Comment by sbf501
4 years ago
Yep. I've been in PDX for 22 years. Back during the BLM protests, my FOX-loving family back east would call me and see if I was OK whenever FOX ran some bullshit story about the city burning.
Once you step outside Portland, it is terrifyingly red. Jefferson Secessionists are the scariest. I've been harassed in small towns outside PDX when I go camping and they see the PSU parking stickers on my car. Heck, I met a guy at a bar in Plush, Ore., who was telling me how he and his buddies made sure no black people ever set foot in his town. And this was in 2018.
Also, KATU news is owned by Sinclair Media. Even OregonLive is dubious. Willamette Week, The Mercury, and OPB are reasonable, IMHO.
Yep. My elderly parents have listened to Rush religiously for decades now. Fox news is on constantly.
They repeatedly contacted me in a panic wanting to arrange for a change of locks n my house, security cameras, etc. They honest to god thought BLM protestors were randomly invading homes in Portland because of these trash news outlets.
And then the bigger national media outlets do their "both sides means we pretend bullshit is worth taking seriously" nonsense and make the lunatic positions seem less fringe.
It's maddening that my own family is convinced they understand what is happening in front of my porch and downtown at protests I literally attended, better than I do. And it's all because of these news outlets selling a cravenly dishonest narrative that BLM protestors demanding police reform are actually some sort of race war against white people.
The media misrepresentation is a two-way street. The area around my wife’s office in DC was boarded up and dead for a year because of the BLM protests. Didn’t see anything about that on CNN.
Maybe the biggest BLM protest in the country rallied almost daily at the park in my neighborhood in Brooklyn. I'd take my kids to play there in the morning and you'd never know anything had happened the evening before.
Leaving the extremely uhhh paisley/tie-died Oregon Country Fair and returning to WA on the backroads was wild. Stopped to get gas a says away and got out of the car wearing tie-dye, etc... Was immediately approached by two locals who got into the whole thing - hippies killing people, breaking into people's houses, raping and drugging kids. (This was before Trump, there was still the satanic baby abuse thing. Not that one, the one before!)
As a disguise because I live in rural WA which is Red and dangerous I had a complete set of typical "rigging/logging" clothes which I do wear working in the woods. I was talking to them, changing my clothes to logger jeans, ripped stained hickory shirt suspenders, the lot. They were very confused
If i was talking to a man at a petrol station and he took his trousers off, i would also be confused.
We can't pump our own gas in Oregon. Got to do something to pass the time. :)