Opinion | Jo Ann Hardesty was subjected to relentless racist and sexist attacks during her tenure on City Council
The map is complete, and soon, Portland City Council candidates will announce their intentions to run.
After months of community feedback, the Independent District Commission released a map of four districts with nearly equal populations, each of which will have three representatives on City Council beginning in 2025.
The new form of government is designed to open City Hall to people historically shut out. But part of leveling opportunities is acknowledging the societal contempt waged against Black women.
In particular, there’s a lesson to be learned from the treatment of the first Black woman elected to City Council, Jo Ann Hardesty. As other Black women prepare themselves to run, part of their calculus is likely the emotional toll and threats to personal safety Hardesty faced.
“The community puts up women of color leaders and encourages them to run, and then they go home. When Black women are running for office, the constituency has to stay with them,” Hardesty told me, who is now focused on being a mentor to “uplift the young women of color that are coming behind me and help them build the thick skin that they will need in order to be successful moving forward.”
During her time in office, Hardesty additionally challenged the status quo because she committed to policy and system-change work that prioritized people in extreme poverty. James Baldwin wrote that “to act is to be committed and to be committed is to be in danger.”
Unfortunately, for too much of Hardesty’s tenure, she was in danger.
In some cases, Hardesty faced smear campaigns from within city government. This week, Hardesty settled her lawsuit with the city of Portland alleging former Portland Police Association president Brian Hunzeker and police officer Kerri Ottoman pushed out false allegations that Hardesty was involved in a hit and run. The Oregonian reported this false story in 2020.
Mayor Ted Wheeler issued a letter of apology to Hardesty on behalf of the city Aug. 15.
The most important portion of her litigation against the city, Hardesty told me, was her hope to create a truth and reconciliation process, but she dropped it because she didn’t trust the current City Council to see this through, she said.
The litigation against the police union is ongoing.
While many Portlanders witnessed this smear campaign as well as the regular drumbeat attacks in social media, through People for Portland campaigns, and in the press, there were many more threats to her well-being.
Two former Hardesty staffers who fielded much interaction with the public, Angelita Morillo and Matt McNally, described consistent cruelty.
Morillo, constituent services specialist from 2019 until 2022, was often the person who opened emails.
Hardesty was sent emails using the “N-word multiple times a week” as well as “sexually explicit images,” Morillo told me, and McNally, who served as communications strategist for Hardesty, described the “unbelievable amount of racism and sexism” that came through social media channels.
“We were trolled relentlessly,” McNally said. “What we see, increasingly, is people that use free speech as a veneer to intimidate candidates of color.”
Both McNally and Morillo told me about death threats toward Hardesty. In one case, a man attempted to bring a gun into Hardesty’s office.
“I was afraid for her life constantly,” Morillo said.
Staffers had to open mail with gloves because death threat letters had to be turned over to the police. The office eventually had to install a bulletproof shelter.
There was more. A diaper was mailed to the office with the N-word painted on it. People left feces at Hardesty’s personal residence.
Then there were the racist tropes that fanned out into a larger perception of distrust.
Morillo recalls letters from people who “didn't like that she had dreadlocks,” asserting an expectation for what is “professional or appropriate for City Hall, which does not include presenting as a Black person.”
McNally described how racist tropes would circulate — including accusations that Hardesty was a “crackhead.” When Hardesty took a vacation, internet trolls pushed forward false rumors that she was in rehabilitation.
These dog whistles sowed distrust until people far removed from the sources began to believe them.
Morillo, who now works as a policy advocate for Partners for a Hunger-Free Oregon and is a political commentator on TikTok as @pnwpolicyangel, points out that “dark money groups like People for Portland are already doing everything they can to isolate any progressive women of color, blaming them for everything that's ever gone wrong in the city” which then turns everyday Portlanders against them, too.
Hardesty frequently shouldered the blame for the intensity of homelessness, for instance, even though Commissioner Dan Ryan and Wheeler oversaw bureaus that were more directly responsible for the city response during her council tenure.
This isn’t a column about championing a Hardesty run for office. It’s about pointing out how she suffered the whole rotten brew of racism, misogyny and politics that could easily be leveled at the next Black woman to step forward.
As Morillo describes it, constituents need to “be willing to push back against the racism and the sexism and not put that onus on the candidate themselves. It’s just a lot of pressure.”
A longtime community organizer, Hardesty is now movement-focused on the next generation of women of color.
One of her projects is far-reaching, the Women of Color Democracy Network, a national convening of 20 women. They have their sights on 2076 — 300 years of American independence and democracy.
“We're creating a 50-year vision for a transformation of our country's democracy that is led by the voices of women of color, the historical, present day and future champions of democracy,” Candace Avalos told me.
Avalos, the other local representative in the group of 20, is the executive director of Verde. She is also on the Street Roots board.
“It is the most welcoming space to be in a room full of 20 women who not only think they deserve to represent their communities but are really grounded in community,” Hardesty told me.
But while they are working on a national and long-term vision, Portlanders need a reckoning of what it means to support women of color in office right now.
“We just have to not be afraid to admit that there's still a different standard for women candidates, and especially women candidates of color.” McNally told me. “We need to not be afraid to call that out.”
Portland, we are building a new form of city government, and that’s an opportunity to do better. That has to include a reckoning of how toxic a space city leadership is for Black women. As constituents, we all have a responsibility to change that.
“We need to find ways to protect the women of color who want to run so that they can do that without being iced out,” Morillo said.
Street Roots is an award-winning weekly investigative publication covering economic, environmental and social inequity. The newspaper is sold in Portland, Oregon, by people experiencing homelessness and/or extreme poverty as means of earning an income with dignity. Street Roots newspaper operates independently of Street Roots advocacy and is a part of the Street Roots organization. Learn more about Street Roots . Support your community newspaper by making a one-time or recurring gift today .
© 2023 Street Roots. All rights reserved. | To request permission to reuse content, email editor@streetroots.org or call 503-228-5657 , ext. 404
