Diversity not welcomed. Dissent and free speech punished. Different cultures, values, and faiths oppressed and marginalized. You’ve got to watch what you say and nod your head at the right time. Or else.

That is what Port Townsend is becoming.

This truth came to light painfully for many who participated in the more than 400 car, truck and motorcycle Back the Blue rally on August 30.  Parents with children were subjected to verbal abuse, profane gestures and obscenities, along with a grown woman who dropped her pants and panties. Owners of businesses who have been here for decades, who have employed people of every race and nationality, found themselves being labelled racists and Nazis by other business owners. Kind, gentle senior citizens, people who never hesitate to step up to volunteer, who have kept alive traditions and annual celebrations, who built this place, were given the middle finger and told to “Go home. Get out of our town.”

Scroll through the Facebook page of Deputy Mayor David Faber, where you will find an elected official, supposedly sworn to represent and serve all the people, repeating the vitriol and instructing his circle to ignore anyone who doesn’t think like them, followed by hateful discussions about local businesses that are owned by proprietors who are, well, just different.

Different is no longer allowed in Port Townsend. This is not the “different strokes for different folks” crowd in charge anymore, the “do your own thing,” “live and let live” hangout of the hippies of yore who didn’t want to be pushed around and didn’t desire to push anyone around, either.

This is not just teenagers who don’t know any better. This is a public official calling for a large segment of the community to be shunned and maligned, with, as we will see in the discussion that follows, the foreseeable consequence of suffering harm. A growing number of people echo the sneering condescension of the Deputy Mayor towards “the repugnant cultural other”–simply defined as anyone who doesn’t think, talk, vote and act like them. The “repugnant cultural other” is the prism through which they view anyone outside their insular circle

This is harsh stuff. It has been building for years. People have been run out of our community because they are different. People who have raised families here wonder what has become of a town they loved.

It is ironic that for a city with prolific “Refugees Welcome” signs the targets of hatred have frequently been minority-owned businesses that trusted in the promises of this nation, specifically freedom of speech. There was the fudge shop on Washington Street that dared put a “Trump” sign in its window. The boycott and whisper campaign that resulted, whether it crushed their revenues or not, made it clear that this minority family was not welcome to participate in the American Dream, at least not in Port Townsend.

Lobo del Mar was a mixed-race and ethnically diverse, huge extended family that made this a better, livelier place to live. They were conservative and did not hide their values. The facts are murky, but they pulled out when it became unavoidably clear they were no longer welcome to be themselves in and around Port Townsend.

This summer, Black Lives Matter activists encouraged a boycott of two immigrant-owned businesses because a red truck painted with a Culp for Governor emblem and “All Lives Matter” was frequently parked on their premises and the businesses displayed political signs with which the activists disagreed. Sure, they went after the owner of the truck and are still at it, but they also encouraged harm to the immigrant-owned businesses.

This same crowd went after another immigrant-owned business simply because it employed a girl who, in a moment of immaturity and stupidity, was recorded singing some offensive ditty. They wanted to hurt the girl, and they didn’t hesitate to hurt the business that employed her. They harassed the owner. They posted false derogatory reviews and comments on social media and consumer review websites. The owner had to let the girl go to protect himself. She grew up here, but has moved out of state for her own well-being.

As I was writing this, I got a Facebook message copying the explanation of a local business as to why they are leaving. They say because of their beliefs and their reluctance to endorse the Black Lives Matter movement their business had been “taken down” and they are selling out and moving out. Because they are still in the process of extricating themselves from the persecution I cannot reveal more at this time.

I wrote earlier this summer how the Deputy Mayor had sparked an ugly campaign against the owner of a Port Hadlock business park by exploiting false allegations as to why he had not permitted a Black Lives Matter sign in the window of the office of his tenant, the Jefferson Community Foundation. It was falsely alleged that he had been motivated by racism. It turned out the owner had a mixed race family and was simply enforcing a rule against any political signage that applied to all tenants. A bar and grill in Port Hadlock started getting false and damaging reviews because someone found a story we wrote about how this businessman had helped start the place two years ago. The businessman received so many hateful calls and emails he felt his personal security was threatened and left Jefferson County.

We’ve gotten the hate here.  I’ve written about that before, and it never lets up. I am sure we’ll get more after this article is published.

I don’t like publishing articles from contributors under pen names. But some people do not feel safe identifying themselves. This is especially true of business owners. They know who is solidly in control of local government. They fear the whip. They’ve seen uppity business people punished.

What have we done to earn the attacks? We’ve spoken up, as is our right as American citizens. We haven’t toed the line. We see the world differently, consider facts some don’t want discussed, and reach different conclusions.

I was shocked to see prominent downtown business owners join in this chorus of vitriol. When you reach out to them to meet to try to understand why they are calling hundreds of their neighbors “racists”–people who come into their restaurants and bars and stores, whose homes they list for sale– they cover their tracks and pull up the drawbridge.

Do I now do all my shopping and dining elsewhere, and encourage my circle of contacts to spread the ‘boycott’ word?  I’m not going there. This stuff has real potential to seriously damage this little community.

I launched Port Townsend Free Press because it startled me that people would thank me just for expressing ideas and beliefs they shared, but were afraid to say themselves. Something back then seemed very wrong to me, and now I am getting a better picture of the problem.

Learning to Talk to Each Other

Since the huge Back the Blue rally I’m reading “I don’t feel safe” on the social media of those who have attacked others. As far as I can tell, their insecurity springs from the recent realization that they are surrounded by lots of people quite different from themselves.

This was Sheriff Joe Nole’s observation, reported in The Leader. People “were freaking out” at that six-mile long Back the Blue motorcade. “They couldn’t believe what they were seeing,” he said.

One public effort at bridge building was reported by the Peninsula Daily News. It involved Oceana Van Lelyveld, owner of the Cellar Door pub, who was an instigator of sorts in blocking Water Street to the last cars of the Back the Blue rally (and dozens of uninvolved motorists). On her social media she branded participants as racists and worse (though it is hard to imagine a worse epithet). She was invited by a young man in one of those cars to meet and talk to try to understand each other. She ran with this to the newspaper to show how reasonable she was. The young man and Van Lelyveld set a date and place, but she backed out without explanation.

Can Port Townsend be a truly diverse community? It is going to have to find a way, because those people in those hundreds of cars and trucks that upset the apple cart are not going away. This is their home.

We need a substantive, honest effort to communicate with each other. We will begin that important work by talking without fear of ostracism, isolation, retaliation or banning–you know, what President Obama did with his “beer summit” between a White police officer and a Black Harvard academic.

With such heated passions at the moment, an alcoholic drink may not be the best solvent. So who’s up for coffee?

 

[Related: Brett Nunn’s observations as a long time resident of the sad turn being taken by the town he loves

and

Gabrielle Guthrie, When Nazis Secretly Live in Your Trees]