Protesters in an un-Promised Land

Extinction Rebellion is making wonderful disturbances in London, New York, Australia, and Germany, and it’s the eighth anniversary of Occupy Wall Street. Today I revisited the park where the Portland occupation stood for a month between mid-October and mid-November, 2011. This sculpture called “The Promised Land” was decorated with duct tape when the occupation was evicted (see Extra, my photo from 2011), and now it’s wreathed in spider webs. The statue is settler white supremacist propaganda, erected in 1993 with no consideration for the Multnomah and Chinook people who were stewards of the land (not promised to anyone) for years before white settlers arrived with guns and a sense of entitlement. The spider webs are more appropriate than the duct tape, as the ideology the statue represents is frozen in time and dying, though our President and his supporters have yet to figure that out.

The Portland Occupation is dear to my heart because it’s where I met the community of local activists and “protesters” who have been my friends and co-workers since then, and many of them are now joining XR. 

I had  lunch with one of that lot. She makes her living administering programs for a non-profit that provides services to adults with disabilities, and she has been supporting Don’t Shoot Portland with IT skills since 2013. I’ve often seen her at rallies and protests, but today was the first time we sat down to get personally acquainted. She loves theatre and reads plays aloud for fun with her teenage kids; she calls herself a “math nerd” and has degrees in philosophy and biophysics; and she’s about to become a foster parent because she has skills for working with children who are recovering from trauma. When I think “protester,” I think of her. I think of a man who designs apps to support legal defense for immigrants. I think of artists and nurses, teachers and lawyers, physicians and union organizers, all substantial, multi-talented people, all “protesters.” 

Boris Johnson referred to XR in London as “uncooperative crusties” in “hemp-smelling bivouacs.” He has a better vocabulary than the orange one, which isn’t saying much, but they both underestimate the brilliance and the commitment of protesters.