Speaking about the white radicals who have targeted police in Portland, a black Portland police officer pointed out last week that there are often more minorities in the police force than among the Black Lives Matter protesters.
“It says something when you’re at a Black Lives Matter protest, you have more minorities on the police side than you have in a violent crowd,” Officer Jakhary Jackson told Portland protest reporter Brandon Farley, “and you have white people screaming at black officers, ‘You have the biggest nose I’ve ever seen.’”
Farley asked, “What was it like in that capacity in the first few weeks when that fence was up around the Justice Center?”
“I got to see folks that really do want change, like the rest of us, that have been impacted by racism, and then I got to see those people get faded out by people that have no idea what racism is all about, never experienced racism, that don’t even know that the tactics that they are using are the same tactics that were used against my people,” Jackson replied. “And they don’t even know that. They don’t even know the history; they don’t know what they’re saying. Coming from someone who graduated from PSU [Portland State University] with a history degree, it’s actually frightening. You know, they say if you don’t know your history, you’ll repeat it, and watching people do that to other people …”
Jackson continued:
A lot of times, someone of color, black, Hispanic, Asian come up to the fence and directly want to talk to me. “Hey, what do you think about George Floyd? What do you think about what happened about this?” I go up to the fence; someone white comes up, “’F’ the police. Don’t talk to him.”
That was the most bizarre thing, because I could see it coming. I even had a young African-American girl tell me, “Why is it you guys aren’t talking to us?” I said, “Honestly, this is now the 20 — I think it was the 23rd day of doing it — every time I tried to have a conversation with someone who looks like me. So a white [protester] comes up and blocks them and tells them not to talk.”
And then right when I said that, this white girl popped right in front of her. She said, “He just said that was going to happen!” I said, straight up, “I’ve been called the n-word; she’s been called the n-word; why are you talking to me this way and why do you feel that she can’t speak for herself to me? Why is it that you feel you need to speak for her when we’re having a conversation?”
Then when you go to a gentrified community. and one of the first pictures I saw, one of the businesses that was looted was a black-owned business, I’m like, they not even from here. They don’t even know what they’re even doing.
Portland Police Officer Jackson Speaks Out against Racist White "Protesters" pic.twitter.com/qnrgWdMv0L
— Brandon Farley • Portland Protest Reporter (@FarleyMedia) July 9, 2020