When They Crack Down, We Rise Up: Defending Inclusive Democracy
By Eric K. Ward
“Do not lose heart, we were made for these times.” ~ From Letter To A Young Activist During Troubled Times by Clarissa Pinkola Estés, 2001
Five days after the electoral college delivered the presidency to Trump in 2016, I gave a keynote address. “On Tuesday the Devil walked up and whispered in my ear. He said: A storm is coming,” I told the hundreds of grassroots activists celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Community Alliance of Lane County in Eugene, Oregon.
“The recent elections are like none we have faced — ever. We have to realize that everything has changed. If you think you felt anguish on Tuesday night, none of us is prepared for the anguish that is about to come in January. We have to be prepared. To draw a moral line, a barrier, against bigotry and hatred. And to not allow anyone to cross that line without a fight.”
It’s been a long, hard four years since then. But the arc of the fight we are in today is even longer. It didn’t start on Election Day in 2016, and it won’t end on Election Day, 2020.
I don’t have to tell you what’s happening on the streets of my adopted hometown in Oregon. At a moment when more white folks support the Movement for Black Lives than got behind Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in his lifetime (pause and take that in; that’s movement, people) the Trump administration was forced to shift the narrative. We’re back to the most reliable dog-whistle of a racist regime: law and order. It’s a narrative that reminds everyone that Black people are to be feared. It’s a wedge issue that attempts to divide “good protesters” from “bad”.
In order to protect white supremacy and advance the nationalist vision of a white nation-state, they have to undermine democratic practice. Let’s be clear: the deployment of shadowy federal agents to quell protest is a sign of the strength of the Movement for Black Lives, a reflection of the power of the numbers who have decided they can’t look away one more time.
At the same time, the use of enforcement agents operating outside the bounds of the Constitution on the streets of Portland is a challenge not only to the Movement for Black Lives. It’s a head-on assault on democracy itself.
That’s why last week Western States launched a rapid response campaign against the federal targeting of Portland that threatens a number of constitutionally-protected rights. In the span of five days, we filed a lawsuit against the federal government and convened a highly-viewed emergency national briefing to underscore this is a national fight, not just a Portland story. To give organizers around the country concrete actions to raise the alarm and demonstrate solidarity with Portland, we created WeDefendDemocracy.org. When they crack down, we rise up.
In rising up, we have gotten results. We are relieved by today’s news that Oregon Governor Kate Brown has reached an agreement for federal officers to withdraw from Portland. They never should have been here in the first place. We will closely monitor their phased withdrawal until all additional forces have left our city. The new agreement is a good first step, but the situation will not be fully resolved until those responsible are held accountable and new policies are put into place to prevent future misuse of federal officers against the wishes of state and local leaders.
The anticipated withdrawal of federal officers is a victory for Portland and for the local leaders and nonviolent civil protesters who stood up to President Trump, and won. He picked a fight with the wrong city.
“We Were Made for These Times”
There’s a line from a piece of writing first circulated nearly two decades ago now, when the attacks of 9/11 justified the creation of the security apparatus that’s now being used to shut down democratic practice on the streets of America’s cities. It’s become a go-to meme to counter the discouragement of all we are up against: “We were made for these times.”
It’s how I feel about Western States Center, how I feel about Portland, as I approach the third anniversary of leaving a comfortable job in philanthropy and a great life in Brooklyn to move back to the Pacific Northwest to become the Center’s executive director.
We are in a pivotal moment, one filled with opportunity for the racial justice field. In ways we haven’t seen before, these killings are being brought to public attention and generating significant outcry. Cultural figures are making public statements in opposition to police violence, making the issue increasingly hard to ignore. We’re seeing broad-based coalitions coalesce around racism targeting blacks. And we’re seeing emerging leadership that is young, multiracial and national in scope, exercising tactics and strategies that are grounded in a deep analysis of systemic racism and prioritize people-centered democracy.
I published those words on the Ford Foundation blog six years ago, when the protests ignited by the police murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri were in their 124th consecutive day.
Four years earlier, in 2010, I had appeared on a panel on Organizing Inclusive Democracy hosted by Western States Center, with other longtime organizers including Suzanne Pharr, Tarso Ramos, Scot Nakagawa, and Marcy Westerling. Among many incisive and prophetic statements in the highlights video from this session is Marcy, chemo-bald, saying this:
Activism is a really great thing. But the stakes are a little bit too high right now. Right now we need to be organizers — because we’re looking at civil war versus civil society. Despite all the flaws of our democracy, for us to do that final push towards full inclusion, we don’t want to do that in a police state. – Marcy Westerling, 2010
The Most Effective Organizers You May Never Have Heard Of
It was nearly thirty years ago that Western States Center first helped to focus national allies on what was at stake in Oregon. The far-right Oregon Citizens Alliance was attempting to amend the Oregon constitution to declare homosexuality “abnormal and perverse.” Just as Trump is targeting Portland to inflame the so-called “culture war” nationally, the numerous ballot measures in which Oregonians were forced to vote on the rights of their LGBTQ family and neighbors were a national proving ground for far-right narratives and strategies. Western States pulled together four statewide civil society organizations as the Oregon Democracy Project. Led by Suzanne Pharr, it served as the incubator for Marcy Westerling to create one of our most essential grassroots organizations, the Rural Organizing Project.
Many of the movement’s leading strategists and organizers cut their teeth at Western States Center in those years: Tarso Ramos, now director of Political Research Associates. Scot Nakagawa, senior partner at ChangeLab, a racial justice think tank. Dismantling Racism trainer/organizers David Rogers and Moira Bowman, who went on to lead, respectively, the ACLU of Oregon and the policy shop for Oregon Food Bank. Brigette Sarabi, who founded the Western Prison Project, now Partnership for Safety & Justice, while on staff with WSC. Kalpana Krishnamurthy, now National Field and Policy Director at Forward Together. Aimee Santos-Lyons, now national gender officer of the United Nations Population Fund-Philippines. Tribal sovereignty leader Se-ah-dom Edmo, now director of MRG Foundation. The full roster of former WSC staff and board members and cohort graduates reads like a who’s who of the most quietly influential and effective organizers you may never have heard of, a formidable group of leaders who have steered critical civil society groups and held elected office across the West.
Western States Center has never been about making headlines for ourselves. We have no interest in becoming a household name. We work behind the scenes to lift up the organizations and leaders on the ground; to knit those organizations and leaders together into a stronger fabric than they would represent on their own; to equip them with tools and training — and, increasingly, narratives. Narratives that put our attention as a civil society on what urgently needs attention: Inclusive democracy. The ability to breathe. The values that unite us across ideology.
Why Portland?
There are lots of theories in play to answer the question why Portland? Why did Trump pick Portland? Why is the racial justice uprising here so large and durable? (See The New York Times piece How One of America’s Whitest Cities Became the Center of B.L.M. Protests that begins, “In a state with a brutal racist history….”)
When I chose to leave Brooklyn for Portland three years ago, I knew that I’d see a lot fewer folks who look like me, and that Black leaders hired into historically white-led organizations didn’t stay long. I knew what I was getting into. I’d spent 12 years starting in 1990 organizing against white supremacy and hate violence with the Community Alliance of Lane County in Eugene, Oregon and establishing over 120 task forces to combat organized bigotry in six states throughout the mountain-state region with the Northwest Coalition Against Malicious Harassment.
But when Trump was inaugurated in 2017, I knew that my former stomping grounds would once again be one of the most relevant places in the nation.
One of the first events I did when I landed was an Oregon Humanities “Think & Drink” billed as “a conversation on race, power, and justice” between myself and Rukaiyah Adams, chief investment officer of one of Oregon’s largest foundations. I was tagged in a tweet from an audience member that night that read, “People in other parts of the U.S. don’t want to talk about race like people in Portland. It’s going down in Portland. That’s why I’m here.”
Portland was already mobilizing against the white nationalist rage that was galvanized by a grievance-driven President. Earlier that year Jeremy Christian had killed two white men and injured a third as they intervened in his racist harassment of two young Black women on a MAX train in Portland. Western States Center was in the middle of the community response, as it had been in so many of the social justice and pro-democracy fights of the last three decades.
The Trump administration misread the situation when they decided to take the fight to Portland. Perhaps the White House watched the paramilitary groups that parade around on our streets and thought they’d have more support. Perhaps Trump thought he could make the nation afraid of moms locking arms and dads with leaf blowers, veterans standing up for the Constitution, and every other part of mainstream civil society he has helped to activate in defense of democracy.
Personally, I can’t think of a better place to have this fight. From the grassroots up, individuals, organizations, elected leaders — I’m damn proud of Portland, and of how folks have responded.
When They Crack Down, We Rise Up
I’m excited about what we’ve accomplished together in the last 10 days. I’m proud of Western States Center’s role, a role we’ve played behind the scenes for more than three decades now. I’m excited about what others have accomplished over the last 10 days, the last three months, the last four years. But there’s still a long way to go.
Election Day is now less than 100 days away. But it’s not the finish line. Inauguration day is not the finish line. A truly inclusive democracy — that’s the finish line. A country that keeps its promises to the First Nations of this land. A country in which every single one of us can live, love, worship, and work free from bigotry and fear.
We can’t build an inclusive democracy if there’s not a democracy to build on. That’s the work of this moment. Join us at WeDefendDemocracy.org.
I can’t think of better closing words than the ones I used to close that speech five days after the 2016 presidential election:
“I think back to Tuesday when the Devil walked up to me and whispered in my ear, that a storm is coming. On that night, I grabbed the Devil back, and I told him: We are the storm and we are here.”
Eric K. Ward is a Senior Fellow with the Southern Poverty Law Center and Race Forward, and Executive Director of Western States Center.
