An exclusive look at a new book from a longtime Portland antifascist.

Luis-Enrique Marquez is an activist from Portland, Oregon and the creator and writer of the television comedy show Down in Bridgetown. He is looking to release this book, by the end of the year. It is a comedic look at the journey of an Antifascist during the first year of a racist in the White House, and this is the first look inside.

We were under a bridge in downtown Lake Oswego, an elite suburb Portland, Oregon watching the hate dogs line up. The immigrant haters who said all Latin Americans were sex-traffickers of little girls. The Trumpians. This rally was a voice for hate and oppression.

But it was like we were always under a bridge. Many of us met under one a few months earlier. We had been under a bridge together staring across the highway we’d just shut down in the middle of Portland, Oregon watching the police lights across the river. We were under an overpass on another freeway we’d closed watching the crowds swarming on to the highway. That was just the post-election protest. Today, the block I was running with was bigger, but we were under a bridge trying to stay dry from the spring rain. And we were or would be enemies of the state according to law enforcement. And a bunch of interweb dweeb militia lightweights who had started to pop up like Joey Gibson. He called himself a conservative who fully supported the president and was opposed to “the left.”He was pro-gun against Hillary still. Mostly, he was against Antifa, made videos encouraging his side to come out, to “stand up and not show fear to the violent left of Portland.”

We also expected the street preachers of hate and a dead Jesus to show up and yell violent insults at the counter-protesters. As well as various other known white nationalist groups that Trump and his supporters tended to bring out. A few spilled into the park where the march for trump was starting and the town square where it was ending, and the counter demonstration was starting the march for Trump would march from the park along a city street to the town square. Media lined up and broadcast whatever they wanted broadcast.

Someone came in under the bridge. “Hey, the counter protest is starting. They are giving speeches at the city square. We should go over there.” We started to walk over as a group of about 50 or so. When we came up from under the bridge we had to cross the street the march would come down, and we could see liberal counter-protesters lining the street. The wore Love Trumps Hate on their t-shirts.

As we walked into the town square at least 50 of our teem deep and blocked up. The liberals having the counter event saw us. A few approached already angry and scared. “Take your masks off, why are you wearing masks?”

“They are here for violence!”
“Why do they do look like terrorists?”
“The Anarchist are coming!”

I’d seen their kind before but that didn’t mean I liked it. I admit they scared me more than the bad guys dressed up like frog gladiators. Joe, one of the leaders for the Cascadian Peace Alliance, started to admonish them.

“No! you guys are wrong! These people are here to defend us from the very real threats the right wing bring against us! They should not be treated this way, and if you do not stop we will go home right now! These people know the threat we face!”

He walked over to me and gave me a hug, then walked through our group and gave others a hug. We were not even the only group there in block, there were lots of people dressed in head to toe in black, with their friends in their small affinity groups. He smiled and hugged almost all of them it seemed.

I was standing there glad the crowd was moving when one nicely dressed elderly white lady came up to me.

“Excuse me?”
“Yes ma’am?”
“Why do you wear masks?”

Some of my comrades near me chuckled but I decided to answer her honestly and fairly – she wasn’t trying to be a dick.

“That is a good question and to be honest with you there are many reasons to wear a mask, but the most obvious is anonymity, you see under the current administration– a lot of us who are people of color are afraid of being targeted by the state as well as the right wing.”
“You really think that?”
“Yes ma’am, I do. I have myself been a victim of targeting as well as some of my friends have, and I don’t think that our lives, or our jobs or our families should be disrupted only because we choose to have a different mind set than the average white person who voted for this president.”
“Well I don’t have those worries.”
“Of course you don’t, ma’am, you are educated and white and well spoken. I don’t imagine you would, but you also agree for the most part with this countrie’s policies while disagreeing with who’s president right?”
“You are correct.”
“Yes, you are safe.”
“Do you mind if I ask you another question?”
“Sure”
“Do you or have some your members of your group been part of the people in downtown Portland smashing things and blocking traffic?”
“So you asked me two different questions so I will answer both of them. First I have no idea what any of these people dressed in black have taken part of or haven’t, remember we talked about how people use the tactic of black block for anonymity? So if they are in it– there is no way I could know. Second about blocking traffic and protesters taking out their anger on a bank building window, I can say this, people block traffic to bring attention to their cause. If it discomforts a person to wait in their car for a few minutes because protesters are upset that their police murdered another black person, then maybe they will take action and stop their police from murdering people of color…”

“…Dan, we got to move…”It sounded like Joe but I continued. Not even I believed how calm I was though.

“…As far as breaking bank windows, if banks want to finance pipelines going through first nations people’s sacred lands. Then they can afford it. If banks want to finance rich white American males’ capacity for more war killing more people of color, then they deserve what they get. I personally am not for smashing private property, it hurts the people we are trying to help and there is no sense in that.”

“Okay, thank you for answering me.”

She walked away unsure about us but a lot more friendly than she started so I logged it as a win and moved on to the work of the day. As a group we started to move away from the town square happenings and start to meander down to the park were the pro-Trumpets were going to start. About a mile away.

We walked to the park and as we were we ran into other groups of people doing the same thing we were doing. Local community standing in opposition to the Trumpets. When we got to the entrance of the park, it was a shit show. Cops were everywhere, the pro-Trumpets were everywhere in their red MAGA hats. It was chaos. I heard people had gotten hurt but hadn’t seen anything. There were that many Trumpers. People could hardly move without running into them. The Trumpers were trying to make a line with their cars so they could move people in and out of the park. They lined up their people. They were gonna march up out of the park. Our side was trying not to let that happen. There was lots of pushing.

A fight broke out next to me. A Trumper hit a female on our side. I say it was a female. I couldn’t see them. Damn masks. Trumper hit her. Her partner, I guess, came up behind her attacker and laid that man out with his sign. I laughed for a second, then the cops attacked and arrested our guy. Their side laughed. A comrade came up to me and told me a Trumper hit a dude with a flagpole and was on the ground. A street medic took off after them to see. It was someone from another block, but we had medics among us. I couldn’t see all the action down the line but it was clear there was pushing and shoving. Some Trumpers started toward their cars.

“Block the road!” I yelled. “Don’t let them out of the park!” And I went and put myself in-between two cars. Some right wingers came up to me and started to try and move me from the road.

“Alerta! Alerta!”I screamed.

Two comrades that I didn’t know came up and defended me and pushed off the attack, and as we were in the middle of the cars, the cars and trucks behind us couldn’t move.

“Get the fuck out of the road!” one screamed at me.

“Fuck off, get out of my town!” I yelled back.

“Run the spic over,” he yelled at the driver who then started his car and inched his car forward. We were not moving and the front of the truck just touched us.

“Move you mother fuckers!” a Trumper yelled at us.

Around us there was yelling and shoving. The cops were watching it all and finally decided to move in. Like the bastards they are they only moved against counter-protesters.

A cop came at us and pushed out of the road. He hit us with his night stick and it looked like to me he had joy on his face. The crowd started to yell “A.C.A.B. All cops are Bastards!”

“Clear the road NOW!”the crowd yelled and one person got in the truck driver’s window, “Get moving, NOW!”

The whole caravan started to move with counter-protesters and Trumpers on foot still pushing each other as cops tried to separate them, trucks and cars slowing inching out of the park…trying to celebrate and us not letting them.

I started to walk along the caravan with a group of people yelling back and forth with the people in the cars.”you racist, you aint taking us back”

“Build a wall baby!”
“Fuck your president!
“He is your president!”

Someone threw a water bottle at a car. It stopped. The driver got out but the police walking next to the car made them get back in and keep going. When we got to the exit of the park, we went right and started toward the town square. About halfway there, a bunch of middle-class white women walked into the road and would not move. A cheer went up from the crowd and from us.

I saw the street preacher who got knocked out at the airport, another event where he’d started shit attacking a woman and pulling her hair. I went up to him and showed him my shirt which had his picture on it, him on the airport carpet, knocked the fuck out. He was with his mom.

“Hey bro, look you. On my chest”
“The Lord will burn you!”
“Yes maybe, but he knocked you out!”

He started to walk out into the street to me.

“Sweet, sweet, you want to get beat up again? In front of your mom? Well I am happy to beat your racist ass!”

“Fuck you beaner the lord will judge you!”
“But I am going to judge you first motherfucker!”

His mother decided to get in on the act.

“Just leave him and us alone. We are just celebrating our president!”
“Your racist president, and since you celebrating a racist you must be racist too!”
“Look, young man, we are just trying to make America great again!”

A group of them were starting to gather around us and the police were also starting to notice this discussion going on. My friends pulled us away from there and for the rest of the day it was just a yelling match between the two sides sort of wandering the town. Towards the end of the day, we were in the town square. Both groups of protesters were mixing together and yelling at each other. There was a person there trying to burn his American flag. They don’t light easily. He was getting a lot of shit from the pro-Trumpers. I walked over to him and asked him if I could burn it. He handed it to me, and I walked to a better, safer spot, surrounded by our people and in a circle surrounding them were the Trumpers. Behind me just outside the circle were cops. I pulled out my lighter. A comrade leaned into my ear, “You want a mask?” I lit the stars and stripes. The Trumpers lost their collective mind, trying to push through the crowd to get me. I kept looking behind me waiting for the cops to make their move against us. They just stood there protecting us–very strange. The Trumpers were pushing and shoving, yelling “They are burning the flag.”

“You better stop burning that!”
“People died defending that for you!”
“You god damn wet back! You had better stop or I am going to kill you!”
“Go back to your own country!”

The flag caught fire and I held it up.

“Can’t you stop him officer? He’s un-American!”
“We can, mam, but it would be a violation of free speech so we can’t.”
“But he’s a communist! Why does he get rights but real Americans don’t?”

I lifted my arm in the black power salute, my friends standing with me also raised their arms and fist and I started to sing “America the Beautiful” with my comrades.

The flag finished burning and the crowd slowly dispersed. We found our people and headed back under the bridge where we paused and gathered, passed some smokes. The media was across the street, talking to the white ladies. I don’t know why. The clip they were gonna run was gonna be me over and over. They didn’t come over to talk to me. We got back in our van and I flicked a cigarette out back in the direction of bridge, happy to be out from under it. I lit a joint and passed it. The rain was lifting a bit. I liked the look of the sky just not quite getting brighter. As we headed back we passed a group of Portland riot cops, who called us out and told us they would one day beat us up. We chanted A.C.A.B. (All Cops Are Bastards), and laughed at them. The sky seemed like a mask of lightening clouds thinning into a faint blue. Fuck masks, just open the sky up finally so I can let my mind wander it for while.

After I got home, I needed some more smokes and blunt wraps, one of the things I love about my neighborhood is that there is a cheap store to get blunt wraps at and right down the street from that is a kiosk to get smokes from.

I got my blunt wraps and walked to the smoke store. The clerk working was a weird guy. He knew I had a tv show, and he always tried to make conversation with me about it, or about how much money I made, he was a nice enough guy but weird.

“Hey man can I get a pack of dark blues please?”
“Here you go. Hey your sister, that is the tall blonde German girl right?”
“Umm why?”
“Oh, I was just wondering that girl came in today and I thought I had seen you with her before, and she was your sister, and I remember thinking how weird cause she was white, and well your not”
“Yah she is, but she is getting ready to leave tomorrow”
“Oh that sucks where is she going to?”
“Are you writing a book, bro?”
“No, not at all just curious.”
“She is going back home.”

I had no idea what she was doing but what I do know is when a weird counter jockey asks about your family members, you should lie.

“Oh, cool.”
“So, um, hey, can I get those smokes please?”
“Yah, yah sorry here you go.”

“Thanks, man”I grabbed them and paid and started to leave.

“Hey man, can I ask you a question?”

This was a weird request but I figured it would be about my show that I no longer had, or how much money I was not making or something like that.

“Why do you hate white people and this country?”
“Huh?”
“I have seen you in the news and on tv, hating free speech and the president.”

Nobody was around this time to see how calm I was.

“Well I don’t hate white people. I had sex with one”

The joke went fully over his head, he just looked at me with a blank stare.

“And maybe you can’t tell by looking at me, but I am 5% white. I am descendant from a white princess.”
“But you still hate the president”
“Yup”
“Why? He just wants to make us great again”
“’Cause he is a racist- everyone who voted for him is a racist, and he wants to take this country back to a time where it was bad for everyone but White Americans”
“I voted for him are you calling me racist?”
“You just did.”
“I just did what?”
“Never mind.”
“Why are you against the first amendment?”
“I am not.”
“Like I said, I watch stuff and I have seen you on videos stopping peoples’ free speech–this is America and you can’t do that–”
“OK, so first of all I am not the government, nor are my friends. We can’t grant or take away free speech, but so, you know, the first amendment does not give anyone a right to platform, or a right to be heard nor does it say that there will be no consequences for your speech.”
“You guys better stop that and stop blocking traffic.”
“Or what?”
“If you block me I’ll run you over. People have to get to places and you are stopping them.”
“I am not sorry if you are inconvenienced for a few moments– police are killing young black people.”
“Good”
“What did you say? Good? Fuck you, why don’t you come outside with me, and ill whoop your ass”
“Fuck you”
“Again, come outside you coward, you racist, you want to celebrate when people of color are murdered?”
“Maybe they should follow the law and they wouldn’t be shot”
“Wow you are an idiot”

A customer came in.

“Get out of my store”
“Don’t let me catch you, you racist fuck”
“If you don’t get out, I’ll call the cops– and don’t come back! Get out of here you un-American fuck, I’ll call the cops!”

I sat there and just stared at him. I smiled.
“You want to go outside bro?”
“I am calling the cops!”
“Coward!”

I left as he picked up the phone.

Walking home, the light off the street arced and the clouds above them was gray like a steel bridge. I felt like a monk under it for a second. The rest of the way I expected cops to roll up on me, but they didn’t.

I was home. I wasn’t answering the door for anyone. I flopped down on the couch and turned on the idiot box and started to break up weed so I could roll a blunt. I was thinking about the interaction at the store. It felt weird and uncomfortable knowing when I got back we wouldn’t have any worthless small talk, even if that racist was weirdo to begin.

Watching local news though, fuck. The action was all over it, my burning of the flag, the pushing, the yelling. I pulled out my phone and checked the interwebs for the protest– it was everywhere.

The hate text started to roll in– the death threats, the calling for me to be deported, the calls for me being in jail. I was a commie scum, I was a socialist douche bag. It was overwhelming to be honest, it was pouring in from everywhere…my phone kept dinging with messages, and I learned a very important lesson in locking down my shit.

It was an odd feeling as I scrolled through the comments sections of Facebook and Youtube, as I read the tweets, the horrible threats of people calling for my life, for my being raped. It was weird. It was making me sad, but I couldn’t stop reading it. These were the Americans that voted for Trump. These were the ones who wanted a wall and really thought that this millionaire was on their side willing to do them a solid. Because they agreed I wasn’t human or they didn’t want to know. What hope would there be for any of us? Why was I doing this if this was what the people who were against us were really like? I felt as if the anonymity of the internet really was showing us all exactly who these people were at their core – and it made me sad.

Comrades are good though and come through.

“Hello?”
“Daniel?”
“Jamie?”
“Yah”
“Me too”
“Today was off the hook yo”
“It was crazy as fuck- I got scared a bit”
“It’s everywhere – all over”
“I know I’ve been reading, I’ve been getting threats”
“Really?”
“Yah”
“Fucking crazy”
“Bruh, you have no idea”
“Yo, you coming to the meeting tomorrow about today?”
“Probably.”
“Word. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Okay, sounds good.”

I hung up the phone and zoned into the tv for a min before my phone rang again.

“Hello?”
“Dude I saw you on the news burning a flag.”
“Dope.”
“No dude, not dope – sick.”

This was one of my oldest friends. Someone I knew long before I was lurking under bridges and blocking highways.

“It was sick man, Ha ha I sang ‘America the Beautiful’ with the Black Power salute”
“I saw on the news.”
“Cracks me up.”
“No, it’s not funny. That’s what I’m saying. Mary’s parents saw the news too and called her up and yelled at her.”
“Really? why?”
“She’s been crying for half an hour.”
“Really? Brown man does something and White people don’t like it so yell at another person about the Brown man’s actions? Can it be sad and funny?”
“That is not the point.”
“Well what is the point then? Did you call to just yell at me?”
“They don’t want you to come to the wedding.”
“Who? What? They can’t do that. I am your best man”
“you burned a flag and it was on the news man”
“you know it’s not illegal right? There seems to be a lot of confusion about that I’m learning”
“That is not the point.”
“Then what is?”
“You don’t think about how your actions will effect others.”
“How so?”
“Do you care that Mary’s parents yelled at her?”
“You know how much I hate yelling.

He wasn’t saying much for awhile.
“Well then no I don’t – but not because I’m a asshole or anything like that. Because it’s racist”
“What the fuck do you mean?”
“Well they don’t like what I do. But they cannot control it can they? So they have to find what little tiny bit of power they have over me to get me to stop. What power do they have? They have you and your girl, so they yell at her, over my actions, and they barley know me–it’s ridiculous.”
“You are such a selfish prick.”
“Well unless you are going to cave then I don’t have to worry about it”
“You know a lot of people died because of that flag. they say they won’t come if you don’t apologize for it”
“That’s lame, man”
“Yah it really is”
“It’s lame that they will have to miss their daughter’s wedding”

I was just getting wound up about how that flag doesn’t represent anything they think it does. Only corporate power, being greedy, taking resources for the benefit of rich white men while leaving nothing in return, not education, not healthcare, not hope–nothing but guns, and I will never apologize for burning something that represents all those foul things.

“No it’s lame that you will miss my wedding.”

It was quiet for a minute while that sunk into me. That he would stop me his friend from attending his wedding, me that one who continuously encouraged this relationship when they would fight, the one who helped him hash it all out, as he had done with me, that he would do this I couldn’t believe he was going to let people he didn’t eve like stop me from coming to his wedding.

I started to get mad and hurt at the same time. I heard the crowd from the day and saw the bridge and masked sky. I was high and low and spread out across a feeling of accomplishment from earlier in the day and a sad anger staring at the ceiling.

“That’s hella fucked up man.”
“It is.”
“You were bullying white people.”
“Say what?”

I start arguing and I can’t stop. I remember all of it because it was the same argument we had for months, with many people in many places, and with my old friends and even my new ones. I feel asleep arguing and sleeping I relived the battles from earlier in the day and now I knew I was going to have to remember my monkish ways somehow, not let my mind wander. Because I couldn’t trust the new or the old familiar.
I came to with my phone blowing up. It had rung a bunch when I was sleeping but I didn’t answer and it would not stop. Beeping like a siren. Beeping like my idiot friends. I opened my eyes and my lights and tv were on. I looked at my phone and it was my sister.

I thought, see that. I’ve had a sister all my life and yet she is new. I hadn’t known her long. I’d known her really just since before this all started. Only a monk could keep his mind straight now. Fortunately, there were a few bongs left full of weed, and a half smoked blunt.

“Hello?”
“Hallo brother are you ok?”
“Huh?”
“Are you well?”
“Yes why?”
“Good.”
“Why?”
“Tonight at work a nazi threated your life.”
“Really? What happened?”
“You know that weird guy who works at 7-11?”
“Yah he’s a nut.”
“Well, when I came into the bar tonight he saw me and came up to me and asked me for a date.”
“What did you say?”
“What do you think I said?”
“That you would go out with him and worship his penis like the White god he thinks he is!”
“Ha ha he wishes, no I told him thank you very much but that I was gay.”
“That is brilliant!”
“Did it work?”
“If it did would I be calling you?”
“Good point.”
“He said that he knew who my brother was, and where he lived and that he would show you what a Nazi really is, that his family is from Germany and they are proud of it!”
“Woah he said that to you? What did you say to him?”
“I told him if he didn’t leave me alone I would call the manager over. I told him in German.”

I laughed. My sister just arrived from Germany for the first time. She’d come here, in part, to learn English and was already calling the manager over in her native tongue to chase off neighborhood semi-Nazis.

“Did he leave you alone then?”
“Yes, but he said he wanted to see me again soon so he could practice his German. He really wanted me to know it was important to him again.”
“Prick. Well, so you know he was probably just mad cause tonight in his store I made him look like a punk”
“What happened?”
“Nothing he started a political conversation that I told him he was a racist shitty human and if he wanted to come outside I would beat his ass.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing, he threatened to call the cops and stayed inside.”
“Oh ok well be safe, I am going to go now it’s late.”
“Ok thank you for telling me I will.”
“I love you brother.”
“I love you too sister.”

That was new too. My new sister and in a time of total division across the country she came to the US just in time for my big TV debut, just not the one I’d hoped.

I hung up the phone and sat there for a minute. My paranoia kicked in and I was looking out the windows making sure all the doors were locked. There was nothing to do but watch tv, smoke pot and go back to sleep and figure this out in the morning. As I smoked myself back to sleep, I had visions of that idiot getting beat up. My new sister is getting threats because of me but I’m a baddie and I’m getting worse. Threaten my sister, catch a fist. I lay in bed and tried to think about all the people who had come out to Lake Oswego to stand up for what’s right. It made me feel hopeful. The phone rang and it was Nelson.

“Hello?”
“Daniel?”
“Yah what’s up?”
“Yo bro did you see Facebook yet?”
“No…why?”
“’Cause Mimi is calling you a cop!”
“What?”
“She says that you work for the police force.”
“Jesus Christ, for real?”
“Yah man.”
“Let me get off the phone and check this out and I’ll get back to you okay?”
“Word it’s on Facebook.”
“Of course.”

I got off the phone and signed on to Facebook and there it was – the accusation calling me a cop, a fed, an informant. This by a fellow leftist who I did not know. I wrote a response talking about how when White people even if they are leftist attack people of color calling them cops and feds without any kind of proof that they were in fact being racist. With that over I got high again and called Nelson back

“Yo, can you do me a favor?”
“What’s that?”
“I posted a response to that white lady, can you share it and make sure it gets passed around please?”
“Sure. You going to the debrief today?”
“Yah I was planning on it.”
“Cool I’ll see you there then.”
“Word.”