I went to today’s protest in Portland, down by the Justice Center downtown, and learned a few things. My biggest takeaway is that there seemed to be four different reasons people turned out... https://twitter.com/iwriteok/status/1267265498833539073

1-There are people who will be straight up pepper sprayed later, if not arrested. I just walked past the lead car in a breakaway march pausing to do doughnuts in the middle of an intersection. These people are no doubt of the same kind as those who are responsible for this...

...weekend’s looting all over town. These actions dishearten me. While I can’t know what they truly think and feel, I can see that their individual decisions alienate, and distort our message as it reaches potentially sympathetic ears. 2-There are a lot of truly hurt humans...

...with a valid axe to grind. I watched a few powerful speakers address these people directly, employing them to look at the police officers around us as individuals, accepting of this protest, and only cogs in the real problem that is the machine. But understandably, there...

...many people for whom this felt like too little, too late, and this resulted in clashes over concessions like moving the protest off of the roadways and onto the greenspace of the park. I wonder what this mindset means for the movement, but I also wonder if it is a necessary...

...ingredient for this recipe. 3-There were people like me, just here to listen, learn, and support. I learned the most from Xian, the activist in the first tweet of this thread, an activist originally from TX, with a real passion for big picture reform. There were also a lot...