A small patch of Portland looks like a war zone, but it’s the federal agents who are aggressive, an activist says
The unrest in Portland is “worse than Afghanistan,” President Donald Trump said this week to justify using federal forces against protesters.
Julia De Santis has never been to Afghanistan, but she can’t imagine it’s as congenial as Portland, even under current circumstances, she told Street Roots.
De Santis, who moved from New Jersey to Portland last year, said she doesn’t recognize the Portland described by Trump.
She and her boyfriend drove through downtown one night shortly after Trump compared the city to Afghanistan.
“We were listening to a political current events podcast that we like,” she said. “They were talking quite a bit about Portland. This is a liberal-leaning show, and they were even describing Portland as a war zone.”
Yet Southwest Morrison Street seemed strangely unravaged.
“It was sort of eerie, driving down Southwest Morrison — totally silent, clean and empty — while they described the situation,” De Santis said. “Of course, the scene a few blocks away at the Justice Center would have been totally different, but I think people all over the country are getting an image of all of Portland being a hot, hot mess right now.”
Portland activist Clarice Keating regularly joins the Wall of Moms, a group of mothers who form a human barricade to protect protesters from federal agents. Even though Keating is in the thick of things, she said she realizes that things are not all that thick in terms of geography.
“You can’t even tell from a block away that there’s something odd going on,” she said.
Events do turn decidedly intense at night in front of the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse on Southwest Third Avenue. The building is now boarded up and covered with the often-obscene graffiti that spreads slightly to the surrounding neighborhood.
Protests throughout the world, including Portland, began in the wake of the May 25 police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Minneapolis police Officers Derek Chauvin, J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao have been charged in the killing of Floyd, who was Black.
Activist Julianne Jackson, of Salem, told Street Roots that Portland protesters seemed to be losing some momentum when Trump sent in federal agents, many of them from the Border Patrol Tactical Unit of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
The New York Times reported that the border agents, who have been using tear gas and physical force against protesters, are often not trained to respond to riots or mass demonstrations. Protesters and even bystanders report being apprehended by unidentified agents and pulled into unmarked vehicles for interrogation.
“I’ve seen the unmarked vans,” Jackson said. “I haven’t really seen anyone get snatched.”
Nonetheless, she and her fellow protesters have been tear-gassed and assaulted with batons. A few protesters have been violent and destructive, Jackson said, but “the vast majority are super peaceful and don’t want any of this.”
The most violent and dangerous elements downtown represent the government, she said. They’re the ones turning a small patch of Portland into a war-torn nightmare, she said.
“The aggression, the vitriol, it’s really incredible to witness,” Jackson said. “You really feel like there’s a certain point in the evening, no matter how good things were in the beginning of the evening, that it looks like a war zone.”
A typical night of protest unfolds nonviolently, she said, until federal agents decide, usually with no specific provocation, to break out the tear gas and batons. “That’s usually when it turns weird,” Jackson said.
This is not the first time Portland has been compared to an international hot spot. Members of President George H.W. Bush’s administration gave Portland the nickname “Little Beirut” because of the protesters who greeted him when he visited the city.
Jackson works closely with the Wall of Moms. She and a group of young activists bring the moms food and other provisions.
“We’re getting all these folks organized so we’re not only doing the work after dark; we’re also doing it in the daytime,” Jackson said.
The Wall of Moms is a powerful image, said activist Kim Schmidt, of Woodburn.
Images of moms protecting protesters from federal forces reminds many observers, including Schmidt, of authoritarian crackdowns by right-wing regimes in Argentina and Chile where mothers famously demanded accountability for the thousands of people who “disappeared.”
As soon as the unmarked vans appeared, Schmidt told Street Roots, she feared Portland was only the beginning. Trump has since announced he plans to send federal agents for similar crackdowns in Chicago and Albuquerque, N.M.
While there are larger protests in other cities, Schmidt said, the common denominator in the cities selected by Trump is their liberal reputations.
“The City of Roses simply produced an irritating thorn to vex 45’s side, and he wanted to make it his first example of weaponizing law enforcement on a larger scale,” she said.
Tracie Fenske, a paralegal in Minneapolis, where Floyd was killed and the protests began, said she has already seen some ominous signs — even though Trump has not specifically said he will send agents to her city.
“I fear their presence is already in the Twin Cities,” she told Street Roots. “I saw a car on the highway this past Saturday with ‘Police’ printed on the side. Local police vehicles always list the name of their city, never just ‘Police.’ I got a quick glimpse of the license plate and saw the word ‘federal’ on it but could not read the rest. The driver was wearing camouflage.”
Meanwhile, daytime life in Portland — even across from the federal building — goes on as if the protests never happened. People bike and walk through the neighborhood with only a third or so of them wearing masks.
One might also think there’s a summer festival going on in the plaza across the street. Visitors can buy Black Lives Matter merchandise and other goods from a street vendor or try a plate of Riot Ribs.
It’s all very Portland, Schmidt said. “Portland’s a maverick city for a maverick state,” she said. “It’s beautiful and rightly touted as one of America’s most scenic cities. It’s also free-spirited, big-hearted, quirky, artistic, imaginative, visionary, gritty.”
Protests were no longer an issue until the Trump administration decided to use Portland as the stage for the president’s political theater, she said.
Before the federal crackdown, the protests drew about 100 people nightly to the Multnomah County Justice Center for occasional marches and rallies, Day said. “People are now back out on the streets because of the escalation of violence,” she said.
PHOTOS: The progression of police response to Portland protests
Jackson said the federal forces are desecrating what is an otherwise beautiful moment of people coming together.
Jackson, who is African American, moved to Salem from North Carolina, from a school made up primarily of Black students to the Salem-Keizer School District, where just a small fraction of students are Black.
“I really didn’t even know I had allies,” she said. “Speaking out on these issues would have made my life really uncomfortable.”
Life is a little more comfortable now for people of color because of the protests, she said.
“People of color are really seeing some hope in their communities,” she said. “It’s also great that racists are being outed left and right.”
She organized the group End White Silence, and more than 1,000 people gathered at the state Capitol on June 13 for an event called “End White Silence — White People for Black Lives.”
She’s also been working to remove school resource officers from Salem-Keizer public schools.
“We’ve come up against walls, but we have overwhelming student support,” she said.
Her work in Salem inspired her to join the protests in Portland.
“I witnessed the police here become militarized. After what I saw in Salem, I was definitely interested in what was going on in Portland,” Jackson said.
Kelliann Amico, of Portland, said she’s been similarly inspired by the protests.
“Real change requires disruption as a precursor, and disruption is uncomfortable and even unpredictable,” Amico told Street Roots. “Silent and peaceful protests have not been effective at eradicating Black oppression. My hope is that the disruption occurring in Portland and other cities will evoke long overdue and righteous change.”
Portland is not a war zone, Amico said. “Yes, there is widespread evidence of the earlier protests, including damage caused by extremists with agendas that may not align with Black Lives Matter, but there is a lot of street graffiti art throughout the downtown core that shines a positive light on this movement.”
PHOTOS: Black Lives Matter murals and street art in downtown Portland
Federal bullying will only make Portland stronger, she said.
“The world is watching Portland, and we will rise above and shine the light on what is right and just,” Amico said. “People will get hurt and traumatized along the way, and the brave protesters are willing to take those risks. The feds will dig themselves into a deeper hole. We are inspiring change. It hurts, and it’s good.”
Jackson said the crackdown by federal agents is nonetheless terrifying.
“Women especially, the thought of being pushed into an unmarked van, that’s a scary thing,” she said. “There are too many lines being crossed.”
Federal agents obviously don’t care who gets hurt or injured, she said.
As a woman of color, Jackson knows casual and overt racism, sexism and intolerance all too well. However, even as she experienced the worst of America, she said she still believed in the best of America.
“I love America,” Jackson said. “I love the America I was told about in junior high. I woke up one morning in a world where I didn’t recognize that America anymore.”
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misattributed a quote to Carla Day. We have removed that quote from the story. We regret the error.
Email Reporter Tom Henderson at thenderson@streetroots.org
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