letter - PQ Monthly

Dear Owners and Staff of The Eagle Portland:
We are a group of concerned community members approaching you about your
decision to book black face performer Shirley Q. Liquor. We believe that booking this
racist and misogynist event, as well as your poor handling of the outcry that resulted,
has been painful and damaging to our community on the whole, to your North Portland
neighbors, to African American women, and specifically to LGBTQI people of color.
It is our understanding that the booking staff was approached privately, well in
advance of the event, and warned that the performance was racist and that
booking SQL was a bad idea. This preliminary feedback and opposition did not
deter The Eagle from continuing with the booking. When the community was
made aware of the event via an invite on Facebook, there was an explosion of
outrage that The Eagle would invite a black-face performer to our city. In light of
the loss of sponsorship for the event, loss of support from neighboring
businesses, and community outcries, The Eagle Portland thankfully--albeit with
documented petulance and resentment--cancelled the event.
We're writing because since releasing the notice of cancellation, your business
has not followed up or attempted public accountability for the harm it has caused.
There has been no "open forum to discuss race" on the date of the originally
scheduled SQL performance, as Eagle Pdx manager Michael Shaw Talley stated
in PQ Monthly, and there does not appear to be one in the works. Earnest and
polite requests by concerned patrons for information regarding this event have
been ignored. While this may be for the best, given your poor decisions and
demonstrated lack of sensitivity, it remains that there has been no follow-up to
the one gesture of reparation that The Eagle suggested. And meanwhile, you
continue to do outreach in booking new local performers and promoters, so it's
apparently business as usual.
Since The Eagle hasn't issued a public apology or followed up, you have
communicated via your silence that you are not actively engaged in making
amends to your community. We urge you to consider how this affects not just
your standing in our community, but reflects on Portland as a whole-- especially
since this issue has been discussed in various leather community forums and in
media outlets well beyond our city. We believe that we are at a crossroads in
dealing with the misogyny and racism in LGBTQI communities, and strongly
encourage you to take this as an opportunity to step up to the plate and
demonstrate how a gay bar might better address issues of oppression in its
establishment when given choices. Instead of sweeping it under the rug as
business as usual, you have a chance to show a genuine commitment to
showing up for your community and repairing the harm done.

Why This Matters
The Eagle Portland is located in an area of North Portland that has been the epicenter of
gentrification and hate crimes against people of color for several years. With the
historically black community being pushed out of the neighborhood, hostility against
people of color has escalated to the point of aggravated attacks and vandalism targeting
black-owned businesses. There have been four such N. Portland attacks documented
this past year alone, including hate speech like, "go home," swastikas and nooses being
spray painted on The Grassroots Cafe, the Sons of Haiti Lodge, and Mac and Dubs
restaurant--the latter of which was firebombed and burned down. Those business
owners were home. The owners are all North Portland natives.
So we want you to have some idea of what you're really doing when you invite a blackface
performer to the neighborhood. Gentrification and racist acts like hate crimes and
the booking of black face performers threaten the safety of people of color in an area of
Portland that has rapidly changed. Ellis Bradley, the owner of the attacked Grass Roots
Cafe, was so affected by these racist, violent acts that he contemplated leaving Oregon
altogether. We've attached his letter to you. We hope that you'll find his experiences
and insights as impactful as we do, and are moved to better understand why booking
acts like SQL in our community does the following:
• creates a culture of acceptance around harmful stereotypes in the name of
"comedy"
• perpetuates a cycle of racism that contributes to violent hate crimes and to a
hostile environment for Portland's people of color
• further divides our communities as a whole.
Our group aims to work together in creating a community that ensures the inclusion
and well-being of marginalized people as well as actively challenges the white
supremacy and misogyny that SQL perpetuates. As a member of our LGBTQI
community, we implore The Eagle Portland to critically examine the ways that your
actions have harmed our community, as well as work to establish a process for
restorative justice.
What We're Asking
The following is a list of steps your community has outlined for you. Your participation
would go far toward demonstrating that you are invested in accountability and
restorative justice to your community in the aftermath of harmfully booking SQL at The
Eagle:
1. Attendance at one or several local anti-racism trainings. Some upcoming events
include:
• Anti-racist speaker Tim Wise at Portland State University Wednesday, April 10,
2013 at 6 p.m.
• Basic Rights Oregon's Anti-Racist training on April 11, 2013 at 6 p.m. at Center
for Intercultural Organizing (free of charge)

• YWCA Clark County's Eliminating Racism: Steps I and II workshops in July and
August (free of charge).
• YWCA of Greater Portland's next "Dismantling Racism" workshop (dates TBD)
We strongly encourage the attendance of your bookers, staff, manager and owner to
all attend this training. Our group understands that anti-oppression awareness is a
trajectory and that unlearning racism and other oppressions is a lifetime commitment.
We identify this training as an important step towards operating your business with the
crucial knowledge that could enable you to thrive as a gay business aimed at better
ensuring that it is a safer space for all of its clientele.
2. Participation in an open dialogue about racism and misogyny in our community. This
dialogue should involve the experience and leadership of queer and trans people of
color (QTPOC) in the foreground of its process, and (crucially) should be facilitated with
and articulate a clear anti-racist and overall anti-oppression framework. Our group
hopes to offer a restorative justice listening project event in the future. We feel that your
attendance would be vital in addressing the harm that has been caused in our
community. We will keep you posted in our planning and encourage you to look for
other opportunities to engage in restorative justice processes in which you reflexively
listen to those most affected by the racism and misogyny that SQL perpetuates.
3. Financial reparations. Since The Eagle Pdx would have financially benefited from
the booking of SQL, both in ticket and bar sales at the event, we encourage you to
make financial reparations to those targeted by racism in the LGBTQI and wider
community. The Eagle Portland stated online that 100 tickets were pre-sold at $15
apiece, and so we feel that a $1,500 donation is an amount that bears significance.
We've identified the following businesses or organizations as fitting recipients of
financial reparation, to whom you might choose to divide or focus the entire amount
towards supporting services and events primarily for QTPOC in Portland:
Portland Black Pride
portlandblackpride@gmail.com
Mac and Dubs 714-603-5644
4. We are open to other suggestions that you might consider, or perhaps have already
participated in, that we're unaware of. We encourage your input in this process;
particularly in identifying other specific steps you might be taking or could take in
addressing this issue. We maintain that these steps outlined above are important in
rectifying this situation and in addressing racism and misogyny on a systemic level. We
are reaching out to you in the hopes of engaging you in this process, because it is our
desire that we move forward in making the queer and trans community in Portland one
that actively challenges oppression and affirms the well-being of each of its valued
members.

Last: we ask that you respond in a timely manner to this letter. We request that you
contact us within 10 days to let us know:
• that you have signed up for an anti-racist training, and that you are addressing
this letter in a thoughtful and reflective manner.
• who you intend to send financial reparations to. We suggest that financial
reparations be completed within six months' time from receiving this letter.
We will follow up with an invitation to our event, and will be available to field your
suggestions in outlining other accountability steps you might be taking or could take in
addressing this issue.
Please know that while it might feel differently, that this letter is an act of love for our
queer and trans community, and one that hopes to ensure that we continue to strive
towards a truly inclusive and intersectional movement for our collective liberation.
Signed,
Queer Racial Justice PDX (contact: queerracialjusticepdx@gmail.com)
Mary C. DeFreese
R.L. Dunn
Khalil Edwards, Portland Black Pride
Joseph Michael Floyd
Molly Gray
Michele Hunt
T. Jakob, NE Portland
Joe LeBlanc
Catherine Marr
Nicoletta McKee
Galadriel Mozee
Bertha Pearl
Leigh Richards
Candida Albicans Royale
Clio Sady
S. Luc Smith, NE Portland
Anna Stein
Amy Stevens, North Portland
Samantha Taylor
Lee Watts
Eleanor Wieland
cc: PQ Monthly (Erin Rook), The Oregonian (Casey Parks), The Skanner, Willamette
Week, Portland Mercury

Feb. 21, 2013
To the Owners of the Eagle:
You don't know me. My name is Ellis Bradley and until last year I owned Grass Roots Cafe: a
food truck and catering service in North Portland, where I grew up.
Until last year, you could not tell me that white supremacists were working at pushing black
businesses out of North Portland, but case after case of racially motivated attacks keep coming
up. Last year my own business was attacked. I can hardly put in words how much this hurt me
and my staff: a diverse group of young chefs that focused on bringing love to the food and community.
If it were not for some very amazing people in the Boise Elliot community, I probably
would have left Oregon.
"So what?" you ask. Here I am another disfranchised African American ranting about the ills of
racist behavior and you gotta business to run. The truth of it is, I'm okay now and work as a chef
for a great company, so I'm writing not out of anger, but concern about the message to African
American Women that Chuck Knipp portrays. He doesn't believe himself to be prejudiced because
he "has black friends" and, in his own words, "had black house keepers who cared for him
as a child." But the bottom line is that the negative stereotypes in his act far outweigh anything
funny. They are so hurtful and demeaning, it's a strike at the heart of the matriarchs of African
American families. African American Women that work hard, sacrifice, and become everything
from judges to nurses.
What Chuck Knipp's character does is validate every negative stereotype about African American
women as welfare moms, and whether he stands up at the end of his act and says something
poignant about stereotypes or not: the racist views are then seen and taken as okay because they
are supposed to be funny? Since when does that make everything okay?
Thanks for your time.
E. Bradley