“We wanted to symbolize that both sides are the oppressor,” said a 25-year-old protester who did not want to be identified for fear of government reprisals. “We’ve all seen firsthand that police brutality is police brutality no matter (which political party is in power) … It makes no difference to the person being beaten.”
“For whites, they may feel that there is time for the administration to work, but for black and indigenous people who have had a rope around their necks, there is no time,” the protester said. “There is no justice, so there is no peace.”
Biden in his inaugural address on Wednesday called for racial justice and unity in America, acknowledging that the nation is deeply divided by systemic racism and political forces. He denounced white supremacy and domestic terrorism and said the country must be cured.
“A call for racial justice, some 400 years in the making, moves us,” said Biden. “The dream of justice for all will no longer be put off.”
Still, protesters wearing black clothes and gas masks took to the streets in Portland on Thursday, where social justice demonstrations have continued for months. Protesters there had vandalized the Democratic Party headquarters and a federal building of US immigration and customs enforcement, or ICE, the day before, police said, and four people have been charged in connection with those events.
CNN witnessed more arrests on Thursday night, when most of the people attending a protest in the ICE building were white. Indeed, the demographics of the Portland protest movement have often been criticized. Protesters say it should come as no surprise given that the city is 77% white and not belittling either.
“I want to take away from white anarchists co-opting this for their own gain,” said the 25-year-old protester, who is white, and told CNN that he has lived in Portland most of his life. “There are black and indigenous people who cannot have the same outward action as white people.”
‘It doesn’t matter who the president is’
The anger of some protesters is fueled by the assumption that the Biden government will not respond to their main demands: the abolition of ICE and the closure of the police, a concept that can range from reinvesting police resources in marginalized communities to full disband troops, they told CNN.
“There is a lot of anger and rage” about social inequality among Americans, protester Alix Powell told CNN. And vandalism is how some people express their anger, she said.
“There’s a lot of hopelessness in people my age and in people I know who no matter how you vote, whatever you do, they don’t listen,” she said Thursday. “A riot is the language of the unheard.”
“It doesn’t matter who the president is: black lives don’t matter, Arab lives don’t matter, they don’t care about us. They just don’t do it,” another protester of Arab descent, who also wanted to remain anonymous, told CNN Thursday.
National black leaders are counting on the new president to unite the province and implement policies that address the differences black people face in housing, education, jobs, health care and voter oppression, they said. They also want Biden to undo the damage caused by President Donald Trump’s offensive rhetoric towards people of color and refusal to tackle police brutality in the black community.
One of the first three executive orders that Biden signed on the inauguration day was one designed to ensure racial equality and support disadvantaged communities. Biden has also assembled the most racially diverse presidential cabinet in US history. His Department of Homeland Security has suspended deportations for 100 days, with few exceptions. And on Friday, he will sign executive orders to expand aid to low-income Americans.
Portland’s many months of protests
As in cities across the country, protests erupted in Portland late last spring over George Floyd’s death by the Minneapolis police and expanded to include police accountability and prosecution reform demands in the cases of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Elijah McClain and other black victims.
The events ranged from peaceful Black Lives Matter marches to violent demonstrations, including arson and vandalism. Some have become targets for hate groups seeking to thwart those who come to defend the rights of marginalized communities.
The complicated racial tensions in Oregon date back to the days of the nation’s founding. It wasn’t until 1854 that the Oregon Constitution was amended to use language only to keep black people out of the state, according to a timeline published by Portland city officials.
The 14th Amendment, granting citizenship to black people, was passed there in 1868, two years after Congress approved it.
But it wasn’t until the 1950s that Oregon began peeling off laws and regulations that supported racial discrimination in housing, schools, and employment.
CNN’s Andy Rose, Dakin Andone and Hollie Silverman contributed to this report.
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