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June 12, 2020
Dear Friends and Neighbors,
The past few weeks have been hard, amazing, difficult, promising, despairing, encouraging, disgusting, enlightened, myopic, undeniably-painful and relentlessly-heartening. Recent surveys taken by several news outlets show that the American people are both hopeful and angry in pretty much equal numbers.
I am hopeful--blown away by the folks from all across this country and the world who come out to protest day in and day despite less than ideal weather conditions; and, more importantly, despite the violence and threats of violence at the hands of those sworn to serve and protect. For the first time, it feels like the majority of our country's white citizens is finally getting it. (Though, here again, despair reared its ugly head when someone I knew from high school responded to an anti-racist FB post using vile, racists terms.)
On the re-opening front, tonight we will have our first POPCORN POP-UP. We cancelled last week, because we didn't want to take the focus away from the protests. We still want dismantling systemic racism to stay front and center, but if you want some popcorn and a beer, and maybe even find a neighbor for a socially distanced conversation, please stop by between 4 and 8.
T-shirts and hoodies are now available from PDX Creative Support Club.
If you need a mask, we've got those, too, both at the Friday night Pop-up, and at the CST store.
Multnomah County's Phase One opening has been postponed for one week. Then we have at least 21 days in Phase One before going into Phase Two. No one knows how long Phase Two will last. The Clinton won't be allowed to open until we are in Phase Three. We've got the bills covered through July (thanks for all of your donations!), but without more clarity about what the future holds, we're not sure where we'll be in August.
Regardless, we all have a part to play in changing our world for the better. Thanks for being part of this community for the past eight years, and for walking with me on this journey.
THIS IS TOMORROW!!
Clinton Street Theater is a movement partner of CELEBRATING JUNETEENTH: An Abolitionist Perspective on Movements for Black Liberation Past & Present
Save your virtual seat & Buy your tickets NOW!
No one turned away for lack of funds. All contributions go to support the organizing of Critical Resistance Oakland chapter and all of Critical Resistance.
Move
Alicia Ostriker - 1937-
 Whether it’s a turtle who drags herself
Slowly to the sandlot, where she digs
The sandy nest she was born to dig
And lay leathery eggs in, or whether it’s salmon
Rocketing upstream
Toward pools that call, Bring your eggs here
And nowhere else in the world, whether it is turtle-green
Ugliness and awkwardness, or the seething
Grace and gild of silky salmon, we
Are envious, our wishes speak out right here,
Thirsty for a destiny like theirs,
An absolute right choice
To end all choices. Is it memory,
We ask, is it a smell
They remember,
Or just what is it—some kind of blueprint
That makes them move, hot grain by grain,
Cold cascade above icy cascade,
Slipping through
Water’s fingers
A hundred miles
Inland from the easy, shiny sea?
And we also—in the company
Of our tribe
Or perhaps alone, like the turtle
On her wrinkled feet with the tapping nails—
We also are going to travel, we say let’s be
Oblivious to all, save
That we travel, and we say
When we reach the place we’ll know
We are in the right spot, somehow, like a breath
Entering a singer’s chest, that shapes itself
For the song that is to follow.
VIRTUAL SCREENINGS THAT BENEFIT CST
Check the homepage of the Clinton Street Theater website for up-to-date links to film screenings that benefit us with a portion of the proceeds from your ticket. If you click on any one of the film titles or the film poster, you will go to a page with a more in-depth description of the film, a link to the trailer, and a link to buy your "ticket."
✦ 13TH (2016, dir. Ava DuVernay) on Netflix
✦ CLEMENCY (2019, dir. Chinonye Chukwu) on Amazon Prime
✦ CRIME + PUNISHMENT (2018, dir. Stephen T. Maing) on Hulu
✦ DEAR WHITE PEOPLE (2014, dir. Justin Simeon) on Netflix
✦ DO THE RIGHT THING (1989, dir. Spike Lee) on Amazon Prime
✦ I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO (2017, dir. Raoul Peck) on Amazon Prime
✦ IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK (2018, dir. Barry Jenkins) on Hulu
✦ MUDBOUND (2017, dir. Dee Rees) on Netflix
✦ WHOSE STREETS (2017, dir. Damon Davis & Sabaah Folayan) on Kanopy
READ
"Educate Yourself" from Black Lives Matter.
"Anti-racism resources for white people" Google doc.
"Resources for White People to Learn and Talk About Race and Racism" from Fractured Atlas.
"How to respond to “riots never solve anything!” from Rafi D'Angelo at stla
DONATE
Local organizations on the frontlines of this essential work fighting the oppression of Black people:
Urban League of Portland, "empowering African-Americans and others to achieve equality in education, employment, health, economic security and quality of life."
PDX Protest Bail Fund, established by the General Defense Committee Local 1 to bail protesters out in Portland. The PDX GDC has provided ongoing legal support to workers and protesters in Oregon since 2017.
Equitable Giving Circle, which builds immediate and increased equity throughout Portland’s BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) communities through a combination of fund development and network building opportunities that center on economic equity.
IN OTHER NEWS
Reminder--Portland's Black Owned Businesses Need Your Support
Portland’s Black Community can’t breathe. With COVID-19 wreaking havoc across the world and disproportionately affecting people of color, federal relief failing to reach the most vulnerable businesses and national outrage over systemic racism and police brutality, Black owned businesses in Portland are hurting.
These businesses are part of what makes Portland great and your support is more important now than ever.
Support Black Owned Businesses
"But all our phrasing—race relations, racial chasm, racial justice, racial profiling, white privilege, even white supremacy—serves to obscure that racism is a visceral experience, that it dislodges brains, blocks airways, rips muscle, extracts organs, cracks bones, breaks teeth. You must never look away from this. You must always remember that the sociology, the history, the economics, the graphs, the charts, the regressions all land, with great violence, upon the body."
― Ta-Nehisi Coates
Don't be a stranger. Write until we can meet again.
Kind regards,
Lani Jo
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