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[vc_row el_class=”olive-branch-bg-r”][vc_column][vc_column_text]I live 15 minutes outside of Portland. I consider Portland to be my home. I grew up in another suburb of this city. I am a citizen of Portland. Portland is my city.<\/p>\n
And my city is under attack.<\/p>\n
Portland is under attack by the sacrificial system<\/a>. It rages against us. And Portland is raging back.[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n [\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/2″][vc_empty_space height=”16px”][vc_column_text]Ren\u00e9 Girard spent much of his life exploring the sacrificial system. Girard claimed that sacrifice is the originator of all human cultures, indeed of humanity. Before cultures formed, hominids lived in groups that had a difficult time living together because of internal rivalries and conflicts that led to a war of all against all. The all-out war led to the destruction of most of the ancient pre-human groups.<\/p>\n But over many generations, a different system began to emerge. Instead of the group self-destructing in a war of all against all, the group formed a sense of cohesion by uniting against a scapegoat. The group began to accuse one member in its ranks for all the violence<\/a> that threatened the community. After that one was accused of being the cause of all the chaos and violence, the group united against him in an act of violent sacrifice.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/2″][vc_empty_space height=”40px”][vc_single_image image=”20044″ img_size=”full”][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_empty_space height=”16px”][vc_column_text]Only the group didn\u2019t see their act of sacrificial violence as bad. It was something else altogether. It was an act of peace, an act of unity, an act of compassion. It was good violence.<\/p>\n But those of us on the outside of this scenario can clearly understand what\u2019s going on. The scapegoat was no more and no less guilty than the other members of the group. That\u2019s what made him a scapegoat. In fact, guilt and innocence didn\u2019t matter. What mattered was that this individual became the outlet for all the anger, hatred, and violence within the group. Once the group channels their inner violence against their scapegoat by sacrificing him, the group receive a sense of solidarity and peace.<\/p>\n And any time conflicts reemerged to threat the group, it repeated the sacrifice that gave it peace. Thus, sacrificial rituals were born and there was enough cooperation for the first human civilization to form.<\/p>\n You may have noticed that the sacrificial system, along with the scapegoat mechanism, continues to be part of our human social DNA. In fact, the easiest way to find a sense of unity is to bond together against a common enemy. Or what Girard called, a scapegoat.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_section el_class=”post-quote”][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1566306295282{background-image: url(https:\/\/ravenfoundation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/0c0caab3a0b06f49d1f4e4069f7acecc-e1562958862845.jpg?id=19638) !important;}”][vc_column][vc_column_text css_animation=”none” el_class=”quote”]Portland\u2019s history has reflected American history as black people have been the scapegoat.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][\/vc_section][vc_row el_class=”olive-branch-bg-r”][vc_column][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n [\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=”16px”][vc_column_text]You may also have heard that Portland is weird.<\/p>\n As the show Portlandia<\/em> claimed, the dream of the 90s is still alive in Portland. We have Voodoo Donuts. You can buy a donut in the shape of \u2026 let\u2019s just say some pretty weird things. We have the most strip clubs per capita in the United States. Strip clubs is to Portland what high school football is to Texas. As a pastor in the Portland area, I assure you I do not know this from personal experience. And to our great shame, I\u2019m pretty sure we have the most man buns per capita in the United States, too. I can also assure you that I have no personal experience with man buns.<\/p>\n We also have racism. Portland is the whitest of all the big cities. In fact, Oregon has the dubious distinction of being the only state in the Union whose original constitution made it illegal to be black or brown in the state. Oregon wanted to be an all-white state. If a black person were found in Oregon, they were either fined, whipped, or murdered. And today, Portland is the whitest city in the US. That is not a coincidence.<\/p>\n The skinheads and the KKK<\/a> have a long history in Portland of killing black people. But Portland\u2019s problems are not just skinheads and the KKK. During WWII, Portland invited black folks from the south to work in our shipyards. They came and brought their families to work at these desirable jobs. But soon the war ended and white soldiers came back home. They demanded their jobs back. And so black men who left their homes in the south for a better life in Portland were displaced and without jobs.<\/p>\n Later in Portland history, the city decided it wanted to build a sports stadium and a highway<\/a> through the city. Where would the city build these things? You guessed it \u2013 right through a black neighborhood, displacing black families once again.<\/p>\n The impact of these events has affected generation after generation. Portland\u2019s history has reflected American history as black people have been the scapegoat. They have been dehumanized and sacrificed through physical violence and through political violence.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_section][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1566393555121{background-color: #f6ebdf !important;}” el_class=”optin”][vc_column][vc_column_text css_animation=”none”][\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][\/vc_section][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n [\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=”16px”][vc_column_text]And now Portland is experiencing a day reckoning. Portland is rising up to declare Black Lives Matter because for too long in Portland\u2019s history we have proclaimed that black lives do not matter.<\/p>\n One of our demands is for police reform, which includes defunding at least some of the police budget. Police are frequently called into situations that they are not trained to deal with, often leading to an escalation of violence targeted against minority groups. As the Portland news outlet Willamette Week recently wrote<\/a>, \u201cOver and over again, the PPA [Portland Police Association] has zealously protected the interest of its officer members. For middle-class residents of the whitest city in America, the fact that those interests sometimes trampled on the rights of people of color, the mentally ill and the homeless was mostly an afterthought.\u201d<\/p>\n It is no longer an afterthought.<\/p>\n Portland protesters are rising up against a sacrificial system of violence. And here\u2019s what I\u2019ve always known intellectually, but I\u2019ve never known through direct experience \u2013 No matter what we do, those who wield power from within the sacrificial system will always attempt to accuse protesters of being violent.<\/p>\n I want to be clear: the protests in Portland are contained within 3 city blocks of the city. I can take you to about 99% of Portland during the day or night and you would never know protests were happening. During the day, I could take you for a picnic in the park, we could walk along the Portland waterfront, we could see the statue of Abraham Lincoln, all while we go to any of the wonderful black owned restaurants in Portland.<\/a><\/p>\n And yet, if you listen to politicians who haven\u2019t been to Portland to witness what\u2019s happening, and who are so distant from our state that they don\u2019t even know how to pronounce the word Oregon, you might think the city is in total chaos.<\/p>\n The sacrificial system claims that it uses \u201cgood violence.\u201d It always claims that those who rise up against the system are the violent ones. President Trump recently threatened to send the National Guard and his justification was deeply rooted in the sacrificial system,<\/p>\n Right now these protesters, and many should be arrested, because these are professional agitators, these are professional anarchists, these are people that hate our country. We are telling them right now that we are coming in very soon, the national guard. A lot of people, a lot of very tough people. And these are not people who just have to guard the courthouse and save it. These are people who are allowed to go forward and do what they have to do \u2026 so they are working today and probably tomorrow to clean out this beehive of terrorists.<\/em><\/p>\n Protesters are not terrorists. I have been to the Portland protests multiple times. I\u2019ve noticed a pattern. The protesters will chant \u201cBlack Lives Matter,\u201d \u201cSay his name,\u201d \u201cSay her name,\u201d we will bat a beach ball up in the air to each other, some of us might bang on the fence surrounding the courthouse, and a few others might throw a few water bottles over the fence. Oh the terrorism![\/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”2\/3″][vc_empty_space height=”24px”][vc_single_image image=”20745″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/3″][vc_empty_space height=”24px”][vc_column_text]I have documented footage of the protests. I have been tear gassed every night that I\u2019ve been down there. At about 1 am last Wednesday I was standing with about 5 other people about half a block from the federal troops holding their guns. We were just standing there. After a few minutes, they threw a bottle of tear gas at us.<\/a> We were just standing there. We posed no threat.<\/p>\n And yet Portland protesters are being labeled as the terrorists.<\/p>\nWhat Is the Sacrificial System?<\/h3>\n
Portland, Oregon \u2013 A Modern Day Sacrificial System<\/h3>\n
Portland \u2013 A Day of Reckoning<\/h3>\n