Portland friends,

If you’re anything like me, you may be distracted by life - work, kids, global health pandemic, ongoing racial pandemic - and you may not realize what is happening in our city. But for the last 30 days a largely white fringe factor has wreaked havoc.

Last week they tried to burn down the NE Portland Police precinct with people inside and did damage to black-owned businesses. Yesterday, some attacked the union headquarters in North Portland and yelled at a black woman who tried to break it up saying go “f*&%” yourself.

This is NOT the Black Lives Matter movement. This is chaos. As my friend Ron Herndon shared as they descended upon his neighborhood, “It has nothing to do with helping Black people. These hoodlums are needlessly scaring neighbors and their children.”

Black Lives Do Matter, and I’m grateful to the Rose City Justice folks and leaders like Lamar Wise, Faith Community Leaders, PAALF, UNITE Oregon who have lead non-violent protest and resistance and have actively begun to re-look at investments and policies...

…that address the centuries old issues that contribute to the needless killing of black men and women.

These white actors are enacting dominance in a different form under the guise of equity and its infuriating as it is simultaneously destroying our city while distracting attention away from the actual movement that is SO NEEDED. White supremacy has many forms.

You want to help Black lives? Help investments in education so my son and daughter can thrive. Come to policy tables to disentangle the structural racism that perpetuates these inequities. But please, for the love of God, stop this craziness in the name of my humanity.

Portland friends,

PLEASE SPEAK UP. We need to put an end to this distracting force and focus on the task at hand that is REALLY critical now.