red and black. discrimination.

J: Whats the story on the cop? Was he harassing?
about an hour ago ·

Steve: he was asked to leave because the owners and the customers of the cafe didn't feel safe with an armed officer in that space.
about an hour ago ·

J: so am I to assume he was just hanging out? Sounds like discrimination if thats the case.
about an hour ago ·

Steve: yep, he was just hanging out and they served him coffee. it's more complicated than just discrimination.

portland cops have shot and killed people without thinking. they've also physically and verbally harassed the homeless, people of color, queer/trans folks, and political activist on numerous occasions.

majority of red and black's customers fall into those groups that i formally mentioned. there are even folks who have been targeted by the federal government because they are so-called "eco-terrorist" because they promote veganism. i also have a friend who was put into jail by a portland police officer because he was cop-watching a police officer harassing a homeless man. he spent 11 days in jail with no bail.

the community didn't feel safe with him there and i think they handled it the best way that they could. they weren't being confrontational or overtly aggressive. they served him his coffee and asked him to leave and explained that the patrons didn't feel comfortable having an armed officer in the cafe.

the cop wasn't even too bothered by it until it reached national news. then all of a sudden he started comparing his experiences to the historical racial segregations on cnn.
55 minutes ago ·

J: I understand all that but it's still discrimination. It isn't like this one person embodies all the hate spewed from people of authority all over the world. Fear is a tricky thing anyway, and to reject that fear out of, in this case, a cafe is really of no value. Wouldn't the best be to bridge that divide? Bring those communities together even in that extremely small instance? But what happened was the opposite, and in effect created a new avenue of misunderstanding.
46 minutes ago ·

Steve: well, i just let you know that my comment got deleted because i accidently clicked something. haha so here's the gist of it!

i wish that we could bridge the divide in every instance but every instance (like this one) is dynamic in the sense that there is more going on than just asking a police officer to leave the cafe.

the cafe believes in horizontal accountability and they believe that the community can hold an officer accountable for working and supporting a racist, sexist, homophobic, and violent institution that capitalizes on unjustly arresting and keeping people in prisons.

the term discriminate is tricky for me. i do believe that certain instances of discriminating is a viable option. ie. discriminating a known pedophile from grade schools. or not allowing racist, homophobes, sexists, anti-semitics into an establishment or asking them to leave.

what i'm more so concerned about is acts of oppression. when you marginalize a certain group of people who have historically been denied rights BY a group of people who have historically held privilege and power in society.

in current times, people of color can discriminate against white people. people of color cannot oppress white people. queer/trans folks can discriminate hetero/cis folks, they cannot oppress them. women can discriminate against men. they cannnot oppress them. the people can discriminate against the police. they cannot oppress them.