[Editor's Note: The following article is part of BlackOut: A Five-Year Retrospective on Portland’s Racial Justice Movement, a joint publication from Donovan Scribes and the Portland Mercury. Written exclusively by Black Portlanders, the purpose of BlackOut is to remember and reflect on the May 25, 2020 murder of George Floyd at the hands of police, and the 100+ days of protests in Portland that same year. You can find BlackOut in print at more than 500 locales citywide, inserted inside the Mercury's Food Issue. You can read all the BlackOut articles here.]

Doing antiracism work in Lake Oswego over the years and reflecting on the 2020 protests, the obvious question that comes to mind is, “Did white people actually learn anything?” The obvious answer is no. Yet, plot twist, does that really matter?

When we talk about 2020, the first thing people evoke is the numbers. Thousands of people in the streets. 100 straight days of demonstrations in downtown Portland. 

We talk about the results of applying that pressure. Institutions issued Black Lives Matter statements (some even contracted with actual Black people to write them). They created DEI policies, conducted more training and in some cases, created new jobs dedicated to DEI. In school districts like Portland Public Schools and Gresham, student activism and community support led to the removal of cops from schools.

In Lake Oswego, known throughout the state by the nickname “Lake No Negro,” the bar for change was much lower. Recognition of cultural heritage months. Creation of DEI task forces and advisory boards. The creation of a DEI manager job that functions more like seven.

Of course, many of those changes were temporary. The loud cruelty of the Trump Administration obscures the reality that the dismantling of DEI and rollback of civil rights isn’t so much us going backwards, as it is the Confederacy building on its momentum, which saw new life after the election of Barack Obama in 2008.

When I try to figure out where my confusion with so many white people who “showed up” in LO in 2020 comes from, it always goes back to being in the same room and experiencing different realities. 

Ask many people about their evidence of the immense progress LO has made in recent years on racism and they’ll cite the mere existence of my organization Respond to Racism in Lake Oswego. Founded in 2017 by my mother Willie Poinsette and Liberty Gonzales, we host public antiracism education events, sponsor programming that uplifts local communities of color and collaborate on antiracist actions with organizations and individuals throughout the city and county. Pre-pandemic, we boasted regular attendance of 40-100 people at our monthly community meetings. The work has touched enough people that a mural of mom now hangs on the side of Lake Oswego City Hall. 

However, I’ve always struggled with the contradiction inherent in doing this work in LO. We attract a largely white and/or retired audience who sees everything through alabaster-tinted glasses. We ask them how they’re showing up for racial justice. They say they attend RtR meetings. We ask them how they’re showing up for communities of color. They say they attend RtR meetings. We ask them for the proof of progress in LO as a community. They say RtR exists.

In those early days, I made my name as the guy who “would say the thing.” During one breakout group, I remember voicing my fear that the group would sit there and watch if my mom died on stage, pat themselves on the back for “showing up” and create a fundraiser in her name.

Needless to say, I’m not surprised when white community members talk about 2020 like festival season while so many Black organizers reflect on the times with frustration, resentment, and no shortage of stories of trauma.

Yes, white people showed up. They also brought all the nonprofit tropes with them. It seems nitpicky, but it’s hard to divorce the words from the actions or more accurately, inaction. It’s the person who can’t stop talking about their lavish vacations and speaking in dog whistles, yet tells you they want to contribute something other than money, and also, they’re only available Saturday afternoons. It’s the person who listens to a panel of students demanding the removal of student resource officers, then asks, “Okay, but what about if they just had more Black police officers?” It’s the people who’ve been coming to RtR activities for years and still insist LO actually doesn’t have a racism problem. 

What does it mean when you ask people what brought them to RtR and their answers are shame around the “Lake No Negro” nickname, a deep investment in proving “this is not who we are,” and they don’t know where else to meet people of color? A foot in the door is a foot in the door, I suppose, but in 2020, at the exact same time as the protests, these same people didn’t bat an eye when RtR called attention to the Lake Oswego School District (LOSD) cutting the DEI Director position. Two years later, the department had no staff and was repackaged as “Belonging.” 

In 2025, the City still has a DEI Manager and LOSD now has a Belonging Coordinator. However, police stops for communities of color have gone up every year since 2020. Reading and math proficiency for Black elementary students is disproportionately down. Graduation rates for underserved students are down 10 percent. 

There’s obvious fear about whether the Trump Administration’s crackdown will come for LO’s DEI work, but prior to the 2024 election, the feedback I would get the most about the DEI and formerly DEI departments was, “I’m not sure what they do.”

What about RtR? I’m submitting this essay two days before an emergency meeting to discuss a funding crisis. My days as Executive Director are likely numbered. It’s a job I refused to consider for years until an RtR meeting in late 2023 when mom, who had a mini stroke in 2021, was struggling with the intro as the room sat and watched. It was the second meeting back from a summer pause and unlike the first, where she pushed through the struggles, she couldn’t this time. On the way up to help her, I couldn’t help but think of the meme of a white person high-fiving a Black woman and congratulating her on her strength as she drowns.

Fueled by frustration, but also hope for one last shot at creating the culture change 2020 provided a taste of, I took the job. To begin 2024, we made changes: infusing youth and former students of color into all aspects of leadership, committing to move towards abolition and refusing to rubber stamp City and School District initiatives in the name of “partnership.” Attendance numbers went down but the integrity of the infrastructure got stronger.

Then my father got sick in March, had a heart attack on the operating table in April and died in May. It was touching and somewhat fitting that our most successful event of 2024 was the Bruce R. Poinsette Awards Gala, a December fundraiser and awards ceremony in dad’s name that was designed by our Youth Empowerment Coalition students. 

Fast forward to spring 2025. That triumphant evening feels a lot like the night dad opened his eyes for the first time since the botched heart procedure, five days before he passed. 

Funding to sustain positions that drive antiracism work and the very work itself is under attack. The LO community is in denial about gains from 2020 that are, at best, hanging by a thread, while wondering if that 2020 energy is coming back.

If I’m still asking white people what they learned, did I really learn anything?

Bruce Poinsette is a writer, editor, and educator. He serves as the Executive Director of Respond to Racism in Lake Oswego, a grassroots antiracism organization in his hometown.