Ein genta í Portland, Oregon, sum á hesum stað plagar at dansa um træið á jólum, lyftir nevan úr bilinum, sum er á Pioneer Courthuse Square í miðbýnum, har mannamúgvan mótmælir ta viðferð, sum svørt eru fyri um alt landið, tá tey møta løgregluni. 46 ára gamli George Floyd, sum doyði 25. mai í løgregluhondum á gøtuni í Minneapolis, Minnesota, er nýggjasta orsøkin til tær mótmælisgongur, ið nú fara um alt landið (Foto: Matthew Workman)
Matthew Workman skrivar, fotograferar og hevur gjørt ljóðupptøku til Birkblog úr miðbýnum í Portland, Oregon, har hann býr og var við í stóru mótmælisgongunum mánadagin og týsdagin:
We were halfway across the Burnside Bridge when the fists went up. This was the signal for the chanting to stop. Silently thousands of us laid face down on the pavement for 9 minutes. It was unusually quiet for an urban setting. All you could hear was the sound from a nearby freeway, a helicopter, and a drone overhead. There was one other sound, but it was so quiet you almost couldn’t hear it. It was the soft weeping of many of the protesters, the sound muffled by the masks they were wearing.
For almost a week, I had watched scenes of protests in American cities, including the one I live in, Portland, Oregon. Many of the protests in Portland have turned violent, with businesses being looted, fires set, and buildings vandalized. The response from police has also been violent, with teargas, flash-bang grenades, and batons used to drive back crowds. The mayor of Portland imposed a citywide curfew, but then police said it would only be selectively enforced.
Then on Monday, organizers held a march that was the largest yet. The march was peaceful and created enough trust that the mayor rescinded the curfew. When I saw a tweet saying the same organizers would be holding a march on Tuesday, I decided it was time to go.
When writing for an audience outside the United States, it’s hard to know where to start in telling the story of these protests. Do you start with George Floyd? (Killed by a police officer in Minneapolis who knelt on Floyd’s neck for almost 9 minutes.) Breonna Taylor? (Killed by police in Louisville while asleep in her home.) Ahumaud Arbery? (Killed while jogging through a predominantly white neighborhood in Georgia.) These murders happened in the last few weeks. Do you go back further to include Tamir Rice? (Killed in 2014 by police in Ohio for holding a toy gun.) Eric Garner? (Choked to death by New York police in 2014 for selling loose cigarettes.) Michael Brown? (Killed by police in Missouri in 2014.) Trayvon Martin? (Killed for holding a bag of Skittles in 2012.) Should we go back further? Maybe Emmett Till? (Lynched in Mississippi in 1955 for allegedly whistling at a white woman.) Should we go all the way back to 1619, the year African slaves were introduced to the English colony of Virginia?
That’s more than we can accomplish in a blog post, and I’m not the best source of information regarding the black experience in America. But it’s at least important to understand that the United States has a long history of systemic racism. And even though the most blatant manifestations of it (slavery, legalized segregation) are gone, systemic racism still exists. Evidence of it can be found in policing, poverty, housing, drug laws, and even urban design.
But the fact that things are better than they were 50 or 150 years ago makes it easy for white people, like me, to assume that all the problems have been solved and that any problems being experienced in other communities must be due to the personal failings of whatever individuals are involved.
If you’re white, there’s ample evidence of this. After all, I was once so poor I didn’t know where my next meal was coming from. I even lived in a car for a few months. Nothing privileged about that. But now I live in a house in the Portland suburbs and have a college degree and have had all sorts of opportunities. Did my parent’s help me pay for college? Yes. But almost everyone I know got some help with college.
As for law enforcement, I’ve had many interactions with police over the years, and almost all of them have been positive. When I got pulled over a few years ago for running a yellow light, I had no reason to worry that my life might be in danger. We actually had a pleasant conversation, shared a few laughs, and he even let me off with a warning. In fact, in the last ten years, I’ve been pulled over by police four times. Each encounter was pleasant, and each time I was let off with a warning.
In the world I live in, all of this is unremarkable, it’s just how things are in America. But the news of the past few years, and especially the last few months, suggest my viewpoint is wrong. Black people in America have been sounding the alarm for years, decades really, about harsh police tactics used against them. And now that we’re more than 10 years into the smartphone era, there is ample video evidence of the truth of those claims. Evidence that cannot be denied, not even by a middle-aged white suburbanite.
So what I thought was “normal” actually turns out to be “privilege.” So I’m left with the question of what to do with that privilege. To be honest, I don’t know. But when I saw the notice about the march, I figured it was a good place to listen and to learn, and to be another body in a sea of individuals saying, “You know those people who are saying that things are wrong and they need to change? They’re right.”
Protesters met in some fields next to a former school. The fields occupy about three city blocks, and when I arrive the area is full. Many thousands of people were there. One of the march organizers briefed us on the route we would take, led us in a few chants, and gave some safety tips. And after that, it was time to march.
The march filled the street for several blocks. This was not a permitted parade, so no police were on hand for traffic control. Groups of protesters on bicycles went ahead of the march to block the streets. They did a good job. Many drivers got out of their cars to applaud marchers. Others set up tables offering free bottles of water, food, and masks to marchers. While the march was certainly a major inconvenience for drivers, I never saw so much as an upturned middle finger from those who had to wait.
We marched down East Burnside, which divides the north and south sides of Portland. As we crossed the river, we stopped, and laid ourselves face down on the pavement for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, the length of time Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin knelt on George Floyd’s neck. It was physically painful to lay down on that pavement. The surface was hot, and because the bridge was crowded, I had to prop my head up with my arms to keep from hitting the feet of the person in front of me. My muscles started to cramp. It hurt.
It was much more emotionally painful, however. When laying face-down, in the silence, you realize 8 minutes and 46 seconds is a long time. You’re left alone with your thoughts. You become conscious of every breath you’re taking, and every breath George Floyd didn’t get to take. You imagine what it would be like if this was the last thing you ever experienced. And in that terrible silence comes the tears. Tears for the senseless loss of life. Tears for the countless years this sort of thing has been going on. Tears of regret for the years of silent complicity that I and other white people have been guilty of.
When it was over, we got up, dusted ourselves off, and started chanting again. “Say his name! George Floyd!” We marched to the west side of the river and towards Pioneer Courthouse Square. The square is a place of public gatherings in Portland and home to the occasional concert. The city’s Christmas tree is there in December.
The square occupies an entire city block, but it was clear the crowd wasn’t going to fit. From where I was standing, I wasn’t able to hear the speakers who were there to talk about their experiences of racism in Portland. Around 8:30, I walked towards the western edge of the central city. The marches had shut down public transit in the city center, but you could catch a light rail train if you walked a mile to the west. So I did.
Later that night, back at home, I turned on the TV and saw familiar images of tear gas and flash-bang grenades being lobbed by police, and water bottles and fireworks being lobbed by protesters. The news reports said the nature of the protests changed around 9:15, after most of the peaceful protesters had left. The people I saw on the streets bore little resemblance to those I had marched with a few hours earlier. They were dressed differently, and were overwhelmingly white. During the earlier march, I didn’t see a single act of violence. I didn’t even see a police officer during the course of the evening. To be fair, I was in the middle of the march, so if the column of people at the front did encounter police, I wouldn’t have seen that.
So I went to a march, and felt good about myself for doing so. Now what? For starters, more marching. These marches have becoming nightly events, so I will attend more of them and add my voice to the others. But just marching isn’t the end goal. These marches are about police brutality, and how black people in America don’t have a reasonable expectation that police who are sworn to protect and serve the people will protect and serve them. They’re about black people getting killed by police, police who are not being held accountable. I’m sure they’re about more than that, too. The fact I can’t list those other things is proof that I need to do more listening and learning.
And I don’t know the solution to these problems that have plagued us for centuries. More accountability for police officers seems like a start, but it’s bigger than that. Whole systems are going to have to change, systems that concentrate money among a small group of people that already have it, systems that create segregated housing more than 50 years after that was declared illegal, systems that make police believe they can be violent to minorities and not face repercussions. And sitting here at my computer sorting through my thoughts from the past few days, I don’t know what forms that change should take. But I do know the change has to happen. Now.
In sociology, there’s the concept of the “social contract.” The idea is that society works because the vast majority of citizens agree to live by the laws and social norms of a community without any coercion from government or the police. The police are there to deal with the small number of people who violate that social contract as it is reflected in our laws. What we’re seeing on the streets of America right now is a renegotiation of the social contract. Some of that renegotiation becomes literal when mayors and police chiefs invite protest leaders into their offices to talk. Sometimes it’s more subtle, like when police let a peaceful, but unpermitted march pass through a city.
This renegotiation process is messy and there is no guarantee it’s going to work. In my lifetime, we as a nation have found ourselves at this point at least a half-dozen times, and yet here we are again. Maybe this moment will fizzle out, too, only to return after more of people of color die at the hands of police.
I don’t know. But what I do know is that I’ve heard more people, specifically white people, talk about racial justice, white privilege and police violence in the last week than in the last 15 years combined. So maybe, maybe things will be different. Maybe we’ll get some lasting structural reforms to policing and laws and the systems that have upheld white power for hundreds of years. Maybe.
The negotiation is ongoing. Wish us luck.
Myndin av Matthew Workman, sum skrivar ferðabrævið úr Portland, Oregon er tikin í summarmjørkanum í Havn í fjør summar.