Spotlight on racism in Oregn

New right wing politics in old structure

Last week I attended Lane Equity Coalitions’s Zip Code Matters presentation and Professors’ Joe Lowndes and Daniel HoSang book launch talk for Producers, Parasites, Patriots: Race and the New Right-Wing Politics of Precarity. Both talks had a big emphasis on race in Oregon, with the first more focused on our history and the second on the current day.

Zip code matters is the idea of where you live can play a major role in your health and life expectancy. Lyllye Reynolds Parker, daughter of Sam and Mattie Reynolds, the first African-American family to settle in Eugene, was a featured panelist at the event. She talked about how growing up black people were mostly subjugated to a singular neighborhood in West Eugene that was under-serviced by the city.

Lowndes and HoSang talked about the new right wing racial politics, with a large emphasis on the Pacific Northwest. In it they talk about why men of color are joining proto-fascist groups like the proud boys, they argue it is largely male-chauvinism that draws them. They also talk about how you are seeing people of color in more establishment conservative groups and making the case for neoliberalism getting them to where they are.

The Week Ahead

Saturday, 5:00 PM— CLDC Know Your Rights Training @ Spectrum

Monday, 6:30 PM — Legal Observer Training @ Wesley Foundation Center