Oregon Officials Need To Recognize State's Outsize Problem With Extremist Violence, Audit Finds

[appalachiablue]

- Far-right militiamen demonstrated outside the Oregon Capitol in Salem on Jan. 6, 2020, to protest Donald Trump's loss in the 2020 election. A group of these extremists had invaded the state capitol on Dec. 21, 2020.
_________
- Daily Kos, March 31, 2022.

Oregon state auditors recently confirmed what journalists have been reporting for a while: Namely that right-wing extremism is growing significantly in the state, and its radicalized adherents have increasingly targeted urban populations for violence and domestic terrorism. More to the point, a variety of state officials and agencies have the power to take coordinated action to turn back this incoming tide. The report, titled “Oregon Can Do More to Mitigate the Alarming Risk of Domestic Terrorism and Violent Extremist Attacks,” notes that Oregon ranks 27th among states in population but came in 6th among states for violent extremist attacks between 2011 and 2020, citing data from the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“Oregon continues to have a high number of incidents of domestic violent extremism disproportionate to the state’s population,” the report reads. “It is paramount the state be as well positioned as possible to prevent and counter acts of violent extremism and domestic terrorism.” It notes that the Southern Poverty Law Center reported 10 active hate groups in the state in its annual report on such activity, and that extremist ideas were moving further into mainstream politics.

The auditors explain that the threats have “become increasingly complex and volatile” due largely to the presence of social media and other internet activity used to propagate “extremist narratives and activity.” This activity drives the online radicalization that has created so many violent extremists in recent years. “Attacks on the Oregon state capitol and the U.S. capitol over the last couple years clearly demonstrated the risk to public safety and the high cost on public resources resulting from domestic terrorism and violent extremism,” Audits Division Director Kip Memmott said. “Our report notes that Oregon is especially at high risk for this type of violence.”

The report outlined key areas where state officials should address mitigating the risks: Infrastructure, public awareness, state governance, insider threats, and federal grants. It suggested the state’s homeland security council devise a statewide strategy featuring “specific, measurable outcomes” to counter extremism. And it advised the state to revise its plan to protect critical infrastructure like hospitals and power plants with “latest information” on threats of domestic violent extremism...
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/3/31/2089384/-Oregon-officials-need-to-recognize-state-s-outsize-problem-with-extremist-violence-audit-finds
___________
- The Racist History of Portland, the Whitest City in America, The Atlantic, July 22, 2016. It’s known as a modern-day hub of progressivism, but its past is one of exclusion. - Ed.

.. “Portland’s tactic when it comes to race up until now, has been to ignore it,” says Zev Nicholson, an African American resident who was, until recently, the Organizing Director of the Urban League of Portland. But can it continue to do so? From its very beginning, Oregon was an inhospitable place for black people. In 1844, the provisional government of the territory passed a law banning slavery, and at the same time required any African American in Oregon to leave the territory. Any black person remaining would be flogged publicly every 6 months until he left. Five years later, another law was passed that forbade free African Americans from entering into Oregon, according to the Communities of Color report. In 1857, Oregon adopted a state constitution that banned black people from coming to the state, residing in the state, or holding property in the state. During this time, any white male settler could receive 650 acres of land and another 650 if he was married. This, of course, was land taken from native people who had been living here for centuries.

This early history proves, to Imarisha, that “the founding idea of the state was as a racist white utopia. The idea was to come to Oregon territory and build the perfect white society you dreamed of.” (Matt Novak detailed Oregon’s heritage as a white utopia in this 2015 Gizmodo essay.) With the passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, Oregon’s laws preventing black people from living in the state and owning property were superseded by national law. But Oregon itself didn’t ratify the 14th Amendment—the Equal Protection Clause—until 1973. (Or, more exactly, the state ratified the amendment in 1866, rescinded its ratification in 1868, and then finally ratified it for good in 1973.) It didn’t ratify the 15th Amendment, which gave black people the right to vote, until 1959, making it one of only 6 states that refused to ratify that amendment when it passed.

Until the 1980s, “Portland was firmly in the hands of the status quo—the old, conservative, scratch-my-back, old-boys white network,” he said. The city had a series of police shootings of black men in the 1970s, and in the 1980s, the police department was investigated after officers ran over possums and then put the dead animals in front of black-owned restaurants. Yet as the city became more progressive and “weird,” full of artists and techies and bikers, it did not have a conversation about its racist past. It still tends not to, even as gentrification and displacement continue in Albina and other neighborhoods.

“If you were living here and you decided you wanted to have a conversation about race, you’d get the shock of your life,” Ed Washington, the longtime Portland resident, told me. “Because people in Oregon just don’t like to talk about it.” The overt racism of the past has abated, residents say, but it can still be uncomfortable to traverse the city as a minority. Paul Knauls, who is African American, moved to Portland to open a nightclub in the 1960s. He used to face the specter of “whites-only” signs in stores, prohibitions on buying real estate, and once, even a bomb threat in his jazz club because of its black patrons. Now, he says he notices racial tensions when he walks into a restaurant full of white people and it goes silent... https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/07/racist-history-portland/492035/