Henry Latourette Miller
Miller, who has a master’s in urban and regional planning from Portland State University, is a journalist and urbanist. He lives in Portland.
“Stay together, stay tight. We do this every night,” chants the crowd in one of my videos taken on June 13 during the protests that have continued in downtown Portland uninterrupted for two months.
The clip shows protesters fleeing flash grenades, tear gas, batons and projectiles the Portland Police Bureau were using to clear the public parks in front of the Justice Center. Corralled by police SUVs on streets to the north and south, about 1,000 non-violent protesters are crammed along a three-block stretch of Southwest Madison Avenue. Rather than disperse the crowd, the police had forced us into a funnel. Any desire to leave was met by the fear of what the police would do to you if you tried to escape their net.
I held up my phone to capture the crowd of people of all ages, from young teens to seniors. Then a flash grenade, sounding like a bomb, goes off.
A few let out involuntary screams in fear. With anxiety growing, we chant, “Stay together, stay tight. We do this every night,” faster. The pitch gets higher and the chant has to be restarted a few times, but it does something the PPB is trying with all its military might to prevent: It makes us feel safer.
It was more than a month before I returned to the downtown protest, and I likely would have stayed home if I had not seen videos of federal officers in unmarked uniforms apparently kidnapping protesters off the street, or read about them tear-gassing Portland moms and beating a veteran. It’s not because I no longer believed in protest or felt the mission was over. I would have stayed home because protesting an authoritarian police state is absolutely terrifying.
For two months, Portlanders have watched and participated in protests primarily aimed at ending systemic racism and police brutality. And for two months the actions of the Portland Police and now federal agencies have used violence against protesters. Why? Because violence instills fear, and fear is the only tool a militant organization believes in. Violence isn’t a tactic, it is the point.
Beyond the few blocks around the Justice Center, Portland feels like a city focused on recovering from the pandemic. Bars are open on the sidewalks, people are biking and taking scooters on streets with few cars, and more restaurants are opening to at least provide takeout. It is as non-apocalyptic as any city that takes the virus seriously could be right now, and I would like nothing more than to try to ignore the growing black hole downtown.
But every morning, we wake up to footage that should terrify any person who fears an anti-democratic, racist police state. And instead of enjoying a craft beer or ice cream on a sunny sidewalk, I spend most of my evenings feeling ashamed for not finding the courage to resist racism and fascism – even when they are at my doorstep.
The problem is I am frightened. To join the protest is to fight every instinct telling you to not put yourself in a place where someone might shoot, poison or beat you. While I would like to say my conviction to fight racism and authoritarian rule helps control this fear, concern for my own safety is only part of the equation. There is a second, deeper reason for my fear.
Choosing to protest the threat of a fascist police state means acknowledging that it is a real threat in the first place. It is to suppress your instinct to avoid violence because you believe there’s a greater risk that in a few months you may no longer live in a democracy. It is to tell yourself if you don’t act now, the future of protesting in America will only be more futile and deadly.
This second layer of fear, despite years of reporting on and joining protests, is new to me and it does as much to keep me away from the protests as the tear gas. It is why I do not believe most Americans would actually stand up to save our flawed democracy, even if their government does to their neighborhood what it has been doing in Portland. Despite the thousands who have protested for nearly two months, most Portlanders aren’t standing up now. Most nights, I stay at home.
To protest against an authoritarian police state is to force yourself to witness it in action, and then resign to living in fear of that enemy. It is much, much easier, simpler, and more comfortable to live in shame for failing to stand up for the lives of Black and brown Americans and democracy than to risk the physical pain and psychological torment that might come with peacefully resisting.
That is why violence isn’t just a tactic for police. It’s the point.
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July 26, 2020 at 09:00PM
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