[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.]
Accountability is practice. Either you do accountability, or you don’t.
Reimagine Oregon grew from the creative vision of Black-led organizations, Black individual activists, and protest organizers in 2020 to demand a different response. In that moment of public distress, they had the conviction to call elected officials, community, and activists together to create collaborative space to get things done. Reimagine Oregon provided a path for elected officials to be accountable in real-time.
Our organization is a policy change and accountability project. The project organized demands sourced from existing and new Black led policy research, organized them, and called on elected officials to choose policy demands they would commit to work to enact as soon as possible. Reimagine Oregon tracked and encouraged progress on those demands through monthly meetings over a multi-year process.
In the summer of 2020 people turned to the streets to demonstrate their pain, frustration, and anger. Locally and nationally elected officials’ response to the loss of human life and dignity taken on the ground in Minneapolis, Minnesota, stolen in Breonna Taylor’s home in Louisville, Kentucky, and the failing living conditions exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic did not match the pain experienced in our communities. The non-binding resolutions, performative photo-ops, and words with no enforceable action began the acknowledge-and-apology cycle that may soothe the conscience of those with the power to act, but also serves to silence our community’s distress. This is done while failing to risk their position, privilege, or resources to build a society that no longer produces pain as a cost of doing business.
I have centered serving the best interest of the Black community in my more than 20 years in Oregon. As a case manager, organizer, mentor, or just a face in a crowd, the wellbeing of Black folks has been at the root of my work. I became the Director of the Reimagine Oregon Project in August of 2021. As I studied the work that was done before my arrival, I understood that I needed to be the steward for this innovative approach to accountability.
The project’s approach was rooted in the work and wisdom of our community. Demands were organized to prioritize policies that would invest in our collective wellbeing and disinvest from policies that bring harm to our community. The Oregon CARES Act, increased pay for frontline housing workers, and per diem for State advisory board service are a few investments that supported relief, stability, and civic engagement. Establishing a duty to report, duty to intervene for law enforcement, and demilitarization of local law enforcement are few key divestitures to improve accountability and focus on safety, not warfare.
Participating community groups, organizations, and activists demonstrated we could hold collective space without suppressing divergent visions, while also developing broad policy demands, and navigating hostile public waters together. From the founding roots of the United States of America, the presence, demands, and innovation of African Americans have pushed our country to live up to its creed and be the home for liberty, justice, and the pursuit of happiness that our Constitution serves to secure. Reimagine Oregon is an expression of that tradition of opposition and demand for a just society.
"Oppression does not come up with new ideas. It just finds new ways to keep the old ideas going."
Elected officials work for us. Every level of government must be effective for our society to flourish. We elect these folks to do the work of the people. The current effort at the federal level to dismantle effective government programs in service to the narrow interests of a few, highlight how important it is for our elected officials to lean into equity and effectiveness.
Reimagine drew elected engagement from the Governor's office, Metro Councilors, County Commissioners, city councilors, school boards, and nods from our federal representatives. The elected officials that committed to the process and took leadership on policy demands experienced an active, responsive, and focused multi-jurisdictional policy process centered on getting things done. They were empowered to be present and honest whether the policy prognosis was good or bad. Accountability in practice.
The community was empowered by the energy and tone of the project. We held a broad policy ledger in the public space and resisted the pressure to fold to get a few wins. Over 15 community based organizations and groups provided policy demands. Almost 4,000 people joined our newsletter, with site traffic from around the world. Demands covered a full spectrum of issues from education, health, housing, public safety, civic engagement, and economic development. The project's approach showed that we can make space for partnership, empower our young leaders, involve communities beyond the Portland-metro area, and allow the willing to show up where you can.
This is not the place for accounting the wins, but let it be known work was done.
The work was not without its woes. Reimagine Oregon is a time delineated project for a reason. We wanted to move while the waves were with us, as we knew the tide would inevitably roll back against us. We experienced the national shift back to the status quo. We endured politicians and some community rejecting the invitation to engage, understand, and collaborate. We had elected officials that attended multiple meetings, while never taking leadership on any policy items. County commissions that voted to stop talking to us while lacking the courage to invite us to the meeting to engage in public debate on the issues. Rather than inquire, they chose to undermine, ignore, or use their position to misrepresent the work. Unfortunately, some thought this project was about ideology, partisan allegiance, and individual self-interest. They did not get it and worked hard not to get it.
Oppression does not come up with new ideas. It just finds new ways to keep the old ideas going. The Black community in Oregon has the capacity, empathy, and the will to make the world more just. I have witnessed and served to protect our ability to collaborate, challenge, and generate profound policy concepts that invest in the betterment of us all.
My resounding lesson from my experience as the Director of Reimagine Oregon is that we need more. We need more collaboration to demonstrate accountability via co-creation and inclusive implementation policy. We need more challenging conversations, to model accountability in rigorous research, discussions and telling the truth even when it hurts. We need more collective action. We must trust each other enough as a community to struggle together to demand a better world.
And finally, we need more accountability from our elected officials. We need you to show up when we call. We need your inquiry when a policy demand scares you, we see enough of your fear. We need you to ask yourself “Why am I sitting this out?” when your colleagues are meeting with community leaders or engaging in issues you do not understand. We need you to govern like you know who you work for.
Accountability is a practice. Make it your practice.
Justice Rajee is the Director of Reimagine Oregon, a director of Beaverton School Board, an organizer, activist, father, friend and partner, animated by love of and energized by service to Black people.
