The Dream of the '90s Died in Portland

Burke and I were speaking in front of a bakery she'd started in Portland's Kenton neighborhood. To help offset the financial ruination of COVID, local businesses had a few weeks earlier created a walking plaza, complete with outdoor seating and street art. Within the week, the plaza was ransacked and set ablaze by activists, on the run from police whose nearby union hall they'd just set on fire for the umpteenth time.

"As people of color, this is not our way of getting the message across, by tearing up other people's stuff," says Terrance Moses, head of the Kenton Business Association. "The fact of the matter is that these are young white kids destroying people's property to try and get a message across that they think is what black people want to hear."

Moses, who grew up in Kenton and who, with his adult son, physically stood in front of businesses in the neighborhood when the ransacking continued a second night, asked to meet with the activists. "'Put down your violence, come join us, and let's really get the message across,'" he says he told them. "Nobody has asked to sit down with me. All they do is just continue to argue. Some say, 'You don't get nothing the peaceful way. We've been trying the peaceful way for 30 years.'"

"I can completely see where the neighbors are upset in Kenton," one activist said following the plaza fire. "The [business owners] are saying, 'We tried to make this great area for everybody with these picnic tables. We spent time with our own materials building this, and then you burned it to make a statement to the police. And you're hurting one of the traditionally black neighborhoods in Portland, too.' So it's a little counterproductive. But there's also that stance of, well, we're here. And if we don't make this noise and respond with the violence we're being presented with from the police, then no change is going to come."