Put more bluntly, it is still a crime to be black in this country. ![]() Blacks were “nine times more likely” to be killed by police officers than white Americans, the report’s authors conclude. Unemployment rates remain much higher for black Americans (9.5 percent in the third quarter of 2015, compared with 4.5 percent for whites), despite the supposed economic “recovery.” And 1,134 black men were killed by police in 2015 alone, according to a study by The Guardian. So much, it seems, for “Officer Friendly.”ĭespite all the glossy rhetoric that we now occupy a “post-racial” society, conditions have perhaps never been worse for black Americans.īlacks make up a disproportionate majority of the 2.3 million inmates in the U.S. According to eyewitnesses, the officers promptly turned their backs on her. Instead, 18 protesters - mostly young people of color - were arrested.Īt one point during the protest, a young black woman walked up the stairs of the Portland Police Station and approached a group of officers idly standing by, hoping to address some of the group’s concerns. Mostly though, they just wanted to hear Sauschuck affirm that “black lives matter.” But Sauschuck never once presented himself. They demanded to speak with Portland Police Chief Michael Sauschuck about instituting reforms in the Portland Police Department, like having officers wear body-cameras during patrols. Protesters were motivated by the seemingly routine police shootings of unarmed black men - most recently, Philando Castile in Minnesota and Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. ![]() The Black Lives Matter-inspired group, Portland’s Racial Justice Congress (PRJC) led the largely peaceful demonstration. With no protest permit and little advance notice to the activist community, over 100 protesters gathered in Lincoln Park (the one-time home of Occupy Maine), and marched to Middle Street. They effectively did what all protests should attempt to do: Disrupt business as usual. Local Black Lives Matter protesters finally made good on the promise in one of their call-and-response chants to “shut it down!” on Friday, when they stood in the middle of the road and brought traffic to a halt in the Old Port.
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