A Glimpse Into Portland Protests and the Commitment to Being an Antiracist

Replace the capitalist globalization of racism, greed and violence with the globalization of generosity, equality, justice, truth, wisdom, compassion and love.

My husband stands by Black Lives Matter written in roadway witnessing growing crowds

Thousands were gathered listening to speakers in front of and near Portland's Justice Center

Moms for Racial Equality

These photos are but a tiny glimpse into the protests on July 21st occurring in front of the federal buildings in Portland. 

 

During the silent protest that my husband and I participated in beforehand at Portland City Hall, it came to me more powerfully and deeply than ever before that I truly don’t know what it’s like being Black — or Indigenous or other people of color — in America. I don’t know what it feels like to live the American nightmare because I am white and have not had that lived experience. 

 

I’m humbled. My heart hurts. I weep. And I feel myself once again being changed as I seek to recognize, understand, and see with the eyes of my heart what I’ve been blind to and therefore unknowingly complicit with. I’m determined to learn how to be antiracist by peeling back the countless layers of my indoctrination into racism. No small task. 

 

So when people question why I’m showing up to these rallies and identifying as part of BLM, why I’m reading How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram Kendi and researching every day, why I’m writing and speaking up and sharing what I am learning, it’s because of my commitment to extricate myself from the problem and become increasingly and authentically empowered to be part of the solution. For too long I’ve been blind to how I’ve been complicit with the racism I’ve ingested growing up in America. 

 

When people say that’s all well and good, but you’re also supporting violence and rioting, I come back to the words of Ibram Kendi — where has our outrage been at the violence and looting directed at Black Americans for the past 400 years?? Where have I been when these grave and deadly injustices have been perpetrated on people of color for the whole of our nation’s history? 

 

The answer is that I’ve been is ignorant, propagandized, and complicit. But now yet another deep ingrained layer of the fog of my denial and illusions is being lifted. And I’m starting to get it. I’M STARTING TO GET IT! Every day I experience more of what has always been happening. And I'm allowing this conscious awareness to penetrate my heart.

 

And so of course there’s rage at our federal government. Of course! And who the hell do I think I am to point fingers of judgment and condemnation at those suffering the rage that’s built up over the span of centuries at living, not the American Dream, but the American Nightmare?! I can no longer engage in the racism implicit in these judgments. 

And for anyone as unaware of the American nightmare as I have been, please read this piece by Ibram Kendi: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/american-nightmare/612457/.

 

Instead of being complicit and enabling the racism built into the power structures and systems, the cultural stories and belief systems, the actions or lack of actions, the policies and politics of my country, today I choose to stand in every way that I can with oppressed peoples and join them in demanding NO MORE! BLACK LIVES MATTER! DEEP SYSTEMIC CHANGES ARE VITALLY NEEDED AND SO VERY LONG OVERDUE. 

I don't do any of this perfectly. There's not a switch that I can switch and one day I'm engaged in racism and the next I'm now 100% antiracist. Transformation and growing into greater consciousness is not that simple or easy. Not at all. Rather, from one moment and one day to the next my intentions and choices, my thoughts and beliefs, my actions or lack of actions illuminate where I fall on the racist_____antiracist continuum. I seek daily, as best as I can, to embody being an antiracist and to be committed to the ongoing process of shedding the layers of indoctrination into racism which have poisoned my mind, my heart, my soul.

 

We are all one human family, interrelated and interconnected. And we are all needed to be part of this great universal struggle for racial, social, economic, and environmental justice. Molly