Also last Saturday night a protester of one group got shot and killed by another belonging to another group. Like WHY? Same again....you are out there screaming for justice and supposedly being against violence and injustice but in reality you are a hypocrite. As with the other perpetrator, the offender has a lengthy rap sheet that speaks loudly of what kind of a piece of shit he is. Father of two as well. Pathetic "role model". Same as with the other piece of shit, he belongs locked up for a LONG time.
I am not with any group. I am for what is right as in the right thing to do. I hate the looting, shooting, destroying, violence and killings. Fuck that. Go burn down your parent's, grandparent's, cousin's or a friend's house and destroy their property or your own dwelling (if you have one) instead of public property. Low intelligence morons.
Can't people see that the destruction will cost money to fix, tax payer money. Money that could go to something else instead. That something else that people are protesting about. A better life. Destruction leaves ugly blemishes on a city for all to see.
So Elk sculpture got put away and the fountain Elk stood on is destroyed. Recently somebody put up a new elk (or whatever it is supposed to be) where original Elk once was.
Sure new elk is fun but it does NOT make it right what happened to original Elk that was put there in 1900, so 120 years ago. I heard somewhere that maybe (key word here is MAYBE ) the maker of Elk was a racist (Roland Hinton Perry, a sculptor an artist). Or perhaps the person that commissioned the elk. Who knows? You know what....I don't give a fuck!
Guess what....Auschwitz, Treblinka and Majdanek are still standing in Poland and Dachau in Germany and people are OK with that. Ponder the history in those buildings for a second.
So yeah.....to the idiots that ruined the fountain and the original Elk. YOU SUCK.
"DEFUND" in pretty and somewhat burnt letters made of flowers was put in front of City Hall. As in defund the police. So defunding the police CAN be a good thing IF the money goes to something that will be useful and helpful for the community. I am for that if it's well done. Several cities (Austin, New York City, San Francisco and Los Angeles to name a few) have cut funds, of course not completely but allocated the money elsewhere. How this will play out in reality only time will tell. But if you are out there yelling Fuck The Police, Kill All Cops and similar insults and think shooting police officers is OK, like the murders of David Dorn and Tamarris L. Bohannon, (WHERE IS THEIR JUSTICE?!) then you do not deserve any assistance from the police should you ever need it. Ask a friend or a neighbor for help if you get assaulted, robbed, burglarized or raped and hope for the best. Tags like these are all over Portland. So lame to spray paint shit like that.
Coincidentally since the protest in Portland began on May 29 several cannabis shops here have been burglarized accompanied by armed robberies at some of them. 22 dispensaries so far. Since the police is busy in other places, mostly nightly with the protests they can't get to people that need their assistance. All fun and games until YOU become the victim of a violent crime or a property crime huh?
This statue of a woman, man, child and wagon wheel is also destroyed and gone. It used to be in the same park as Elk, which is a park in front of the Justice Center where a lot of the protesting has been going on. Here is what I have found about the statue called "The Promised Land".
"In Chapman Square is a bronze statue commissioned by the Oregon Trail Coordinating Council to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Oregon Trail in 1993. The Promised Land, by Oregon artist David Manuel, depicts a pioneer family - father, mother, and son - at the end of their journey. The red granite slab upon which the statue is mounted is inscribed with a quote by Thomas Jefferson."
So the people that emigrated to the US in the 1820's and forward, the majority of them fled poverty and famine, like the Swedes and the Irish. To my knowledge they were just poor people trying to make a better life for themselves but this statue has angered people in the past. I have read up on some of the objections to it (the land belonged to the Native Americans and was stolen, the man is holding a Bible) and at the base of it there is a quote by Thomas Jefferson and he did own slaves. I am personally against the destruction of the statue but I can see where others come from on the issue.
What's left of "The Promised Land". A slab that people now sit on.
I DO get why there is anger, unrest and pain. But I do not think destruction and violence is the solution. Neither do several African Americans that I personally heard speak downtown Portland.
I am not going to be one of those people that suddenly because of BLM give others advice to educate themselves on the history of the US and the struggle of blacks just to look good and collect points, to try to come across like I care just to forget about the whole thing after a few days or weeks. I have read a lot of history on different topics since I basically learned to read.
And I do understand that since I am not black I have not experienced certain complications and situations.
I feel that every able adult has a social responsibility, what that means to me can mean something completely different to somebody else.
Although I most of the time have little hope for humanity because we are destroying this planet and everything that is beautiful on it but that doesn't mean that you should give up, you need to continue trying. I believe in the message painted on the plywood below.....just like many others. And I believe in it until somebody does something so they don't deserve it. I can think of a few individuals that I have no love and respect for. I don't go around gushing "love" for everybody I see, I am not that nice.
Portland is a beautiful city. There are so many nice things to see and do here.
I truly enjoy living here and I often go on long walks in the city and I volunteer downtown with some of the less fortunate and somehow miraculously where I volunteer we ALL get along....different colors of skin and all. Nobody is yelling or acting violent. Imagine that!
We are approaching day 100 since the protests started. I am hoping for peaceful gatherings from now on.
Eric Ward (director of progressive nonprofit Western States Center), "Portland has become a proxy for a reelection campaign, and for alt-right and white nationalist paramilitaries and vigilantes who want to live out their fantasy of racial war."
"I'm enraged that a person was killed on the streets of Portland. I don't care what their political ideology is."
Reverend E.D. Mondaine (president of the Portland NAACP), in an op-ed published in the Washington Post, Mondainé denounced what he called the “white spectacle".
“Unfortunately, ‘spectacle’ is now the best way to describe Portland’s protests,” he wrote. “Vandalizing government buildings and hurling projectiles at law enforcement draw attention — but how do these actions stop police from killing black people? What are antifa and other leftist agitators achieving for the cause of black equality?”
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