15:07:44 Please take it away.
15:07:44 >> Walidah:  Thank you.
15:07:46 >> Recording in progress.
15:07:46 >> Walidah:  Oh.
15:07:49 Thank you so much.
15:07:55 Chelle and Beverly, and everyone who put the event today --
15:07:56 together today.
15:08:04 Thank you to the captioner and the interpreters for making sure this event is as accessible as possible.
15:08:07 I'm very excited to be here --
15:08:08 be here, ha, ha.
15:08:11 Be in the Zoom time here.
15:08:33 And I'm -- I'm excited that Western Oregon University is beginning to think about their responsibility and role in addressing historic inequalities as well as ongoing inequalities and working to establish justice.
15:08:58 And, obviously, my presentation today is just one very, very small part of the ongoing work that needs to happen to deeply incorporate an understanding of Black history in Oregon as well as all of the histories of people of color and the larger history of race and identity and power in the Pacific Northwest.
15:09:14 I especially want to thank the Black Student Union, student leaders and members, because I know that y'all have put in a lot of work to get us to this place, and to make -- make it possible for me to visit, and I appreciate that.
15:09:22 >>> Before we start, I just want to be clear -- a little clearer about some of the language I'm using.
15:09:24 I think we often use words --
15:09:29 these large bucket words, like diversity, equity, inclusion.
15:09:32 I don'ts use those words.
15:09:36 I find that they have really become meaningless.
15:09:41 I think that a lot of times people don't know what that means, what you are actually referring to.
15:09:52 And I have heard diversity mean everything from people of color to bicyclists, which is not useful to me.
15:10:02 So I prefer to talk about justice, and it's important to recognize justice is not about simple inclusion or tokenism.
15:10:16 Just is about reimagining the entire system, not about integrating single marginalized people into an existing system of inequality.
15:10:35 And so we absolutely have to focus on the ways that folks of color are being marginalized, oppressed, and exploited, and to see that those realities have very deep historical roots.
15:10:49 To institute true justice, it is imperative to acknowledge that the foundation of the Northwest, the foundation of Oregon, is as a racist white utopia.
15:10:53 That was the founding ideology of this place that we are.
15:10:57 And I will, of course, talk a lot more about that.
15:11:14 >>> But while we are acknowledging the immensely deep roots of institutional white supremacy, it's imperative that we center the agency, the leadership, the vision, and the courage of communities of color.
15:11:19 Communities of color have never been passive victims.
15:11:21 They have always been active change makers.
15:11:28 My area of focus is on the Black community, but I know that's true for all communities of color.
15:11:36 And communities of color as a whole have been responsible for all of the advancements around racial justice.
15:11:40 And you cannot have justice without racial justice.
15:11:43 I just want to say that again.
15:11:46 You cannot have justice without racial justice.
15:12:00 I am in Portland, Oregon, and I hear a lot, you know, Portland is so progressive, it's so great on so many issues except the issue of racial inclusion.
15:12:14 But that is not except the issue of racial inclusion; it means what is being created is, again, a racist white utopia that is only accessible and only meant for white people.
15:12:24 So if you are creating an ideal society only for one group, that is the foundation of exclusion and exploitation.
15:12:26 And that is -- that's where we are.
15:12:31 So it's important to start there.
15:12:39 I'm going to be going through using a tool I created called the Oregon Black history timeline.
15:12:42 I'm going to share my screen right now.
15:12:50 I'm only going to be sharing a very small number of slides from this, but you can access that.
15:13:07 There is a video, a YouTube video, of my Oregon Black history timeline, and we'll share the link with you, and you are welcome to explore the history I'm sharing now as well as many other pieces that we most likely will not have time to go into.
15:13:20 >>> I do want to be clear:  My area of focus is on Oregon Black history, and I think it's important to focus on the different experiences of folks of color.
15:13:33 Even though we are all dealing with the same white supremacist systems of oppression, the ways that those have manifested and the methods of resistance are unique to each community.
15:13:44 I think, again, phrases like "diversity," when talking about race, end up lumping everyone together and creating a sort of generalized brown experience.
15:13:49 That is not historically accurate, and I actually find it less than useful.
15:13:52 So we are talking about Black people today.
15:14:06 I encourage you to go out and learn about the specific histories of other communities of color as well so that you are not generalizing but you are actually rooting in the real experiences.
15:14:17 I have laid out this presentation to cover some of the larger patterns and moments in Oregon Black history.
15:14:29 We will have a lot of time at the end to dive deeper, and so as I'm talking, I will, you know, kind of indicate if you are interested, we can talk more about this later.
15:14:40 Because this history is so large, because there is so much to talk about, I want to make sure we're having the conversations that feel useful for who is here right now.
15:14:53 So I will do my presentation and then there will be plenty of time for you to post in the Q and A tab at the -- on the bottom control bar questions, places you want to learn more.
15:14:59 So you are welcome to do that as I speak, and I will begin to address those once I have finished.
15:15:10 >>> And I do just want to be clear, obviously, I am talking about Black history, which is Oregon history.
15:15:12 Oregon Black history is Oregon history.
15:15:17 Just as the history of people of color is the history of the United States.
15:15:22 And you can't begin to understand this place we are --
15:15:26 all are without knowing that.
15:15:54 And every single nano second of every one of our lives in Oregon is shaped by this history, and if you are not aware of that, that means you have been privileged by those systems of inequality, and I strongly encourage you to, you know, continue doing the educational work to understanding and kind of surfacing that reality for yourself.
15:16:15 So I just want to root in a very clear framework and kind of given truth that I am basing my presentation on, and that is that systemic and institutional racism have existed historically and continue to exist today.
15:16:22 It is in fact, the foundation of the institutions that shape all of our lives.
15:16:25 White supremacy is very much alive.
15:16:26 So this is not something that --
15:16:37 you know, I'm not sharing this for folks to be like, oh, that's an interesting/horrific part of our history, but it has no relevance today.
15:16:39 This history I call a living legacy.
15:16:43 Again, it affects every single one of us, every day.
15:16:45 And we have to talk about it.
15:16:52 We have to talk about race, because this is literally a life-and-death issue.
15:17:05 The last piece of that, that I want to be very clear, is that I believe as a historian, who has studied this history, what this history tells us is that the system is not broken.
15:17:10 It is functioning exactly as it was intended to function.
15:17:17 So I think that is an important framework, because it changes how you address issues.
15:17:23 If you are addressing issues saying, well, this is just broken, we can get it back on course.
15:17:38 We just need to do a little tinkering, a little reform here and there, that is very different than saying, these systems were meant to exploit, oppress, and marginalize communities of color.
15:17:56 It is -- has and is doing that, extremely well, because when we root in that understanding, we recognize that these institutions then either have to be transformed, completely reimagined, and many of them will have to be dismantled and utterly replaced.
15:18:01 >>> So white supremacy is the foundation of the state.
15:18:05 This region, this country from its inception.
15:18:12 And we can see that through things like the 1844 lash law.
15:18:27 So in 1844, when we were still the Oregon territory, the territory passed its first Black Exclusion Law, which banned Black folks from existing in the Oregon territory.
15:18:38 And to be clear, the Oregon territory was Oregon, Washington, Idaho, parts of Wyoming, parts of Montana.
15:18:42 So when you say "the Oregon territory," you are basically saying the entire Northwest.
15:18:50 So the entire Northwest, in 1844, told Black people our existence was a crime.
15:19:09 And that first Black Exclusion Law because there were several including the lash law that said that Black people who stayed in the Oregon territory would be publicly whipped up to 39 lashes every six months until they left.
15:19:38 That is an incredibly horrific and vital foundation for this place that we live, that Black people's existence was criminalized, and we were told we would be publicly tortured over and over and over again, by law enforcement because the sheriffs were the ones tasked to act out this torture, until we left the territory.
15:19:55 It's important to be clear this lash law, as I said, and the Black Exclusion Laws are part of this larger founding idea of the Northwest as a racist white utopia.
15:20:01 I can say that definitively because we have information from the very people who created it that that was their goal.
15:20:06 So this is a quote from Peter Burnett.
15:20:13 Peter Burnett was a legislator here who helped to draft this legislation.
15:20:16 It was in fact, called Peter Burnett's lash law.
15:20:21 He actually went on to be governor of California after this.
15:20:37 And he wrote the purpose of the lash law and the Black Exclusion Law, these are his words:  "The object is to keep clear of that most troublesome class of population.
15:20:40 [ Black people ]
15:20:48 We are in a new world and we wish to avoid much of those evils that have so much afflictafflicted the United States and other countries.
15:20:59 So, again, it was very clear, the goal of Black exclusion was to keep Black people out to build this racist white utopia.
15:21:12 And we see, again, every community of color has and continues to have to contend with that notion of a white utopia of the Northwest in different ways.
15:21:22 This resulted in Oregon being the only state in the union admitted with a racial exclusionary clause in its constitution.
15:21:38 So Oregon's constitution included the third Black Exclusion Law, which stated that Black people were not allowed to make contracts, hold real estate, vote, basically Black people had no legal standing.
15:21:43 Their existence was codified in the Constitution as criminal.
15:21:47 There are many important parts of this, and, again, we can talk more about this.
15:22:00 But one part I really want to raise up is that that language of Black exclusion was not removed from Oregon's Constitution until 2002.
15:22:05 So until 2002, Oregon's Constitution included that Black exclusion language.
15:22:08 This was not an oversight.
15:22:27 We know, again, definitively, it was not an oversight because Black organizers for almost 80 years came to Oregon through the legislature, through the ballot box, and said, remove this language and prove to us this is not the kind of place you want to be.
15:22:39 And again and again, by refusing to remove the Black exclusion language, white Oregonians said this is exactly who we want to be.
15:22:49 And for anyone who was here in 2001 when the ballot measure to remove that language ran, you remember it was a fight to get it removed.
15:22:58 In the 21st century, there was immense pushback against removing the Black exclusion language from the Constitution.
15:23:21 Much of that pushback centered around the idea of wanting to preserve Oregon's history, which many of us heard as wanting to preserve the founding notion of a racist white utopia.
15:23:21 >>>
15:23:38 Even after the lash law was removed, there were so many methods and mechanisms of exploitation and control over Black folks and folks of color.
15:23:49 So I did want to raise up this example from 1862 that created a tax on Black folks, Chinese folks, and Hawaiian folks.
15:23:59 And it required an annual tax of $5 only of those groups for the mere privilege to exist in Oregon.
15:24:01 So no one else had to pay.
15:24:05 Only these folks had to pay.
15:24:13 And $5 was a lot of money in 1862, especially for Black people who had no legal standing at all.
15:24:23 So if you could not pay, then the state would press you into service -- "service" -- until your debt was paid off.
15:24:38 So, again, you would basically be arrested, forced to labor until you had paid off the debt you incurred for simply existing in a white supremacist region.
15:24:48 And that -- again, that criminalization of Blackness is something we see recurring throughout all of Oregon history.
15:24:51 Again, very much into the present.
15:24:57 But it is also reflective of the ideology of America as a whole.
15:25:07 I actually always tell folks that Oregon is a very useful case study for the rest of the nation, which some folks in other places can't even find Oregon on a map.
15:25:10 So they do not agree.
15:25:23 But I think it's an incredibly useful example for America, because the only thing unique about Oregon is Oregon was bold enough to write it down over and over and over again.
15:25:34 But the same policies, practices,s and ideologies that shaped Oregon shaped every state in the union and shaped the nation as a whole.
15:25:40 The founding ideology of the United States of America is a racist white utopia.
15:25:56 And, again, we know this from the very language of those who settled and were the first, you know, colonizers of the United States, with this notion that became known as manifest destiny.
15:26:09 Manifest destiny is the justification white colonizers used for genocide, for theft of entire continents, for chattel slavery.
15:26:26 They told themselves that God gave this land to white people to make it prosperous, because Indigenous people were not using it properly, and that white had the right to do whatever was necessary granted by God to make the land productive.
15:26:43 This ideology of manifest destiny is not something we just see in the 1600s, 1700s, 1800s, it is something we see absolutely to this day in mainstream political rhetoric.
15:27:00 I pulled up this quote from a U.S. Senator in the early 1900s, to show, again, that this concept of manifest destiny had far reaches into systems of power for centuries.
15:27:01 And, again, unto today.
15:27:16 So the quote from this Senator says:  "God has not been preparing the English-speaking and tectonic peoples for a years for nothing but vain and idle self-admiration.
15:27:17 No.
15:27:27 He has made us the master organizers of the world to establish system where chaos reigns.
15:27:39 He has made us apt at government to -- the world would relapse into barberism and might.
15:27:54 So, again, this is basically the exact same language that we heard Peter Burnett -- excuse me -- Peter Burnett using to justify the lash law and the Black Exclusion Laws in Oregon.
15:28:04 >>> But it's really important to recognize, obviously, the Black Exclusion Laws were about excluding Black people brutally.
15:28:12 But the other idea was about resistance and not allowing oppressed communities to come together.
15:28:38 So the introduction from the second Black exclusion law, which passed in 1849 officially, said, it would be highly dangerous to allow negroes or mulattos to reside in the territory or to intermix with the Indians instilling in their minds feelings of hostility against the white race.
15:28:57 So, again, very terrified of oppressed communities, in this case Black and Indigenous folks coming together, and that is because, you know, nationally, the United States is really built on the foundations of genocide and land theft and chattel slavery.
15:29:20 And there has been a long history since before America was a nation of Black and Indigenous solidarity, of Black and Indigenous folks joining forces, fighting slavery, fighting colonizers, fighting occupying forces, and building joint communities together.
15:29:27 That -- so this is not some sort of idle speculation.
15:29:45 This is based on the very real histories of Black and Indigenous folks joining together to overthrow white supremacy and the white colonizers in Oregon were very clear in the Oregon territory were very clear that they did not want that happening here.
15:29:49 In their racist white utopia.
15:30:01 >>> The other piece of this which was mentioned by Chelle in the introduction for how Western Oregon University got its land was the Oregon Donation Land Act.
15:30:05 So in 1850, the Oregon Donation Land Act was passed.
15:30:12 It gave away free land, hundreds of acres per person, only to white men.
15:30:19 And this, again, is the literal and figurative foundation of the Northwest.
15:30:35 At the end of the day, 2.5 million acres of Indigenous land in the Northwest were given away for free, obviously stolen, brutally, from Indigenous communities.
15:30:38 And this is how this place was built.
15:31:00 And so, again, I think my focus is on Black history, but I absolutely look at those intersections to see both the shared oppression, but I think more importantly to raise up the shared resistance amongst different communities of color.
15:31:08 >>> I want to be clear that communities of color, again, always have been active change-makers, never passive victims.
15:31:17 So I'm going to be sharing throughout this examples of the ways Black communities have organized and resisted.
15:31:22 I think it's important to center that leadership, because this --
15:31:34 this history doesn't get shared often enough, and when it does get shared, it's often framed as look at what happened to these powerless Black and brown people.
15:31:36 That has never been the case.
15:31:41 The minute that there has been repression, there has been resistance.
15:31:55 And, again, all of the racial justice which creates justice for all of us has come from the immense courage, determination, and fortitude of communities of color.
15:32:01 >>> And so I wanted to start with this example from 1867.
15:32:25 So, again, this is at the same time Black existence is legally criminalized and Black folks have no legal standing in Oregon, but Black communities in both Portland and Salem organized to gain public education both for their children, but also for all children that had been locked out of these white supremacist systems.
15:32:27 They went about it in different ways.
15:32:41 In Salem, the Black community raised their own money, $427.50 -- which, again, was a lot of money in 1867 -- and they started their own school.
15:32:52 The Portland Black community actually threatened the Portland Public School District with legal action unless they created an educational system for Black people.
15:32:54 And they were both successful.
15:33:03 So before then, there was no organized public education that taught anyone except Protestant white people in the state.
15:33:25 >>> So, again, I think it's important when the leadership vision and work of folks of color in general and the Black community specifically are centered, we create institutions that give access to everyone who has been locked out of mainstream institutions.
15:33:34 But it's important to recognize that this is, again, happening in immense brutality and backlash.
15:33:52 So there are the ways institutional racism is happening, and then there are the ways that white people enforcing their version of racial hierarchies and being supported by law enforcement and all of the other institutions.
15:34:02 An important example of that is the linking of Alonzo Tucker who was a Black man who was lynched in 1802 in Coos Bay.
15:34:12 He was accused of assaulting a white woman, even though there was contradictory evidence from white people at that time that that was not the case.
15:34:17 Tucker was not given a trial at all.
15:34:21 He was not protected by the law enforcement in that town.
15:34:34 He was in fact, abandoned by the U.S. marshal to a lynch mob which at the end had grown to 300 people, 'cause he was murdered and his body was hung off of a bridge.
15:34:40 And it was left there for hours.
15:34:53 Newspapers at the time described the lynch mob was quiet and orderly, and they said, Tucker was a "Black fiend" who got the death he so rightly deserved.
15:35:13 So newspapers, law enforcement, the majority of white people across Oregon were absolutely supportive of the persecution, torture, and murder in broad daylight of Alonzo Tucker.
15:35:27 >>> Again, framing this around resistance, there is work happening now to memorialize Tucker as well as other Black victims of racial violence in Oregon.
15:35:46 So in 2019 the Oregon Remembrance Project actually did a soil collection which you can see happening here where they collected soil from the locations where Alonzo Tucker was terrorized and murdered.
15:35:54 This is part of the National Lynching Museum which has collected soil samples from sites of lynching across the nation.
15:35:58 And so that's why there are two jars.
15:36:06 One has state in Coos Bay, at the historical museum, and one has gone to the national museum.
15:36:12 And again this is one of many projects.
15:36:31 The Oregon Remembrance Project is doing to honor those victims of racialized violence in Oregon.
15:36:49 >>> It's really important to recognize that what I call street level white supremacisy -- the white supremacisy of vigilante groups, or like the Aryan Nation or the Klan, those are not separate.
15:36:52 They exist on a spectrum and they support each other and need each other.
15:37:04 I always use the example of the Ku Klux Klan because I think it shows very starkly, (A), how widespread this organization was.
15:37:13 So Oregon -- the Oregon chapter -- the first Oregon chapter of the Klan was founded in 1921.
15:37:19 At its height the Klan had the highest per-capita membership in the country here in Oregon.
15:37:25 So for our population, we had more Klansmen than elsewhere.
15:37:34 And nationally, 15%, 1-5 percent, of eligible Americans were card-carrying members of the Ku Klux Klan.
15:37:38 And eligible Americans meant white men, because that's all they wanted.
15:37:42 So 15% nationally is an incredibly high number.
15:37:44 That's just not a fringe organization.
15:37:50 It also not only had massive numbers, but the Klan reached into the highest echelons of power.
15:38:04 So this image you see ran in a newspaper in Portland, saying that these Portland leaders were taking guidance from the Klan about what the Klan wanted to see happen in Portland.
15:38:08 They in fact, called the Klan a mystic organization.
15:38:15 That is how the newspaper chose to define this racist terrorist organization.
15:38:17 And who is pictured?
15:38:23 The Portland police chief, the district attorney, the U.S.
15:38:26 attorney, the county sheriff and the Portland mayor.
15:38:39 So not only were they comfortable enough to meet with the Klan, they also felt comfortable to pose with a photo with the Klan.
15:38:51 In the 1922 election, Oregon elected Walter Pierce, a Klan governor and he worked with the Klan to push forward all kinds of horrific legislation.
15:38:53 We can talk about that more, if folks are interested.
15:39:01 Again, it's important to note that the Klan was not the exception to American government and -- and systems of power.
15:39:05 The Klan sat at the heart of America.
15:39:08 It was integral to it.
15:39:21 And it worked Sim biotically with the already fundamentally unjust institutions to codify its kind of white supremacist terror.
15:39:23 >>> Again, there is always resistance.
15:39:38 I just wanted to pull out this example from 1916, the Portland NAACP chapter as well as other organizations in Portland were part of a national campaign against the film "Birth of a Nation."
15:39:43 "Birth of a Nation" is perhaps the most virulently racist film that has ever been created.
15:40:04 It glorifies the creation of the Ku Klux Klan, saying the Klan are basically white knights, protecting the white community and especially white womanhood from Black hoards who are portrayed as basically animals.
15:40:08 "Birth of a Nation" was also the first film to screen in the White House.
15:40:18 So the president at the time, Woodrow Wilson, showed "Birth of a Nation" to visiting dignitaries as if it were a documentary.
15:40:23 And so, again, Oregon is a useful case study for the rest of the nation.
15:40:27 This is happening with the president, our governor, Portland leadership.
15:40:46 But across the nation, the NAACP organized to stop the film from screening because after the film screened, hoards of white people would go out and terrorize, brutalize, and in cases murder Black people.
15:41:01 At this time films screened over and over again in the theatre, so "Birth of a Nation" would play year after year after year, across this country, and white mobs would go out and terrorize Black communities.
15:41:04 So the Portland NAACP became --
15:41:22 was successful in getting the city council to ban films that stir up racial hatred first and then specifically "Birth of a Nation," was not allowed to play in Portland anymore.
15:41:32 >>> There are so many ways that white supremacy replicates itself institutionally.
15:41:39 So, again, I will share briefly about this, and if folks want to go into more depth, we can.
15:41:49 But a huge way is place, where do people live, where are folks allowed to live, how are those communities created?
15:41:51 There is a strong history in --
15:41:56 obviously in the United States and in Portland and Oregon of redlining.
15:42:12 That is the act of literally drawing red lines around a small part of the map, usually the least desirable place, and saying that Black folks and sometimes other people of color could only live within that area.
15:42:39 So in Portland, which, again, is a very useful case study for the rest of the nation about redlining, segregation, displacement, and now gentrification, that area was Albina, which is, if you have been to Portland, where the Mota Center 1 is now the -- the Memorial Coliseum.
15:42:41 And this was not just kind of --
15:42:44 this was not a suggestion.
15:43:00 This was enforced on so many different levels, from the banks to places like the Portland Reality Board code of ethics, which said that realtors could not sell or rent to Black people and later Asian folks, outside of these areas that had been marked.
15:43:03 And this was strongly enforced.
15:43:11 If a realtor even showed a place to a Black person elsewhere, they were very likely to lose their licence.
15:43:18 But, again, Black folks make community everywhere, even in the most unlikely of places.
15:43:24 And so I always love this example of Maxville.
15:43:33 So in 1923, in Wallowa County in eastern Oregon there was a town, Maxville, that was run by a lumber company.
15:43:40 They recruited 60 Black skilled workers and their families to come and work at Maxville.
15:43:48 And so out basically in the woods, in Eastern Oregon, there was a -- a strong Black community out there.
15:43:56 And, again, I love this work and this example, because it is ongoing work.
15:44:12 So Gwen Trice, who is the daughter of one of those original loggers who came in 1923, she has started the Maxville Interpretive Heritage Center and is working to preserve that history of Maxville.
15:44:29 They have a space now in eastern Oregon you can go to, but she is actually working on getting the land that Maxville actually sat on, because it was eventually abandoned and dismantled when the lumber company no longer needed it.
15:44:38 She is working to get that land, and then to rebuild and recreate Maxville as an immersive historical site.
15:44:52 So you will be able to go there and walk into a recreation of this -- this Black community in -- in Maxville, which, to me, is incredibly exciting.
15:44:58 There is a documentary on OPB called thehe Logger's Daughter."
15:45:00 And that is about Gwen Trice's work.
15:45:14 I encourage everyone to look at that, because it's very -- it's great.
15:45:16 >>> Resistance also happens on many different levels.
15:45:20 So I wanted to highlight cultures of resistance.
15:45:29 So from the 1930s to 1956, Portland was known as a jazz treasure nationally.
15:45:37 Jazz happening 24 hours a day on North Williams Avenue, which was the -- basically the main artery of Albina.
15:45:42 Again, the only -- effectively, the only place that Black people could live in Portland.
15:45:54 All of the jazz greats played in Portland, Duke Ellington spent his 52nd or 54th birthday in --
15:45:56 on Williams.
15:46:15 And, you know, in a community that was overexploited and underresourced, like Albina, it's incredible that they created this culture of resistance that was recognized nationally and was respected.
15:46:23 And so it's important to see the cultural resistance as part of that.
15:46:40 >>> So we can talk more about Vanport and World War II if folks are interested as well, but this is the second large influx -- large being relative -- second large influx of Black folks into Oregon.
15:46:49 The first large influx of Black folks came with the completion of the transcontinental railroad in the 1880s.
15:46:52 The majority of Black folks came working on the railroad.
15:47:09 The second was during World War II, when war-time industries, factories in the north actively recruited workers to come from the south, and especially Black workers, to come and work in those factories.
15:47:16 And in -- in the Portland area, the factory was Kaiser Shipyards.
15:47:28 And Kaiser ended up building an entire town that he called Vanport which was on unincorporated land between Vancouver and Portland.
15:47:30 So Vanport.
15:47:34 It became the second largest city in Oregon.
15:47:38 So that is also its -- it was not an extension of Portland.
15:47:43 It was a separate city in -- in Oregon, and the second largest.
15:47:48 And at its height, it was 40% Black.
15:48:02 So this is a significant change, not only in the numbers of Black folks in Oregon, but the concentration in one city of Black people is unprecedented, has never been seen.
15:48:04 -- seen before or since.
15:48:06 Yet, in Oregon.
15:48:10 >>> Vanport was never supposed to last, though.
15:48:11 It was made of surplus materials.
15:48:25 It was not properly protected by dams because Kaiser just wanted those people's labor and imagined once World War II was over, they would go away, back to where they came from or wherever.
15:48:40 So in 1948, there was a huge flood, and the dam broke, but it wouldn't have mattered if it didn't break, because vanport was not protected on all sides.
15:48:41 There were only dams on three sides.
15:48:45 So it would have flooded anyway:
15:48:47 -- anyway.
15:48:48 Vanport was completely destroyed.
15:48:53 We see a large influx of Black folks into Portland as well.
15:49:06 And this is when the numbers of Black people in Portland get large enough that the city of Portland at least has to pretend to listen to Black concerns.
15:49:18 >>> So I'm not going to go into a ton of depth about Portland because I know a lot of times when people say Oregon history, they really mean Portland, and I know that's frustrating for folks not in Portland.
15:49:31 But I did want to offer this resource called "bleeding Albina" by Dr. Karen Gibson, who taught at Portland State University's urban studies program.
15:49:34 She has retired.
15:49:48 But it is one of the best resources on exploring redlining, segregation, displacement, and gentrification.
15:49:54 I think certainly in -- in Oregon, but I think the article stands up nationally as well.
15:49:59 And I would encourage everyone who has any interest in it to read it.
15:50:26 I will just pull out -- I think some of the most important pieces that Dr. Gibson says is that -- if we are talking about gentrification and we are only looking to the 1990s, we cannot begin to understand gentrification, that gentrification actually started in the 1940s and '50s with the first wave of urban renewal.
15:50:39 That gentrification is part of a cyclical process of marginalization, segregation, neglect, and then gentrification.
15:50:43 And that it is an intention process.
15:50:53 It is multigenerational, multidecade, intentional, structural, and it involves the cooperation between private and public entities.
15:51:00 So I think that framing of gentrification and its placement in the past is so incredibly important.
15:51:07 So, again, I -- I can't recommend enough that folks write this -- or read this.
15:51:14 >>> But, you know, it's important to talk about, so Black folks were segregated into Albina.
15:51:23 The other side of that is to create these all-white enclaves across the state.
15:51:26 And these have been referred to as sundown towns.
15:51:32 A sundown town is a pursely all-white town.
15:51:42 They always use violence or later on the threat of violence to maintain that existence.
15:52:04 And I -- I set the slide for the sundown towns in the 1960s because that is when Medford, Oregon, which was considered to be the largest sundown town in Oregon, finally took down its sign that said, basically, N-word, don't let the sun set on you here.
15:52:09 And that was right as you went into Medford, big in bold.
15:52:10 Very clear.
15:52:13 That sign did not come down until the 1960s.
15:52:20 But even the removal of a sign doesn't change the reality of the place.
15:52:29 And so, you know, basically, the entire Rogue Valley was one big sundown town with Medford being the biggest place.
15:52:33 But I did want to offer another resource.
15:52:42 So there is a project called "Sundown Towns" by James Lowen who was a scholar.
15:52:44 Unfortunately he has passed away recently.
15:52:47 But he has done incredible work on sundown towns and built this website.
15:53:05 And if you go to it, there is an interactive map that you can click on these different states to see where there were sundown towns, and that information is basically still being compiled.
15:53:10 So people can submit evidence, information about sundown towns.
15:53:17 Because these -- you know, the historical records are very incomplete for this.
15:53:26 Not, you know -- not many folks want to stand up now publicly and say we were a proud sundown town.
15:53:35 In fact, I presented in Medford -- one of the times I presented there, I said -- I showed this slide and I said, y'all had a sign here.
15:53:42 And all of these younger folks, 20 to, you know, 30s were like, no, absolutely not.
15:53:44 That is not possible here.
15:53:49 And all of the old white people in the room were like, yep, yep, it was right there.
15:53:51 I'll tell you right where it was.
15:53:51 Yep.
15:53:52 I grew up.
15:53:55 It was here, all the time.
15:53:58 So that information is -- you know, is not being talked about.
15:53:59 It's being hidden.
15:54:01 So this is a chance to surface it.
15:54:03 And I just screen-shotted --
15:54:11 these are the cities and towns in Oregon that they have evidence for that they are sundown towns.
15:54:28 And I did want to highlight lake Oswego specifically because James Lowen, in his work, says the biggest kind of entity of sundown towns are suburbs.
15:54:47 So it's important to recognize the construction of suburbs, which began with Lovitt Town, the idea was to flee the city and the people of color who lived there and create all-white enclaves where they could create their perfect white utopia.
15:54:51 So it's -- you know, it's incredibly important to recognize.
15:55:04 I think a lot of times when people talk about sundown towns, they frame them as if this is, you know, something that only happens in the south, only happens in working-class communities.
15:55:15 The biggest collection of sundown towns are suburbs in the north, overwhelmingly, in the beginning, and obviously very wealthy.
15:55:28 >>> So just wanted to share James Lowen has written a book on this, and I encourage folks to get it because, yeah, he was a wonderful scholar on this.
15:55:33 >>> But at the same time that these signs are up, again, Black folks are organizing and resisting.
15:55:51 So I wanted to just connect kind of back full circle to the 1867 slide about public education, with the founding of the Portland Black Panther Party chapter in 1969.
15:55:55 Oregon actually had two chapters of the Black Panther Party.
15:55:59 One in Eugene and one in Portland.
15:56:11 The Portland chapter, like every other chapter of the Black Panther Party across this nation, 50 at its height, was mandated to have a free breakfast for children program.
15:56:24 And in fact, the Black Panthers fed more children than the United States government in 1969, according to the California attorney general.
15:56:35 So in addition to the free breakfast program, most Black Panther chapters had a free health care clinic, and this is a picture from Portland's free health care clinic.
15:56:45 Portland actually had two health care clinics, a general health care clinic, which was this Fred Hampton people's free health clinic, and a dental clinic.
15:56:50 The dental clinic, again, offered completely free health care to anybody.
15:56:55 This -- all of these programs were open to everyone in the community.
15:57:08 And the dental clinic was taken over by Oregon Health Sciences University, OHSU, and is still operating to this day as a low-income clinic.
15:57:19 Because of the Black Panther Party that neighborhood has had, under the Panthers, free dental care and under OHSU, low-income dental care, for 50 years.
15:57:36 And, again, this shows that when the -- the vision, the leadership of Black folks are centered, we create institutions that provide not only services, but justice for everyone who has been marginalized and oppressed.
15:57:49 That is why it's so important to support Black leadership, Black autonomy, Black self-determination.
15:57:58 >>> And I'm just going to -- I'm going to just end -- this is my last slide, from 1994.
15:58:01 And so it highlights Measure 11.
15:58:05 Measure 11 was a mandatory sentencing law.
15:58:12 So a mandatory sentencing law sets specific sentences for specific crimes.
15:58:13 And a judge cannot alter that.
15:58:40 So if a jury finds you guilty of robbery and the mandatory sentence is five years, 10 months, you are doing five years, 10 months, regardless of if the judge is, like,  there were so many extenuating circumstances in this, I don't think you should do all of that time, there is no early release possible for mandatory minimum sentences.
15:58:42 So that was Measure 11.
15:58:47 Measure 11 is responsible for almost half of Oregon's prison growth.
15:58:51 There was a huge explosion in the prison population.
15:59:02 As there was across the nation as mandatory minimum sentencing laws as well as other, you know, tough-on-crime laws get passed.
15:59:20 And we see now very clearly, after decades of this, that as with all of these laws, they disproportionately affect Black people and especially Black youth, who are sentenced to be tried as adults at a much higher level under Measure 11.
15:59:36 Measure 11 also said if you are 15 or older and you get charged with a Measure 11 crime, a mandatory sentencing crime, you will automatically be tried as an adult.
15:59:40 So 15 and up gets tried as an adult.
16:00:21 And we have found that there are reports from a great organization called partnership for Safety and Justice that show that even when a Black youth and a white youth have committed the exact same kind of crime, the Black youth is -- I don't know this just exactly, so we're not going to pretend -- but much higher likely to be charged with a Measure 11 and tried as an adult rather than the -- the white youth who is often seen as a kid who just needs help and gets other options.
16:00:33 >>> So for me, I feel like this brings us back full circle, because it so blatantly and explicitly criminalizes Black existence in Oregon.
16:00:40 Kids -- Black kids are going to prison as adults not because of what they do, but because of who they are.
16:00:48 And to me, that shows that Blackness is still fundamentally criminalized in Oregon.
16:01:02 And I believe that if the machinations have only changed slightly, the outcome is still the same, can we really say that we have advanced in any way from being a racist white utopia?
16:01:09 >>> So the last slide I'm going to share is just some takeaways, and then definitely want to open it up.
16:01:13 And some of these I have already said, but I will keep saying them.
16:01:17 Until I die.
16:01:24 White supremacy is institutional, and so antiracism must also be institutionized.
16:01:25 -- institutionalized.
16:01:51 You cannot build a system on a foundation of white supremacy and allow that system to function business as usual for hundreds of years and then you can come in with some light reform or changes in language or some sort of acknowledgement but not actually institutionally changing or dismantling those systems that are perpetuating white supremacy.
16:01:53 Again, these systems are not broken.
16:01:58 And I hope seeing this history you understand that.
16:02:12 They are working exactly as they were intended:  To create a racist white utopia and to exclude, exploit, contain, or oppress all communities of color.
16:02:17 Every institution that shapes every single one of our lives is complicit in this.
16:02:22 They were all created with these -- with the same foundation.
16:02:31 At times, when they were created to maintain a racial power hierarchy, and they perpetuate that function to this day.
16:02:37 So, you know, I think a lot of times folks give universities and areas of education a pass.
16:02:39 They are like, oh, these are neutral places.
16:02:41 They are absolutely not neutral.
16:03:02 As you heard in the land acknowledgement, that Western Oregon University participated in the theft of 2.5 million acres of Indigenous land and worked hand in hand to build on that land the ideal white utopia.
16:03:11 The work to dismantle white supremacy that is embedded in all of the institutions and systems of our lives is a long-term commitment.
16:03:14 This is not something that is going to happen overnight.
16:03:23 It's not something that's going to happen from one change that will change them all.
16:03:27 It is work that has to be ongoing.
16:03:33 It has to be to the bone, not surface.
16:03:42 And institutions have to be held accountable, because institutions, while they exist for a very long time, like to have very short memories.
16:03:50 And so it's on everyone connected to that institution to maintain that accountability.
16:03:54 Again, that change cannot be surface reform.
16:04:01 Some of the systems actually, in my opinion, need to be dismantled immediately.
16:04:10 In the same way that you cannot reform slavery or segregation, there are a number of systems that cannot be reformed because they are so deeply embedded in white supremacist control.
16:04:14 And I believe they need to be dismantled immediately.
16:04:22 >>> And I just want to end on, again, Black folks and other people of color have to be centered in this work.
16:04:25 They have been doing this work for decades.
16:04:54 So if you are not a person of color and you do not know about the work of folks of color around justice, that means you just don't know about it, 'cause I would bet anything I have that wherever you are, folks of color have been organizing, have been building, have been fighting, and have been winning and creating more and more justice for themselves and, again, for everyone else who has been marginalized.
16:04:59 That leadership should be not only respected but centered and followed.
16:05:33 And if you are saying you are trying to combat racism as -- as a white person or a predominantly white institution, but you are not taking leadership from those people and especially those organizations of color who have been fighting this fight, again, for a very long time in your neighborhood, in your community, you are actually not truly committed to fighting white supremacy.
16:05:40 You are, you know, trying to make yourself feeling better for participating in it, getting privilege from it, whatever.
16:05:50 Unless you are taking leadership and guidance, you are not actually committing to fight white supremacy.
16:05:58 >>> So I just -- the last piece is I just really want to encourage folks to take a historical long view.
16:06:20 Part of the reason I think it's so important to study history is because we can see things laid out and see how they all connect and things that in the moment seemed very uncertain, very unclear when you have a long historical memory, they seem inevitable.
16:06:27 And so the other thing is that, you know, in the moment, there may be many sides to an issue.
16:06:29 It may seem very complex.
16:06:41 But when you look back historically, those differences usually tend to get flattened out, and there becomes a very clear right side and wrong side of history.
16:06:51 And so, you know, just because a majority of people in this country believe something is okay doesn't actually make it right.
16:06:57 And, again, I think the historical example of slavery is a very useful one.
16:07:03 The majority of white Americans were fine with slavery continuing forever.
16:07:18 You can go back and read pro-slavery news coverage from, you know, the 1850s, the 1860s, and they'll talk about what a complex issue it is and how there are so many things to consider about slavery.
16:07:22 They even offered reforms for slavery, you know.
16:07:26 We can make a kinder, gentler slavery.
16:07:28 I believe -- and I hope every single one of you believe --
16:07:40 that slavery is a fundamentally immoral, unjust, and brutal system that should have never existed and absolutely should have been dismantled.
16:07:44 But at the time, there were many white folks who were saying "it's complicated."
16:08:02 So I think that historical long view helps, because I personally have no doubt that in 100 years, people are going to look back on our time and there are going to be many things that they will say, how did they let this happen at all, let alone how did they let it happen for so long.
16:08:08 So, again, I believe there is a right side of history and a wrong side of history.
16:08:19 I work very hard to try and be on the right side of history, on the side of justice, on the side of equality, on the side of freedom, which is not always the popular side.
16:08:20 But it's a commitment I have made.
16:08:28 It's a commitment I hope that you all make, and in the end, history bears this out.
16:08:31 So thank you y'all so much.
16:08:38 And I want to create space to open up for Q and A.
16:08:41 I see folks have been submitting some stuff already.
16:08:43 So excited to dive into that.
16:08:54 >> Chelle:  Thank you so much.
16:08:55 The comments are coming in.
16:09:02 Such incredible work you have done, and your presentation of it has just been beautiful and so moving.
16:09:06 We have 13 questions.
16:09:16 So we'll try to get through as many as we can, and do you want me to start at the top or would you like me to read them?
16:09:19 Or would you rather read them yourself?
16:09:22 >> Walidah:  Yeah, if you could read them, that would be great.
16:09:23 >> Chelle:  Okay.
16:09:35 So the first one was on the slide from 1862, and you were talking about a law that pressed people into service maintaining state roads.
16:09:46 And the question that came across was, how long per year would it take people to work off the debt that was enforced upon them?
16:09:47 >> Walidah:  That's an interesting question.
16:09:53 I'm -- I don't have a clear answer for that.
16:09:58 Partially also because different counties, accounted for things differently.
16:10:01 That $5 was rarely $5.
16:10:24 It's similar to a sharecropping system, where, you know, a tenant works land that the land owner has, but the land owner is charging the tenant rent and supplies and basically everything against their harvest, which means that by the time you bring in the harvest, you are actually in debt to the land owner.
16:10:37 And this was one of the methods to basically reenslave Black people after the passage of the 13th amendment which outlawed slavery except in the case of punishment.
16:10:47 There were additional fees and costs that were associated with the state having to administer this punishment to people.
16:10:55 So I don't have an exact answer about how long it would take people to work that off.
16:11:04 But it was almost always much longer than the state said it would be.
16:11:04 >> Chelle:  Thank you.
16:11:11 >>> And then the next question has to do with the Oregon Land Donation Act.
16:11:17 Are you aware of any research tracing the names of people who were given land?
16:11:17 >> Walidah:  There is a lot.
16:11:19 They were very upfront and clear about it.
16:11:27 And they ought -- I mean, literally the foundation of wealth and power is built on the Oregon Donation Land Act.
16:11:48 So you can go back and see the names of people who got -- white men, who got hundreds of acres of Indigenous land for free, and those are their names that you can see on buildings, on roads, you know, on companies from the Northwest.
16:11:51 Even the names of counties of --
16:11:56 in, you know, that we all live in.
16:11:58 This -- they did not hide it.
16:11:59 They were very clear.
16:12:04 And I have met people who are very proud of that fact.
16:12:10 I met someone who was descendant from one of the first families that got that land.
16:12:11 Again, very wealthy.
16:12:18 And, you know, they said, my family has been here for this many generations, we built Oregon.
16:12:21 In the middle of this presentation.
16:12:27 I was like, oh, maybe not the time to brag about that, 'cause now everyone knows what that means.
16:12:47 But they were very angry that I was bringing this up, because they felt I was diminishing the accomplishments of their ancestors, which I was, because I don't think genocide, land theft, and publicly torturing people is something to idealize.
16:12:49 But, again, it's not hidden.
16:12:52 It's -- they are very proud of it.
16:12:59 And they will slap their name on anything to show it.
16:13:01 >> Chelle:  Thank you.
16:13:12 >>> So the next one:  I grew up in Oregon but lived abroad from 2000 to 2007, so I missed the ballot measure that removed the Black Exclusion Law from the Oregon Constitution.
16:13:18 I'm curious to hear more about the kinds of arguments that were made against the change to the Constitution.
16:13:28 I'm assuming that people said something like, that law is not in effect and a relic of the past, therefore leave it alone as a reminder of the past we have left behind.
16:13:32 Can you elaborate on those kinds of discussions.
16:13:33 >> Walidah:  Right.
16:13:39 So as I said, a big pushback was the framework of wanting to preserve Oregon's history.
16:14:08 There was a counter campaign to stop it from getting passed, and that was one of their big talking points, saying -- not even, you know -- certainly some people said, leave it in as a learning tool, which I don't think personally is valid, but it was a moot point in this case because it wasn't taught anywhere that it was in the Constitution, in the Oregon Constitution.
16:14:10 Students weren't learning it in school.
16:14:19 As you said at the beginning, you know, in your own experience, folks weren't learning it in civics class.
16:14:21 Legislators didn't even know.
16:14:23 Legislators didn't even know it was there, right.
16:14:39 So the idea that you leave it in to learn from the mistakes of the past, I was like, there are many, many -- honestly a billion other ways we could learn from this, but we are not learning because literally no one talks about it.
16:14:47 So it just is there to continually remind Black people we were not ever supposed to be here.
16:15:27 But, you know, yes, the idea of -- the other, you know, framework that wasn't even put forward as a, like, holding Oregon accountable in any way for its past was that idea of preserving Oregon's history and the idea that changing the Constitution is -- you know, is sacrilege, you know, that we should leave things as they were because that was the -- the intentions of the founders, which is the same argument we hear about the U.S. Constitution, from actually some people in Congress who apparently
16:15:28 That is literally what an amendment is.
16:15:33 We have a lot of 'em.
16:15:35 So, yes, that was the -- most of the framework.
16:15:48 And I don't remember if I said, but the results for the ballot measure, over a third of voters, voted to keep the Black exclusion language.
16:15:57 So you can say, oh, it passed overwhelmingly, but a third of voters in -- in all of Oregon is a lot of people, and it --
16:16:01 again, this is in the 21st century.
16:16:14 So it certainly serves as a useful racial litmus test, and Oregon absolutely failed that litmus test.
16:16:17 >> Chelle:  Thank you.
16:16:24 The next one is about Alonzo Tucker and whether the people that killed him were eventually prosecuted.
16:16:26 >> Walidah:  Never, no.
16:16:28 No one was ever prosecuted.
16:16:31 No one was ever arrested.
16:16:57 And the -- the article that I think was posted, the truth about Alonzo, is something that I wrote, highlighting the work of the Oregon Remembrance Project and the founder of it, Taylor Stewart, who is an amazing young person who is just out there working on so many different projects, trying to memorialize this history and learn from it.
16:17:03 But, you know, in the research, you know, not only was no one --
16:17:07 I read the -- the transcripts for the grand jury.
16:17:18 The U.S. marshal was there the entire time, and he admitted that, but when they said, did you know who killed Alonzo Tucker, he said, I do not know.
16:17:21 But, again, he was literally there.
16:17:32 He left Alonzo Tucker while he was still alive being tortured by a mob of white people to go get the doctor to serve as a coroner.
16:17:45 So basically the U.S. marshal was like, he is not dead, but he will be, and I want to get a jump on the logistics of dealing with this.
16:18:04 So, again, that is part of why I think it's important when we talk about mob violence or street-level white supremacy, it is always protected and supported the very least tolerated by all of the institutions, especially law enforcement.
16:18:25 But, again, the newspapers, public leaders, elected officials, they all spoke out in support of -- of this murderous mob of white people.
16:18:30 >> Chelle:  A difficult history.
16:18:36 >>> So we did have one person who was asking for you to go more in depth into redlining.
16:18:42 The question was a little bit early in your presentation about the topic.
16:18:47 So my hope is that you covered that.
16:18:50 We have 12 questions still open and 12 minutes left.
16:18:55 So if you don't mind, I would like to move to the next one.
16:19:02 So thank you for your presentation and for the examples of some of the memorializing work that is currently happening.
16:19:25 In addition to sharing the work that folks like you do, highlighting Black voices and experiences, and visiting these sites, how can we as educators help to contribute to the building of collective memory about Oregon's Black history and challenge the legacy of racism and white supremacy that so indelibly shaped this.
16:19:34 >> Walidah:  I mean, there is so many things to do, and I know we have sessions here at Western Oregon University tomorrow that are open to faculty.
16:19:39 So maybe -- I don't know if you put that link in, if it's still open for folks to sign up.
16:19:45 But we -- we can -- we'll definitely have time tomorrow to really dive into that.
16:19:50 But I think the short answer is you have to do your homework, right?
16:19:54 We -- we as educators have to do our own homework.
16:20:14 And so, you know, I encounter, especially a lot of white educators, who feel reticent about talking on this because they are like, well, I don't have a knowledge base of information, which always seems strange to me, because I'm like, that's literally what you do.
16:20:22 You find out what you want to know, you go and learn it, and then you teach it to other folks.
16:20:26 So I think that's the responsibility of everyone.
16:20:31 You know, I think sharing the work that has already happened is incredibly important.
16:20:39 You know, Black folks specifically and folks of color have been writing for centuries on this issue.
16:20:49 We have been, you know, recently making films, YouTube videos, charts, graphs, TikToks, all sorts of things.
16:20:53 So, you know, I would encourage bringing those voices in.
16:21:02 You know, I would encourage bringing in guest speakers and paying them if you really are like, I don't know how to talk about this.
16:21:03 But, again, pay them.
16:21:05 Pay them money.
16:21:19 But I think, you know, the bigger thing for faculty or any educator is the educational system you are in is part of the perpetuation of institutional white supremacy.
16:21:46 So we have to both be accountable for what we do in the class and then we also have to be accountable for how we try and change this institution, what are the ways that we can actually, you know, move policy, move expectations, move all of the -- those -- those pieces so that this is codified.
16:22:05 Again, I think institutional racism is written into the systems, and so antiracism either needs to be written into those systems deeper or that system needs to be dismantled and replaced.
16:22:05 >> Chelle:  I love that.
16:22:08 Thank you.
16:22:19 >>> The next question is about Measure 11 and whether it was a result of the war on drugs or just white supremacy, and is it still in place?
16:22:22 >> Walidah:  Measure 11 is absolutely still in place.
16:22:35 It is -- and I know I didn't provide a link, but partnership For Safety and Justice is an organization that have put out a lot of great reports on Measure 11.
16:22:43 But the history and the disproportionate impact on folks of color in general and Black people specifically.
16:22:57 You know, it came about in that, you know, era in the '70s and '80s, the get tough on crime, absolutely centered around the war on drugs.
16:23:07 And there was an attempt to repeal Measure 11 pretty early on that did not work.
16:23:17 And created a political landscape where most elected officials do not want to touch it.
16:23:29 There has been some tinkering specifically around youth, and so originally with Measure 11, if a 15-year-old was charged with, say, Measure 11 robbery --
16:23:38 which again, five years, 10 months -- and they were convicted, they would go directly to an adult prison at 15.
16:23:45 There has been work done so that they do not now go to an adult prison until they max out of --
16:23:47 in age of a youth prison.
16:23:49 So they go to a youth prison first.
16:23:54 And, again, Measure 11 charges -- I mean that robbery one is probably the shortest.
16:23:55 So they are very long.
16:24:02 So if a 15-year-old gets convicted, they most likely are not getting out before they max out in age.
16:24:07 So they will then be transferred to an adult prison.
16:24:24 So there have been some reforms to make it slightly less horrifically barbaric, but, you know, I fundamentally believe we have to repeal Measure 11.
16:24:36 And retroactively change people's sentences because there are people who have been serving decades for, you know, offences that they wouldn't have.
16:24:46 And, you know, just -- I know we have other questions, but just one statistic on that idea of the get tough on crime era, the war on drugs.
16:24:56 70% of people incarcerated right now in a cell right now, would not have gone to prison before the war on drugs.
16:25:00 And basically in the 1970s and previously.
16:25:03 So 70 percent.
16:25:05 That is because those -- the laws have changed.
16:25:19 So the -- you know, what people get sent to prison for versus parole, probation, drug treatment, citation, and also the sentences have gotten so much longer.
16:25:44 So, you know, I think it's really important when we talk about this, you know, that the rhetoric is crime has increased -- no, the way we punish people has intensified astronomically, but the vast majority of people who are incarcerated now would not have been incarcerated previously.
16:25:46 >> Chelle:  We're getting some amazing questions.
16:25:47 So I want to thank the audience.
16:26:06 It's -- it's kind of unfortunate that you can't see all the faces and get the -- the sense of energy, but we have had a lot of really wonderful comments come in through the chat to the panelists, and a lot of energy in the -- the questions as well.
16:26:21 So I'm going to move to the next one which is:  It strikes me that redlining, white flight, and the creation of sundown towns aligns with mainstream America's loss of ability to exist in community.
16:26:30 Toxic individualism finds positive interdependence distasteful thus nuclear family values.
16:26:34 How do we reeducate and reengage?
16:26:54 >> Walidah:  Um, I mean, I'm not sure that -- you know, I mean, I think there are different waves and shifts, but certainly for Americans who have had wealth, the heteropatriarchal nuclear family has always been the model.
16:27:03 And it's a model for all of us, regardless of whether we have money, regardless of, you know, if we're brown, if we're queer.
16:27:05 That is the model in America.
16:27:09 So I don't think it's -- it wasn't a new thing.
16:27:36 I believe and, you know, evidence plays out, especially around, again, the first suburb was Lovitt town, that the suburbs were created at that time period a lot because folks were coming back from World War II, and we are seeing not only the end of the Great Depression, but a massive influx of wealth into America from becoming a global superpower.
16:27:39 And winning World War II.
16:27:44 And so, you know, that wealth is trickling down to folks.
16:27:57 We also see the institution of the GI Rights Bill, which allows white soldiers free education, and at that time it was very clear white soldiers got free education.
16:28:00 So they are getting this education and they are moving up.
16:28:14 There is more wealth in America in general, and so now folks who are maybe lower class white or, you know, lower middle class white folks now have more money, and they can think about where do I actually want to live?
16:28:18 I don't want to raise my family in an apartment in the city anymore.
16:28:21 I can go anywhere.
16:28:35 And what they do, the minute that they can, is go and create incredibly racist all-white enclaves that have written into their covenants that only white people can be there.
16:28:46 In fact, I have seen many housing covenants from, like, Oswego that say Black people are not allowed to be in Lake Oswego on that property except as domestic servants.
16:29:02 And these are handed to me by Black people who saved their entire lives to be able to afford this house and written into the documentation says they cannot be in this house that they worked so hard for.
16:29:18 So, you know, I -- I see it as sort of a -- a -- an economic boom that accelerated many of the patterns around white supremacy and space and geography that were already existing.
16:29:27 And I -- you know, I know we said that the ending time was 4:30, but I'm also open to staying a little bit longer.
16:29:28 I know we can't get through all the questions.
16:29:29 [ Laughter ]
16:29:31 >> Walidah:  We can't get through 12.
16:29:34 But, you know, I don't need to head out.
16:29:52 >> Chelle:  I appreciate that because there has been kind of a cluster of questions that have come in I think that I can maybe summarize as one big topic, and then if you could speak to that, you know, out of respect for everybody's time, and we can maybe close after that one.
16:30:07 So we have gotten several questions about, you know, the comments that you made about how the institutions or systems that should be dismantled are -- are the institutions that we're sitting in right now.
16:30:14 And some of the questions are about, like, what other ones that you think are the most urgent to dismantle.
16:30:24 And then some of the questions are more around, like, how do we do this work of dismantling or changing our systems in higher education.
16:30:29 >> Walidah:  I mean, I think there is a lot of this work already happening.
16:30:41 I think, you know -- I think for ease we talk about the systems as if they are different and separate, but obviously, they are all intimately and intricately connected.
16:30:52 There is a reason people talk about the school to prison pipeline now, to show these are not set -- we don't have the issue of education and the issue of prisons.
16:31:00 We have these, you know, experiences and issues that are layered on top of each other that work in tandem.
16:31:12 And so, you know, I think my bigger framework is that we actually have to reimagine the majority of society.
16:31:20 But I think that there have been a lot of specific movements and campaigns that have been really inspiring.
16:31:26 And so a lot of my work is around prisons and policing, and I am a prison abolitionist.
16:31:33 So I believe that the existence of police and prisons makes us less safe, not more safe.
16:31:45 I think that there are absolutely ways we can address harm done amongst people that focuses on healing, that focuses on transformation, that focuses on justice.
16:31:49 That is absolutely not the point of prisons or policing.
16:31:53 And I think for institutions like education, you know, my --
16:32:01 my own university, Portland State University, a few -- it's been more than a few years ago.
16:32:12 But, you know, deputized campus security so they are now technically Portland police, and armed them with -- with weapons, with guns.
16:32:19 And very soon after, they murdered a Black man on campus, Jason Washington.
16:32:27 And so those -- those are also important issues for us as educators to take -- to take on.
16:32:32 We can't just say, oh, well, whatever just happens in my classroom, that's -- that's on me.
16:32:36 The rest of it, I don't know.
16:32:52 I mean, universities are incredibly -- they are one of the most adept bureaucracies of wearing you down, second only to DHS, where they are just like, we will eventually just tire you out and you will leave, and we will not have to make you leave.
16:32:54 You will leave of your own accord.
16:32:56 You will be so disillusioned.
16:33:17 I think the other -- but the thing about universities that I think is -- is very insidious is universities, especially, you know, neo liberal universities who use the language of justice of DEI, they are very adept at waiting out changes.
16:33:22 So so in a university system, you know, students cycle out.
16:33:30 If there is a strong organizing base, I have seen again and again institutions across this country, you know, create a --
16:33:35 you know, a focus group or a committee that are going to study this issue.
16:33:38 It usually takes a year or two years for this report to come out.
16:33:43 By that time, many of the people who are leading this work as students are gone.
16:33:45 And that movement is much weaker.
16:33:53 So I -- I just think it's important to see all of these tactics of -- of control that happen.
16:33:57 And, you know, I'm not picking on any one university.
16:34:00 Again, I think everybody has got their own flavor, but it's --
16:34:03 you know, it's fundamentally --
16:34:05 it's kind of like Lacroix.
16:34:10 A slight hint of a different flavor, but it's all the same, in my opinion, very bland drink.
16:34:14 I'm not starting a Lacroix fight.
16:34:18 You know, so I think it's important to take on these --
16:34:23 these other ways that this intersects with education.
16:34:28 And it is our responsibility to support the work that is happening in community.
16:34:41 I think that's -- you know, universities want to kind of be these sovereign nations, even ones like PSU that are indistinguishable from downtown Portland.
16:34:44 People literally don't know when they are on or off campus.
16:34:55 And I think as much as possible, it's absolutely imperative to break that -- that sovereignty and to say, the university is part of this community.
16:34:56 We are accountable to this community.
16:35:11 So what people are saying and demanding and asking for in community around justice, we need to be figuring out how to bring that here and how to take resources from here to support those folks.
16:35:17 And, you know, again, I think that there have been incredible organizing movements.
16:35:22 I think, you know, the Black freedom summer in 2020 of --
16:35:40 across the world -- of, you know, led by Black people, especially Black youth, courageously being in the streets, saying Black Lives Matter, saying we want an end to police violence, but also saying, we need to defund or abolish the police.
16:35:46 That was a big shift from, you know, previous police brutality organizing.
16:35:56 And I think part of that was about saying -- and it's -- you know, it's interesting that it happened in Minneapolis with George Floyd, was the -- the spark.
16:36:02 But that Portland had the longest running protests.
16:36:05 Both places that are considered liberal.
16:36:14 Both places that have instituted pretty much -- well, we don't have body cameras, but the majority of these police reforms that were being offered.
16:36:19 Minneapolis did all of the police reforms, and it didn't make a difference.
16:36:20 It did not save Black people's lives on the street.
16:36:31 And so, you know, Black youth there and around the country said that we can't reform our way out of this, then.
16:36:55 We actually need to take resources from here and move them to the things that actually support Black life and defund or abolish this thing that was created to control, contain, and exploit Black people and other potentially rebellious communities, and, you know, continues that mission to this day.
16:36:57 So, again, it's a long answer.
16:37:01 But it's -- it's a tiny drop in the bucket.
16:37:12 But it's incredibly important to be accountable, not just to find a person of color and be like, hey, you, you are brown, I'm going to be accountable to you.
16:37:16 I mean, obviously, be accountable to people in your life.
16:37:31 But organizations, institutions, people who are wanting to make change within those institutions need to be connecting with the leaders, the community members, the organizations that have been holding this work, in cases for decades.
16:37:34 They have so much knowledge.
16:37:39 Black people in Oregon have put forward so many proposals.
16:37:57 There is an amazing proposal from the 1960s, and I'm like, if we just did this, this proposal that is now 60 years old, we would be so much further, let alone all the proposals, all the MRABS put forward now.
16:37:58 So -- plans put forward now.
16:38:06 So I would encourage folks to connect with these organizations, to read those pieces, and to begin to think about how can that be instituted and useful for us here?
16:38:26 And, you know, I would specifically name the state of Black Oregon report and especially the People's Plan which was put out by what was then the Portland African American Leadership forum, and is now called the People's Plan.
16:38:31 One of the most visionary that has come out.
16:38:34 >> Chelle:  Well, thank you so much.
16:38:39 I think this is probably a topic that's far too large for an hour and a half.
16:38:41 As you knew.
16:38:50 And I just -- I really appreciate, you know, your words and your perspective to kind of get us started on this journey.
16:38:58 I mean, it's a journey that we're already at, but we're already working on and walking down.
16:39:03 I think this session today is really going to help us, you know, think about things.
16:39:07 I do want to read a comment from one of our student leaders.
16:39:11 Thank you so much for addressing this.
16:39:16 It's exactly how the BIPOC community feels here.
16:39:20 And that's really why the --
16:39:26 what put the passion under me to invite you to this and have these conversations.
16:39:28 >> Walidah:  Absolutely.