Trump Was Elected; What Now? Black Community Organizers on What’s Next

Teressa Raiford

Teressa RaifordFounder of Don’t Shoot Portland and former mayoral candidate, Raiford told The Skanner it was truly painful watching what Vice President Kamala Harris was subjected to during a hasty campaign. Raiford outlines how she and her organization plan to continue providing critical services to the community, and that art can provide a safe area. 

“I’m not surprised by the results, much less what I need to do to keep myself safe. I got death threats during the Obama administration,” Raiford said.

The Skanner: What work do you plan to do in anticipation of a second Trump administration?

I’m advocating for families consistently. I have a family right now that recently, they’re trying to figure out what they should do — they got assaulted, nobody did anything about it, and the lady that got assaulted has a concussion and she was being riddled with hate slurs. In the past, what we’ve had to do — really after the MAX stabbings, was provide bystander intervention programming and advocacy, so earlier today I met with a doctor to talk about the need for referrals for mental health support, for people who are feeling like there’s an escalated fear factor or an escalated threat which, you know, being Black in America, that escalates as soon as you learn how to walk and go to school and go to the doctor — any institution that has authority over your body at the time is kind of violent towards you, so you learn to deal with violence, especially systemic violence. I don’t think for us it’s any different than before the election, and it won’t be different than the last 10, 15 years.

The Skanner: What added precautions do we need in a state of violence that we’ve already been dealing with? I don’t know. 

I’m a Black woman. I’m living. I live with happiness and joy in my heart everyday.

White people don’t have power over me, that’s why I’m a community organizer. I’ve got to teach other people not to let people’s hate and their value systems make you feel less than human, even though they’re set up to dehumanize you. We have to fight against that every single day, not just in a Trump America. 

The Skanner: What is your response to local elections?

I think anybody that ran an anti-Black campaign got the numbers, the donations and support that they needed. I think no one wanted to center Blackness, especially here in Oregon, and if they did center a Black candidate, they tried to center things that didn’t have anything to do with the color of their skin — unless it was where they grew up. Somebody might be from Northeast Portland, but let’s not talk about how Black they are; let’s talk about how they assimilated. 

The Skanner: Does a second Trump administration change anything about the community organizing work you do?

Outside of connecting with my friend who’s a doctor who provides therapy and programs that support people being proactive in their own managed care and emotional care, outside of adding that to our outreach and advocacy, I don’t see much more I can do. If we would’ve organized protests, obviously there would be demands, but our demands are the same. 

The things that we’ve been doing — critical support, mutual aid — those are things we’re going to keep doing.

On election night we had two exhibits that push conversation and dialogue to promote community engagement, which is to us mutual aid and advocacy. One is at PCC Sylvania, and it’s a replica exhibition that includes the panels from the 2020 protest and has been set up as a place for conversations post-election. It opened on election night. 

We have a gallery downtown, the Black Gallery, where we have a show that’s called Room for Conversation. There’s some very provocative pieces in there from people like Cheryl Walker and Faith Ringgold and Ernie Barnes — people that are known for contributing to the art world images that are around racism and violence, we have those on display.

It opened election night and it goes through Inauguration Day. It provides people with a space for having these tough conversations. And we’re trying to use this space not only to connect with community that needs to kind of mediate through what’s happening, but also to look at what’s happening so we can build up what our resiliency will be for the next four years.

We even have an oral history booth in here so people can document their feelings and have that as an archive for the future. 

We’re working with a doctor, we have this space where, when you walk in, not only is there fine art on the walls, we’ve put in lounge seating so there’s all these places to sit down. I found the place I felt safest as a child, going through foster care and all the other stuff in my life, was my grandma’s house. I would go there and there were things in the house that were always the same. Whether it was 1980 or 1990, you were going to find some Ebony magazines, some Jet magazines, you were going to find a comfortable pillow — a little warmth in the space that made you know you were in a safe space.

On election night, we had probably 40-something people that came through for that opening event, and we were all in there drinking wine, watching the election returns on the big screen, and by the time eight o’clock rolled around we were drinking tequila and whiskey and it was cool, cause everybody was comforting each other. But it really landed as the place we wanted. Like, where are our people going to go with that energy? We weren’t interested in protesting because we knew the outcome, unfortunately. We knew what was going to happen. So we thought, if nothing else we can share desserts and wine with our community and we can let everybody know that everything’s going to be ok, and say look, we’ve got each other. And as long as we’ve got each other, we can always organize and make our lives better. Continue to organize, continue to look out for each other. 

For more information on these exhibits, visit https://theblackgallerypdx.com. 

Lakayana Drury

Lakayana DruryDrury is the founder, executive director and chief visionary officer of Word Is Bond, a leadership incubator for young Black men in Portland. He gave The Skanner his thoughts on how the presidential campaigns failed to address the needs of the young men he works with, how to better engage with youth and how he protects himself from giving into pessimism in anticipation of another Trump administration. 

The Skanner: How do you proceed after the news of a second Trump administration?

This is an opportunity to lean in and not disengage. The election didn't go the way we wanted, and in the case of the local election being very complicated, looking at voter turnout was very low with the ranked-choice voting, you had two double-whammies, as I see it. I think this is an opportunity to lean in, rather than to disengage because the process was frustrating and the turnout was low. With Kamala Harris not being elected, that was a big blow to Black women.

There is a large gap — Black Portland is not politically organized. We should move in that direction, and utilize the next few years to do organizing and to build a political base, a coalition of organizations and individuals that can help elect Black leaders or leaders in general with a Black agenda.

We don’t do that, and Black leaders that do get elected don’t necessarily have a Black agenda, and elected leaders who are not Black certainly don’t have one. And because we’re not organized, they don’t have to have one. They don’t have to have anything in their platform that speaks to us. So I think that’s another opportunity.

From my perspective, it’s engaging youth.

The youth were completely disengaged, and rightfully so — the platforms, especially on a national level, I don’t feel really engaged Black youth.

I was talking to my youth, and none of them were engaged in the process.

We have to talk to them about the election, and talk about it in positive terms: ‘Hey, here’s the opportunity’ rather than that voting doesn’t work. There is a lot of discouragement from the process from the adults on down, and when you get to the youth, it’s even more so because they have even less control, autonomy. You have 13-year-olds, 14-year-olds who are seeing the world but they have no political power. Or they do, but not the power to vote. 

And just to educate ourselves: The first go-around we did ok, I saw the Urban League out there doing things to educate people, I saw Imagine Black, at Word is Bond, we did some stuff — I think there’s more of an opportunity to engage, and not just when the election is coming up. I think that the work really starts now. We shouldn’t be waiting for two years.

The Skanner: How do you think campaigns can better engage with Black youth, both nationally and locally?

I think I would like to see them empowering student groups. I remember when I was in college, there was College Democrats and an Obama group that was youth-led. They had community organizers that came and created groups around the Obama campaign. So creating groups that engage, setting up roundtable discussions, youth panels that allow them to hear their issues, specific summits that engage and target Black youth the same way Black youth are targeted for other things — if you want to get hip-hop into their hands, if you want to get Jordans into their hands — go talk to Nike, go talk to the organizations that are targeting them fo the things they want to be targeted for. 

We’re not hard to find, and we are targeted for certain things. It’s a double-edged piece: The campaigns themselves should be reaching out. If you want us, you can’t just stick Beyonce and Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion on stage and hope that we turn out to vote, but then aren’t speaking to the issues that represent us — how are we going to pay for college? How are we going to end police brutality? We talk about abortion access or women’s health access, what about health access for Black women teenagers?

Also, we as a community have to do a better job of educating and engaging our youth. So whether that’s sitting there at the kitchen table and talking about why voting matters, and not just voting, but civic responsibility as a whole — it’s not just about voting and then that’s it. You get involved in organizations in your community, you participate in boards. As Malcom X would say, the political education of the community. 

The Skanner: What are you saying to the youth you’re working with?

This is what we did: I wanted to hear all their thoughts on things, so I monetized it. I said, ‘Hey, everybody in this groupchat who responds and shares their thoughts, I’ll CashApp you $10. You have to write at least five sentences.’ Everybody wrote at least 10 to 15 sentences, and really shared.

Reactions were very split: It’s really puzzling how many people voted for Donald Trump, with people doubting what he would be able to accomplish. Distressed about how it was impacting their families, Kamala’s foreign policy being a downfall. The power that Black and Latino men are having within elections. Just a lot of varying thoughts — I was really impressed.

It was important, because I know they’re really not getting engaged. Half the time adults are panicking themselves, which is natural, but it’s like, we’ve got a whole population of young people that we have a responsibility to engage and educate, and we have to keep them in a loop and create spaces for them. Ask, what do you think? We want to hear what you have to say. 

The Skanner: How do you keep going?

I protect my energy. I made a conscious decision back in May or June that I was not going to let the result of the election either way consume my energy. I really disagree with how the presidential election was run on multiple fronts, and I feel like it was framed by both sides as “do or die, this is the most important election ever” and I’m not subscribing to that narrative. And I’m not going to let myself be jolted and pulled to all sides. That really helped me detach from any certain outcome while still working towards the future I want to see, which extends beyond just going to the ballot box. 

Then practicing some good spiritual hygiene, meditating, getting some good rest, and then knowing what my purpose is and how I can impact the world. It will continue regardless of whoever’s in office, so staying in line with what my purpose is, putting myself in the best position to be mentally, physically in the best light.

And educating myself — I think the more fearful you are correlates to how educated you are on what’s happening. So I stay informed.

The presidential election is just one piece of what gets weighed in what I do. There’s local community events, there’s community violence that has just as much of an impact on what we’re doing. 

I have an abundance mindset. I don’t say this is the end-all be-all. Kendrick Lamar said it: We’re gonna be alright.