Portland is an “Anarchy District”... but not really
By: Aurora Biggers
NEWBERG, Ore. - In a Sept. 21 memo threatening to cut federal aid, the Department of Justice (DOJ) derided Portland for permitting “anarchy, violence, and destruction.”
This memo seems to be a new episode installation in a series of words thrown haplessly into the panicked political fray. Words like “anarchy” hold significance when applied, yet the events in Portland are another instance of salient words losing all relative meaning when it suits the political narrative.
The protests in Portland have continued and entered day 123 as of Oct. 10. The DOJ’s memo, penned from the office of Attorney General William Barr, framed Portland, Seattle, and New York as jurisdictions that permit “anarchy, violence, and destruction,” and threatened to cut federal aid to all three cities. The memo cites President Trump’s September 2 memo announcing the intent to identify and reprimand “anarchist jurisdictions” but fails to state what the DOJ means by “anarchy.”
Perhaps Barr and President Trump have read V for Vendetta a few too many times. The state powers in Alan Moore’s dystopia are utterly facist and totalitarian. Sound familiar? Besides, Trump has clearly never read anything worthy of literary status and Barr seems like more of a We guy, something with Russian influence.
Protest has long held a place in civil discourse: The 16th century Protestant Reformation, the New York shirtwaist strike of 1909, Mohandas Gandhi's 1930 Salt March to protest British rule in India, Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1963 March on Washington, and The Stonewall riots in 1969, just to name a few.
Shaped by his Quaker lineage, Henry David Thoreau wrote Civil Disobedience, arguing that individuals “should not permit governments to overrule or atrophy their consciences, and that they have a duty to avoid allowing such acquiescence to enable the government to make them the agents of injustice.” Thoreau was motivated in part by his disgust with slavery and the Mexican–American War.
The first organized protest against slavery in the Americas (by white citizens) was also started by four Pennsylvania Quakers in 1688. The Quaker legacy of protest continues on, whether we identify it as Quaker or not. Using charged words like “riot” and “anarchy” to fit a political narrative denies the long history of peaceful and necessary protest as a part of the democratic enterprise.
Portland, Seattle, and NYC are now officially recognized as anarchy zones, which is dissonant in contrast to the reality I’ve felt while downtown at the protests.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, Seattle mayor Jenny Durkan and NYC’s Bill de Blasio, issued a joint response to the news:
“This is thoroughly political and unconstitutional. The President is playing cheap political games with Congressionally directed funds. Our cities are bringing communities together; our cities are pushing forward after fighting back a pandemic and facing the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, all despite recklessness and partisanship from the White House. What the Trump Administration is engaging in now is more of what we’ve seen all along: shirking responsibility and placing blame elsewhere to cover its failure.”
George Fox University’s Mathetes, a monthly event from Intercultural Life, provides students a space to engage difficult topics/conversations Mathetes held an event on Sept. 30 entitled “What is a Christian’s role in protest?” to discuss the protests in Portland.
I would argue protests can be a deeply Christian act. Christ himself was a person of color who experienced the violence of the magistrate, the banality of evil, and death as the result of a totalitarian political power.
Thomas Graff wrote in his article “Why Protesting Injustice is a Fundamentally Christian Act” that “our central liturgical image is the crucified Christ, whose body was broken by violence and adorned with Roman graffiti, ‘INRI,’ and “Christianity is best understood in nature and practice as a form of protest.”
Blatantly missing from the DOJ’s memo is the fact that many of the “anarchists” in Portland are members of nonprofits and aid organizations, volunteers providing food, medical supplies, and other basic necessities for free to people in the Portland area. The protests occurring right now are actions aimed at “bringing communities together.”
I submit that the American church should take a note from these protesters; I have never seen a better image of Christian love and hospitality as I saw among those gathered to protest in Portland.
Those who would deem the protests as violent, chaotic “anarchy” seem blithely unaware of the immense injustice and suffering occurring within our nation and perhaps are too accustomed to the capitalist spirit within America’s Christianity.