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Tags: portland | naacp | protesters | white | blacklivesmatt

Portland's NAACP President: Protests 'Largely a White Spectacle'

woman in gasmasks and vests line up to protect protesters in portlan
Mothers form a human chain during a protest in front of the Multnomah County Justice Center in Portland, Oregon, on July 23, 2020. (Ankur Dholakia/AFP via Getty Images)

By    |   Sunday, 26 July 2020 08:28 AM EDT

The Rev. E.D. Mondaine, president of the Portland, Ore., branch of the NAACP, says the two months of nightly protests in his city are "largely a white spectacle" caused by members of antifa and other left-wing activists who are "co-opting and distracting attention" from the Black Lives Matter movement. 

"'Spectacle' is now the best way to describe Portland’s protests," Mondaine writes in an opinion piece for The Washington Post. "Vandalizing government buildings and hurling projectiles at law enforcement draw attention — but how do these actions stop police from killing black people? What are antifa and other leftist agitators achieving for the cause of Black equality?"

He added that the "Wall of Moms" is perhaps well-intentioned but takes attention away from "the urgent issue of murdered Black bodies" and called the so-called Naked Athena, the young white woman whose pictures went viral after she performed nude yoga poses in front of police, a "beneficiary of white privilege dancing vainly" during a cause created to raise the voices "of my oppressed brothers and sisters."

Overall, protests against the police killing of George Floyd were a "nationwide reckoning with the original and savage crime of slavery," but he doesn't believe it's a "time for spectacle" such as happened in Portland. 

Mondaine also slammed the Trump administration for sending federal troops in to push back on "mostly white anarchists."

“There is more at stake here than who appears most often on nightly TV broadcasts,” he said. “Right now, there are unmarked, unnamed federal forces kidnapping our citizens off the streets without justification or authority.”

Mondaine did thank "our white brothers and sisters" for their support, but asked if their actions are "another example of white co-optation" and for them to consider if their actions "further the cause of justice" or if they are "simply for show."

Sandy Fitzgerald

Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics. 

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The Rev. E.D. Mondaine, president of the Portland, Ore., branch of the NAACP, says the two months of nightly protests in his city are "largely a white spectacle" caused by members of antifa and other left-wing activists who are "co-opting and distracting attention" from the...
portland, naacp, protesters, white, blacklivesmatt
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2020-28-26
Sunday, 26 July 2020 08:28 AM
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