Two racially charged incidents inside the same week show us that while Central Oregon is changing demographically and culturally in the direction of more diversity and inclusion, not everyone is happy about it and not everyone is on board. Oregon's long history of Black exclusion laws and its quest for a "white utopia" might seem like long-forgotten relics of a more racist past, but when asked about their reaction to the dead raccoon left at the office of Redmond's mayor, or about the son of an elected official posing with a Nazi salute, one Black resident said, "It's just another Tuesday."
If we thought racism was in the past; if we thought the months of demonstration over the killing of Barry Washington or George Floyd helped to resolve these issues in our community, we need to take a look at ourselves once again. Incidents that are both threatening and harmful are still happening every day to people of color and other marginalized groups – such as Jewish people and LGBTQ+ individuals — and it does no one service to pretend otherwise.
White supremacy is real, and in some parts of Central Oregon, it's gaining purchase. When a hopeful elected official in Redmond tells us they want to "keep Redmond, Redmond," what does that actually mean? Perhaps there was a short window of time in which the white settlers who came to dominate this area were able to cease defending "their" lands from the original inhabitants – Paiutes, Klamaths, Wasco and Warm Springs peoples, and to settle into a type of homogeneity that made them feel "safe." However, people excluded from that homogeneity feel less so.
When someone mimics the salute of the people whom our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents fought in some of the biggest wars the world has ever known, what are they saying? The veterans who are still alive today will not be able to see that as a childish joke. Those gestures mean something.
Small towns like Redmond, Prineville and Bend contain residents who still remember what these places were like "before growth." They're being hit by change, and there are going to be growing pains, but racist flails cannot and should not be tolerated. Culturally, it creates hostility. Economically, it stalls growth. Spiritually, in a place that could still be claimed as Native land, it creates a level of irony that should be humbling.
Not long ago, Redmond allowed a person dressed as a Confederate soldier to walk in its Fourth of July parade. Later, the City Council refused to disallow it. That same person is now the head of the Deschutes Republicans, and if you don't think that sends a message about what is tolerated here, then it must just be another Tuesday for you. Dressing as a member of the Confederacy is a dog whistle. People are not "blowing things out of proportion" when they protest it – and the arrival of a dead raccoon on the steps of the mayor's law office confirms these issues are not going away on their own.
To those who belong to groups that downplay such incidents or try to convince people that what they're seeing on the face of things is not tied to its meaning, we call BS.
Continuing to allow white supremacy a place in Central Oregon is a threat to the economic, cultural and spiritual growth of the entire region. To those belonging to groups where these ideas are tolerated, it's long past time to reign it in.
