I’m Just One Person,
What Can I …

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painting of James Baldwin saying, I can't believe what you say, because I see what you do.
Hey there. Welcome to What Can I, a site for neighbors to take action for a just world in Portland, OR.

In 2024, Americans voted for the guy who literally quoted Hitler rather than elect a Black and Asian woman to be president.

Where does that sentence land in your body? Are you still churning through grief and denial? Or have you arrived at radical acceptance? This is who we are: In 2024, we collectively chose the broligarchy and Christian nationalism — aka white supremacy.

I'm one of the 74 million-plus Americans who voted the other way: for democracy, for conscience, for facts over everything factitious.

‍White folks, we got us into this mess. It's on us to get us out.


This site is the smallest, smallest effort toward that.


Its purpose is to invite you to join me in taking concrete actions to make the place we live better and kinder for all of us. And then to keep taking action! A lot of us are questioning how things came to work the way they do, and how we can work together to do things differently. These are not new questions for a lot of Black, Asian, Latino and Indigenous folks. Since America’s founding, white people have stood in the way of racial justice. We’ve put our faith in “All men are created equal” and looked the other way when it was patently untrue. It’s time to break the pattern. Here’s a place to start.

Let's Start
My name is Anna. I’ve lived and worked in Northeast PDX for over 30 years, and you might even kind of recognize me because I look like a lot of people in Portland: tattooed, glasses-wearing and white.

Equity, diversity, inclusion, racial justice, anti-racism: These are buzzwords, but they’re still buzz-worthy concepts. And we can’t do anything about them until we can talk honestly with each other about whiteness: what we think it is, what it means to us as individuals, what it means culturally, how — and how recently in history — it came to be a thing that anyone thought about to the extent of protecting it at all costs.

I’m fumbling toward the complicated question of how we build community and resilience, for all of us. Knowing we have each other’s backs when things get hard. And I haven’t been very good at this! I have a stash of bottled water and a tool for shutting off the gas in case of an earthquake; I volunteer; part of my paycheck goes to local nonprofits. But I don’t even know many of my neighbors by name. Mostly I've kept myself to myself. Why? Oh, lots of reasons, some cultural and some personal. (I’ll tell you mine if you’ll tell me yours.) Now, though, post-lockdown, post George Floyd, post that election, community and belonging look even more urgent and overdue.
My city is facing a lot of urgent isues: homelessness, poverty, addiction, gun violence. Why focus on racial equity? Because race is at the heart of so many of these problems. Pull on one thread and the others feel it. I can give up, overwhelmed. Or I can start somewhere. Join me: Let’s start.

The links collected here fall under five broad categories of action. Many are specific to the Portland area. It’s not a comprehensive list; If you have suggestions you think I should add, please get in touch! I’d like to hear from you.

As a white person who wants to help move racial equity forward, I’m interested in questions like these: What community-building projects are organizations led by Black and Indigenous folks already working on locally, and how can white allies/accomplices best support them? How can we put our energy and skills to work in service to our Black and immigrant neighbors, and not in opposition to them? How can we get better at listening to BIPOC organizers without trying to steer the whole ship? How can we keep ourselves and each other accountable to BIPOC-led efforts? How can we develop meaningful support for each other as a habit and not just a feel-good one-off? How can we keep each other motivated? How can we keep each other safe? How in the world can we cool the rage that seems to be everywhere we look anymore?

If questions like these interest you, let’s get together and talk about them. Get in touch. I want to hear your story. Disagree? I’d welcome hearing from you, too.

Get In Touch