Young in Portland: Frustrated and Angry

Black Lives Matter protests are the catalyst, not the cause.

The real problems are bigger and long term: generational equity, unemployment, housing costs, mental illness, drugs, homelessness, income inequality, health care.

George Floyd's death set off something, but the protests in Portland persist because there are problems in America that haven't been addressed.

Portland is a victim of its own success. It is a prosperous, livable city, less expensive than San Francisco and Seattle, big enough to be interesting to young adults, a place that embraces craft beer, liberal politics, food trucks, gentrifying neighborhoods, and pride in being "weird."

Some of the problems that put Portland in the news as the poster child of Democratic misrule and the pathway for Trump's re-election flowed from its success. Housing prices were going up, but wages haven't kept pace, making Portland increasingly unaffordable for the young adults it was attracting. Oregon avoided California-type sprawl with land use planning rules, but denser urban centers, surrounded by rural open space--the intent--meant Portland itself is more crowded than it would otherwise be. Congestion is worse, automobile infrastructure is less, and people are being nudged toward mass transit faster than many want to go. It is social engineering for people who want to get along and share, not so much for live-free-or-die libertarians who want their own space.

Portland's government didn't want to be cruel to the homeless. It meant homeless camps were conspicuous, under bridges, along highways, downtown.

Click: Portland has nation's worst homeless problem

Then COVID made every problem worse.

Portland had a strong tradition of liberal-progressive government. There are a lot of Bernie Sanders-oriented activists, people who believe strongly that the establishment status quo isn't working. Oh, they think it works great for prosperous boomers--the establishment liberals who are content to do measured, incremental reform--but who are in fact preserving a status quo they benefit from. They say those Democratic liberals are content to slow walk addressing climate, implementing universal health care, and bringing income redistribution. The status quo is squeezing the life out of people in their 20s, they say, keeping them poor, destroying their planet, and burying them with debt rung up by the two-party duopoly, and they have every right to be impatient and pissed off. 

Who thinks that way? Lots of people in greater Portland. It makes the politics harder for a Democrat, pressured from both right and left.

John Flenniken lives in Portland and reads this blog and wanted to add his voice to this commentary on Portland's civil disturbances. 

Guest Post by John Flenniken

I was born in Portland 75 years ago. I am retired, a former high school chemistry teacher and employee of an electric utility. I have travelled and lived on the East Coast, in Wyoming, and travelled the country and the world. I live just outside Portland and describe myself as a Portlander.

John Flenniken

Let me set the stage for what is happening in this city I love. Portland has changed over the years since I lived in an apartment near Portland State College that was torn down and is now The Raddison on Broadway among assorted urban renewal and massive infrastructure projects, has changed the feel of Portland from one of a large town to a small urban city with all the attractions and problems of urban life. 

There are good things going on. The public school system still serves a majority of the school-aged children. The revitalized downtown area and waterfront are still open, spacious and inviting. Portland has long been considered a very livable city. But in the last 3 or 4 years the effects of the Great Recession, soaring housing costs, inattention to mental health issues in the community, and now the pandemic allowing nonviolent prisoners to be released early have added to the homeless population. 

Court orders barring "No Camping" or loitering coupled with local outreach to help feed, clothe and shelter have led to compounding the numbers of very visibly homeless unemployed and under-employed people. They end up camping on the streets to be near family services within the core of the city. The result is that the nicest open space areas of the downtown, adjacent to the upscale shopping venues, are crowded with people sleeping in doorways.

The City, spread over three counties, has tried to address it.  The mayor, Ted Wheeler, is in charge of overseeing the Portland Police (PPB) and their policies and practices, and if the buck stops anywhere, it stops with him. This time is also an election year and Wheeler has a strong challenger for his office requiring him to cater to the widest coalition he can muster.  What should be done and what is good politics is making his decisions worse.  Case in point the focus of the PPB was the suppression of gun violence, drug and gang activity. It was mostly centered in the Black community where minor infractions were met with maximum penalties, resulting in fully a quarter of the Black male community members having felony convictions. That got noticed and was part of the context for the City's response. It already had a reputation for being unreasonably punitive and racially biased. The distrust of the PPB is palpable. Then George Floyd was killed. The lid came off and the city boiled into the streets. Americans saw injustice televised. 

The problems compound. Businesses were affected by Governor Kate Brown's COVID “Stay Home, Save Lives” order, an order that was controversial and created demonstrations against the policy and her personally. People circulated recall petitions. There was a scramble to assemble a plan to care for the homeless, whose situation went from bad to worse, and there were fewer resources to deal with them.

The Black Lives Matter movement media attention was effectively hijacked by White Anti Fascists, Far Right movements and Trump’s thumping the Law & Order playbook all aided and muddled by street hooligans. Still there are daily peaceful protests in the Black community, and signs supporting BLM are up and flourishing in my neighborhood. My neighbors can separate the violence from the protest against systemic racial bias and wish the police would simply do their job and make that distinction as well. Peaceful protest - yes, Violence -no!

On warm summer nights the mixture of local and national politics from people stirred up from various points of view, plus street people, and rowdy youth make a near impossible situation. That should have been stopped by police taking immediate action toward looters, arsonists and vandals. It wasn't. Now people are bringing guns and people are getting shot and killed.  Patriot Prayer has scheduled a demonstration September 26th - what can go wrong now?