Drag Queen Kitty KariAll entertains people evacuated onto the street due to a fire alarm while attending Darcelle’s weekly Drag Queen Brunch on NW 3rd. Credit: Photo by Kaia Sand
The building’s fire alarm went off during the Drag Queen Brunch at Darcelle’s.
It was a Sunday, and Nettie Johnson and I were at Street Roots on Davis Street around the corner from Darcelle’s. Johnson, as the Street Roots custodian, was cleaning, and I was grappling with how to handle increasing violent threats.
A man has been brandishing racist epithets and violent threats against some people in our Street Roots community. It’s hard to write about because there’s no rallying cry for all of you. It is simply one man spinning out of control in a society where violence and racism are available tactics to terrorize other people.
This is, after all, a time in history when one knows that speaking out on any number of issues means you may be targeted by violent online threats that also focus on one’s race or gender.
This is, after all, a time in history when a woman who was shot in the Normandale Park shooting had to stay anonymous — as her family still does, even upon her death this month — for fear that people would come after her. She was the victim of violence, the gunman reported to be motivated by antipathy over Black Lives Matter, and yet her family has to fear more violence. As I read about her dying two years after she was paralyzed by the shooter, I had such grief that she was never able to have the larger community wrap around her with love.
This is, after all, a time in history when the very idea of diversity, equity and inclusion is used as a put-down, and some politicians rail against teaching the impacts of racism. Here we are, only four years after the murder of George Floyd, and too many people have to choose their moment to bring up racism. Will white people listen? Will we believe what we hear?
What’s particularly jarring is that people who are Black and Indigenous are disproportionately homeless. Injustices of the past become injustices of the present. And then, it’s that much harder to be Black and Indigenous on the streets. In 2020 Street Roots vendors conducted a survey with Portland State University’s Homelessness Research & Action Collaborative that looked at experiences of Black and Indigenous people in getting services. An astounding fact was they actually were more likely to lack a tent or a sleeping bag than other people experiencing homelessness. Even with nothing, there still was less to have.
As the city pursues its criminalization of homelessness, I have begun to notice that fewer people are using tents. I speculate that people are attempting to appear less obvious, and more able to keep moving, and I wonder about the disparities that already existed.
I am angry. I am angry that police are being misused for political agendas, diverted from real issues of violence when people have to wait hours for a 911 call.
When people who are homeless are victims of assaults, they have the challenge of not only being believed, but also getting support. I’m worried about people experiencing homelessness who are terrified because they have been assaulted or threatened, and yet the Mayor has created a situation where interactions with police are more dangerous. People know they can be jailed for homelessness, a new level of terror.
I read the summary of the Mayor’s updated Old Town Action Plan, as reported in the Oregonian, with some hope. An emphasis on design elements such as street lighting is great. It’s important that we celebrate the cultural organizations and small businesses in the neighborhood.
While it’s good that Portland Street Response is also named in the Old Town Action Plan, it is currently undermined because it is underfunded. It must be big enough to be effective. One needs to call Portland Street Response in a crisis and know they will rapidly arrive. That confidence is part of community safety.
That camp sweeps are included is this Old Town Plan is about fracturing the community. This is about conflating one’s poverty with the idea of being a criminal, and forcing dangerous interactions with the police for people who are often crime victims themselves.
How do we create real community safety when Portland Street Response is under-resourced and the police are sent out on matters that are not actually about safety? Housing, healthcare — and this includes substance use disorder and mental health treatment — are issues of community safety.
These are the impossibilities I was grappling with on a Sunday in Old Town, working with Nettie in the office when the fire alarm pulsed through our Davis St office as well the apartments above us and all the businesses around the block, including Darcelle’s.
Nettie and her dog Neeko and I walked out of the office and to the sidewalk. We are only a few blocks from the fire station, so we saw the truck arrive within minutes and pull up around the corner.
Then we heard big cheers. Nettie and I wandered around the block to see an enormous crowd on the sidewalk that included people who had gathered for the Drag Queen Brunch, as well as some drag queens in their robes, clearly evacuated from backstage.
The firefighters were leaving — there was no fire — and some of the drag queens had turned it into a lively sidewalk show, flirting and swooning.
The crowd loved it.
“This is what we need,” Nettie said to me. “People coming out to Old Town, bringing their good spirit.” I agreed. We both love Old Town.
I looked out at the crowd and recognized a form of community safety. The drag queens had taken a moment of low-key peril and transformed it into a performance to maintain joy and comradery.
I thought about how Kevin Cook, who performs as Poison Waters, has been calling for people to come support the shows, including the Drag Queen Brunch (which, I can testify, is terrific fun). He loves the neighborhood and supports the businesses and organizations, including Old Town Pizza and Street Roots. Businesses like Darcelle’s need to not only stay afloat, but thrive, and that takes turning out.
As K. Rambo and Jeremiah Hayden have reported in recent issues of Street Roots, crime rates have been exaggerated in Portland in recent years, a perception that drives people to stay away from downtown.
Show up and support the local businesses: that is community safety.
Left alone, it is quite hard. Street Roots does not just run as a newspaper that people sell to earn an income. We try to get the most basic resources to people who are trying to stabilize their lives by earning income and becoming a part of our community. By necessity we also have to stabilize the Old Town streets. Our staff, vendors and volunteers hand out naloxone and reverse overdoses.
People who are unhoused report experiencing assaults in the shadows, never feeling safe, while politicians order police to round them up, breaking trust further and adding new barriers to housing.
Some weeks it’s almost too much. It was starting to feel that way on Sunday — so much despair and anger — before I looked out at our beloved drag queen neighbors who add that layer of real community safety by bringing joy and supportive crowds into the neighborhood.
Drag Queen Kitty KariAll stood before the parked fire truck and entertained us— an audience gathered for the Drag Queen Brunch, neighbors like us evacuated from the building, unhoused people. One community created in one moment on a public sidewalk.
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.
