“Oregon has a history of white supremacy. We were born from a—as a white homeland. That’s how Oregon got started. And so, we have our own homegrown white supremacists. But when we have people on a national stage encouraging people to come and create violence in our community, that’s when the community must stand up and make sure that we draw a line in the sand and say no way. Again, the difference this time between some of the other protests we had is that there were clear lines of command, who was in charge, who was making decisions about who would move where, and there were also enough law enforcement and community members who were willing to deescalate situations as they arose. And that was one of the things that, really, I was thrilled about. And so, it is unhelpful to have the president or anybody else encouraging people, mislabeling antifa as the problem, when the problem is really white supremacists trying to take over our streets.”
—Democracy Now!, in “Portland Rejects Proud Boys & Other Ultra-Right Groups as Trump Tries to Criminalize Antifa”
Published to write.house by Bix Frankonis. Comments and replies by email are welcome.