MORIAH RATNER FOR “THE WORLD”
ReportageWashington’s dispatch of federal troops had made the city of Oregon the epicenter of the revolt that has shaken the United States since the death of George Floyd. After the announced withdrawal of the “feds”, the movement questions its future.
It is too early to say, after the battle which was played out in Portland (Oregon) during the month of July, if there will be a winner. But there is at least one certainty: there is a loser, and his name is Donald Trump. On Thursday, July 30, federal officers that the US president had deployed unilaterally to protect official buildings withdrew to make way for local police. And the one who wanted to prove in the city that he was the president of ” Law and order “ appeared as the vector of arbitrariness and chaos.
For the past fortnight, the epicenter of the revolt that has agitated the United States since the death of George Floyd, an African-American, during his arrest on May 25, in Minneapolis, has moved to the city of the West Coast. . Not a day without Donald Trump castigating the city, “A hive of terrorists”, its elected officials, “Incompetent”, and its demonstrators, “Anarchists who hate our country”. Not a day goes without the pro-Trump presenters of the conservative Fox News channel presenting it as fire and blood, or without the Democrats being indignant, on the contrary, by the presence of federal troops.
Everything came to an end on Wednesday, with the announcement of Democratic Governor Kate Brown ensuring on Twitter: “The federal government has accepted my request and will begin to withdraw its agents” the next day to make way for the Oregon State Police. The reverse is clear for Washington, whose partial denials cause confusion. “The state of Oregon has finally agreed to cooperate with our federal forces, exactly what we have been asking for since the violence erupted two months ago. We are happy that Oregon is correcting its mistakes ”, replies on Twitter the acting Secretary of Homeland Security of Donald Trump, Chad Wolf, assuring that the federal police officers would remain “Until we see that the plan works”.
How did Portland, 1,500 km from Minneapolis, become the focal point of the protest movement six weeks after the death of George Floyd? The city is, of course, one of the whitest in the United States (72%), with only 6% of black residents: Oregon has long been the only American state forbidding them to reside on its territory, and bears a long history of uninhibited racism. But she is also a student and worker, a protestor and sometimes a schoolboy.
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