It’s been four years since Ta-Nehisi Coates made an exhaustive case for reparations in the pages of The Atlantic.
And on Monday, white Portlanders who agree with the idea had the chance to kick in $10 and buy a drink for a neighbor of color. It was an event billed as a “reparations happy hour” by prominent local activist Cameron Whitten, 27, and hosted by Brown Hope, a nonprofit he co-founded.
The premise was simple: Black, brown and indigenous folks could show up and collect $10 at the door donated by their white neighbors. In total, 40 people attended Monday’s event.
“The best part for me was showing up like Portland Oprah and see their eyes light up when I handed them $10,” Whitten said. “Because it was about more than that.”
The reparations happy hour signified the transformation of an idea that progressive Portlanders support into something tangible for the city’s residents of color.
“We do a lot of talking. We do a lot of making excuses,” Whitten said. “But how often do we actually recognize and acknowledge someone’s suffering?
Suffering? Is this idiot kidding?
Their next venue is a bakery where “a racial incident” (which wasn’t a racial incident at all) took place.
You can read about it HERE, but here’s the Reader’s Digest version –
A bakery that closes at 9PM had an unusual amount of traffic just as they were closing the doors. At 9:04 a few women slipped onto the line before they could lock the doors. At 9:06 another woman enters and she’s informed that the last two women on line are the last customers because 9pm was closing.
The woman whips out her iPhone and starts videoing because obviously an injustice is in the air because this last woman entering is black.
HEY WHITE PEOPLE , HAVE YOU EVER ENCOUNTERED A SIMILAR SITUATION?
As a night owl I am always walking into stores while the chairs are up on the table and the vacuuming has commenced, only to be told they are closed. I’ve been “SUFFERING THIS TREATMENT” for far too long! Gimme ten dollars.
The bakery wrote this on Facebook after white progressives threatened to have them shut down-
The sad fact of the matter is that what Lillian experienced in our shop Thursday night is just the tip of the iceberg in regards to the discrimination that Black women encounter on a daily basis across this city, state and country. Walking into an establishment that visibly prides itself on its intersectional progressive politics only to be denied service while all the white people inside are being served has to feel horrible just in itself. But when compounded with the generational trauma that comes with being Black in America we can all understand why Lillian felt and responded the way she did. Making her story public was a powerful move on her part and while it is giving us a lot of growing pains we are thankful that she was able to document her experience and garner support far and wide because prejudicial treatment is a reality for Black and brown people that none of us can ignore. It may hurt us right now to be having this conversation but that pales in comparison to the hurt that people of color endure now and have for centuries.
All they needed to write was-
“WE WERE CLOSED.”
ht/ jd hasty
They don’t call it PORTLANDIA for nuthin’!
Ten dollars ain’t enough moddafucka, we be back for more, cracker asshole!
That is so 1990’s, the current name is Protestland
Yo still gonna get raped, hipster douchebags
In middle school we had blacks bused in from downtown.
We had other black kids in our school but evidently not enough.
The blacks that were bused in would come up to you and hassle you with “gimme a quarter.”
They did this to everyone, and they traveled in packs.
I never gave them a damn thing.
It was at this age I realized some groups of people get the respect they deserve.
Skin color?
No, the color of your reputation you assholes.
You want ten dollars?
Over my smoking (empty) Smith $ Wesson .380 Bodyguard.
Somebody tell me to give them $10 and they ain’t the taxman, a vendor, (a Trump re-election fundraiser, or my church – nope, not gunna doit!
I’ll give you $15 to shut up and go away
Portland residents are the easiest to mug but they rarely have anything more valuable than colored condoms in their wallets.
You know, ten bucks might just be worth it. Every white person in the country ponies up a ten spot (parents pay for their kids) give the cash to the NAACP to divide among the black population (other colors make their own arrangements) and then everyone is even. Then any sort of affirmative action program(s) in any field or educational institute gets cancelled, special criminal diversion programs like the one the caused the Florida school massacre is cancelled, welfare and foodstamp programs get tightened up etc etc. Probably end up saving money.
Yeah, I know. I’ll report to the Diversity Training Camp in the morning.
Hey bruh, lemme holda dolla.
How insulting. I wouldn’t have given money and I sure as hell wouldn’t have taken money, either. It implies that everyone ( including blacks) thinks black skin is a disability.
The only time black skin is a disability or a problem is because it’s frostbitten or embalmed. Portland doesn’t have skin color issues, it has brain damage issues.
“The best part for me was showing up like Portland Oprah and see their eyes light up when I handed them $10 OF OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY.”
I fixed it for him.
These events are usually organized and sponsored by race scammers. Show up and donate money to show you aren’t a racist, and while you’re here you may as well buy something from my store. Notice the dude who organized this didn’t spend his own money, got to hand out the donations and claim the credit, and essentially doubled the size of his clientele that day because the donees probably bought something from his establishment. The last thing he wants is for racial guilt to go away.
Dindoos gonna make his life miserable. He’s an easy mark. Could easily be robbed and won’t report the crime.
“It’s been four years since Ta-Nehisi Coates made an exhaustive case for reparations in the pages of The Atlantic.”
Coates’ first name, Ta-Nehisi, is derived from an Ancient Egyptian language name meaning “Fog of stupid”
They got their reparations when Obozo was in the white house. Actually he was the reparations, tough shit if he didn’t do nuffin for ya.
Give you ten bucks?
You mean, an hour? Like a wage? For a job? Ten bucks an hour? That’s reasonable, sure, why didn’t you say so. I got just the job f–
Hey, where you going?
Sounds like Mafia protection payments. Sad, sad, sad.
Reparations were paid in full during the American Civil War.
Any thought of paying it now is disgusting. Anyone who demands it is evil. There have been no slaves or slave holders since 1860s.
I lived in the 50s during what they now call Jim Crow. I liked the social order and safety then and want it back. It seems a large number of blacks desire the same.
So i pay $10 and they return $20 for the whites who died freeing them. Im in.
@Aaron Burr:
Tsk-tsk. That’s condoms of color you white debbil!
I am a black and I want free cake. Now. Kick um out.
The city I grew up in is now a shit hole.
It is a shame, the left has turned another wonderful city crazy.
um, doesn’t this, sorta, kinda delve into the territory of ‘racial stereotyping’?
I mean of all the things you’re going to ‘reparate’ you go w/ a pint of MD20/20 or a nip of Hennessy fo’ da’ bro’s & ho’s? … seriously?
Free booze and angry blacks. What could possibly go wrong?
$250,000 per head to be deported to anywhere in Africa that will take them for resettlement.
The corrupt African nations that accept them for resettlement will receive an additional $10,000 per head as incentive.
No exceptions.
I’m so done.
From “Dane-Geld” by R. Kipling:
“And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we’ve proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld, you never get rid of the Dane.
We never pay anyone Dane-geld,
no matter how trifling the cost
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that plays it is lost!
@Anonymous May 25, 2018 at 9:28 pm
> $250,000 per head to be deported to anywhere in Africa that will take them for resettlement.
Two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand U.S. dollars? Cash money? No annuity B.S.? And you’re not racist. So color don’t matter?
Hmm… NGO to Italy. Political asylum from literally Hitler. E.U. dole for life. How much for a train ticket to Sweden? Lonely bikini team. Carry the one. Ooh! Look. Sharia law. Add another bikini team.
Uhh… look… I don’t wanna’ miss the mass hangings. So, if you get those started before the check’s cut, I’ll just say it must’ve gotten lost in the mail. otherwise, Sweden needs repopulating, and I’m not gettin’ any younger.
So Black Anon, does that mean you will take me up on my offer?
Call me a racist all you want, but you will be doing it from Africa.
How about it?
You could build a new Liberia!
America was never meant for you. It’s time to go home.
Like I said, I’m done.
Wouldn’t it be more appropriate for Negros to pay back the Caucasians for the billions they’ve taken under the false pretense of welfare, but actually spent on drugs, alcohol and hookers?
They’ve been doing that since forever.
Used to be called “mugging”.