In Portland, images of knives, brass knuckles, bricks show viciousness of protests

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

If you want to get an idea of just how high tensions are running in Portland, where rival protest groups have clashed repeatedly in recent months, you could start by looking at the caches of weapons seized by police at a demonstration over the weekend in the city’s downtown.

There are axes and crowbars, dozens of sticks and makeshift clubs, canisters of mace, knives, hammers, batons and even a set of brass knuckles. Together, they offer an unsettling glimpse of the violence that has seeped into Portland’s protests as the city has drawn extremists on the left and right in increasing numbers, becoming something of a proxy for the country’s ideological battles.

On Sunday, thousands of protesters and counterprotesters converged in the heart of Portland’s business and government district for a pro-Trump free-speech rally. Once again, throngs of black-clad antifascist or “antifa” activists faced off with right-wing demonstrators in Americana garb.

Police formed barriers between the groups — and indeed many people in the crowd demonstrated peacefully — but the day was disrupted by flareups. After some antifa counterprotesters began throwing objects at police, officers in riot gear responded with a volley of flash grenades and pepper balls, according to local media.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/in-portland-images-of-knives-brass-knuckles-bricks-show-viciousness-of-protests/ar-BBC0pDP?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=edgsp

[NCTraveler]

1. "pro-Trump free-speech rally" Who is cracking down on speech?

Or is it being called that because they don't want to attach any of Trump policies to their rally?

[L. Coyote]

10. The "Freedom to hate anyone not white rally" might be more accurate.

Portland is a white supremist target as America's "whitest" large city. When will they learn there are no "white" people or races?

[frazzled]

2. There's a chilling article in today's NYT about the legacy of racism in Portland

The Pacific Northwest’s historical attic is full of artifacts that residents would just as soon forget, like the “lash law.” The legislation was passed in 1844, when the Oregon Country, as it was called then, was bigger than Texas — encompassing what is now part of five Western states. The law said that any black person, free or slave, would be “whipped twice a year until he or she shall quit the territory.” Later, leaders prohibited black people from coming to the territory.

Until the early 2000s, Oregon’s constitution still contained language excluding blacks from residency, though its legal clout had been eliminated decades earlier. The template from the early days helped foster a volatile political climate in which extremists of all kinds could find a home, and pick a fight. Along with racists, utopian communities were drawn to the region, advocating everything from socialism to free love, and they found converts and hiding places in remote coastal coves and mountain reaches. In the 1920s, Oregon’s Legislature, dominated by members of the Ku Klux Klan, barred Japanese immigrants from owning or leasing land.

By the 1970s, groups like the Aryan Nations had arrived, spinning out the idea of a mythic Cascadia where the old flames of racial purity would be kept alive and multiculturalism kept at bay. Anarchists dug in, too, and still have a deep presence, regularly turning out — black-shirted and usually masked — to denounce and often clash with the police.

...

Free-form self-radicalization, picking this or that from the heaping smorgasbord of hate on the nation’s plate, is becoming the norm. The suspect in the train attack, Jeremy Joseph Christian, 35, fits no obvious mold in the white-supremacist world. Last year, Mr. Christian ardently supported Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a socialist-leaning Democrat, in the presidential primaries, according to his Facebook posts, before turning to support President-elect Trump in December. On the train and after his arrest, according to a police affidavit, Mr. Christian raged against immigrants, Saudi Arabia and liberals, and he called himself a defender of free speech who could “die in prison a happy man.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/04/us/portland-killings-racist-laws-oregon.html?hpw&rref=us&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

[friendly_iconoclast]

6. Gizmodo: Oregon Was Founded As a Racist Utopia

https://gizmodo.com/oregon-was-founded-as-a-racist-utopia-1539567040

"When Oregon was granted statehood in 1859, it was the only state in the Union admitted with a constitution that forbade black people from living, working, or owning property there. It was illegal for black people even to move to the state until 1926. Oregon’s founding is part of the forgotten history of racism in the American west.

Waddles Coffee Shop in Portland, Oregon was a popular restaurant in the 1950s for both locals and travelers alike. The drive-in catered to America’s postwar obsession with car culture, allowing people to get coffee and a slice of pie without even leaving their vehicle. But if you happened to be black, the owners of Waddles implored you to keep on driving. The restaurant had a sign outside with a very clear message: “White Trade Only — Please.”

It’s the kind of scene from the 1950s that’s so hard for many Americans to imagine happening outside of the Jim Crow South. How could a progressive, northern city like Portland have allowed a restaurant to exclude non-white patrons? This had to be an anomaly, right? In reality it was far too common in Oregon, a state that was explicitly founded as a kind of white utopia...

...According to Oregon’s founding constitution, black people were not permitted to live in the state. And that held true until 1926. The small number of black people already living in the state in 1859, when it was admitted to the Union, were sometimes allowed to stay, but the next century of segregation and terrorism at the hands of angry racists made it clear that they were not welcome."

[friendly_iconoclast]

7. The Atlantic: "The Racist History of Portland, the Whitest City in America"

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/07/racist-history-portland/492035/

PORTLAND, Ore.— Victor Pierce has worked on the assembly line of a Daimler Trucks North America plant here since 1994. But he says that in recent years he’s experienced things that seem straight out of another time. White co-workers have challenged him to fights, mounted “hangman’s nooses” around the factory, referred to him as “boy” on a daily basis, sabotaged his work station by hiding his tools, carved swastikas in the bathroom, and written the word “nigger” on walls in the factory, according to allegations filed in a complaint to the Multnomah County Circuit Court in February of 2015.

Pierce is one of six African Americans working in the Portland plant whom the lawyer Mark Morrell is representing in a series of lawsuits against Daimler Trucks North America. The cases have been combined and a trial is scheduled for January of 2017.

“They have all complained about being treated poorly because of their race,” Morrell told me. “It’s a sad story—it’s pretty ugly on the floor there.” (Daimler said it could not comment on pending litigation, but spokesman David Giroux said that the company prohibits discrimination and investigates any allegations of harassment.)

The allegations may seem at odds with the reputation of this city known for its progressivism. But many African Americans in Portland say they’re not surprised when they hear about racial incidents in this city and state. That’s because racism has been entrenched in Oregon, maybe more than any state in the north, for nearly two centuries. When the state entered the union in 1859, for example, Oregon explicitly forbade black people from living in its borders, the only state to do so. In more recent times, the city repeatedly undertook “urban renewal” projects (such as the construction of Legacy Emanuel Hospital) that decimated the small black community that existed here. And racism persists today. A 2011 audit found that landlords and leasing agents here discriminated against black and Latino renters 64 percent of the time, citing them higher rents or deposits and adding on additional fees. In area schools, African American students are suspended and expelled at a rate four to five times higher than that of their white peers.

[Wellstone ruled]

3. Everyone should watch the video clip.

Notice the Guy with the Trump shirt,now if there is ever a Ringer,this Guy is. He is not a local,look at how he dressed compared to the Pale Faces sporting their Militia Garb.

Again the real story is once again missed. The who what where are these folks. Staged!!!!

[snooper2]

4. nah, just a bunch of losers on both sides that need to get a life

Either that or bus them all out to the middle of BFE North Dakota and let them have at it.

Winners get to walk home LOL

[Wellstone ruled]

5. Willing to put money on the Clean T-Shirt Guy is

a YGOP er or a Congressional Aide.

[leftstreet]

8. Nice catch

It's so obvious

[Wellstone ruled]

11. Thank you,

every one of these so called Trump supporter Rallies seem to be led by some Brooks Brothers dressed person.

Suckers are so easy to spot. The fifty dollar Hair Cut for starters.

[SecularMotion]

9. More details - Alt-Right Skips Town as Portland Dodges Serious Violence in Street Confrontations

It wasn't another Berkeley.

A confrontation between traveling alt-right belligerents and masked antifascists, an event that deeply unsettled Portland, ended today with a handful of arrests and little significant violence.

That was partly because police cracked down on the anarchist crowd that had gathered near the "alt-right" rally in Terry Schrunk Plaza. Riot cops cleared protesters out of nearby Chapman Square, and detained about 200 people, including six reporters, for an hour in a downtown street.

But it was also because of restraint from the socialists, labor unions and anarchists who showed up today in a throng well over 1,000 people and outnumbered the right-wing extremists by as much as 10 to 1.

http://www.wweek.com/news/2017/06/04/alt-right-skips-town-as-portland-dodges-serious-violence-in-street-confrontations/