Midweek, and several days since the protests started.
I’ve thought about this so much, and partly has been self-serving, as we worry about
our own business not too far from downtown.  I/we think about where our country
is heading all the time, and talk about it frequently; this is one of the issues.

Above, the overhead of the park the night the cars were overturned and burned.
The news was ablaze here as well as other places, about the protesters violence.
But Mitchel and I remembered Antifa and the Proud Boys from other times, and also though about how peaceful protests have been before those two groups showed up.

We were thinking the protesters were infiltrated.
There are forces trying to drive our country apart. 

Images of peaceful Portland residents protesting moved me,
and I am sorry that this is not the choices that are  shown nationally.
When the police in Portland — who by the way have not been accused to my
knowledge of murdering or being violent with POC — took a knee during a protest,
I was sorry to hear that many thought they were being manipulated.
If any show of grace or outreach is seen as bullshit, then we are doomed.

As the nights progressed, the numbers grew, and the peaceful aspects of the
protests became clearer.  Finally Mayor and Councilpeople and Police all said the same, which is that it appears there are a few who want to make it violent.

Plus the news is getting dumber and dumber, not just here but everywhere,
and I think they too print/post news that is incorrect to draw a following.
Sloppy words when sloppy words can kill people?  Terrible.

A highlight for me was when Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty nailed the newspeople
at the first conference, because she watched hours of footage and seen the faces of looters and those inciting violence, yet she said she noticed the news ran the same two images over and over, of two black men out of over a dozen whites… She was pissed and
I applauded her for that.  “Small town”  coverage.; she could look them in the
eye and blast them.  We’d noticed, and we’d  not watched hours of footage.

As the numbers swelled and stayed peaceful, and the leaders got the gist that
they were being played by agitators, my heart swelled.  I love the images of
a thousand (and growing daily) each night on the Burnside Bridge laying for
the number of minutes it took Derek Chauvin to murder George Floyd.

BTW, it was a hard video to watch but I did.  I waited until I could handle it, then wept.
After watching it, there will never be anyone who will convince me that Derek Chauvin didn’t act in cold blooded murder, nor that his cronies around him were not accomplices. They should all be put away for life.  It was a  horrid lynching in front of my eyes.

The truth is, most of us discover where
we are headed when we arrive.
~ Bill Watterson

It feels like it is time to make demands, which I’ve not heard except from
Governor Andrew Cuomo, who daily now says he wants the demands, and suggests some.  From a transcript of his talk on 1 June 2020, starting around the 8-minute mark,
and I have edited a lot out to discuss my point:

“We have to take a minute and ask ourselves, what are we doing here?
What are we trying to accomplish? … I share the outrage and I stand with the protestors. You look at that video of the killing of an unarmed man, Mr. Floyd, it is horrendous…
It’s frightening. It perverts everything you believe about this country.

“There’s a moment for change. And is there a moment here? Yes. If we’re constructive and if we’re smart and if we know what we’re asking for. It’s not enough to come out and say I’m angry, I’m frustrated. Okay, and what? … You need the answer.  I want common sense gun reform…. what does it look like? … I want to address income inequality? Okay, what do you want? Here’s what I want. Minimum wage of $15.00, free college tuition.

“Yes, you express the outrage. But then you say, and here’s my agenda.
Here’s what I want. That’s what we have to be doing in this moment... There should be a national ban on excessive force by police officers. There should be a national ban on choke holds, period. There should be independent investigations of police abuse. When you have the local district attorney doing the investigation, I don’t care how good they are, there is the suggestion of a conflict of interest. Why? Because that D.A. works with that police department every day. And now that prosecutor is going to do the investigation of the police department that they work with every day? Conflict of interest can be real or perceived. How could people believe that the local prosecutor who works with that police department is going to be fair in the investigation?”

My reflections so far on paper, below.

Note, not Mike Tyson — I am so bad at sports figures — but Michael Vick.

“We Shall Overcome” is most commonly attributed as lyrically descended from
“I’ll Overcome Some Day”, by Charles Albert Tindley, 1900.

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or check out my new, improved dkatiepowellart.com

“Memory is more indelible than ink.”
Anita Loos, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
“I think not….”
Me… why I journal!

Hahnemühle Nostalgie Sketchbook, many inks,
Platinum Carbon Pen with Platinum Carbon ink waterproof cartridges,
Lamy Joy with De Atramentis Document Black ink and with Super5 Frankfurt ink,
Holbein, MGraham, DS Primatek and Daniel Smith watercolors.

 ©D. Katie Powell.
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