Nothing sets back the cause of racial justice more than white men who continue to do nothing to hold entities like the police and white supremacists accountable. https://twitter.com/alex_zee/status/1316117575860809728

Please don't whitesplain racial justice to people of color when you enable the violence that intrudes upon our daily existence.

Own your failures, you have enabled a police force that has been unaccountable for your entire mayorship.

Black people are still being disproportionately stopped.

Protesters are still being disproportionately attacked.

White silence is violence.

Multiple things can be true:
- you can take ownership for your failures in policing
- you can take ownership for Portland being unsafe for marginalized communities

*AND*

- Damage to cultural items and spaces including those developed by marginalized communities is wrong.

We are witnessing everlasting and generational trauma and our Mayor is not the slight bit trauma informed. It's deeply disappointing.

People are angry because they feel fundamentally unsafe. They can put on a smile, they can be functional, but they feel unsafe and they shouldn't have to feel that way.

No amount of police reform is going to fix that trauma. It may bring some semblance of justice but it doesn't bring healing. This is precisely why these protests continue, because we haven't built spaces for justice or healing.

As a teacher, when I had a student afflicted with trauma, I created content and space so they could feel heard. So that they could feel empowered again. So they could feel supported. So that they could liberate themselves and speak their truths. So they could self-empower.

This is what Portland needs, but it's not what it's getting. You see at the next protest what happens when instead of the Portland Police you send out counselors from BIPOC communities what kind of environment you build. You show people, we're building healing.

Instead night after night is an endless volley of violence because we aren't listening to hearts we're seeking revenge, suppression and hate. This doesn't bring us to justice and healing, it brings us to a cycle of inevitable violence.

But people fundamentally can't get this, unless they've lived it. Unless they've fundamentally done it. And this is tiresome, hard, good work, that we pay counselors $40k a year to do and give cops three times their salary to not do.

Let me say this clearly, I want Portland to heal. I want to see a direct cut of the police budget to pay for that healing. Any plan that omits this and doesn't lead to transformation doesn't matter.

I'm exhausted.