350PDX Weekly Update – Solidarity with Asian Americans – Mar 10 2021
Hi everyone,
Violence and harassment against Asian Americans has increased significantly across the country over the past year. In Portland, several Asian-owned businesses were recently vandalized. This is another chapter in the long history of racist oppression of Asian Americans, from the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, to the Japanese internment camps of World War II, to waves of attacks on Asian Americans as US manufacturing jobs moved to Asia, after 9/11, and now during the pandemic. As infections appeared in the U.S., President Trump repeatedly referred to COVID-19 as the “China virus” and “Chinese flu,” and pushed a disproved theory that it had originated in a Chinese lab.
For Asians in America, there is a new tension to daily life. Asian businesses and property have been vandalized with racist tags. Random individuals have been physically assaulted, verbally harassed, and shunned across the country. There’s no official tally for how many incidents have occurred, but California Congresswoman Judy Chu estimated 100 hate crimes were being committed against Asian Americans each day.
We talk a lot about climate justice, in that the root cause of climate disruption is this underlying racial capitalism that extracts resources and exploits people. One key antidote is solidarity, uniting the movements fighting colonialism, racism, imperialism, capitalism, so that we build enough power to tear the whole system down and build something better together.
So today we’re asking you to show up in solidarity with the Asian American community in two ways:
- Attend a Bystander Intervention Training to stop Anti-Asian/American and Xenophobic Harassment. Trainings are free, online, and have multiple dates coming up.
- Support APANO, Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon. They are a local organization that works to unite Asians and Pacific Islanders to build power, develop leaders, and advance equity through organizing, advocacy, community development, and cultural work. They are a central part of the Portland Clean Energy Fund coalition, and members of the Oregon Just Transition Alliance. Show them some love, whether that’s donating, joining their mailing list, following them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or volunteering!
Here’s your 350PDX weekly update.
Actions
All these actions and more can be found on our website’s Take Action page – 350pdx.org/action
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Calendar Jam: Tell Bank CEOs to Defund Line 3
Chase, Bank of America, TD Bank and Citi are some of the main banks providing financing for the disastrous Line 3 tar sands pipeline. On March 31st, these banks have a $2.2 billion loan to Enbridge, the company behind Line 3, that is due for renewal. We’re demanding that the banks walk away from this toxic pipeline on that date (you can read more about the #DefundLine3 campaign here).
In the last two weeks, we have sent more than 260,000 emails and made more than 500 phone calls to bank executives, but so far they have been silent on whether or not they will walk away from Line 3.
So we’re filling the calendars of Chase CEO, Jamie Dimon, as well as the CEOs of Bank of America, TD Bank, Citi and two other key Chase executives, with hundreds of invitations to remind them to break up with Enbridge and defund Line 3. Instructions on what to do here!
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URGENT! Right to Rest Act! Contact Your Legislators!
Last week, we contacted you about the Right to Rest Act (HB 2367), a bill that would decriminalize “crimes of survival”, like sleeping and eating in public, for unhoused Oregonians across the state. Despite a huge volume of testimony in support, endorsements from over 50 organizations including 350PDX, and multiple speaker panels with unhoused community members as well as advocates from national organizations and former United Nations representatives already set up for the hearing date of March 9, the Right to Rest Act was suddenly pulled from the Judiciary Committee agenda without explanation. Please contact Chair Bynum and Judiciary Committee members immediately to reschedule the hearing for this critically needed, popular bill that decriminalizes basic life-sustaining activities in public space. There are only two dates left: March 16 and March 18, and organizers need time to coordinate testimony by houseless testifiers.
Rep.JanelleBynum@
oregonlegislature.gov
503-986-1451
Twitter: @bynum4thewinContent and contacts for the Judiciary Committee are here. For more information about HB 2367, please visit Western Regional Advocacy Project (WRAP).
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Help Needed: Hold banners targeting Zenith, Chase Bank, and Line 3
90 minute shifts in the morning or late afternoon, Mon – Fri
Get in on the fun! Contact: Harlan Shober, 971-227-0478
Masks and Social Distancing Observed
Updates
- Read: 350PDX Nonviolence Statement
Check out our stance on nonviolence.
- Training: Skilling Up For Climate Action: Climate and Environmental Justice
Watch the recording of last week’s national 350 training: Principles of Justice, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion, intersections between climate and social justice movements, how to identify and address white supremacy culture and inequity in our work.
- Watch: National Forests on Stolen Lands, pt. 1
This new series of workshops within Bark’s Rad◦i◦cle Activist Training Program will focus on the history and impact of how the U.S. federal government turned Indigenous land into national forests, including forced removal of people, termination of native title, nullifying treaty agreements and terminating tribes. The time period discussed in this event is roughly 1776 through 1860, digging into the ideologies, laws, and policies that were used to legitimize and authorize white supremacist settlement and domination of the land and the exploitation and oppression of Native nations and people, including an examination of the Treaty making period in Oregon, specifically. Register for Part 2 on April 22 here.
Opportunities
- 350PDX March General Meeting
TONIGHT Wed Mar 10, 6:00PM – 7:30PM, Online
Join us for this month’s General Meeting which is open to all and is a great place for new and existing volunteers to meet staff and other volunteers, come and hear what the other teams are up to, and to do a deep dive into a topic.
This month we’ll be diving deep into the world of arts, storytelling, and messaging – crucial tools for our movement to succeed. You’ll hear about an exciting new development for our Arts Team and Comms Team (spoiler: they’re merging to create a kind of in-house community-based creative agency!) and you’ll find out how you can get involved. Register here.
- Climate & Oregon’s Industrial Forests – A Green New Deal Proposal Webinar
Thurs Mar 11, 5:30PM – 7:00PM, Online
Who: Coast Range Association, Sunrise PDX Forest Team and forestry practitioners.
What: Webinar presenting a Green New Deal Proposal for Oregon’s Industrial Forests. The proposal calls for land reform and transfer to social benefit enterprise for Oregon’s 4.4 million acres of corporate industrial forests.
Why: We are in a climate emergency and PNW forests are outstanding storehouses of carbon. - Join the Pipeline Apocalypse!
Fri Mar 12, 4:00PM, Gather in Grant Park, NE Portland, then walk to Chase Bank a few blocks away
As part of a national week of action against Line 3, Stop the Money Pipeline and XR PDX are calling you to join us next week for our own “Pipeline Apocalypse” where we will enact the death and destruction that will happen when a pipeline carrying the poisonous black sludge that is diluted Alberta tar sands crude oil springs a leak over the very land that people and other beings depend upon for their very existence.
We are inviting you to join us in the performance. We already know you are a talented bunch, so no audition is required. But please do come in dressed character—as your favorite animal, or maybe even a plant, like wild rice for example. Actors dressed up as plain-old humans are also welcome. Be prepared to act out a sticky, sludgy, apocalyptic, totally gross disaster, at a COVID-19 safe distance from the rest of the cast, of course. See more info here. Photo from this Monday’s below.
- Public Hearing: 100% Clean Energy for All
Mon Mar 15, 1:00PM – 3:00PM, Online
100% Clean Energy for All, HB 2995, will have its first public hearing in the Energy & Environment Committee. Read more about the bill here. You can watch it live by visiting this site: https://olis.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/2021R1/Committees/HEE/Overview
The Oregon Clean Energy Opportunity (OCEO) campaign will release talking points for written testimony in support of House Bill 2995 soon, so please watch out in your inbox!
If you’d like to get more involved with the campaign, please email dineen@350pdx.org or indi@350pdx.org, or fill out this form!
- Training: Strategic Messaging
Sat Mar 20, 11:00AM – 1:30PM, Online
This series of five FREE 1.5 hour trainings for members of the 350 group network is to ground us in shared principles and empower us to take bolder and more strategic action.
How to develop effective messaging and storytelling to build the climate movement, change the public narrative and run effective campaigns.
All members/supporters of 350 affiliates in North America are welcome! Whether you are a new volunteer looking to jumpstart your activism skills, or a more experienced group member looking to stimulate thinking about new concepts and create stronger connections with peers across the 350 network, these trainings are for you! Recordings and training materials will be available.
- Environmental Advocacy and Justice: Perspectives from La Comunidad Latina
Thurs Mar 25, 6:00PM – 7:00PM, Online
Columbia Riverkeeper Senior Organizer, Ubaldo Hernández, will host a panel discussion with Lisa Muñoz, Program Director of Comunidades, Ana Molina from Beyond Toxics, and Dominica Navarro from Northwest Alternatives to Pesticides. The purpose of the forum is to hear the panelists’ perspectives on the environmental advocacy movement and discuss how their organization’s are working to prevent pollution and protect people’s health.
- Global Just Recovery Gathering
Apr 9-11, Online
We’re all moving into our second year of dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. As we reflect on the tough times that have passed, and look to build a better future for all, now is the time for the climate movement to reconnect.
This April, 350.org is hosting the Global Just Recovery Gathering, a 3-day online event, full of fun and effective training sessions, graced with amazing activists, leaders, and artists to energize us. It will be a space to design new pathways for a better future for all.
Pre-register for this exciting gathering here!
It’s been tough times, but if there’s one thing these times have shown us is that when we stand together, we are powerful. It’s time to gather that power. It is time to recharge, rebuild and reconnect!
Build your skills, strengthen relationships, and hear from a powerful line-up of climate leaders, artists, and musicians in every corner of the world. Vandana Shiva, Naomi Klein, Hakima Abbas, Ailton Krenak, Nnimmo Bassey, and Eriel Deranger have all confirmed participation, and more will be announced soon!
- Portland Black Lives Matter Protests
Every day @ across the city – details here
Click here for our advice for showing up to protest
Thank you all for the work that you do, stay safe, we’re all in this together,
Chris, Chuck, Dineen, Indi, Lucy – the 350PDX staff
