Black Girl in Suburbia is a documentary by filmmaker Melissa Lowery that examines the experiences of Black girls who live in predominantly white communities, such as Lake Oswego. We watched and discussed the film, as well as her work creating space for Black students in predominantly white schools in Portland and Beaverton.

Melissa Lowery is a wife and mother that lives in the Pacific Northwest.  She is an Equity and Liberation Strategist, and Director/Producer of the Documentary film, Black Girl In Suburbia. She always seeks to create better and equitable environments that honor the human dignity of each person through storytelling and dialogue. Melissa currently works at Central Catholic High School in Portland as the Director of Equity and Community Engagement.

On April 8, author Emilly Prado shared the evolving nature of finding her path as a writer, drawing upon her experiences as a first-generation Chicana, a college student, and a self-proclaimed troublemaker who struggled with school and mental health. We heard a reading from Funeral for Flaca and viewed archival childhood photographs to better understand how 13 year-old Emilly found strength through music and writing. 

Emilly Prado is an award-winning author and journalist, educator, and DJ based in Portland, Oregon. She is the author of the essay collection Funeral for Flaca, a winner of a 2022 Pacific Northwest Book Award, a 2021 bronze winner of the Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award in Essays, and several other honors. Her writing and photographs have appeared in more than 30 publications including NPR, Bitch Media, and Marie Claire. An alum of the Randolph College MFA, she teaches creative writing at the Pacific Northwest College of Art, and moonlights as DJ Mami Miami with Noche Libre, the Latinx DJ collective she co-founded in 2017. Learn more at www.emillyprado.com or on social media @emillygprado.

Envisioning after Dismantling: The Past, Present, and Future of DEI in Clackamas County

Public Forum held on March 2, 2024 in Lake Oswego and online.

Watch at Respond to Racism’s YouTube video page: 

Transcript available on sidebar

Notes by Nancy Slavin, Clackamas County SURJ (Showing Up for Racial Justice)

Questions up on the big screen as people are entering:

Slide 1

What infrastructure (i.e. funding, physical space, personnel, policies) exists to support DEI work in Clackamas County? What do we need? What models are out there for work that centers the most impacted communities?

Slide 2

What do grassroots orgs on the ground need?

Where are we collaborating and what do those collaborations look like?

Slide 3

Who do you go to when facing discrimination in your community?

Where are the affinity groups in your community?

Slide 4

Are there issues that DEI (whether at the county, city, school district or corporate level) has been afraid to touch?

How do we actively prevent the pitfalls that come from white-centered DEI?

Slide 5

What actions are organizations in the room either undertaking or planning and how can people get involved? 

What actions will YOU commit to joining?

Bruce Poinsette, ED of Respond to Racism, welcomes everyone and emphasizes how we are here because of the, yes Dismantling of the Equity and Inclusion Office, but additionally here to build infrastructure, map power, understand context, and get strategic as other players seem to want to remove words and policies like “equity,” affirmative action, DEI, etc.

Nancy Slavin, leadership team of Clackamas Co. Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ), gives a short presentation on the history of the Clack Co. Equity and Inclusion Office through a slideshow of the timeline starting from 2004 through 2024.

Bruce discusses Clackamas County Administrator Gary Schmidt’s memo to employees, reposted at KGW’s site (scroll down). If you have questions, you can email CSchmidt@clackamas.us.

Bruce cited the recent decision of Clackamas County Commissioners to terminate an agreement designed to help provide social services in North Clackamas, the Wichita Center. If you discourage people from even getting involved, you’re creating a culture of disenfranchisement and impacting people with very real threats of violence (c.f., vandalizing of the CC Democrats office last fall). Also, giving the example of what’s happening at the state level and the recriminalization of drugs, “it gets worse for the most vulnerable.” Also, Bruce mentions how Clackamas County is losing people of color who’ve been leaders and don’t last because of the hostile working environment and literally cannot speak in public because of impending legal actions, which is also why this forum did not have any speakers scheduled to speak. 

How do we get to the difficult conversations and have real conversation so we can move forward. Brought up the first question on the slides. (~32:48) Floor open for discussion. 

• H3S Health, housing, and human services is working to center equity within the county. Sharing that the folks there are doing the good work.
• CCEC (Clackamas County Equity Coalition) is trying to leverage our collective power to do more equity work, to map more power. But often Clack Co. feels like 2 or 3 counties because of the geographical size. We’re missing voice at the county leve (i.e., Sandy, Mulino, Damascus, etc. Rural areas need more representation.
• Need more space to get together frequently. Libraries are a good place for gathering. Candidate training schools are important, run for office!
• Work on infrastructure that is based in the community, so not so much the physical pieces of infrastructure, we need to face the reality that working with our county government isn’t a great use of time right now, but for example, working on voting at the local level is important.
• Metro public parks are trying to see their spaces as welcoming for all, Clackamas County is part of this.
• Thinking about DEI as a multi-intersectional topic. Work to not get overwhelmed, and ask what did I do today? One step at a time. Also, America is good at selling the dream but not good at understanding the historicity, can’t even say the word “privilege” to our neighbor, but also privilege is dependent on us seeing the world beyond our own lens. 
• Critical to protect the Leaders in Equity Inclusion Council (LEIDC). 
• Caution that the county may rely on citizen and grassroot groups to do the work they need done and do our groups know about the funding that is out there and get the training to access those funds easily and efficiently.
• Collective group needs to review commissioners about what their values and policies are ahead of the elections. Complain in a formal way. Go to the county level and make a formal complaint and show them that we’re not going anywhere.
• We need more people, showing up in all the communities where you are, e.g., churches, labor unions. Also suggest how the laws and policies discourage nonprofits from being political.

What do grassroots groups need and where are we collaborating?

CORE (Committee on Racial Equity) has meetings and will take events and have a place for those. Contact: Amy Trieu She, her, hers , Civic Engagement and Outreach Coordinator

503-956-6407

amy.trieu@oregonmetro.gov. Do keep in mind that Metro does not serve all parts of Clackamas County.

Building Bridges in West Linn, works with schools. 

Clackamas Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)

Suggestion for grassroot groups is to work with other groups that do have staff, e.g., Here Together. 

LEDIC – figure out ways to communicate and coordinate with the groups who do work so our events and programming doesn’t overlap. 

Hacienda CDC is building new units in Clackamas County and has worked in outlying areas like Mollala, Boring, etc. Building spaces where community members feel safe is important – they have outreach workers and can help cross over with local organizing groups.  

Student groups like the Lake Oswego Youth Empowerment Committee (or through RtR website) working to create spaces for kids of color – or the Asian-American Student Union (Asian Cultural Festival April 20 at LOHS). Noted that there is not a lot of rural students organizing.

No Place for Hate in Oregon City, student-led change.

We also can call the Department of Justice’s Bias Hotline, (even though sometimes the call back comes around to the people doing the work).

Clackamas County Equity Coalition is hosting a presentation on April 18 with DOJ Hotline, so come to that! Registration is here. 

Comment about how equity work that impacts people of color and people with disabilities is more incumbent on white people and able-bodied people to show up to do. Clackamas County has terrible infrastructure around actual transportation. Also, know your groups and demographics, rather than lumping groups together, so learn about your own affinity groups and then organize from there. We need more people of color in positions of power and more white people can step back and allow more people of color to access places of power.

Are there issues that DEI (whether at the county, city, school district or corporate level) has been afraid to touch? How do we actively prevent the pitfalls that come from white-centered DEI?

• Retaining teachers of color is hard in the schools.

• Health care – circle around trauma stories and academic talking, but we need more coming together conversations where people “do” actual actions. What is our next action oriented. 

• Anti-Black racism is important to discuss as a specific issue because racism “hits Black people differently.”

• Accessibility and disability get left out of the conversation constantly and also looking at those issues continually with an intersection lens.

• Capitalism is also a huge barrier to actual inclusion and equity.

• Reticence of to recognize the ways the Christian church has not been willing to talk about their own culpability. 

• Also, the fear of touching “whiteness” as a topic and how to work with shame and whitewashing and performative. Deep and painful and necessary work. 

• Confirmation of the comment that there’s a lot of talk, not a lot of action (in that case specifically in the schools).

• Unite Oregon has a Clackamas County chapter. But education is poor and misinformation and misinformation is hard to distinguish which is which. Also, what are the external pressures for people getting involved in DEI work publicly, many people quitting (no retention). Translation issues exist for many communities and do not have the infrastructure to do that translation services.

• One barrier is our dominant culture reticence to look at “acceptance from a standpoint of liberation” for all and see how it brings joy and relief from shame. See that government is a name for people of the community. Teach our community to “boss up.” (listen to this part, very good, around 1:42.)

• Need for the creation of workforce equity plans to weave DEIA principles into workspaces. How do we get the employee resources groups empowered and in the fight as well as the AFSCME union.

What actions are groups taking and what actions will you take?

Healthcare for All Oregon is doing work to close equity gap in healthcare.

West Linn Alliance and Building Bridges (started because of Michael Fesser case, Black man wrongly arrested in West Linn) is rebuilding right now with the school district (West Linn/Wilsonville). Show up with other groups as much as possible and stay in communication better with all the little groups. Write letters, make complaints, distribution list to and from other communities.

Action to take should be to make sure people know what’s going on around DEI and the commissioners in our county. Which 5 people can you talk to and how can you reach out?
Join the Clackamas County Equity coalition! We need more capacity on our steering committee. Meetings are the Second Friday of the month on zoom at 2-3 p.m. We plan our Quarterly Educational Events and network, share resources, share action needs. Email clackcoequityco@gmail.com to join in!

Thank you to everyone who attended our January Community meeting, either in person or online. If you missed it, you can watch it on our YouTube Channel.

Join us for our next Community Meeting on February 12: It Did Happen Here: An Antifascist Peoples History

Message and resources from amber boydston

Community, 

Thank you, again, for your presence, participation and also openness to diving deep with me during Respond to Racism’s Abolition Community meeting Monday January 8th. We continued to ring in the new year with a level of intentionality that I hope we can all sustain. 

To stay in touch with me, please follow my My Patreon and join to become a member and receive continuous Abolition education in the form of a book club, meditations, current articles, and much more! You can also follow me on my organization’s Spirited Justice Instagram page, as well as at www.spiritedjustice.org (updated completely mid-January 2024).

Listen to my recent interview with Equitable Giving Circle:  Amber’s interview on Capitalism with AJ from EGC. 

Below are redistribution opportunities, Abolition resources and the slideshow from the event, enjoy!

To Redistribute funds back into marginalized communities, please share through: 

Check to: Spirited Justice
222 NW Davis St. Ste 206
Portland, OR 97209

(amber boydston is my full name linked to my organization)

• Paypal: Spirited Justice Paypal Link
• Venmo: Spirited Justice Venmo Link
• Cashapp: Spirited Justice Cashapp Link

January 2024 Abolition Slideshow: 

Abolition Education Slideshow January 2024 spirited justice

Resources: 

• Community Abolition Syllabus 101
• 158 Resources for Understanding Racism
• Resources for Abolishing Policing
• PODCAST: abolition is for everybody : Let’s Talk: Copaganda w/Lewis Wallace
• Fractal Abolition: To build the world we want, and tear down the old one, we can and must start small
• PDX Free Fridge Locations 
• Trans Wardrobe Project

I look forward to our paths crossing again, I’ll be at future Respond to Racism Community meetings, and am excited to share the ways we are each growing in our lives with and for one another. 

With Liberation, 

amber elisa 

“All that you touch you change. All that you change changes you. The only lasting truth is change.” – Octavia Butler

Watch video

https://youtu.be/ZjHBDHQyuAU

Ethnic Studies emerged as a unique activist discipline in the nation’s college and universities during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Yet, its potential remains in need of a renewed advocacy. At a moment when the state of Oregon prepares to implement Ethnic Studies across the K-12 landscape, how can we apply this community-focused approach to learning and community-building to facilitate solidarities and social justice? How can we all support Ethnic Studies, and articulate its necessity? Dr. Barnd will discuss the history and potentials of Ethnic Studies, and explain why we must act before it becomes the next target of organized social and political backlash against the work of anti-racism. Dr. Natchee Blu Barnd is an associate professor of Ethnic Studies and Native American Studies at Oregon State University, and coordinator for the Ethnic Studies department. He is a comparative and critical Ethnic Studies scholar interested in the intersections between Ethnic Studies, cultural geography, and Indigenous studies. Dr. Barnd is the author of the award-winning book Native Space: Geographic Strategies to Unsettle Settler Colonialism. He works closely on research and teaching projects with the Confederated Tribes of Grande Ronde and the Confederated Tribes of Siletz.

The discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves of Indigenous children on the grounds of residential schools in Canada has shocked and saddened people across the globe. What is less well known is that similar schools once functioned across the United States. These institutions were designed to break students’ ties to Native cultures, languages and beliefs. One of the first residential schools in the nation was founded here in Oregon.

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This talk will discuss how and why the school was founded; what daily life was like for its students; work that is being done to document deaths and burials at the school; and how we can confront the residential school system’s legacy of trauma.

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Eva Guggemos is the Archivist and an Associate Professor at Pacific University in Oregon. She has an M.A. in History from Yale University, a Master of Library Science from Simmons University, and a B.A. from the University of Kansas. At Pacific, she oversees the Archives & Museum collections.

She has been researching the history of the Forest Grove Indian School for 10 years, and recently published a website documenting deaths and burials of children at Chemawa Indian School.

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Please join our community meeting on Monday, May 2. Our guest TM Garret will share his story, his work helping people exit extremism, and prevention work with the young.

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Respond to Racism’s commitment to learning, dialogue, and action takes us to many forms of racism that have infected American life. TM provides an inside look into the humanity behind the curtain of hate. Please be advised that some of this content may be disturbing to hear.

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May 2, 6:30

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Register now

TM Garret is a public speaker, human rights activist, extremism researcher, radio personality, and much more. He has spoken at universities, schools, legislatures, and has been featured in national and international TV and print media.

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Mr. Garret is the founder of C.H.A.N.G.E, a non-profit organization which engages in anti-racism and anti-violence campaigns, food drives and inter-faith work, as well as an EXIT program which helps individuals leave extremist groups. Before he started engaging in Civil Rights work, TM was a White Supremacist in leading roles in Europe and the USA. He left this lifestyle and ideology for good in 2003.

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Zoom information will be emailed Sunday May 1st to those who have registered.

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March 7, 6:30pm

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Register now

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