For the last few days, we at the Rose City Review have been talking about how to approach what is happening in America today—the collective explosion of grief and anger over the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and of so many other Black Americans before them, at the hands of a racist police system.
One thing was clear to all of us: we can’t sit back and pretend this has nothing to do with us, simply because we cover soccer. Sports don’t exist outside of society at large. We don’t get to use them as an escape when people are fighting for their lives.
So the next question was what we, as non-Black people, can and should do in this space. My first impulse was to simply make a public donation to Don’t Shoot PDX (made possible by your Patreon contributions), use our site and Twitter feed to amplify Black voices, and say little else. But I think that’s a cop-out. We don’t want to talk over Black people, and we don’t want to make this about us or our feelings; at the same time, being afraid of making those mistakes is a comfortable way for us (and by us I mean both the writers at this site and all non-Black people) to opt out of the personal responsibility we all bear when it comes to dismantling white supremacy.
Here’s the thing: there are reasons that as a publication in Portland, specifically, our staff is four-fifths white, with no Black contributors. There are reasons the Timbers Army and Rose City Riveters are overwhelmingly white. I think—I hope—that acknowledging those reasons is a good place to start this discussion.
A very brief history lesson on racism in Portland
Portland is the whitest major city in America. This is not an accident. When Oregon became a state in 1859, its constitution explicitly forbade Black people from living, working, or owning property within its borders. The 14th Amendment invalidated that law, but it remained formally on the books until 1926—and Oregon itself didn’t ratify the 14th and 15th Amendments until 1973 and 1959, respectively.
The message was clear: people of color were not welcome in Oregon. Racist whites, on the other hand, very much were welcome. According to Walidah Imarisha, an educator and expert on Black history in Oregon, in the 1920s, it was not the deep south, but Oregon, where the Ku Klux Klan had the highest per-capita membership in the country.
During World War II, Portland became a shipbuilding hub, and as workers were drawn to the city to work in the shipyards—and as Black people moved north and west as part of the Great Migration—the Black population grew from 2,000 to 20,000. Many of those workers and their families lived in the racially segregated Vanport housing development. When Vanport was destroyed in a 1948 flood, displaced Black residents moved to redlined Albina, which, under a policy of the Portland Realty Board, was the only neighborhood in the city where people of color were allowed to buy homes.
Over the ensuing decades, Albina—like Black neighborhoods in cities across the country—came to be seen as “blighted” and was targeted for a series of “urban renewal” projects that displaced residents and fragmented the community. The Memorial Coliseum, I-5, and Highway 99 were all built in the 1950s on land Black residents had been forcibly displaced from. In the 60s, more than 1000 housing units in the heart of the Black community were destroyed to build Emanuel Hospital, a “classic top-down planning effort,” according to urban planning professor Karen J. Gibson (I encourage you to read that entire article, which I am summarizing here).
By the 90s, systemic disinvestment, predatory lending practices, and redlining by conventional banks had led to widespread abandonment of housing and prevented Black residents from getting loans to buy and repair homes in their own community. The City of Portland stepped in—partially at the behest of community activists—foreclosing on abandoned houses and cracking down on banks that refused to lend to potential buyers in the area. But rather than benefitting the Black community, these changes meant a flood of white buyers snapping up cheap property in what are, geographically, desirable central-city neighborhoods, while Black residents were largely displaced to far-flung areas in east Portland and Gresham.
That legacy of racism, of the systematic exclusion and displacement of Black communities in our state and city, lives on today.
Homelessness, Portland’s most visible injustice, disproportionately impacts people of color. Black people in Portland have long faced physical violence at the hands of both the police and white supremacists outside police ranks. The Portland Police Bureau’s euphemistically named Gun Violence Reduction Team—formerly called the Gang Enforcement Team—was found by a 2018 audit to be disproportionately stopping Black motorists, often using minor traffic violations as a pretext, and with no evidence showing that they effectively targeted gang members. Police shot and killed 17-year-old Quanice Hayes in 2017 and the city spent three years blaming his mother for his death.
Racism is a Portland issue.
What does this have to do with me?
I say all this because no conversation about race in this city can happen without acknowledging not only the existence of this racist history, but the fact that white people—all of us—have benefitted from it. Here’s just one example: as Gibson points out, part of what makes Portland such a desirable place to live is its urban growth boundary, which constrains sprawl, makes walking and biking feasible, and means natural spaces are a short drive away from anywhere in the city.
It also means that space for housing is limited. Centrally located Albina, Gibson contends, was likely always destined for gentrification. If you can afford to live in Portland, this has benefited you directly.
That’s just one of the myriad ways white people everywhere benefit from white supremacy; we also have access to vastly higher generational wealth, are arrested and convicted of crimes at lower rates, don’t face housing discrimination, and are much less likely to die at the hands of a police officer. Our children go to better-funded schools and are disciplined at lower rates. That’s a scratch in the surface.
What does this have to do with soccer?
The soccer community in Portland is many things. For me, a queer white woman, it’s been a very welcoming space. It’s a space inhabited by people who tend to proudly call themselves anti-fascist and anti-racist. People in this space do genuine good work for the community. It’s also—like most things in this city—overwhelmingly white, and often willfully ignorant of its own blind spots and how those lead to complicity with racism.
Here is a fact: if you’re white, you have not personally been harmed by fascist policies in this country. Waving the Iron Front flag, and waging a fight for your right to keep waving it, is a fine gesture, and not one without importance, but ultimately it’s just that—a gesture. It is not the same as supporting the communities actually impacted by state-sanctioned violence.
Here is another fact: white people, before we do anything else, have a responsibility to listen to and elevate the voices of people of color, especially Black people. We cannot wave our hands in the general direction of equality and pretend that all oppressions are equal. We need to put people of color—especially women and queer and trans people of color—in positions of power. A community organization whose leadership is entirely white cannot seriously claim to be anti-racist. Especially when people of color within the organization are being ignored.
Finally, soccer in America is a pay-to-play sport designed to funnel rich white players to the top levels at the expense of players from marginalized communities. When we talk in lofty tones about the unifying power of the world’s game, but gloss over the reality of the sport on the ground in this country, we are being dishonest. We are erasing communities of color who are systematically locked out of this game.
So, at the same time as I am challenging myself to do more work as an ally, I am challenging every white person reading this to do the same. This can be uncomfortable. I get it. We all want to think of ourselves as good people, good allies. The solution to that discomfort isn’t denial or disavowal, but action: you can decide right now that you care enough about Black lives to start actively working on their behalf.
What should I do?
There’s a lot to be said here, and I won’t pretend to be an expert or an educator on this issue, but I will start by recommending a handful of educational resources. So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo is an excellent resource for white people with any level of comfort or discomfort talking or thinking about race. White Fragility, as the title implies, discusses why white people find it so hard to talk about race. The New Jim Crow deals with how mass incarceration has been used as a tool to systematically oppress Black people. Ava DuVernay’s documentary 13th, also about mass incarceration, is on Netflix. As I challenge myself to keep learning about these issues, I have just ordered a copy of Ibram X. Kendi’s How to Be an Antiracist, which I have heard is excellent.
Educating yourself—which includes confronting your own racist beliefs, which we all have, by virtue of living in a deeply racist society—is just a starting point, however.
If you can afford it, financially supporting Black community organizations—as well as Black-owned businesses—is a powerful, tangible thing you can and should do on a regular basis (a list of a few such organizations is at the end of this article). Whether or not you can afford to give money away, you can also volunteer your actual time.
Protesting, during the pandemic, is complicated, but if you’re a low-risk person who is able to isolate yourself afterwards, consider that many people of color are currently putting their lives at risk—both from the police and COVID-19—to fight for their right to exist. Consider that you, as a white person, are realistically only impacted by one of those risks.
Finally, and this is work that will be ongoing for a long time, talk to other white people. Speak up when you witness racism—not just visible, public violence, but microaggressions from the people you see on a daily basis. Make a promise to yourself that you’ll do this. Practice if you need to. If you can, ask your employer or school what they are doing to support your Black coworkers and classmates during this time.
Talk to your friends, neighbors, and families, especially older relatives. It isn’t enough to roll your eyes at the racist aunt at Thanksgiving and wait until she shuts up. Talk to her. You don’t have to start a fight—that doesn’t work, anyway—but don’t be afraid of making things uncomfortable. There are many resources out there for these conversations, including the books I listed above. Again, practice what you’re going to say. Deep breath. Your discomfort is nothing compared to the very real violence people of color face on a regular basis.
Finally, I hope you’ll pass this along: ask the white people around you what they’re doing to confront racism. Hold yourself and others accountable. Hold us accountable.
Here is a list of organizations you can donate to, local and elsewhere, compiled by Don’t Shoot Portland. The list includes Portland’s Nat Turner Project and the PDX Protest Bail Fund for those arrested protesting in Portland. Other local organizations include the Urban League of Portland and Self Enhancement, Inc, who also have a list of Black-owned businesses on their website.
