Reflections from a Portland #NoBanNoWall protest
You know that feeling you get in a mosh pit, high on adrenaline, wondering if you’re going to get hurt dancing? I’m shorter than most people and have been bitten (hard) on the top of my head, so I tend to stand off to the side to watch everyone else hurl their bodies around. I feel similarly about political protests; excited to be there, wondering if I’m going to get mashed, whether a fight is going to break out, and what my exit strategy should be if it gets dicey.
Before this week, the last protest I attended was a rally against prejudice when skinheads were a frightening force in Portland, Oregon. In 1988 white supremacists murdered Mulugeta Seraw, an Ethiopian student, beating him to death with a baseball bat in a pleasant Southeast Portland neighborhood. In 1989 a skinhead on the bus told me to go back to where I came from. I ignored him and refrained from telling him I grew up in Indiana, where his nasty intolerance would have been more accepted than my inclusive worldview.
This week I joined a #NoBanNoWall protest rally, four blocks from where the skinhead hassled me on the bus 28 years ago. White supremacism remains alive and well in the United States of America in the form of boldly sneaky politicians hell-bent on infusing racial and ethnic intolerance into the fabric of this country in the name of making America “great” again. It is critical to call this attempt at Aryan nation building exactly what it is and not allow it to be an acceptable part of America, a country wealthy in diversity.
My friend Hannah and I walked to the protest rally at Terry Schrunk Plaza and stood in the mud with a few hundred other people. In 1960 my father immigrated to New Jersey from Cyprus. My mother’s grandfather fled Russia for New York, then fought on behalf of the United States in World War I. It was poignant to hear the immigrant speakers share their stories and concern about their futures under the Trump administration.
An Iraqi man said he immigrated to the United States to escape Saddam Hussein’s rule. Lately he’s been having flashbacks to his days of fearfully looking over his shoulder in Iraq, and wonders what his future holds, whether he will be allowed to stay in his adopted country. It’s a sad irony that he escaped one oppressive regime only to find himself facing another in the supposedly free world.
Another speaker, a white American man, had prepared an impassioned speech for the occasion. He bellowed into the megaphone “a blackness is spreading across the country!” and was met with uncomfortable silence. He repeated himself more loudly, and the crowd started booing. He seemed encouraged, interpreting the booing as supportive of his stance against this situation of “spreading blackness.” When it finally dawned on him that using “blackness” to describe a negative phenomenon was racially insulting, he hung his head and muttered “I shouldn’t be here” and shuffled away. Later, he came back and apologized to the crowd (we cheered), but he was unable to continue with his speech and left. I felt badly for him; he was clearly well intentioned, but his word choice was comically lousy. Maybe he’ll put a “black lives matter” sign in his yard.
During the rally, a pickup truck flying a huge Trump flag cruised by, its occupants yelling at the crowd. The passenger waved a gun out the window. As they rounded the corner, several police cars surrounded the truck. The news reported that the weapon waved was a replica gun but there was a (real) AR-15 in the truck as well. The gun waving passenger, Sergey Antonov, was booked on 2nd degree disorderly conduct. He later commented “It had nothing to do with the protest and I love all people. It had nothing to do with hate or anything.” When did waving a gun at a protest became an expression of love for humanity? I can’t help wondering when and why Sergey Antonov’s family immigrated to this country.
Trump voters flocked to him because he represents change. America has an increasing number of understandably disenfranchised people as manufacturing jobs disappear overseas, the middle class shrinks, the poor get poorer, and the rich get richer. But voters who elect a president whose plan for change consists of exclusionary and oppressive policies are shortsighted at best, racist at worst. Ironically, the disenfranchised voters who elected Trump will not get their jobs back, may lose their health insurance if the Affordable Care Act is dismantled, and are at risk of becoming even less financially secure than they are now. But they will probably get to keep their guns and may well be forced to carry their unintended pregnancies to term, and at least they don’t have to suffer the indignity of a female president.
Over the next four years, I will do my part to hold government accountable for maintaining the rights of all people who live in and come to this country of ours. I will vote in the next election, but only once, because I’m honest and only registered to vote in one state, unlike Jared Kushner, Sean Spicer, Stephen Bannon, Tiffany Trump, who are all registered to vote in two states, and Trump’s voter fraud expert Gregg Phillips, who is a registered voter in three states. Welcome to the mosh pit, my fellow Americans. It’s going to be a long, rough show.
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