Our Voices
In Response to the Federal Occupation of Portland and in Support of Black Liberation
August 2020
Protests and uprisings have been growing in Portland since late May in response to George Floyd and Breonna Taylor’s murders at the hands of police. The UPRISE Collective recognizes the leadership and labor of Black organizers in shaping the movement, today and in years past. We follow the lead of Don’t Shoot PDX, Care Not Cops, and Critical Resistance, and take time to honor Letha Wilson (mother of Patrick Kimmons, who was murdered by PPB in 2018) who has protested at City Hall every week to reopen her son’s case. Protests have been taking place at the Justice Center, the North Precinct, Portland’s police union building, parks, and Mayor Ted Wheeler’s home. As our community power has grown, so has carceral punishment and punitive force against protestors at will by agents of the state, and now agents of our federal government. Federal agents have kidnapped civilians, fractured skulls with their “less than lethal” munitions, continued to cause serious and potentially long term damage to people with uteruses in their use of CS gas, attacked and injured protestors, and caused unknown long term damage as protestors endure excessive use of CS/tear gas (banned in warfare).
The UPRISE Collective moves in solidarity with protestors and is committed to utilizing our own labor and resources in support of this movement for Black Liberation and Police/Prison Abolition. We share our solidarity with BIPOC and protesters in cities across the country such as Chicago, Seattle, New York, and more, who are facing federal occupation or threats of occupation. Though federal agents have been called to leave Portland, the practice of state sanctioned violence and a fascist commitment to suppressing community voice remain a cornerstone of this country’s legacy
We offer our solidarity in demanding that we defund the police , dismantle white supremacy, and call for an end to carceral punishment. This fight does not end with the exodus of federal troops . Rather, the past sixty days are a reminder of how powerful people and communities are. A future exists that is free from police, prisons, racism, and harmful systems of power. We offer our support, resources, and solidarity with BIPOC putting their lives on the line to create it. We call on our community to invest their time, talents, and capital in Black liberation.. We believe in our community’s collective knowledge, persistence, and power; and we believe in Portland’s Black leadership who has been doing the work for a long time and will continue to move the work into the future. .
Organizations to engage with:
Don’t Shoot PDX
Snack Bloc
Fridays 4 Freedom
Portland African American Leadership Forum
PDX Stripper Strike
Justice for Patrick Kimmons
PDX Black Youth Movement
Brown Girl Rise
In response to Hurricane Dorian
September 2019
Thousands of survivors of Hurricane Dorian have fled the Bahamas seeking refuge in the United States, only to be met with chaos and cruelty. First, over 100 survivors of the category 5 hurricane, who had waited in line for hours, were forced off a ferry boat to the Fort Lauderdale, FL because they didn’t have proper documentation. The next day, President Trump said that he wouldn’t grant Temporary Protected Status to climate refugees from the Bahamas because they included “some very bad people,” characterizing them as drug dealers and gang members. (Temporary Protected Status affords legal status to people fleeing war or natural disasters and allows them to live and work in the United States for a period of time.) Those seeking safety were required to have a passport and “police record” proving they do not have a criminal record. Salon observed, “It is a requirement that puts the impetus on people to proactively prove their innocence, and pay for the privilege of doing so, in order to receive humanitarian assistance.”
It is unreasonable to expect survivors of any natural disaster to have documentation after their homes have been destroyed. Moreover, all people deserve care and access to safety. We support all those fleeing parts of the world made especially vulnerable to the climate change caused by industrialization and unchecked, extractive capitalism and globalization. Many of our community members who have been forced to flee come from highly exploited countries and deserve compassion and respect. Instead, government policy is to criminalize and detain them. We are in solidarity with our refugee siblings and demand that they be treated with dignity and humanity.
In response to the recent wildfires in the Amazon rainforest
August 2019
We are in solidarity with currently over a million indigenous people whose ancestors have protected and managed the Amazon rainforest since time immemorial as they face the worst devastation to their land in 50 years.
The 2016 US-backed “soft coup” that ousted democratically elected Brazilian president Dilma Rouseff made way for a conservative president such as Jair Bolsonaro to take office. Since becoming president in 2019, Bolsonaro has implicitly and explicitly encouraged farmers, ranchers, miners, and loggers to exploit the Amazon rainforest for its economic potential.
Indigenous people are speaking out. They warned that Bolsonaro was the biggest threat in decades, with plans for deforestation of the Amazon and displacement of indigenous communities. Now, there are 72, 843 fires blazing (which were started by humans) and indigenous people are being violently displaced from their land in what some are calling a tactic of genocide.
August 13th, 3,000 indigenous women leaders came together to march against President Bolsonaro’s genocidal policies, saying:
“We call on the international community to support us, to amplify our voices and our struggle against today’s legislative genocide, where our own government is authorizing the slaughter and ethnocide of indigenous peoples. This is also an opportunity to join our voices to denounce this government’s ecocide, where the killing of mother nature is our collective concern."
Indigenous people have defended the rainforest through hundreds of years of colonization and will continue to defend the land after international attention has moved on. We need to remember that deforestation of the Amazon will significantly contribute to climate change, a form of genocide that will disproportionately affect communities in the global South. Tropical forests can mitigate up to ⅓ of climate change impacts, so fighting for the people who protect them is essential.
We call on everyone to take action against the systems of racist, capitalist colonialism that have exerted control over Latin America for hundreds of years and continue to wreak havoc on indigenous communities and the land they protect.
In response to the Hong Kong protests
September 2019
You may have seen Hong Kong protestors using hand signals to communicate, images of teargas being used against protestors, or millions of people in the streets with umbrellas, fighting for democracy. Here’s what’s been going on: It began with a protest about a bill that would further threaten Hong Kong’s independent legal system. This bill would allow for people who have committed crimes to be extradited to stand trial in mainland China, where the right to a fair trial is not guaranteed. Although Hong Kong is part of China, it has its own separate identity and legal structure dating back to British colonialism (which only ended for Hong Kong in 1997). The Hong Kong constitution guarantees freedoms such as “the right to protest, the right to a free press and freedom of speech.” These are not guaranteed in China. The protestors have five main demands. They want:
In response to the Title X federal “domestic gag rule”
August 2019
Planned Parenthood receives $60 million per year from Title X to provide cervical cancer screenings, breast cancer screenings, STI testing, birth control, and pregnancy testing. Title X is a federal program that pays for reproductive health services. In March of this year, the federal government initiated a “domestic gag rule,” prohibiting any facility that receives federal funding from providing or telling people where they can obtain an abortion. Federal monies already cannot be used to pay for abortions--most people pay out of pocket, though a handful of insurances or insurance riders cover the service. This administrative rule goes a step further and interferes with doctors’ abilities to even counsel patients about all of their options. The rule is being litigated, but the Department of Health and Human Services said that agencies that don’t show a good-faith effort to comply will have to leave the program. Because of this, Planned Parenthood has decided to stop accepting Title X dollars. This could jeopardize low income people’s ability to get healthcare. If Roe v. Wade is overturned, like many conservatives are fighting for, poor people who can get pregnant are most likely to suffer, while more affluent people will be able to travel to have safe abortions. Reproductive freedom means having the right to choose whether and when to parent: it means the right to have children or not have children on one’s own timeline, and the right to raise the children one has. No one can have reproductive freedom without access to the full range of options available to them.
We stand with Planned Parenthood. Reproductive freedom is a human right.
In Response to Recent Legal Attacks on Reproductive Freedom
Spring 2019
We stand in solidarity with people who can get pregnant and live in Ohio, Mississippi, Georgia, and Alabama. The first three states recently passed six-week abortion bans, which make abortion illegal at a stage of pregnancy when many people do not yet know they are pregnant. Alabama just passed a law that makes abortion illegal at all stages of pregnancy except when the pregnant person’s life is threatened or if the unborn child has a fatal anomaly. There are no exceptions for cases of rape or incest. Under the Alabama law, an abortion provider can face life in prison for performing an abortion and 1-10 years in prison for attempting to perform an abortion.
Supposedly, the person receiving an abortion will not face punishment, but we already have examples of low income people and people of color who have faced jail or prison time for having a miscarriage or abortion. For example, Purvi Patel (Indiana, 2013) was sentenced to 20 years in prison for having a miscarriage. She was charged with feticide for allegedly having an abortion, even though no abortifacients were found in her blood. For more examples, check out this New York Times opinion piece, “Pregnant, and No Civil Rights.”
Although Oregon passed the expansive Reproductive Health Equity Act in 2017, it’s still our responsibility as Oregonians to support reproductive freedom in other states. If you want to help people access abortions, get in touch with your regional abortion fund. In the Pacific Northwest, check out the Northwest Abortion Access Fund. If you want to support reproductive justice in southern states, check out SisterSong. We also call on our elected officials to speak out against these blatant attacks on Roe v. Wade.
In Response to ICE sanctioned separation of families
Summer of 2018
We stand in solidarity with our Indigenous Family Members and Community who are being unjustly, unlawfully, and immorally detained, denied legal representation, and deported. We support the abolition of ICE and call upon law and policy makers to right these wrongs. We are stunned and horrified by the ways in which United States officials have subverted the values they promise and profess to uphold.
The United States was founded on stolen land and build up with stolen labor. Everything we have here is thanks to a legacy of what black and brown bodies have had to sacrifice. The United States then, in order to continue supporting the habit of capitalist growth, exploited and profited from the wars it created by overthrowing democratically elected governments throughout the world. The United States Government is now choosing to intentionally bar community members that it has hurt in order to maintain that power and control.
At The UPRISE Collective, we believe in calling things what they are and using our privileges to amplify the voices of our community members.
We demand action from elected officials.
August 2020
Protests and uprisings have been growing in Portland since late May in response to George Floyd and Breonna Taylor’s murders at the hands of police. The UPRISE Collective recognizes the leadership and labor of Black organizers in shaping the movement, today and in years past. We follow the lead of Don’t Shoot PDX, Care Not Cops, and Critical Resistance, and take time to honor Letha Wilson (mother of Patrick Kimmons, who was murdered by PPB in 2018) who has protested at City Hall every week to reopen her son’s case. Protests have been taking place at the Justice Center, the North Precinct, Portland’s police union building, parks, and Mayor Ted Wheeler’s home. As our community power has grown, so has carceral punishment and punitive force against protestors at will by agents of the state, and now agents of our federal government. Federal agents have kidnapped civilians, fractured skulls with their “less than lethal” munitions, continued to cause serious and potentially long term damage to people with uteruses in their use of CS gas, attacked and injured protestors, and caused unknown long term damage as protestors endure excessive use of CS/tear gas (banned in warfare).
The UPRISE Collective moves in solidarity with protestors and is committed to utilizing our own labor and resources in support of this movement for Black Liberation and Police/Prison Abolition. We share our solidarity with BIPOC and protesters in cities across the country such as Chicago, Seattle, New York, and more, who are facing federal occupation or threats of occupation. Though federal agents have been called to leave Portland, the practice of state sanctioned violence and a fascist commitment to suppressing community voice remain a cornerstone of this country’s legacy
We offer our solidarity in demanding that we defund the police , dismantle white supremacy, and call for an end to carceral punishment. This fight does not end with the exodus of federal troops . Rather, the past sixty days are a reminder of how powerful people and communities are. A future exists that is free from police, prisons, racism, and harmful systems of power. We offer our support, resources, and solidarity with BIPOC putting their lives on the line to create it. We call on our community to invest their time, talents, and capital in Black liberation.. We believe in our community’s collective knowledge, persistence, and power; and we believe in Portland’s Black leadership who has been doing the work for a long time and will continue to move the work into the future. .
Organizations to engage with:
Don’t Shoot PDX
Snack Bloc
Fridays 4 Freedom
Portland African American Leadership Forum
PDX Stripper Strike
Justice for Patrick Kimmons
PDX Black Youth Movement
Brown Girl Rise
In response to Hurricane Dorian
September 2019
Thousands of survivors of Hurricane Dorian have fled the Bahamas seeking refuge in the United States, only to be met with chaos and cruelty. First, over 100 survivors of the category 5 hurricane, who had waited in line for hours, were forced off a ferry boat to the Fort Lauderdale, FL because they didn’t have proper documentation. The next day, President Trump said that he wouldn’t grant Temporary Protected Status to climate refugees from the Bahamas because they included “some very bad people,” characterizing them as drug dealers and gang members. (Temporary Protected Status affords legal status to people fleeing war or natural disasters and allows them to live and work in the United States for a period of time.) Those seeking safety were required to have a passport and “police record” proving they do not have a criminal record. Salon observed, “It is a requirement that puts the impetus on people to proactively prove their innocence, and pay for the privilege of doing so, in order to receive humanitarian assistance.”
It is unreasonable to expect survivors of any natural disaster to have documentation after their homes have been destroyed. Moreover, all people deserve care and access to safety. We support all those fleeing parts of the world made especially vulnerable to the climate change caused by industrialization and unchecked, extractive capitalism and globalization. Many of our community members who have been forced to flee come from highly exploited countries and deserve compassion and respect. Instead, government policy is to criminalize and detain them. We are in solidarity with our refugee siblings and demand that they be treated with dignity and humanity.
In response to the recent wildfires in the Amazon rainforest
August 2019
We are in solidarity with currently over a million indigenous people whose ancestors have protected and managed the Amazon rainforest since time immemorial as they face the worst devastation to their land in 50 years.
The 2016 US-backed “soft coup” that ousted democratically elected Brazilian president Dilma Rouseff made way for a conservative president such as Jair Bolsonaro to take office. Since becoming president in 2019, Bolsonaro has implicitly and explicitly encouraged farmers, ranchers, miners, and loggers to exploit the Amazon rainforest for its economic potential.
Indigenous people are speaking out. They warned that Bolsonaro was the biggest threat in decades, with plans for deforestation of the Amazon and displacement of indigenous communities. Now, there are 72, 843 fires blazing (which were started by humans) and indigenous people are being violently displaced from their land in what some are calling a tactic of genocide.
August 13th, 3,000 indigenous women leaders came together to march against President Bolsonaro’s genocidal policies, saying:
“We call on the international community to support us, to amplify our voices and our struggle against today’s legislative genocide, where our own government is authorizing the slaughter and ethnocide of indigenous peoples. This is also an opportunity to join our voices to denounce this government’s ecocide, where the killing of mother nature is our collective concern."
Indigenous people have defended the rainforest through hundreds of years of colonization and will continue to defend the land after international attention has moved on. We need to remember that deforestation of the Amazon will significantly contribute to climate change, a form of genocide that will disproportionately affect communities in the global South. Tropical forests can mitigate up to ⅓ of climate change impacts, so fighting for the people who protect them is essential.
We call on everyone to take action against the systems of racist, capitalist colonialism that have exerted control over Latin America for hundreds of years and continue to wreak havoc on indigenous communities and the land they protect.
In response to the Hong Kong protests
September 2019
You may have seen Hong Kong protestors using hand signals to communicate, images of teargas being used against protestors, or millions of people in the streets with umbrellas, fighting for democracy. Here’s what’s been going on: It began with a protest about a bill that would further threaten Hong Kong’s independent legal system. This bill would allow for people who have committed crimes to be extradited to stand trial in mainland China, where the right to a fair trial is not guaranteed. Although Hong Kong is part of China, it has its own separate identity and legal structure dating back to British colonialism (which only ended for Hong Kong in 1997). The Hong Kong constitution guarantees freedoms such as “the right to protest, the right to a free press and freedom of speech.” These are not guaranteed in China. The protestors have five main demands. They want:
- Carrie Lam to step down as Chief Executive of Hong Kong
- An investigation into police brutality against protestors
- The release of protestors who have been arrested, and
- Greater democratic freedoms.
- The demand that sparked this year’s movement--for China to withdraw the controversial extradition bill--has been met, for now.
In response to the Title X federal “domestic gag rule”
August 2019
Planned Parenthood receives $60 million per year from Title X to provide cervical cancer screenings, breast cancer screenings, STI testing, birth control, and pregnancy testing. Title X is a federal program that pays for reproductive health services. In March of this year, the federal government initiated a “domestic gag rule,” prohibiting any facility that receives federal funding from providing or telling people where they can obtain an abortion. Federal monies already cannot be used to pay for abortions--most people pay out of pocket, though a handful of insurances or insurance riders cover the service. This administrative rule goes a step further and interferes with doctors’ abilities to even counsel patients about all of their options. The rule is being litigated, but the Department of Health and Human Services said that agencies that don’t show a good-faith effort to comply will have to leave the program. Because of this, Planned Parenthood has decided to stop accepting Title X dollars. This could jeopardize low income people’s ability to get healthcare. If Roe v. Wade is overturned, like many conservatives are fighting for, poor people who can get pregnant are most likely to suffer, while more affluent people will be able to travel to have safe abortions. Reproductive freedom means having the right to choose whether and when to parent: it means the right to have children or not have children on one’s own timeline, and the right to raise the children one has. No one can have reproductive freedom without access to the full range of options available to them.
We stand with Planned Parenthood. Reproductive freedom is a human right.
In Response to Recent Legal Attacks on Reproductive Freedom
Spring 2019
We stand in solidarity with people who can get pregnant and live in Ohio, Mississippi, Georgia, and Alabama. The first three states recently passed six-week abortion bans, which make abortion illegal at a stage of pregnancy when many people do not yet know they are pregnant. Alabama just passed a law that makes abortion illegal at all stages of pregnancy except when the pregnant person’s life is threatened or if the unborn child has a fatal anomaly. There are no exceptions for cases of rape or incest. Under the Alabama law, an abortion provider can face life in prison for performing an abortion and 1-10 years in prison for attempting to perform an abortion.
Supposedly, the person receiving an abortion will not face punishment, but we already have examples of low income people and people of color who have faced jail or prison time for having a miscarriage or abortion. For example, Purvi Patel (Indiana, 2013) was sentenced to 20 years in prison for having a miscarriage. She was charged with feticide for allegedly having an abortion, even though no abortifacients were found in her blood. For more examples, check out this New York Times opinion piece, “Pregnant, and No Civil Rights.”
Although Oregon passed the expansive Reproductive Health Equity Act in 2017, it’s still our responsibility as Oregonians to support reproductive freedom in other states. If you want to help people access abortions, get in touch with your regional abortion fund. In the Pacific Northwest, check out the Northwest Abortion Access Fund. If you want to support reproductive justice in southern states, check out SisterSong. We also call on our elected officials to speak out against these blatant attacks on Roe v. Wade.
In Response to ICE sanctioned separation of families
Summer of 2018
We stand in solidarity with our Indigenous Family Members and Community who are being unjustly, unlawfully, and immorally detained, denied legal representation, and deported. We support the abolition of ICE and call upon law and policy makers to right these wrongs. We are stunned and horrified by the ways in which United States officials have subverted the values they promise and profess to uphold.
The United States was founded on stolen land and build up with stolen labor. Everything we have here is thanks to a legacy of what black and brown bodies have had to sacrifice. The United States then, in order to continue supporting the habit of capitalist growth, exploited and profited from the wars it created by overthrowing democratically elected governments throughout the world. The United States Government is now choosing to intentionally bar community members that it has hurt in order to maintain that power and control.
At The UPRISE Collective, we believe in calling things what they are and using our privileges to amplify the voices of our community members.
We demand action from elected officials.
