 0:00:16.680 --> 0:00:19.400 the minute news videos, highlights, stats and more on all 0:00:19.440 --> 0:00:23.439 your favorite teams and rookies to watch. Then downloads to 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:26.439 your mobile device today at NFL dot com, Slash Mobile 0:00:26.560 --> 0:00:29.280 or in your app store. Certain restrictions and data rates 0:00:29.320 --> 0:00:32.560 may apply. 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Executive producer Paris Hilton brings back the 0:01:08.560 --> 0:01:11.800 hit podcast How Men Think, and that's good news for 0:01:11.880 --> 0:01:15.080 anyone that is confused by men, which is basically everyone. 0:01:15.600 --> 0:01:18.479 It's real talk, straight from the source to How Men 0:01:18.600 --> 0:01:21.440 Think podcast is exactly what we need to figure them out. 0:01:21.760 --> 0:01:24.680 It's going to be fun and formative and probably a 0:01:24.720 --> 0:01:28.000 bit scary at times because we're literally going inside the 0:01:28.080 --> 0:01:30.840 minds of men. Listen to How Men Think on the 0:01:30.880 --> 0:01:34.160 I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:50.200 your podcasts. At around ten thirty pm on a crowd 0:01:50.240 --> 0:01:52.960 of more than a thousand people gathered in North Portland's 0:01:52.960 --> 0:01:57.040 Peninsula Park and marched downtown to the Justice Center, headquarters 0:01:57.160 --> 0:02:00.280 of the Portland Police Bureau. The direct inspiration for the 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:02.960 march were the murders of George Floyd and Brianna Taylor. 0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:06.320 Many in attendance also had a strong desire to express 0:02:06.400 --> 0:02:10.600 solidarity with protesters in Minneapolis. That's what brought Chris Wise, 0:02:10.880 --> 0:02:15.480 volunteer protest medic out into the streets that first night. Initially, 0:02:15.720 --> 0:02:19.680 I came out because as an African American, you know, 0:02:21.440 --> 0:02:24.239 it was that that straw that broke the Camel's back 0:02:24.280 --> 0:02:30.440 on just like one death too many. We are murdered 0:02:30.639 --> 0:02:34.840 by police and other law enforcement agencies at a rate 0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:39.840 of three to one when compared to the average white American, 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:43.280 And those numbers get a little funky because you know, 0:02:43.840 --> 0:02:46.840 obviously more white people die a year than black people 0:02:47.200 --> 0:02:51.760 in police related shootings, but there are also you know, 0:02:51.960 --> 0:02:57.240 six times as many white people, ah then black people. Tristan, 0:02:57.360 --> 0:03:00.320 another Black Portlander, didn't go out that night, but he 0:03:00.360 --> 0:03:03.640 watched everything that happened on the live streams. Honestly, like, 0:03:03.680 --> 0:03:10.119 my my first um impression was that it probably wasn't 0:03:10.160 --> 0:03:12.280 going to be much, you know what I mean. I 0:03:12.320 --> 0:03:14.600 didn't expect it to blow up the way it did. 0:03:14.639 --> 0:03:17.440 I kind of felt like because I've I've seen it 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:21.000 happen in the past where you know, there's will be 0:03:21.040 --> 0:03:25.000 some kind of like something happening like nationwide or another 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:28.600 city in Portland will kind of like you know, show 0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:32.200 up and solidarity for it, and it might become something, 0:03:32.200 --> 0:03:33.680 but usually it's kind of like a one off. So 0:03:33.720 --> 0:03:36.800 that's kind of what I was expecting, and so I 0:03:36.840 --> 0:03:39.880 was pretty surprised to see like how quickly it grew 0:03:39.960 --> 0:03:43.720 and then also how like how the police were responding 0:03:44.040 --> 0:03:49.320 like in like a very tear guys kind of way. 0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:53.040 Mariah is a photo journalist and a lifestyle photographer. She 0:03:53.200 --> 0:03:55.320 was out at Peninsula Park for the very start of 0:03:55.320 --> 0:03:59.240 the march. Was beginning to you know, something that not 0:03:59.360 --> 0:04:00.880 a lot of us new we're going to get into, 0:04:00.960 --> 0:04:04.040 you know, but gosh, I remember being at Peninsula Park 0:04:04.120 --> 0:04:08.080 and it was really great to see everyone there, and like, 0:04:08.200 --> 0:04:11.200 it just reminds me of some uh. I hate that 0:04:11.240 --> 0:04:13.720 it's like a routine thing for us, because it's you know, 0:04:13.920 --> 0:04:16.279 while we're still fighting, and while we've been fighting so strong. 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:18.800 But you know, when someone gets killed by you know, 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:21.320 via police brutality, everyone meets up. You know, maybe we 0:04:21.400 --> 0:04:23.760 protest for a few days and like, you know, quote unquote, 0:04:23.760 --> 0:04:25.520 we go back to like normal life. But you know, 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:27.640 we already haven't been a normal life since it's been 0:04:27.680 --> 0:04:30.680 a pandemic this whole freaking year. But it was really 0:04:30.680 --> 0:04:33.640 beautiful to see all the people and all the signs 0:04:33.680 --> 0:04:37.360 and the speeches. The sidewalks bordering Peninsula Park were filled 0:04:37.400 --> 0:04:40.760 with different slogans and exhortations written in chalk. One of 0:04:40.760 --> 0:04:45.360 the most striking statements was make the moment count As 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:48.040 it turned out, the city of Portland took that to heart. 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:51.880 The crowd at Peninsula Park marched nearly five miles to 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:54.960 downtown Portland. There they merged with a crowd that had 0:04:55.000 --> 0:04:58.279 gathered around the Justice Center. The moment both groups met 0:04:58.360 --> 0:05:01.159 was powerful. You could taste to the energy in the air. 0:05:07.279 --> 0:05:11.440 Portland Black Lives Matter protests had actually started several days 0:05:11.480 --> 0:05:14.680 earlier before that mass gathering on the twenty nine, A 0:05:14.760 --> 0:05:17.719 handful of activists of color had begun occupying the steps 0:05:17.720 --> 0:05:21.720 of the Justice Center immediately after George Floyd's murder. One 0:05:21.760 --> 0:05:24.640 of them was Tracy Molina, an indigenous Portland or better 0:05:24.680 --> 0:05:29.000 known as Kloska. Well. I remember it wasn't not long 0:05:29.120 --> 0:05:34.200 after the George Floyd's story broke. A lot of us 0:05:34.240 --> 0:05:37.320 wanted to do something here, but I think most of 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:40.960 the regular organizers kept saying wait, you know, let's wait, 0:05:41.560 --> 0:05:45.800 let's wait for this, let's wait for that, and then finally, um, 0:05:45.960 --> 0:05:50.440 then Danielle James, I think she's a pretty prominent black 0:05:50.480 --> 0:05:53.760 activist in this community and sit up against Patriot Prayer 0:05:53.800 --> 0:05:57.600 and Proud Boys and other white supremases for years. Um. 0:05:57.640 --> 0:06:00.159 It was kind of a spark for that you know. 0:06:00.200 --> 0:06:02.800 She was said like, we shouldn't wait in the night. 0:06:03.800 --> 0:06:05.520 Supporter I said, I don't think we should wait either. 0:06:05.520 --> 0:06:07.040 I think we should do something now. And so we 0:06:07.480 --> 0:06:11.560 ended up the seven ten thirty all meeting at I 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:17.360 and starting to protest there, and then we moved. Um, 0:06:17.480 --> 0:06:20.600 sometime after midnight we moved over to the Justice Center 0:06:20.600 --> 0:06:23.560 and slept on the steps there and planned to to 0:06:23.720 --> 0:06:26.839 occupy it as long as we could. And so we 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:32.479 stayed there and then um there was only maybe like 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:34.680 four of us that slept on the steps, and then 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:37.440 the next day, like at ice, we had about thirty 0:06:37.560 --> 0:06:40.599 or forty people. And then the next day, after we 0:06:40.640 --> 0:06:42.679 stayed on those steps, I would say there was about 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:44.920 forty or fifty people that showed up in the afternoon 0:06:44.920 --> 0:06:47.720 and they did a direct action or we blocked off 0:06:47.760 --> 0:06:49.960 the streets and in front of the steps of the 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:53.760 Justice Center, and I think they did it also did 0:06:53.760 --> 0:06:59.240 it die. And that night there was also impromptu direct 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:04.279 action or so people some young women sat on sat 0:07:04.320 --> 0:07:06.440 in the doorway at the Justice Center and they brought 0:07:06.560 --> 0:07:08.440 riot police out for that, and there was at that 0:07:08.520 --> 0:07:11.720 time there was only about twenty of us and only 0:07:11.840 --> 0:07:15.440 like six people participating in the sit in, but they 0:07:15.480 --> 0:07:19.280 still brought riot police out and they were violently removed. 0:07:20.200 --> 0:07:23.720 That made the news because one of the women, one 0:07:23.720 --> 0:07:25.760 of the women that was hit with the tongue, was 0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:29.280 she was actually pregnant, a black woman. And the only 0:07:29.280 --> 0:07:30.600 way us the way I know that for sure is 0:07:30.640 --> 0:07:33.640 because after she was in the ambulance, she came. I 0:07:33.640 --> 0:07:35.280 don't know if she went to the hospital, but after 0:07:35.320 --> 0:07:37.680 she was in the ambulance, she returned paperwork from the 0:07:37.720 --> 0:07:41.680 and proving that she was pregnant and was, you know, 0:07:41.800 --> 0:07:45.320 showing some of the police officers that were still standing around. 0:07:46.760 --> 0:07:49.760 But yeah, that's how the first few days went. And 0:07:49.800 --> 0:07:54.760 then um, then then we we all, um, we're going 0:07:54.840 --> 0:07:58.600 to have a rally at UM in Insula Park. And 0:07:58.640 --> 0:08:02.680 then I read to part of the opening and when 0:08:02.720 --> 0:08:06.080 I was there, more and more people kipt coming, and 0:08:06.080 --> 0:08:09.720 I was surprised. There are so many, I don't know, 0:08:09.760 --> 0:08:12.240 maybe a thousand people that there was a lot, there's 0:08:12.400 --> 0:08:14.440 a lot of people there. Was surprised, and it just 0:08:14.520 --> 0:08:17.520 kept getting bigger and bigger. The now merged crowd, which 0:08:17.600 --> 0:08:20.280 numbered at least a couple of thousand people, marched back 0:08:20.320 --> 0:08:23.480 to the Justice Center for a few minutes, they stood outside, 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:27.520 chanting George Floyd's name. The police were nowhere to be seen. 0:08:30.720 --> 0:08:32.720 While most of the crowd stood out in the street, 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:34.880 A hundred or so people gathered in front of the 0:08:34.880 --> 0:08:38.400 windows of the Justice Center. They started spray painting slogans 0:08:38.440 --> 0:08:41.040 on the glass. A few people peeed on the doorway, 0:08:41.400 --> 0:08:44.199 someone lit a small fire out in front, and then 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:52.840 quite suddenly one person broke a window. The first broken 0:08:52.840 --> 0:08:55.440 windows set off a frenzy, and soon people were using 0:08:55.440 --> 0:08:57.880 their feet, rocks, and any tools they could find to 0:08:57.920 --> 0:09:01.240 shatter every exposed piece of glass on the building. With 0:09:01.280 --> 0:09:05.160 the windows shattered, protesters ran into the Justice Center, ransacking 0:09:05.200 --> 0:09:09.200 police offices and setting small fires. The Portland police arrived 0:09:09.240 --> 0:09:11.920 a little bit later and began showering the crowd with 0:09:12.000 --> 0:09:18.080 tear gas and flash band grenades. Though no one knew 0:09:18.080 --> 0:09:20.280 it at the time, events had just been set into 0:09:20.320 --> 0:09:22.880 motion that would lead to more than a hundred consecutive 0:09:22.920 --> 0:09:27.200 knights of protests and tear gas. The Portland Uprising had begun. 0:09:27.440 --> 0:09:38.560 We should probably start by talking a bit about the 0:09:38.600 --> 0:09:42.439 definition of a riot. Legally, anything the cops declare a 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:45.800 riot is a riot. May twenty nine is generally referred 0:09:45.840 --> 0:09:48.800 to as Riot Knight, because after the crowd was dispersed 0:09:48.800 --> 0:09:51.160 from the Justice Center, hundreds of people ran through the 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:54.480 streets of Portland's luxury shopping district, smashing up high end 0:09:54.600 --> 0:09:58.200 chain stores while the police chased after them. It certainly 0:09:58.360 --> 0:10:00.360 felt like a riot, but a number of of folks 0:10:00.360 --> 0:10:04.160 that we interviewed actually disagreed. Alan Kessler, a Portland based lawyer, 0:10:04.320 --> 0:10:08.600 pushed back on that description. I guess I disagree that 0:10:09.640 --> 0:10:12.400 even the first night was a real riot. I mean, 0:10:12.440 --> 0:10:17.400 there were some shops scott Burg Old there were there 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:22.320 were something stolen. Um, there was a fire in the 0:10:23.000 --> 0:10:29.319 in the I j c um. I'm not sure that that. 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:32.600 I don't I don't know the intent there right Like 0:10:32.880 --> 0:10:34.960 looking at the fire, looking at the Piddie fire as 0:10:34.960 --> 0:10:37.720 I've seen, I don't know if anybody means to burn 0:10:37.760 --> 0:10:42.319 the buildings down or to Yeah, yeah, I don't know. Uh, 0:10:42.480 --> 0:10:45.640 it didn't seem like it. It doesn't seem it. If 0:10:45.679 --> 0:10:47.320 I were going to burn down the building, I would 0:10:47.360 --> 0:10:49.560 use a hell of a lot more accelerant. Then it 0:10:49.559 --> 0:10:54.800 seems like people are using. Um. I don't know. Uh. 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:59.040 I was struck by even on even on that night 0:10:59.120 --> 0:11:08.640 I was struck by uh, excuse me, Oh yeah, that 0:11:09.040 --> 0:11:16.560 was a lot more context. Yeah, please don't when Kessler says, yeah, 0:11:19.600 --> 0:11:24.240 I'm trusting you, all the freedoms in your hands straight 0:11:24.240 --> 0:11:30.400 to Andy. So Um. Now, even that night I was 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:35.440 struck by Commissioner Fritz, who I have absolutely no love for, uh, 0:11:36.480 --> 0:11:42.240 who seemed just horrified that that goocy got robbed and 0:11:42.480 --> 0:11:46.560 uh and I didn't seem able to put that in 0:11:46.559 --> 0:11:49.920 any kind of context. Um, Yeah, I don't. I don't. 0:11:49.960 --> 0:11:51.920 I didn't. I didn't see that as a riot. I 0:11:51.920 --> 0:11:56.679 didn't think that people, uh, I wanted to just break shit. 0:11:56.800 --> 0:12:00.480 I think even then it was it was still political. 0:12:00.760 --> 0:12:02.720 It was it was a protest and it you know, 0:12:03.800 --> 0:12:06.400 I wouldn't recommend that people break stuff, for steal stuff, 0:12:06.400 --> 0:12:09.280 for set stuff on fire. But I understood the upset, 0:12:09.320 --> 0:12:13.840 and I, yeah, I just didn't see in those terms. Um, 0:12:14.000 --> 0:12:18.560 it didn't seem like. I don't remember that anybody died. 0:12:18.880 --> 0:12:22.000 I'm sure somebody was hurt, but I don't remember that 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:25.040 it was particularly severe that evening, Like, I don't. I 0:12:25.080 --> 0:12:28.440 don't remember that as a as a violent knight. I 0:12:28.480 --> 0:12:33.160 remember it as a night of property damage. Yeah, I uh, yeah, 0:12:33.200 --> 0:12:35.080 And I wasn't making a legal distinct. There was more 0:12:35.120 --> 0:12:37.600 of a moral argument, like I think people put a 0:12:37.679 --> 0:12:41.440 moral import behind riot and it I don't think it 0:12:41.480 --> 0:12:44.280 was that. I don't think it was I don't think 0:12:44.320 --> 0:12:47.000 it was a breakdown in civilization. I think it was 0:12:47.080 --> 0:12:56.800 a extremely heartfelt frustration with a system that wasn't meeting 0:12:56.800 --> 0:13:00.320 people's needs. Max Smith, a Portland based act to best 0:13:00.320 --> 0:13:03.840 in live streamer, called it a riot light. I called 0:13:03.960 --> 0:13:06.200 like a riot light that night. I think I was like, 0:13:06.240 --> 0:13:08.040 that seems like a little kind of a riot light. 0:13:08.040 --> 0:13:10.400 They broke a couple of windows, you know, they sacked 0:13:10.440 --> 0:13:12.840 the Apple Store. Of course, you know, some opera students 0:13:12.880 --> 0:13:15.400 are gonna, you know, take that opportunity if something is, 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:17.760 if things are getting broken, someone's gonna rob the Apple Store. 0:13:18.120 --> 0:13:20.320 It's it's it's dumb because you're gonna get caught, but 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:23.280 go ahead and rob the Apple Store. But you know, 0:13:23.280 --> 0:13:24.360 that's kind of what I thought of it, Like some 0:13:24.400 --> 0:13:28.360 stuff is gonna get broken. That's what happened. And I 0:13:28.440 --> 0:13:30.920 actually thought the police, you know, I thought that and 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:34.120 actually thought there was going to be some change, which 0:13:34.600 --> 0:13:36.680 we saw a couple of things, like they started talking 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:39.920 about you know, canceling the the DVRT and the cops 0:13:39.920 --> 0:13:43.120 in schools and things like that, and uh and since then, 0:13:43.120 --> 0:13:45.760 it's it's it's been fairly tame, and we haven't seen 0:13:45.760 --> 0:13:50.720 a whole lot of progress, so, you know, I felt 0:13:50.720 --> 0:13:52.800 like it worked a little bit. The point Mac made 0:13:52.840 --> 0:13:54.960 is one that a lot of activists would agree with. 0:13:55.320 --> 0:13:58.240 Property damage, they argue is not nearly in the same 0:13:58.320 --> 0:14:02.280 moral realm is injuring your killing human beings. Mac himself 0:14:02.320 --> 0:14:04.120 was not out on the twenty nine, but he was 0:14:04.200 --> 0:14:07.559 most directly inspired to start protesting because of something else 0:14:07.600 --> 0:14:10.280 that happened that day. Hundreds of miles south of Portland 0:14:10.480 --> 0:14:14.240 in San Jose, California, there was a guy named Derek 0:14:14.520 --> 0:14:20.600 Sanderland in San Jose and he was protesting before you know, 0:14:20.800 --> 0:14:25.040 he was purchasing against the murder of George Floyd in 0:14:25.200 --> 0:14:30.280 solidarity with Minneapolis. And I remember waking up and getting 0:14:30.320 --> 0:14:33.680 on my phone and kind of just flicking through things 0:14:33.760 --> 0:14:38.640 and seeing that this man had been shot in the 0:14:38.760 --> 0:14:43.440 testicles with a rubber bullet and it like required like 0:14:43.480 --> 0:14:47.960 emergency surgery and he's probably never gonna have kids. And 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:50.800 I'm looking at this dude and he's like twenty seven 0:14:50.880 --> 0:14:53.960 years old. He's like a black dude. He's got dreads, 0:14:54.000 --> 0:14:57.160 he wears glasses, he's got a scrappy gas beard like mine, 0:14:57.640 --> 0:14:59.360 you know. And I'm looking at this guy like a 0:14:59.440 --> 0:15:02.040 man that would have been me. And then I keep 0:15:02.080 --> 0:15:05.240 reading and he was like he was like a teacher. 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:11.320 He taught the police about like not targeting people or whatever, 0:15:11.560 --> 0:15:14.680 like you know, de escalation tactics or whatever. And I'm like, 0:15:15.480 --> 0:15:21.600 you're telling me they shot a dude that that trains them, 0:15:21.640 --> 0:15:23.240 Like this has got to be one of the craziest 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:25.560 things I've ever heard in my life. And he could 0:15:25.560 --> 0:15:28.320 have died from this, you know, And that just made 0:15:28.320 --> 0:15:30.560 me so mad. And I was like, it's even if 0:15:30.560 --> 0:15:33.880 it wasn't you know, it wasn't me, It could have 0:15:33.920 --> 0:15:36.520 been me, if I would have been out there, And 0:15:36.720 --> 0:15:40.120 so I was just like, that's insane, Like this should 0:15:40.200 --> 0:15:42.400 not be a thing at all. This shouldn't this just 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:47.000 this can't be really. Many protesters and some journalists will 0:15:47.080 --> 0:15:49.960 argue that most of the riots Portland's saw this summer, 0:15:50.080 --> 0:15:54.240 we're not cases of protesters rioting, but we're instead cop riots. 0:15:54.880 --> 0:15:57.560 After all, if people breaking windows and louding an Apple 0:15:57.600 --> 0:16:00.640 Store is a riot, then police driving into ouds, throwing 0:16:00.680 --> 0:16:03.240 grenades at random and tear gas and hundreds of innocent 0:16:03.280 --> 0:16:11.360 motorists probably counts as a riot, too righted riot We 0:16:11.600 --> 0:16:22.560 crooked when P. T. Barnum's Great American Museum burned to 0:16:22.600 --> 0:16:25.280 the ground in eighteen sixty five, what rose from its 0:16:25.320 --> 0:16:29.560 ashes would change the world? Welcome to Grim and Mild Presents, 0:16:29.880 --> 0:16:33.920 an ongoing journey into the strange, the unusual, and the fascinating. 0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:37.160 For our inaugural season, we'll be giving you a backstage 0:16:37.240 --> 0:16:41.440 tour of the always complex and often misunderstood cultural artifact 0:16:41.520 --> 0:16:44.800 that is the American Side Show. So come along as 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:47.600 we visit the shadowy corners of the stage and learn 0:16:47.680 --> 0:16:49.600 about the people who were at the center of it 0:16:49.720 --> 0:16:52.760 all in a place where spectacle was king. We will 0:16:52.840 --> 0:16:56.160 soon discover there's always more to the story than meets 0:16:56.200 --> 0:16:59.000 the eye, So step right up and get in line. 0:17:00.160 --> 0:17:02.240 Listen to Grim and Mile Presents now on the I 0:17:02.400 --> 0:17:06.359 Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 0:17:07.040 --> 0:17:10.120 Learn more over at Grim and Mild dot com. Slash 0:17:10.280 --> 0:17:14.560 presents What's Up, Guys, I'm a shop Bloud and I 0:17:14.640 --> 0:17:16.280 am Troy millions and we are the host of the 0:17:16.359 --> 0:17:19.479 Earn Your Leisure podcast, where we break down business models 0:17:19.680 --> 0:17:22.400 and examine the latest trans and finance. We hold court 0:17:22.440 --> 0:17:24.440 and have exclusive interviews with some of the biggest names 0:17:24.440 --> 0:17:27.639 of business, sport, and entertainment, from DJ Khaled to Mark Cuban, 0:17:27.800 --> 0:17:30.240 Rick Ross and Shaquill O'Neil. I mean our alumni list 0:17:30.359 --> 0:17:33.119 is expansive. Listen to as our guests reveal their business models, 0:17:33.200 --> 0:17:35.760 hardships and triumphs, and their respective fields. The knowledge is 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:38.800 in death and the questions are always delivered from your standpoint. 0:17:39.000 --> 0:17:40.680 We want to know what you want to know. We 0:17:40.840 --> 0:17:43.879 talked to the legends of business, sports and entertainment about 0:17:43.920 --> 0:17:46.359 how they got their start and most importantly, how they 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:48.840 make their money. Earn Your Leisia is a college business 0:17:48.840 --> 0:17:50.960 class mixed with pop culture. Want to learn about the 0:17:51.000 --> 0:17:53.800 real estate game? Uncleassed how the stock market works. We 0:17:53.920 --> 0:17:56.200 got you interested in starting a truck and company or 0:17:56.320 --> 0:17:59.159 vendor machine business? Not really sure about how taxes or 0:17:59.200 --> 0:18:01.840 credit work? We got it all covered. The Earnie Leisure 0:18:01.880 --> 0:18:04.879 podcast is available now. Listen to Ernie Leisure on the 0:18:04.920 --> 0:18:08.800 Black Effect podcast Network, I Heart Radio, app, Apple Podcast, 0:18:08.920 --> 0:18:17.120 or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Roxande Gay, 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:20.600 host of The Roxanne Gay Agenda, the Bad Fominist Podcast 0:18:20.720 --> 0:18:24.720 of Your Dreams. Now what is the Roxanne Gay Agenda, 0:18:24.800 --> 0:18:27.760 you might ask, Well, it's a podcast where I'm going 0:18:27.840 --> 0:18:30.560 to speak my mind about what's on my mind, and 0:18:30.720 --> 0:18:34.119 that could be anything. Every week I will be in 0:18:34.240 --> 0:18:38.240 conversation with an interesting person who has something to say. 0:18:38.400 --> 0:18:41.679 We're going to talk about feminism, race, writing in books, 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:46.200 and art, food, pop culture, and yes, politics. I started 0:18:46.200 --> 0:18:49.520 each show with a recommendation, Really, I'm just going to 0:18:49.640 --> 0:18:52.520 share with you a movie or a book, or maybe 0:18:52.600 --> 0:18:55.200 some music or a comedy side something that I really 0:18:55.320 --> 0:18:58.080 want you to be aware of and maybe engage with 0:18:58.200 --> 0:19:03.320 as well. Listen to the Luminary original podcast, The Roxanay Agenda, 0:19:03.840 --> 0:19:07.639 The Bad Feminist Podcast of Your Dreams, every Tuesday on 0:19:07.760 --> 0:19:11.440 the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you 0:19:11.560 --> 0:19:25.600 get your podcast. May was not the first night of 0:19:25.640 --> 0:19:27.760 Portland's Bill and protests, but it was the night that 0:19:27.840 --> 0:19:30.520 set the tone for the next hundred plus nights. There 0:19:30.600 --> 0:19:33.959 was tear gas, flash bangs, armored cops fighting demonstrators who 0:19:34.000 --> 0:19:37.919 were armed with in the beginning, cardboard signs and water bottles. Now, 0:19:38.040 --> 0:19:40.280 we're going to cover a lot of ground in this series, 0:19:40.440 --> 0:19:43.000 and it's probably best to kick this off by giving 0:19:43.040 --> 0:19:46.399 everyone an overview of what exactly happened in Portland from 0:19:46.480 --> 0:19:49.720 late May to the end of September, because the mainstream 0:19:49.800 --> 0:19:53.000 media only really showed a portion of this story. Late 0:19:53.040 --> 0:19:54.680 on the night of the twenty nine, the people of 0:19:54.760 --> 0:19:57.479 Portland learned that their mayor, Ted Wheeler had actually been 0:19:57.520 --> 0:20:00.760 out of town visiting his mother. His first response to 0:20:00.920 --> 0:20:03.040 what had happened was a tweet that started with the 0:20:03.119 --> 0:20:06.119 word enough in all caps and ended with a promise 0:20:06.160 --> 0:20:09.119 that he was coming back now now was also in 0:20:09.200 --> 0:20:12.800 all caps. City Commissioner joe Anne Hardesty, who was acting 0:20:12.840 --> 0:20:15.720 president in the mayor's absence, declared a state of emergency 0:20:15.800 --> 0:20:18.760 and enacted a curfew from eight pm until six am. 0:20:19.240 --> 0:20:21.560 At this point, Portland was in the same boat as 0:20:21.640 --> 0:20:24.840 many other American cities, including New York and Los Angeles. 0:20:25.520 --> 0:20:28.000 In Portland, the curfew was not enough to clamp down 0:20:28.040 --> 0:20:31.480 on unrest, quite the opposite. In fact, local activists like 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:35.000 d s A member Olivia Cutty Smith were inspired. I 0:20:35.160 --> 0:20:37.760 just thought that it was it was not like anything 0:20:37.800 --> 0:20:39.879 I've ever seen before. I've never seen that level of 0:20:40.840 --> 0:20:46.040 um destruction happened at a protest before. It was exciting. 0:20:46.560 --> 0:20:49.480 I was like, we're going to start. This is huge, 0:20:49.600 --> 0:20:51.280 this is going to take off all across the country. 0:20:51.320 --> 0:20:54.280 Its happening in Portland, it's having in Minneapolis, like this 0:20:54.440 --> 0:20:58.960 is the start of a revolution. Um, you know, and 0:20:59.200 --> 0:21:01.480 even knowing that that might not be true, that that's 0:21:01.520 --> 0:21:04.280 the feeling that I had. That night, several thousand people 0:21:04.359 --> 0:21:07.960 gathered again and on the thirty feet nearly ten thousand 0:21:08.040 --> 0:21:11.600 Portlanders marched to the Justice Center. We actually sort of 0:21:11.720 --> 0:21:16.320 organized the protests behind the scenes um and got like 0:21:16.440 --> 0:21:19.960 ten thousand people across the bridge with this offer UM. 0:21:21.040 --> 0:21:26.760 And yeah, it was just it felt like the sky 0:21:26.920 --> 0:21:29.560 was a limit at that point, Like I can't believe 0:21:29.600 --> 0:21:32.359 there are ten thousand people showing up every single night, 0:21:32.520 --> 0:21:35.400 like this has never happened before. We have to turn 0:21:35.480 --> 0:21:38.840 this into something. Both times police eventually dispersed the crowd 0:21:38.920 --> 0:21:42.120 with indiscriminate tear gas use in liberal clubbing with truncheons. 0:21:42.440 --> 0:21:45.119 Thousands of protesters were gassed, but so were hundreds of 0:21:45.200 --> 0:21:47.800 motorists who happened to be out on city streets and 0:21:48.040 --> 0:21:50.560 dozens of houseless individuals who were gassed in their tents 0:21:50.640 --> 0:21:54.600 for no apparent reason. The curfew was rescinded in early June. 0:21:54.840 --> 0:21:58.440 It clearly hadn't helped. Next, the city began to build 0:21:58.680 --> 0:22:01.600 what would become a massive fence around the Justice Center. 0:22:02.000 --> 0:22:05.080 The protest movement started to splinter between a large group 0:22:05.160 --> 0:22:08.960 of demonstrators who engaged in daily marches that avoided police contact, 0:22:09.200 --> 0:22:12.600 and a smaller group who repeatedly confronted police at the fence. 0:22:13.160 --> 0:22:16.000 At first, Portland police would gas and grenade any group 0:22:16.040 --> 0:22:17.960 of people that drew close to the fence, along with 0:22:18.000 --> 0:22:21.639 any motorists who happened to be driving nearby. Protesters started 0:22:21.720 --> 0:22:24.480 calling at the sacred fence because law enforcements seemed to 0:22:24.560 --> 0:22:27.119 value it more than the physical well being of Portlanders. 0:22:27.640 --> 0:22:30.920 The first fence war between protesters and police lasted most 0:22:31.000 --> 0:22:34.479 of June. There were occasional protests at other police buildings 0:22:34.600 --> 0:22:37.400 like the p p A, headquarters of the Portland Police Union, 0:22:37.800 --> 0:22:41.280 and the North Precinct. Smaller groups of activists also engaged 0:22:41.320 --> 0:22:44.000 in what was briefly a nationwide practice of pulling down 0:22:44.080 --> 0:22:48.040 statues of famous white supremacists. On June eighteenth, a small 0:22:48.160 --> 0:22:52.399 number of mostly teenage Portlander's toppled a statue of George Washington. 0:22:52.880 --> 0:22:55.639 This prompted President Trump to create an executive order to 0:22:55.720 --> 0:22:59.359 protect statues, monuments, and federal property. He sent dozens of 0:22:59.400 --> 0:23:02.560 federal age into Portland to enforce this new order. The 0:23:02.640 --> 0:23:04.920 first time the Feds made a large appearance was on 0:23:05.040 --> 0:23:07.920 July four. That night was a turning point for a 0:23:08.000 --> 0:23:11.080 number of reasons, after weeks of declining numbers. More than 0:23:11.160 --> 0:23:13.960 a thousand Portlanders showed up outside the Justice Center to 0:23:14.000 --> 0:23:17.200 shoot commercial grade fireworks at its windows. They fired a 0:23:17.280 --> 0:23:20.200 few with the adjacent Federal courthouse as well. The police 0:23:20.359 --> 0:23:23.760 l rad a car mounted loudspeaker started warning everyone not 0:23:23.920 --> 0:23:26.720 to shoot the courthouse, so, of course, the entire crowd 0:23:26.800 --> 0:23:30.600 swarmed around the building and continued shooting it with fireworks. Suddenly, 0:23:30.800 --> 0:23:33.280 wooden hatches opened up on the front of the fortress 0:23:33.359 --> 0:23:36.600 like building, and the federal agents inside began tossing out 0:23:36.680 --> 0:23:39.560 tear gas grenades and shooting impact munitions into the crowd. 0:23:40.080 --> 0:23:42.440 For a few minutes, the scene resembled a cross between 0:23:42.480 --> 0:23:45.920 an acid trip in a medieval siege, with protesters bombarding 0:23:45.960 --> 0:23:48.840 the courthouse with fireworks while the Feds inside pumped out 0:23:48.920 --> 0:23:58.399 gas and riot munitions. Yeah, Friday night, everybody. Eventually the 0:23:58.480 --> 0:24:00.920 fight spilled out into the street, and for several hours, 0:24:01.000 --> 0:24:04.159 Portland Police and Department of Homeland Security agents engaged in 0:24:04.240 --> 0:24:07.960 a running battle with hundreds of protesters. Fireworks provided the 0:24:08.000 --> 0:24:10.639 activists with their first weapon that could disrupt a police 0:24:10.760 --> 0:24:14.760 riot line, while law enforcement responded by escalating physical violence 0:24:14.880 --> 0:24:18.000 even further. I was walking up from the j C 0:24:18.280 --> 0:24:21.200 Up towards the park blocks, and there was a person 0:24:21.280 --> 0:24:23.800 who was essentially having an asthma attack and a cloud 0:24:23.840 --> 0:24:27.200 of tear gas, and they had one buddy with them, 0:24:27.240 --> 0:24:30.440 and it was just such an impossible project for that 0:24:30.600 --> 0:24:32.720 one buddy to sort of haul them out of tear 0:24:32.760 --> 0:24:34.960 gas while they're having an asthma attack and like a 0:24:35.040 --> 0:24:38.200 panic attack and really having her off time. Everything got 0:24:38.320 --> 0:24:41.800 more serious after the fourth the federal agents started responding 0:24:41.840 --> 0:24:44.720 to protests downtown more often than the Portland Police Bureau. 0:24:45.080 --> 0:24:48.280 A week later, federal agents almost killed a protester named 0:24:48.320 --> 0:24:50.800 Donovan Labella by shooting him in the forehead with a 0:24:50.920 --> 0:24:55.200 less lethal round. Slowly, the mainstream media began to realize 0:24:55.200 --> 0:24:58.760 that something strange and terrifying was happening. In Portland. The 0:24:58.880 --> 0:25:01.679 national interest was ly peaked a few days later when 0:25:01.800 --> 0:25:04.840 camo clad Feds in a rental van started kidnapping people 0:25:04.920 --> 0:25:08.760 off the streets. In early July, the fourth accepted most 0:25:08.920 --> 0:25:11.760 nightly protests only numbered a few dozen to a hundred 0:25:11.880 --> 0:25:15.280 or so protesters, but national media and the specter of 0:25:15.320 --> 0:25:20.000 federal snatch fans panicked Portland's liberal majority. By mid late July, 0:25:20.320 --> 0:25:23.159 thousands upon thousands of protesters were showing up in the 0:25:23.240 --> 0:25:27.639 street every night. The time between July thirty, dubbed the 0:25:27.760 --> 0:25:31.200 Fed War, is the stuff most Americans saw from Portland 0:25:31.280 --> 0:25:34.840 in the news. Moms and dad's, veterans, doctors, chefs, and 0:25:34.960 --> 0:25:38.040 students gathering in front of the Federal courthouse, chanting demands, 0:25:38.160 --> 0:25:41.840 banging on doors, setting fires, ripping off plywood covering the windows, 0:25:42.080 --> 0:25:45.840 and repeatedly tearing down that massive fence. Whenever the federal 0:25:45.920 --> 0:25:48.640 agents came out, a shield wall of protesters would form, 0:25:48.840 --> 0:25:52.239 deflecting metal tear gas canisters and flashbags up into the air. 0:25:52.560 --> 0:25:55.560 People armed with leafblowers directed gas back at the Feds. 0:25:55.840 --> 0:25:59.560 In response, the Feds started using experimental new weapons, including 0:25:59.560 --> 0:26:02.760 a pest a side sprayer, Jerry rigged di spew poison gas, 0:26:03.680 --> 0:26:07.000 seeing the police attack people, especially the FEDS when the 0:26:07.040 --> 0:26:09.760 Feds came, when they came started attacking people like like 0:26:10.000 --> 0:26:11.960 in the smoke. After I got like a gas mask 0:26:12.440 --> 0:26:15.160 and started going into the smoke, you know, and seeing 0:26:15.200 --> 0:26:18.200 what was going on in there, I was pretty I 0:26:18.440 --> 0:26:22.520 was pretty uh disturbed by seeing the way that they 0:26:22.560 --> 0:26:27.680 were like beating people under the under the cover of 0:26:27.720 --> 0:26:31.720 tear gas. That was, um, that was a surprise for me. 0:26:31.800 --> 0:26:33.920 I'd heard people saying, I've got my ask kicked in there, 0:26:34.000 --> 0:26:36.639 but I didn't know it was going down like that. 0:26:37.200 --> 0:26:39.560 As July came and went, so did the visible federal 0:26:39.640 --> 0:26:42.840 presence downtown. Most of the more liberal types packed it up, 0:26:43.000 --> 0:26:45.680 calling the protests a success. But while the days of 0:26:45.800 --> 0:26:49.200 walls of camouflaged Fed's head temporarily ended despite reports of 0:26:49.280 --> 0:26:52.280 their withdrawal, federal presence in Portland lingered on for weeks. 0:26:52.720 --> 0:26:55.919 Dedicated activists were not fooled by the faux withdrawal. They 0:26:56.000 --> 0:26:59.399 knew the work was far from over. Throughout August, protesters 0:26:59.480 --> 0:27:02.600 gathered in front of police precincts, city buildings in Portland's 0:27:02.640 --> 0:27:06.280 ice facility. Sometimes they engaged in property damage, but more 0:27:06.320 --> 0:27:08.399 often they just stood in the street yelling at the 0:27:08.440 --> 0:27:12.119 cops until they were inevitably charged by riot lines. It 0:27:12.320 --> 0:27:15.639 was in August that Portland first saw right wing counter protests, 0:27:15.840 --> 0:27:19.960 generally framed as back the Blue or MAGA gatherings. Sometimes 0:27:20.000 --> 0:27:22.840 these escalated into street brawls between Proud Boys and left 0:27:22.880 --> 0:27:26.239 wing activists. On several occasions, Proud Boys and other right 0:27:26.280 --> 0:27:29.560 wing vigilantes through home made explosives and shot paintball guns 0:27:29.600 --> 0:27:32.680 into crowds. Live rounds were even fired into the air 0:27:33.000 --> 0:27:36.880 and into crowds. The escalation continued until a Trump caravan 0:27:37.000 --> 0:27:40.520 of vehicles waving flags drove through Portland in late August. 0:27:40.920 --> 0:27:44.480 Several Trump supporters fired paintball guns and mace into the 0:27:44.560 --> 0:27:47.560 crowds as they drove by. The whole awful day ended 0:27:47.600 --> 0:27:50.280 with a member of the right wing street gang Patriot Prayer, 0:27:50.359 --> 0:27:53.360 being shot and killed by a white BLM activist after 0:27:53.480 --> 0:27:55.879 charging him with a can of mace. Throughout all this, 0:27:56.200 --> 0:27:59.960 Portland's BLM marches occurred every single night right up an 0:28:00.040 --> 0:28:04.080 till late September, when a series of devastating wildfires overwhelmed 0:28:04.119 --> 0:28:06.680 Oregon and blanketed the city of Portland in a thick 0:28:06.760 --> 0:28:09.520 haze of poison, the nightly marches were halted, and the 0:28:09.640 --> 0:28:12.720 various mutual aid organizations that had started up to service 0:28:12.760 --> 0:28:17.280 the protests turned their efforts to meeting the needs of evacuees. Meanwhile, 0:28:17.560 --> 0:28:20.760 right wing activists blamed the fires on Antifa and spent 0:28:20.880 --> 0:28:23.600 several days setting up a legal arm checkpoints and threatening 0:28:23.640 --> 0:28:26.720 people with rifles. When the rains came in the air cleared, 0:28:26.800 --> 0:28:29.800 the protests started up again. There were no longer nightly affairs, 0:28:29.960 --> 0:28:33.280 but they've remained regular occurrences ever since. And all of 0:28:33.359 --> 0:28:38.400 this begs the question why Portland, all fifty U s 0:28:38.440 --> 0:28:41.160 States hosted Black Lives Matter protests during the summer of 0:28:42.280 --> 0:28:46.080 Many cities saw mass demonstrations, and while nine of BLM 0:28:46.160 --> 0:28:50.480 protests were considered peaceful, numerous cities saw rioting, exchanges of gunfire, 0:28:50.560 --> 0:28:53.400 and even had buildings burnt down. But no city in 0:28:53.440 --> 0:28:56.640 the United States had as many continuous nights of protests 0:28:56.680 --> 0:28:59.680 as Portland. No city saw thousands of its citizens lay 0:28:59.720 --> 0:29:03.680 a long siege of a federal courthouse, no city experienced 0:29:03.720 --> 0:29:07.320 a thousand persons street fight between right and left wing demonstrators. 0:29:07.760 --> 0:29:11.320 Perhaps most importantly, no city earned the ire of President 0:29:11.400 --> 0:29:15.120 Donald Trump in the same way as Portland. It seems 0:29:15.160 --> 0:29:17.760 bizarre that this all would happen in Portland, a small 0:29:17.800 --> 0:29:20.400 city of about six hundred and fifty three thousand people. 0:29:20.800 --> 0:29:22.440 How did it grow to become one of the most 0:29:22.480 --> 0:29:25.480 active front lines in a national battle for black lives 0:29:25.600 --> 0:29:28.960 and against white supremacy. It actually makes a lot of 0:29:29.080 --> 0:29:32.320 sense once you scratch beneath the surface a bit. Here's 0:29:32.320 --> 0:29:37.520 Tristan again. Oregon was kind of um I found it 0:29:37.560 --> 0:29:40.000 as like something of like a white utopia, you know, 0:29:40.200 --> 0:29:43.080 like a place for the the white man to really 0:29:43.120 --> 0:29:46.720 like find his destiny right and like conquer this you know, 0:29:46.800 --> 0:29:50.720 this continent. And I think that's just kind of like 0:29:52.440 --> 0:29:55.600 it's just like baked into the culture here where even 0:29:55.680 --> 0:29:59.840 like even like the love of the outdoors isn't like 0:30:01.920 --> 0:30:07.960 isn't like a love of um like keep like keeping 0:30:08.000 --> 0:30:10.120 the environment like healthy and like bounce. It's just like 0:30:10.240 --> 0:30:15.360 a very like commodified like we deserve this, you know, 0:30:15.760 --> 0:30:18.760 we deserve to live in this beautiful place, and we're 0:30:18.760 --> 0:30:20.920 the only ones who know how to take care of it. 0:30:22.080 --> 0:30:24.320 And obviously that's like mellowed out a little bit over 0:30:24.400 --> 0:30:27.760 the you know, decades. But I think that's still basically 0:30:27.840 --> 0:30:34.640 like what what like Um, it's like the undercurrent, you know, 0:30:36.080 --> 0:30:40.200 that's like behind most of what cosan in Oregon. You 0:30:40.320 --> 0:30:42.000 can learn a lot of what you need to know 0:30:42.240 --> 0:30:45.240 about Oregon's history of racism by studying one of the 0:30:45.320 --> 0:30:49.920 state's founders, Peter Hardman Burnett. As a young man in Tennessee, 0:30:50.160 --> 0:30:52.320 he murdered a black person with a booby trap is 0:30:52.360 --> 0:30:56.040 revenge for petty theft. In three he helped organize the 0:30:56.080 --> 0:30:58.560 first great wagon train of white people that headed to 0:30:58.640 --> 0:31:02.320 the Oregon Territory. He was elected to the Provisional Legislature 0:31:02.440 --> 0:31:05.800 and served as the territory's first Supreme Court justice. In 0:31:05.920 --> 0:31:08.360 eighteen forty four, he worked to pass what became known 0:31:08.480 --> 0:31:11.560 as Burnett's Lash Law. This stated that all black people 0:31:11.600 --> 0:31:14.520 were required to leave Oregon under penalty of being whipped 0:31:14.560 --> 0:31:17.360 in public not less than twenty or more than thirty 0:31:17.440 --> 0:31:20.800 nine stripes. This punishment was to be repeated every six 0:31:20.880 --> 0:31:23.840 months until they moved. The law did include a grace 0:31:23.920 --> 0:31:26.560 period three years for black women and two years for 0:31:26.680 --> 0:31:30.719 black men. Burnett also pushed to ban Chinese immigration into Oregon. 0:31:31.160 --> 0:31:34.000 While there are no documented instances of the Lash laws 0:31:34.040 --> 0:31:36.480 being used. It's set a clear tone for the state. 0:31:36.800 --> 0:31:39.760 Burnett's lash law reflected the values of the first white 0:31:39.800 --> 0:31:43.040 people who moved to Oregon. They were abolitionists and that 0:31:43.160 --> 0:31:46.040 they hated slavery, but they only hated slavery because they 0:31:46.080 --> 0:31:48.480 were revolted by the thought of living near black people. 0:31:48.920 --> 0:31:52.240 In eighteen forty eight, the Oregon Territorial government passed a 0:31:52.320 --> 0:31:55.920 law that banned any quote negro or mulatto from living 0:31:56.040 --> 0:32:00.200 in Oregon. In eighteen fifty, the Oregon Donation Land Act 0:32:00.320 --> 0:32:03.880 gave whites and half breed Indians their quote, six hundred 0:32:03.880 --> 0:32:06.560 and fifty acres of land from the government. All other 0:32:06.680 --> 0:32:10.360 people of color were banned from the land grants. Oregon 0:32:10.520 --> 0:32:13.800 was finally made a state in February eighteen fifty nine. 0:32:14.200 --> 0:32:18.560 Under its constitution, quote, no free negro or mulatto not 0:32:18.760 --> 0:32:20.920 residing in this state at the time of the adoption 0:32:20.960 --> 0:32:23.920 of this Constitution shall ever come reside or be within 0:32:24.000 --> 0:32:27.040 this state, or hold any real estate, or make any contract, 0:32:27.160 --> 0:32:30.560 or maintain any suit therein. And the Legislative Assembly shall 0:32:30.600 --> 0:32:33.600 provide by penal laws for the removal by public officers 0:32:33.720 --> 0:32:36.800 of all such free negroes and mulatto's and for their 0:32:36.840 --> 0:32:40.040 effectual exclusion from the state, and for the punishment of 0:32:40.120 --> 0:32:42.720 persons who shall bring them into the state or employer 0:32:42.880 --> 0:32:47.160 harbor them therein. Oregon remains the only state in the 0:32:47.320 --> 0:32:51.280 Union that ever banned black people from living there. Now 0:32:51.400 --> 0:32:54.600 things have gotten better since eighteen fifty nine, but better 0:32:54.800 --> 0:32:58.240 is a low bar. In Portland remains the whitest metropolitan 0:32:58.320 --> 0:33:02.560 area in the United States. Seventy of the population is white, 0:33:03.080 --> 0:33:06.520 less than six is black. Today, Portland's owns the distinction 0:33:06.600 --> 0:33:09.280 as one of the most gentrified cities in the United States. 0:33:09.760 --> 0:33:12.560 Oregon continues to report some of the worst graduation rates 0:33:12.640 --> 0:33:14.960 for black students in the nation, and the wealth gap 0:33:15.040 --> 0:33:17.720 between white and black oregon Ians over the last fifty 0:33:17.800 --> 0:33:21.280 years has whitened, not shrunk. I moved to Portland like 0:33:23.160 --> 0:33:25.000 like five and a half six years ago, I think, 0:33:26.040 --> 0:33:30.440 and from where I definitely I did from northern California 0:33:31.080 --> 0:33:35.720 Bay Area. Um, and I didn't really I didn't have 0:33:36.120 --> 0:33:40.080 a idea of what the city was per se, Like 0:33:41.000 --> 0:33:43.360 I've never seen an episode of port Land here, for instance. 0:33:43.400 --> 0:33:46.080 I just kind of moved up here that would be 0:33:46.120 --> 0:33:51.320 closed a family and and yeah, and when I when 0:33:51.320 --> 0:33:54.120 I kind of first got here, it was like, you 0:33:54.200 --> 0:33:56.400 know that hang out with a bunch of hippies, a 0:33:56.480 --> 0:33:59.920 bunch of people who loved trees and too right bikes 0:34:00.000 --> 0:34:01.560 and go hiking, and it's like, oh, they love the 0:34:01.680 --> 0:34:06.520 environment and they love progressive you know politics, and you know, 0:34:07.920 --> 0:34:11.000 and everything's just chill within. Like the longer I stayed here, 0:34:11.040 --> 0:34:17.600 the facade started to like fall away, and and it's 0:34:17.680 --> 0:34:20.120 I mean like I've been here for you know, almost 0:34:20.120 --> 0:34:22.480 six years now, and I still I don't quite know 0:34:24.000 --> 0:34:30.120 what to make of it still, you know, but like recently, um, 0:34:30.520 --> 0:34:33.960 like with the passage of or like with the most 0:34:34.000 --> 0:34:37.560 recent election, you know, like the local measures that passed 0:34:37.560 --> 0:34:43.239 and didn't pass. It's like like Oregon loves to have 0:34:43.360 --> 0:34:47.520 a black friend. That's what they like. They like to 0:34:47.640 --> 0:34:50.359 have somebody they can point to and be like, look, 0:34:50.960 --> 0:34:53.920 I'm not racist, but they don't. They're not interested in 0:34:54.080 --> 0:34:58.480 actually like challenging the like white supremacists like power structures 0:34:58.520 --> 0:35:05.120 that actually like benefit them and and if you like, 0:35:05.560 --> 0:35:07.840 if you agitate them on that, they just you know, 0:35:08.239 --> 0:35:12.319 that's that's when like the Pacific Northwest, like passive aggressiveness 0:35:12.360 --> 0:35:15.120 like kicks in and they just like kind of like 0:35:15.200 --> 0:35:18.920 try to ignore you, but secually they're totally fucking piste 0:35:18.960 --> 0:35:24.920 off that you dare to like insinuate their racist um. 0:35:26.080 --> 0:35:28.320 But yeah, that's like it's a really complicated thing and 0:35:28.560 --> 0:35:31.200 I still quite haven't figured out like what makes white 0:35:31.239 --> 0:35:36.400 people take here, but it's, you know, it's messy. Another 0:35:36.480 --> 0:35:39.759 activist we interviewed, Courtney, is an indigenous Hawaiian person who 0:35:39.800 --> 0:35:43.040 moved to Oregon when she was seventeen. She recalls being 0:35:43.239 --> 0:35:47.080 stunned by how white her school was. Ended up going 0:35:47.160 --> 0:35:51.440 to Oregon City High School, which was like insane. I 0:35:51.600 --> 0:35:57.640 was the only non Hispanic person that was that that school. UM, 0:35:58.120 --> 0:36:01.000 and nobody talked to me through really long time, and 0:36:01.080 --> 0:36:02.800 I just was kind of like it was a culture 0:36:02.840 --> 0:36:06.360 shock because there were so many white people that I 0:36:06.760 --> 0:36:10.319 had never seen this many white people in my entire 0:36:10.400 --> 0:36:15.000 life because everyone in hahaitis like mixed races, the majority 0:36:15.120 --> 0:36:19.600 of them are Asian or Polynesian. So um, I definitely 0:36:20.480 --> 0:36:23.279 was nobody really talked to me for a while, and 0:36:23.360 --> 0:36:26.280 I kind of like found my little niche of people 0:36:26.440 --> 0:36:30.520 to hang out with. UM. But yeah, like just even 0:36:30.640 --> 0:36:34.360 living in that area, I would get a lot of 0:36:34.520 --> 0:36:40.560 weird looks and um yeah, just not the most friendly 0:36:40.719 --> 0:36:46.200 people to to be around. Um yeah, that's basically it's 0:36:46.239 --> 0:36:49.880 just a culture shock to just be how white organ is. 0:36:50.440 --> 0:36:52.840 I just I didn't expect it at all. I didn't 0:36:52.920 --> 0:36:54.359 and I was like, I knew that they were going 0:36:54.400 --> 0:36:58.600 to be like Hispanic people, but I just didn't realize that. 0:36:59.160 --> 0:37:03.120 Um I thought maybe I would see more like black people. 0:37:03.640 --> 0:37:07.560 And especially living in a city, you know, when you're 0:37:07.800 --> 0:37:09.480 from what you you're like Sportland is just like a 0:37:09.600 --> 0:37:12.359 major city in the United States, and then coming here 0:37:12.400 --> 0:37:15.440 and not really seeing the mix of cultures was just 0:37:15.680 --> 0:37:18.960 kind of shocking. Tristan described the racism in Portland as 0:37:19.080 --> 0:37:21.839 unique in a subtle way. It's just it's very it's 0:37:21.960 --> 0:37:26.360 very covert or you know, it tries to be very covert. 0:37:27.719 --> 0:37:32.239 Um and it's very like like well, part part of 0:37:32.280 --> 0:37:35.520 what it is is that for a very long time now, 0:37:35.560 --> 0:37:38.160 there's barely been any people of co here at all. Like, 0:37:39.440 --> 0:37:41.000 you know, it's one of the widest states in the country. 0:37:41.080 --> 0:37:44.120 It's why it's major city in the country, and so like, 0:37:45.760 --> 0:37:50.120 to a certain extent, people are I don't actually know 0:37:50.800 --> 0:37:54.480 what like like what like a microaggression is or what 0:37:54.840 --> 0:38:01.000 that would be like, you know, I had to experience um, 0:38:02.800 --> 0:38:05.560 like just like a year, year and a half ago, 0:38:05.640 --> 0:38:10.840 maybe I was out with this group um these like 0:38:10.960 --> 0:38:15.600 forest offender type people. Every year they go out post 0:38:15.680 --> 0:38:18.920 this big camp out and you know, like go out 0:38:18.920 --> 0:38:20.719 into the woods and do like surveys and stuff like that, 0:38:20.920 --> 0:38:23.839 try to collect data they can use to to fight 0:38:23.880 --> 0:38:27.880 temper companies and ship and like someone us drop the 0:38:27.960 --> 0:38:31.680 N word like there's five ft for me, there's like 0:38:31.760 --> 0:38:36.920 in casual conversation, and then I had to like address 0:38:37.040 --> 0:38:40.360 the camp like at breakfast, and I was like, okay, 0:38:40.480 --> 0:38:45.279 so just just don't don't say that word. Like there's 0:38:45.320 --> 0:38:48.759 no like like like even if you're just telling a 0:38:48.800 --> 0:38:52.319 story that there's no appropriate context for a white person 0:38:52.400 --> 0:38:57.680 to say that. And and that's one of the reasons 0:38:57.760 --> 0:39:00.640 why I don't go to those fucking campouts anymo. But 0:39:00.760 --> 0:39:03.080 like it's like that, it's like they just don't they 0:39:03.120 --> 0:39:06.800 haven't been around black people or people of color in general, 0:39:06.880 --> 0:39:11.279 and they just don't know what to do. And of course, 0:39:11.440 --> 0:39:14.440 the racism that pervades Portland's is present in the Portland 0:39:14.480 --> 0:39:17.480 Police Bureau. Despite black people making up again less than 0:39:17.560 --> 0:39:20.520 six percent of the population. Portland police use force on 0:39:20.640 --> 0:39:23.319 black people more often than people of any other race. 0:39:23.880 --> 0:39:27.000 Portland police are five to fourteen times more likely to 0:39:27.080 --> 0:39:31.200 shoot impact munitions at and to forcibly restrain black residents. 0:39:31.760 --> 0:39:34.800 At one point in the late sixties, black Portlander's accounted 0:39:34.840 --> 0:39:38.760 for nearly half of p PBS arrests. Portland's black community 0:39:38.840 --> 0:39:41.760 has been fighting against this kind of racist violence for decades. 0:39:42.400 --> 0:39:45.360 Here's Max Meth again for me. The battle with the 0:39:45.440 --> 0:39:50.200 police began, you know, in the hip hop field. Um. 0:39:50.920 --> 0:39:53.279 There was an event here in Portland that happened maybe 0:39:53.360 --> 0:39:55.880 six or seven years ago. UM. That happened at a 0:39:55.920 --> 0:40:00.399 venue called the Blue Monk, And it was a pretty deal. 0:40:00.600 --> 0:40:03.480 And I was there and I had friends who were 0:40:03.520 --> 0:40:06.719 performing at the show, and the police essentially came under 0:40:06.800 --> 0:40:10.480 the guise of a capacity violation and brought like a 0:40:10.560 --> 0:40:14.239 seven cars and twenty something officers and shut the whole 0:40:14.280 --> 0:40:18.920 street of Belmont down And and that bar eventually actually 0:40:19.000 --> 0:40:23.040 ended up a closing shortly after that. Um, And it 0:40:23.160 --> 0:40:25.279 was a huge deal. They made a huge deal about 0:40:25.320 --> 0:40:28.239 a small thing, and it went like into like national news. 0:40:29.040 --> 0:40:34.799 And even prior to that, we had been really combating 0:40:35.840 --> 0:40:38.480 the efforts of the police to kind of shut down 0:40:38.600 --> 0:40:41.359 or stifle hip hop events in the city. Every time 0:40:41.400 --> 0:40:43.080 we wanted to have a hip hop event, it became like, 0:40:43.160 --> 0:40:46.120 you know, like a world war um, to the point 0:40:46.160 --> 0:40:48.200 that it ended up actually being a protest about the 0:40:48.280 --> 0:40:53.319 hip hop community here. And so that was a fight 0:40:53.440 --> 0:40:55.760 that we had as far as hip hop music and clubs, 0:40:55.800 --> 0:40:58.799 as far as hip hop events, as far as live music. Um. 0:40:59.040 --> 0:41:02.840 They really just used the city's resources that the police, 0:41:03.000 --> 0:41:05.920 the fire marshals and the o l c C To 0:41:06.120 --> 0:41:09.919 really like shut down hip hop and and and really 0:41:10.000 --> 0:41:13.960 any black lead events. Lawyer Allan Kessler has done a 0:41:14.040 --> 0:41:16.720 lot of digging into the early history of the Portland police. 0:41:16.920 --> 0:41:20.200 His research has revealed a century long history of Portland's 0:41:20.200 --> 0:41:24.879 police involvement with hate groups, most particularly the Ku Klux Klan. 0:41:25.280 --> 0:41:27.279 I think it was last Memorial that I spent the 0:41:27.320 --> 0:41:31.520 whole weekend in the Oregonian Archives basically living through World 0:41:31.560 --> 0:41:37.279 War two. It wasn't fun, uh and it's outrageous, Like 0:41:37.400 --> 0:41:40.400 the clan was on there was a front page column 0:41:41.080 --> 0:41:44.839 talked to a klansman every day for like a week, uh, 0:41:45.760 --> 0:41:47.400 and then every other day they had the clan on 0:41:47.440 --> 0:41:50.239 the front page anyway, but that you know, that was like, um, 0:41:50.560 --> 0:41:56.200 it was, yeah, it was incredible. Um. During the war, Uh, 0:41:57.920 --> 0:42:03.240 basically everybody, every adult white dude had a little star badge. 0:42:04.239 --> 0:42:07.279 They the police would basically deputize anybody or people just 0:42:07.320 --> 0:42:11.000 don't be badges made, so everybody in town had a badge. 0:42:11.040 --> 0:42:13.920 There were lots of articles in that time frame about um, 0:42:14.160 --> 0:42:17.359 fake police officer pulls over so and so and they sue. 0:42:17.960 --> 0:42:21.320 In ninety three, a Portland Telegram article reported that the 0:42:21.400 --> 0:42:25.239 Portland Police Bureau was quote full to the brink with klansmen. 0:42:25.800 --> 0:42:29.759 The police bureau actually deputized a hundred klansmen handpicked by 0:42:29.760 --> 0:42:34.360 the local Grand Dragon and designated them Portland Police vigilantes. 0:42:34.800 --> 0:42:36.840 This was before the p p A existed, but the 0:42:36.920 --> 0:42:40.200 tradition lives on. In two thousand ten, Portland police officer 0:42:40.320 --> 0:42:43.760 Mark Krueger was suspended for erecting a memorial to five 0:42:43.840 --> 0:42:47.640 deceased Nazi soldiers on city property. The p p A 0:42:47.719 --> 0:42:51.320 successfully sued for him to be reinstated and given an apology. 0:42:51.600 --> 0:42:54.680 When he quit in early he was the highest paid 0:42:54.760 --> 0:42:58.800 police officer on the force. I asked Maria, a lifelong 0:42:58.840 --> 0:43:02.919 Portland resident, her earliest memory of the police was here's 0:43:02.960 --> 0:43:05.319 what she told me. I would say it was when 0:43:05.440 --> 0:43:10.239 I was a child. Honestly, Um, I've had some some 0:43:10.719 --> 0:43:12.920 family stuff and a family member have to go to 0:43:13.040 --> 0:43:16.200 way to to prison. So I remember some like vaguely 0:43:16.280 --> 0:43:20.400 stuff like remember then as far as like police brutality wise. Um, 0:43:21.520 --> 0:43:24.239 the very first like murder I remember was Kindred James. Um, 0:43:24.320 --> 0:43:27.080 that will happen like a mile from my house. And 0:43:27.160 --> 0:43:28.839 I want to say I was like ten at the time. 0:43:29.320 --> 0:43:31.759 Kindred James was a twenty one year old black mother 0:43:31.880 --> 0:43:35.200 of two. She was killed under suspicious circumstances during a 0:43:35.280 --> 0:43:39.720 traffic stop. Her killer, officer, Scott McCallister, fired a single 0:43:39.840 --> 0:43:42.440 shot when James attempted to drive away from the traffic 0:43:42.520 --> 0:43:45.479 stop after the motion of the vehicle caused him to fall. 0:43:46.000 --> 0:43:48.040 A number of the statements he made in court were 0:43:48.120 --> 0:43:51.320 inconsistent with physical evidence required from the shooting, and we 0:43:51.400 --> 0:43:54.960 don't really know exactly what happened. Among other things, the 0:43:55.040 --> 0:43:57.640 police argued in court that Portland police were trained to 0:43:57.840 --> 0:44:02.040 quote shoot as they fall aslee f the police is 0:44:02.080 --> 0:44:05.279 how I grew up. My dad is a huge like 0:44:05.440 --> 0:44:07.719 Tupac fan, so like I would grow up on hearing 0:44:07.760 --> 0:44:10.720 tupac lyrics all the time, goal threw the police and everything. 0:44:11.200 --> 0:44:13.200 So yeah, I know, screw yeah, I know. That's how 0:44:13.320 --> 0:44:17.000 I like grew up. Yeah, um is to like not 0:44:17.120 --> 0:44:19.840 interact with them. Yeah, I've I've grown up. You know 0:44:20.480 --> 0:44:23.359 how a lot of us, you know, people who are black, 0:44:23.480 --> 0:44:25.920 feel like, you know, when we're being followed, profiled all that. 0:44:26.120 --> 0:44:28.520 I mean, I got profiled to dance in a store 0:44:28.680 --> 0:44:30.919 like it's it's still happened. It's been going on since 0:44:31.000 --> 0:44:32.399 a kid. I don't know if I don't know when 0:44:32.440 --> 0:44:35.680 it will stop. That you know, still goes on. Officer 0:44:35.800 --> 0:44:38.719 McCallister was acquitted in federal court. He got to keep 0:44:38.800 --> 0:44:41.120 his job, but even if he had been fired for 0:44:41.200 --> 0:44:45.239 the shooting, the firing might not have stuck. Nationwide, of 0:44:45.280 --> 0:44:48.720 police officers fired from his conductor reinstated because of union 0:44:48.840 --> 0:44:52.360 mandated appeals over the years, this has included an officer 0:44:52.440 --> 0:44:55.200 who challenged a handcuffed man to a fist fight for 0:44:55.320 --> 0:44:58.439 his freedom, and a copper sexually assaulted a young woman 0:44:58.520 --> 0:45:01.000 in his patrol car. In any cities, the number of 0:45:01.040 --> 0:45:06.200 police reinstated by union appeals is much higher than of 0:45:06.360 --> 0:45:10.400 fired san Antonio officers are reinstated because of union appeals. 0:45:10.719 --> 0:45:15.720 The number is six for Philly cops and for Minneapolis cops. 0:45:16.040 --> 0:45:18.440 This is part of why the people of Minneapolis burnt 0:45:18.560 --> 0:45:21.480 the Third Precinct to the ground after George Floyd's murder. 0:45:22.000 --> 0:45:25.680 They knew from experience that it was extremely likely Derek Chauvin, 0:45:25.760 --> 0:45:28.719 Floyd's killer, would not just avoid prison, but would soon 0:45:28.800 --> 0:45:31.480 be back on the street with a badge. In fact, 0:45:31.600 --> 0:45:34.319 as soon as Derek Chauvin and the other officers responsible 0:45:34.360 --> 0:45:37.680 for George Floyd's death were fired, police union head Bob 0:45:37.800 --> 0:45:41.440 Kroll started fighting to have them reinstated. He was concerned 0:45:41.480 --> 0:45:45.320 that they had been quote terminated without due process. Kroll 0:45:45.480 --> 0:45:48.040 was oddly unconcerned that the same thing was true of 0:45:48.200 --> 0:45:52.320 Mr Floyd. The fact that police officers are extremely difficult 0:45:52.320 --> 0:45:54.800 to fire even when they commit murder or rape on 0:45:54.880 --> 0:45:57.960 the job is a national problem. But it is a 0:45:58.160 --> 0:46:01.959 national problem that TRACE's act to a single place where 0:46:02.000 --> 0:46:05.960 else the city of Portland, Oregon, and more specifically to 0:46:06.160 --> 0:46:18.239 the Portland Police Association. We make sure to check out 0:46:18.280 --> 0:46:20.879 Drink Champs, your number one music podcast on the Black 0:46:20.920 --> 0:46:23.600 Effect Podcast Network. Host n O. R. E and D 0:46:23.760 --> 0:46:26.359 j E. F N sat down with artists and icon Yea, 0:46:26.800 --> 0:46:31.440 which Vulture called one most significant interviews. I literally had 0:46:31.520 --> 0:46:33.600 to go like Danos and I don't want to have 0:46:33.680 --> 0:46:35.680 to be the villain. But when I went and did 0:46:35.760 --> 0:46:39.759 the Donda thing, he returned and anybody had to sit 0:46:39.840 --> 0:46:43.080 back and watch the real leader. Check out Drink Champs 0:46:43.120 --> 0:46:46.120 conversation with Yea and many more legendary artists each and 0:46:46.200 --> 0:46:49.120 every Friday on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, 0:46:49.280 --> 0:46:53.680 or where ever you listen to your favorite shows. From 0:46:53.719 --> 0:46:57.440 Cavalry Audio, comes the new true crime podcast The Shadow 0:46:57.520 --> 0:47:01.760 Girls always wanted of it felt like to kill somebody 0:47:02.040 --> 0:47:05.520 and started laughing. Prosecutors described him as a serial killer, 0:47:05.640 --> 0:47:08.760 surt kicking up these girls, getting him in a position 0:47:08.840 --> 0:47:11.400 of vulnerability. When he got hold of their neck, that 0:47:11.560 --> 0:47:15.160 was it. I'm Caroline Asia, a journalist and lifelong resident 0:47:15.200 --> 0:47:18.240 at the Pacific Northwest. I grew up near the banks 0:47:18.280 --> 0:47:20.640 of the Green River and in the shadow of the 0:47:20.760 --> 0:47:23.520 killer that bears its name. How many times did you 0:47:23.600 --> 0:47:26.480 bring the camera? One of time? Just one time. He 0:47:26.560 --> 0:47:29.880 started fantasizing about having sex with his mother, and he 0:47:29.960 --> 0:47:34.000 fantasized about killing her. But this podcast isn't only about 0:47:34.040 --> 0:47:37.600 tracking down the killer. It's about the victims. We stayed 0:47:37.640 --> 0:47:40.120 in the woods. He always liked to go in the woods. 0:47:41.560 --> 0:47:43.960 All of the kind of strange, you know how it 0:47:44.040 --> 0:47:47.239 feels about prostitutes. Listen to The Shadow Girls on the 0:47:47.360 --> 0:47:50.800 I Heart Radio app, on Apple Podcasts or wherever you 0:47:50.880 --> 0:47:57.200 get your podcasts. The Black Effect Presinks features honest conversations 0:47:57.239 --> 0:48:00.840 and exclusive interviews, a space for artists, everyday people and 0:48:01.000 --> 0:48:06.319 listeners to amplify, elevate, and empower black voices with great conversations. 0:48:07.080 --> 0:48:09.560 Make sure to listen to The Black Effect Presents podcast 0:48:09.800 --> 0:48:12.960 on I Heart Radio, Apple podcast or wherever you get 0:48:13.000 --> 0:48:27.960 your podcast. The Portland Police Association or p p A 0:48:28.400 --> 0:48:31.440 is Portland's police union, and in a way, it's the 0:48:31.719 --> 0:48:34.239 police union because the p p A is actually the 0:48:34.400 --> 0:48:38.120 oldest functioning police union in the United States. Police had 0:48:38.120 --> 0:48:40.920 attempted to unionize several times before the p PA was 0:48:41.040 --> 0:48:44.040 established in nineteen forty two, but Portland was the first 0:48:44.080 --> 0:48:45.920 city to get it right, and the p p A 0:48:46.040 --> 0:48:47.960 has served as a model for the rest of the 0:48:48.080 --> 0:48:52.200 nation's law enforcement ever since. Every other police union in 0:48:52.320 --> 0:48:56.160 the United States is based off of the Portland Police Association, 0:48:56.680 --> 0:48:58.919 and one of the many trends that pp A set 0:48:59.320 --> 0:49:03.560 was in suing to reinstate fired officers. This story starts 0:49:03.600 --> 0:49:06.920 on the night of March twelfth, nine, when two Portland 0:49:06.960 --> 0:49:10.240 Police officers from the North Precinct dumped four dead possums 0:49:10.280 --> 0:49:12.960 in the doorway of the Burger Barn, one of Portland's 0:49:12.960 --> 0:49:16.600 few black owned businesses. The use of the word possum 0:49:16.719 --> 0:49:19.560 as a derogatory term for black Americans dates back as 0:49:19.640 --> 0:49:22.520 far as eighteen thirty. The owner of the Burger Barn, 0:49:22.800 --> 0:49:26.200 George Powell, called the Police Commissioner to report the incident 0:49:26.320 --> 0:49:28.360 and claimed that it was only the latest example of 0:49:28.400 --> 0:49:32.480 police harassment his business had faced. An internal investigation was 0:49:32.600 --> 0:49:36.680 opened and the officers responsible, Ward and Galloway, admitted their 0:49:36.680 --> 0:49:40.440 guilt immediately. Their identity was initially kept hidden thanks to 0:49:40.520 --> 0:49:42.759 a clause in the pp A contract with the city 0:49:42.840 --> 0:49:46.920 that protected officers from having their names disclosed during disciplinary proceedings. 0:49:47.480 --> 0:49:49.680 This is another one of the innovations that the Portland 0:49:49.719 --> 0:49:53.439 Police Association brought to police departments nationwide. By the way, 0:49:53.800 --> 0:49:56.480 the possum incident happened at an awkward time for the 0:49:56.520 --> 0:49:59.920 Portland Police, several officers had just been fired and convict 0:50:00.040 --> 0:50:02.719 did a faking evidence and using illegal drugs on the job. 0:50:03.120 --> 0:50:05.480 Nearly a hundred criminal cases had to be thrown out 0:50:05.560 --> 0:50:08.680 because of falsified evidence. Public opinion of the police bureau 0:50:08.800 --> 0:50:11.759 was low, and when Portland or started marching and demonstrating 0:50:11.800 --> 0:50:14.279 to demand that officers Ward and Galloway by fired, the 0:50:14.360 --> 0:50:18.040 police commissioner was only too happy to oblige them. Enter 0:50:18.520 --> 0:50:22.640 Stan Peters, the most powerful union president Portland has ever had. 0:50:23.160 --> 0:50:25.800 Peters took to every local news show in town. He 0:50:25.920 --> 0:50:29.640 circulated petitions. He even organized a massed protest march made 0:50:29.719 --> 0:50:33.000 up of Portland police officers and their families. He forced 0:50:33.040 --> 0:50:36.440 the city government into arbitration, which ended with both officers 0:50:36.560 --> 0:50:40.120 being rehired and given back pay. There's actually a book 0:50:40.120 --> 0:50:44.600 about the Portland Police Association, Pickets, Pistols and Politics. Alan 0:50:44.680 --> 0:50:47.680 Kessler informed us of its existence. Here's what it says 0:50:47.719 --> 0:50:51.200 about the court case that resolved the Possum incident. Quote. 0:50:52.000 --> 0:50:54.840 The City of Portland versus Ward and Galloway case is 0:50:54.960 --> 0:50:58.560 still the leading police discipline case in the United States 0:50:58.880 --> 0:51:02.760 and in labor laws. Circles is the arbitration decision referred 0:51:02.800 --> 0:51:07.360 to the most often it's legal nomenclature is simply City 0:51:07.560 --> 0:51:10.560 of Portland. And so in the end, it really isn't 0:51:10.600 --> 0:51:12.960 that odd that the City of Portland wound up as 0:51:13.040 --> 0:51:16.120 ground zero for a battle against white supremacy and police 0:51:16.160 --> 0:51:20.239 brutality and a battle for black lives. It's actually been 0:51:20.360 --> 0:51:23.799 that for a very, very long time. As much as 0:51:24.040 --> 0:51:27.000 people have just kind of started to contextualize how Antifa 0:51:27.040 --> 0:51:30.320 has been fighting against these shuds here for years, you know, 0:51:30.760 --> 0:51:33.279 it actually isn't just the last couple of years where 0:51:33.320 --> 0:51:34.680 it's been in the news. It has been going off 0:51:34.719 --> 0:51:38.680 for decades in Portland. There's always been a level of 0:51:38.800 --> 0:51:41.719 especially in southeast of Portland, has always been like even 0:51:41.800 --> 0:51:43.480 like in the eighties has been like, you know, these 0:51:43.560 --> 0:51:46.880 white skinhead groups and the sharps, has always kind of 0:51:47.000 --> 0:51:50.640 been like a race war between the white folks in Portland, 0:51:50.960 --> 0:51:53.520 especially in the southeast. Over the course of the summer, 0:51:53.560 --> 0:51:57.560 of Portland's wounds were exposed to the world after George 0:51:57.600 --> 0:52:01.480 Floyd's gruesome murder accelerated long brutal unrest across the country 0:52:01.600 --> 0:52:04.880 and even the globe. The Northwest's liberal bastion was forced 0:52:04.920 --> 0:52:08.120 to reckon with its own deeply anti black traditions, while 0:52:08.160 --> 0:52:11.000 also becoming an unlikely epicenter in a movement for black 0:52:11.080 --> 0:52:14.279 lives that had taken the world by storm. Thousands took 0:52:14.320 --> 0:52:16.200 to the streets in a battle that would be fought 0:52:16.200 --> 0:52:20.560 against a corrupt police force, Trump's federal agents, right wing vigilantes, 0:52:20.640 --> 0:52:24.040 and even at times between protesters themselves. Through it all, 0:52:24.160 --> 0:52:26.680 people banded together to support each other and build the 0:52:26.719 --> 0:52:29.359 infrastructure that would propel the city to a hundred plus 0:52:29.520 --> 0:52:32.920 days of protests that even the strongest tear gas couldn't end. 0:52:33.480 --> 0:52:35.480 In the next episode, we will delve into how a 0:52:35.600 --> 0:52:39.360 disorganized crowd of angry Portlanders turned themselves into a movement 0:52:39.560 --> 0:52:41.840 that could stand up to the worst violence the Trump 0:52:41.880 --> 0:52:48.160 administration could throw at it. Uh or the grand Pops 0:52:48.200 --> 0:52:51.640 who couldn't fathom the obamacist hate America just to mean 0:52:51.760 --> 0:52:55.520 she keeps the promises looking like the sixties. It's crazy 0:52:55.800 --> 0:52:58.680 a nation wide days are what my people posted, Dove 0:52:59.160 --> 0:53:01.919 go to schools and aimed after the clan founder we're 0:53:01.960 --> 0:53:04.800 around town is you don't see why were frowning Native 0:53:04.840 --> 0:53:08.399 American students forced to learn about when o'pellah Sarah? How 0:53:08.560 --> 0:53:12.360 is that fair? Bro? Some hero's unsung in Some monsters 0:53:12.400 --> 0:53:14.600 get monuments built for them, but it ain't be all 0:53:14.680 --> 0:53:17.680 a little bit of monster. We crook it. Man, Your 0:53:17.719 --> 0:53:20.799 heroes are worthless and man can show private. Only God 0:53:20.880 --> 0:53:34.200 gives purpose to crook it. This is Roxanne Gay, the 0:53:34.280 --> 0:53:37.640 host of The Roxanne Gay Agenda, the bad feminist podcast 0:53:37.719 --> 0:53:41.200 of your Dreams. Each week I talked to an interesting 0:53:41.320 --> 0:53:46.000 person about feminism, race, writing in books, and art, food, 0:53:46.480 --> 0:53:51.360 culture and yes, politics, we can't escape politics. Listen to 0:53:51.440 --> 0:53:55.560 the luminary original podcast, The Roxanne Gay Agenda every Tuesday 0:53:55.680 --> 0:53:59.440 on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever 0:53:59.600 --> 0:54:04.719 you could your podcasts. What Girls in the Forest, our 0:54:04.800 --> 0:54:09.560 imagination and our family bonds. The forest is closer than 0:54:09.600 --> 0:54:12.480 you think. Find a forest near you and discover the 0:54:12.520 --> 0:54:15.200 forest dot Org brought to you by the United States 0:54:15.320 --> 0:54:20.239 Forest Service and the AD Council. Look for your children's 0:54:20.280 --> 0:54:23.920 eyes and you will discover the true magic of a forest. 0:54:24.680 --> 0:54:27.760 Find a forest near you and start exploring it. Discover 0:54:27.880 --> 0:54:30.400 the Forest dot Org brought to you by the United 0:54:30.480 --> 0:54:32.440 States Forest Service and the AD Council.