'I wanted to take action': behind the 'Wall of Moms' protecting Portland's protesters
It took the killing of
George Floyd to get Jane Ullman to finally pay attention to what the police
were up to in America. But it was the sinister sight of federal agents in
camouflage snatching
demonstrators off the streets of Portland that got her out to protest.
The chief financial
officer for tech startups in Oregon’s biggest city joined hundreds of other
mothers dressed in yellow in a “Wall of Moms”, turning out each evening to
stand as a human barricade between protesters and agents dispatched
by Donald Trump to aggressively break up Black
Lives Matter demonstrations.
Ullman, a mother of two, said it was her first demonstration in support of racial justice. “As an upper-middle-class white woman in the whitest city in America, I couldn’t stand by any longer,” she said. “I’ve been doing a lot of self-educating since George Floyd. Reading and learning. The feds’ part in it pushed me over the top. I wanted to take action. But it was the ‘Wall of Moms’ that brought me out.” Ullman was not alone.
What began as a small symbolic act of defiance on Saturday grew into the principal demonstration two nights later, as thousands packed the streets and squares outside the county jail and federal courthouse in downtown Portland for one of the largest protests to date. At the heart of it were hundreds of women dressed in yellow and singing “Hands up, please don’t shoot me” – evidence that not only has Trump’s dispatch of federal agents failed to stop the protests, it has reinvigorated them.
Ullman, a mother of two, said it was her first demonstration in support of racial justice. “As an upper-middle-class white woman in the whitest city in America, I couldn’t stand by any longer,” she said. “I’ve been doing a lot of self-educating since George Floyd. Reading and learning. The feds’ part in it pushed me over the top. I wanted to take action. But it was the ‘Wall of Moms’ that brought me out.” Ullman was not alone.
What began as a small symbolic act of defiance on Saturday grew into the principal demonstration two nights later, as thousands packed the streets and squares outside the county jail and federal courthouse in downtown Portland for one of the largest protests to date. At the heart of it were hundreds of women dressed in yellow and singing “Hands up, please don’t shoot me” – evidence that not only has Trump’s dispatch of federal agents failed to stop the protests, it has reinvigorated them.
Video of
unidentifiable federal officers, looking more like soldiers of an occupying
army than police, beating and snatching protesters off the streets angered a
35-year-old mother of two, Bev Barnum, who posted a Facebook
message on Saturday morning. “As most of you have
read and seen on the news,” she wrote, “protesters are being hurt (without
cause). And as of late, protesters are being stripped of their rights by being
placed in unmarked cars by unidentifiable law enforcement. We moms are often
underestimated. But we’re stronger than we’re given credit for.”
Barnum called for a
group to dress in white and form a protective line between police and
demonstrators who Trump painted as anarchists. “Let’s make it clear
that we will protect protesters without the use of violence,” she said. “We
will shine a light of the unjust narrative being thrown around.” The first group of
nearly 40 mothers lined up that evening, chanting: “Feds stay clear, moms are
here.” Their line offered
little protection once the federal officers started firing teargas and
flash-bangs and charging with batons. But they were back in larger numbers the
following evening, this time wearing yellow and carrying sunflowers. By Monday,
the Wall of Moms had become the main event as Ullman and hundreds of others
decided this was the moment to make a stand.
“I’m not crazy about the feds sweeping people
off the streets,” said the post office mailwoman wearing a “Union Proud” badge.
“I’ve been active with Black Lives Matter but these demonstrations looked too
violent to me until I saw the Wall of Moms. It’s a big group of like-minded
people.” Bradly said many of
the women were brought out by Trump’s intervention but it was important to keep
the focus on the demand for reform of the police, including in Portland where
the force is under court oversight because of officers shooting homeless
people.
“It feels like people
are not going to give up. This time feels different,” she said, reflecting on
how little policing changed after other killings before George Floyd. He died in Minneapolis
on 25 May, after an office knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes. The Portland protests
have occurred every night in the nearly two months since. After the initial
surge, support waned, a few hundred turning out night after night. But outrage
at Trump deploying federal agents, many untrained in policing, to end what he
called anarchy, has reignited the protests.
Portland’s mayor and
Oregon’s governor denounced the deployment of officers from the Department of
Homeland Security, the US Marshals Service and the border patrol. The state
attorney general is suing those agencies for “overstepping their powers and
injuring or threatening peaceful protesters on the streets of downtown
Portland”. Trump’s troops”, as
some protesters call them, have greater leeway than local officers. A court
barred the city police from using teargas but the federal officers are not
bound by the order. For Margaret van
Vliet, a former Oregon state housing director who joined the Wall of Moms, it
was all too much. “I was at home
thinking that I have to lift my voice,” she said. “So here I am.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/21/trump-federal-agents-portland-protests-momsTom McTague: The Decline of the American World
America isn't breaking. It was already broken. By Andrew Gawthorpe // Why This Time Is Different. By Dahlia Lithwick
