In the wake of increasing anti-immigrant hostility and growing white supremacist aggression, the City of Portland’s Office of Equity and Human Rights; Multnomah County’s Office of Diversity and Equity; and Metro’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Program organized the “Equity Matters Community Gathering” on September 17, 2017 to reaffirm their jurisdictions’ commitment to equity and human rights.
Over 250 Portland-area residents gathered at Holladay Park to hear from community leaders, cultural performers, and elected officials from seven jurisdictions in the Portland metropolitan area.
Jeff Selby from Portland’s Office of Equity and Human Rights told the crowd, “This is a celebration of shared values, but it is also a calling to move equity work forward with urgency, to learn from our region’s racist history, and to tear down the barriers of institutional and systemic racism, and White Supremacy. It is that system that serves as a foundation that emboldens the heightened, aggressive hatred and violence we’re seeing in our communities today.”
As stated in their August 16, 2017 message local elected leaders are committed to building communities that, “shun hate, offer equitable opportunity and see our differences as cause for celebration, not division.”