I realize this title may seem aggressive. Before I get really into it, I want to share some news items:
Asian-American woman kicked on bus, January 22nd
Man faces bias crime charges after destroying Portland store, harassing worker with anti-Muslim slurs, January 22nd.
Man faces bias crime charges after assault at Portland Safeway, January 27th
While the skin colors, genders, and ethnic backgrounds of the people attacked varies, there are some strong common denominators between the attackers, though we get that from the photos, not really from the descriptions.
There is a certain conditioning where it feels rude to mention skin color. In these incidents, it feels very clear that the victims were targeted due to their skin color, so we get more information on them. It seems reasonable that the color of the attacker was a factor too, but that doesn't need to be mentioned, because white is the default.
That has its own problems.
A good starting point for your own fight might be to examine whether your reaction to the first part of this blog was dismay at the escalating violence and unfairness of it, or a desire to ask about crimes committed by Black people.
These three events are in the same city, within a single week, and that is a lot. They are probably also only the tip of the ice berg.
All three of these assaults rose to the level of criminal activity, involving physical injury or destruction of property, and they had a public aspect, with witnesses or video footage. There are probably a lot of verbal assaults and dirty looks and smaller things that don't get reported. It makes sense if many people of color hesitate to contact Portland police about indisputably criminal encounters, based on a history of various offices having friendly communications with white supremacists and the alarmingly high possibility of the wrong person getting shot.
It is also worth pointing out that in searching for links to these articles about these incidents - which I had mostly heard about on local news - I had to keep adding "Portland" to the search because similar assaults are happening in multiple other cities.
If you are still in the quibbling stage, you have homework to do. If you have reached dismay, keep reading.
As we were getting closer to the election, and then the inauguration, I had this fear that things like this would happen. Biden would probably win, he would probably successfully take office, but Trump supporters would be angry and lashing out. While the Capitol Insurrection did happen, it would be more incidents like this, individuals getting attacked in what you could call isolated incidents, but they are part of a larger pattern where thinking of them as isolated is not helpful.
I didn't know what to do about it, and I still don't.
Maybe caring is a start.
Then, after caring, maybe educating. Have you looked inside yourself?
Our church is not great on race. Sure, we have now officially refuted that Black people born before 1978 were less valiant in the pre-mortal life, but I suspect that some white members were still sort of assuming less valor in 1998, and that in 2028 we will still have some who have never gotten the memo.
It's not just that this is terrible and gross; it gets people injured. It gets people killed.
Let us not forget that if Portland police had listened to one Black woman harassed on a train one day, it might have prevented the attack that killed two white men (and nearly killed a third, and emotionally scarred a lot of people) on another day.
Look inward, and then look outward. When people talk about the bigotry they experience, don't write it off, assuming things can't really be that bad because you never notice racism. It's there, and if you are not seeing it then you need to look harder.
You may be able to save someone. It may end up saving you.
A good starting point could be the book I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown. It covers more the microaggressions than the outright assaults, but that's where a lot of us are.
I don't care how white you are; if you have any aspirations to following Christ, fighting white supremacy is your fight.
How will you fight it today?
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