The Final Straw: Keep Calm and Get Prepared

Keep Calm and Get Prepared: A Look Into Month 3 and Beyond of the Portland Uprising with the Portland GDC

From The Final Straw

Keep Calm and Get Prepared: A Look Into Month 3 and Beyond of the Portland Uprising with the Portland GDC

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This week we got to sit down with two members of the Portland General Defense Committee, AC (they them) and Raoul (they he), about the ongoing Uprising in Portland OR in the months since the murder of George Floyd. We get to touch on a lot of topics in this interview; the neo-liberal whitewashing of the image of the city of Portland which masks a lot of ultra racist and colonial tendencies, personal timelines of engagement in the Uprising, and a lot of tips and tricks for newer and older anarchists and radicals for dealing with and anticipating state repression and violence.

Here are some notes and links to the topics that our guests spoke on:

-One note on the group Riot Ribs that AC mentions, I think that the group has disbanded for now but have seemingly regrouped as Revolution Ribs, you can find them @RevRibs on Twitter and their Cashapp is $RevolutionRibs. This group does not have a verified Instagram presence as far as I know.

Walidah Imarisha on Oregon’s racist, anti-Black history:

Walidah Imarisha – Why Aren’t There More Black People in Oregon? (YouTube link) approx 1.5 hours long

-You can learn more about the Portland General Defense Committee and donate to their efforts at https://pdxgdc.com/

-Rosehip Medics in Portland : All Fundraising Platforms (rosehipmedics.org)

-Indigenous Mutual Aid is a platform that started up at the start of pandemic and has a very thorough list of Indigenous led and centered projects in their directory (indigenousmutualaid.org)

-Portland Freedom Fund which is a general fund that bails out BIPOC (portlandfreedomfund.org)

Twitter folks to follow for otg news on the PDX Uprising:

Economy Breakfast

Sergio Olmos

Robert Evans

Anti-Repression Resources:

Sprout Distro on Instagram

National Lawyers Guild on Insta

Civil Liberties Defense Center also in Insta

-And finally, there are too many autonomous local bail funds around the country to all name here, but if you do a search for “mutual aid bail fund in [name of town/city]” then that should give you a pretty solid clue about how to support places that haven’t made it into the news as much. You can also do searches for Black Mamas Bail Out in your area to help fund efforts to bail out Black mothers and caregivers.

. … . ..

Music for this episode:

Run DMC – Peter Piper (instrumental)

RANGEEN – BeatByShaheed

There are 10 Comments

Sergio Olmos listed here loves taking pictures of people doing illegal shit and plastering them over his twitter. People have asked him to show some discretion, but he refuses. He's a snitch and is gonna put someone in prison.

The other two could do better, but Sergio needs to get got.

Yeah, he should be taking photos of husbands beating up their wives, or animal cruelty, or serial killers in the act of frenzied stabbing attacks, but no, he only photographs people who he knows won't smash his camera or remove the memory card, or film.
Maybe he's an "artiste", and the people he photographs are already known to the cops, or are being filmed extensively already by media or surveilance photographers, and his work is an aesthetic expression of beauty and inspiration.
Its a tad harsh to label him a "snitch" if one considers the context of his endeavours.

"Its a tad harsh to label him a "snitch" if one considers the context of his endeavours."

if he is aware that he is putting protesters in danger by posting their photos, and he has been asked to stop but won't, then he is a fucking snitch, point blank.

Looks like freelance journalism to me. Should all journalist photographers be slotted into the "snitch" box? I mean, sometimes it works the other way and they capture a picture of police brutality. I didn't see any pictures of activists with their boos or fists in a cop's faces, or throwing molotovs into cop cars, just mostly mild to sweaty softcore riot porn.
His photos had nice contrast and bokéh.

he is literally the only one who filmed one of the people who threw a molotov.

The problem with the ppl behind the cameras- whether corporate or activist- isn’t necessarily that their photos can be used to get ppl in trouble. It’s the fact that they are busy filling their role in this fucked-up society, while the rest of us are busy beautifully shirking our roles. They could choose to just participate in the things they take photos of, but they make a choice not to.

"They could choose to just participate in the things they take photos of, but they make a choice not to."

that is a point worth some discussion.

for example, the person that took the video of the george floyd murder. when i saw that the first time, all i could think of is: why the fuck are these "photographers" not bum-rushing those pigs, at least to get em off his fucking neck! i realize that if they were black, they could assume a lethal response. but was there nobody white (with cojones) around?

if the photographer had participated instead of recording, they *might* have saved george's life. and the event would have gotten some press, but not likely more than any of the recent cop murders of black folks. instead, they recorded and made the video public, which (for whatever reasons) invoked a response on a completely different scale. not that the response will lead to anything desirable to this anarchist.

There have been plenty of times where he is the only one getting identifying footage of people doing illegal shit. You're talking over 60 long nights straight. This was mostly nights before the feds got there.

Judge won't accept pics taken at night to identify anyone dude, the lack of light makes photo pixel accuracy haphazard and indistingùishable.

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