I am writing to express my anger with Portland’s establishment politicians regarding their targeting of recently elected Charter Commissioner Nasreen Sheikh-Yousef.

Mayor Kate Snyder and Councilor Spencer Thibodeau, both of whom purportedly believe Black Lives Matter, have used their positions to attack a working-class Somali-American activist for unapologetically opposing white supremacy and continuing to fight for Black lives (and by extension, the lives of all marginalized people).

Sheikh-Yousef was resoundingly chosen by voters because of her outspoken defense of the dispossessed, and I hope she will continue this fight while in elected office. As a historian, I have written about this; as lifelong working-class Portlanders, my family has experienced its cruelty firsthand. As we know, the current system was established in 1923 by the city’s wealthiest people with the support of thousands of bigots in the Ku Klux Klan. Since then, marginalized people have been systematically discriminated against by the city’s economic and political elites.

Whether it was the city manager authorizing violence to stop striking workers in 1937 or “urban renewal” destroying many of the city’s working-class neighborhoods in the 1960s and early ’70s, the current system has long governed for the benefit of the rich and powerful. Thus, the legacy of the chamber-Klan partnership goes far deeper than just one election. Unfortunately, political elites have chosen to continue this tradition by attacking Sheikh-Yousef. By doing so, the pair have proven why she is correct. Both the establishment politicians and the lawyers who enrich themselves off of the current system, as well as the system itself, need to go.

Tom MacMillan
Portland