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BY GORDON R. FRIEDMAN | The Oregonian/OregonLive

Portland’s City Council has prepared a resolution that recognizes the city’s “racist governing history” and condemns “White Supremacist and Alt-Right Hate Groups.”

The resolution states the city "will not tolerate hate in any form" and will commit to training all city employees on the history and effects of white supremacist ideology and how to identify it.

Mayor Ted Wheeler said in a statement that Portland has become a place where people “are now emboldened to express hate, spread fear and do harm against those who simply do not look like them.”

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Wheeler said elected officials have a moral obligation to speak out against white supremacy and white nationalism. The city’s proposed resolution goes beyond “thoughts & prayers,” the mayor said, and signifies Portland leaders’ commitment to “denounce hate in our community and protect our residents.”

City officials began drafting the resolution last year in response to “violence in our community and on our streets,” said Sonia Schmanski, chief of staff to Commissioner Nick Fish.

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To that end, the resolution references “a recent surge of alt-right hate group activity and hostility” in Portland, a nod to the marches and rallies by staged in downtown Portland by members of ultra-partisan groups, some of whom hold racist ideologies. Those events were designed to – and did – provoke violence.

“Advocates asked that the council make a strong and united statement about its values and its unwillingness to harbor hate, and this is council doing that,” Schmanski said.

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Far-right activists with the group Patriot Prayer and their allies the Proud Boys last held a planned event in Portland in October of last year. The most serious violence linked to their 2017 and 2018 rallies included fistfights and beatings with improvised weapons between far-right and far-left rallygoers.

The mayor and all four city commissioners sponsored the resolution, an “extremely unusual” step that Schmanski said speaks to the council’s unity on the issue and “the shared urgency we feel about sending an unequivocal message.”

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The resolution, first reported on by the Portland Mercury, notes racist actions taken by previous officials in city and state posts.

It cites as examples Oregon’s entry to the union as a whites-only state, legislators’ initial refusal to ratify constitutional amendments extending equal protections to all people and ending slavery, Portland’s practice of displacing black residents and a “history of bias” on the part of police officers.

Portland is a welcoming city, the resolution states, and is “committed to undoing and eradicating the effects of past systemically racist practices.” A vote on the resolution is scheduled for February 7.

-- Gordon R. Friedman

GFriedman@Oregonian.com

This story was updated to delete an inaccurate reference to the Proud Boys as a white nationalist group.

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