Maine is equal parts astonishingly white and astonishingly diverse in its own weird way. Yet what makes Portland so exquisite is its diversity – the food, the language.
I am aware that no one place is above white supremacy. If anything, the institutional response to the protests has shown us this over the past few days. But I am begging my beloved city, especially our police, not to commit the atrocities that have been committed elsewhere.
I used to work at the jetport. I know, in passing, several members of the Portland Police Department. Yet, even knowing them to be rational people when dealing with me, I am scared of what they will do, because I have the privilege of being very white.
To the officers of the Portland PD: Please be the kind people I met when I was working at the jetport. Please uphold justice. Do not silence protesters in their right to assemble – their constitutional right that has been unjustly challenged elsewhere.
Please let the people of this city have faith in you.
Kathleen Pyburn
Westbrook
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