Dan Hong

From my last post I made on this blog, you could see that I was left picking up the pieces of dreaming what I want to do with my life after graduating from college. Thankfully, after going on a much-needed trip to LA. and Denver for ten days, I was able to allow myself to write in my journal, process my time and place in Louisville, ponder on my immediate future opportunities in Philadelphia and NYC, and bravely come up with some career dreams of mine. While the transition back to Louisville has been difficult with becoming broke again, being late with my bills and rent, falling back into some really bad, self-destructive habits, and doubting the friends I made here, I know that I shouldn’t erase the important reflection and meditation I had to do if I want to move forward with my life and live abundantly. That’s why I’m powering through this morning to write this report, a morning where I’m not cooped up in my room, watching vines on YouTube and dancing to ‘90′s pop, so to hopefully set the inertia to continue to dream, to pray, to question and to write for myself.

I want to become a film producer specializing in films that are independent, democratic, union-shop, and feature narratives of resistance and resilience from marginalized communities, and where I get to raise money, create budgets, create deadlines, and facilitate the work of artists. I’m not interested in making my own movie with my own script, direction or cinematography (for now), I’m more interested in helping others by translating their dreams into tangible goals and measures of success and accountability. I’m interested in the logistics of a film and be the liaison between directors, screenwriters, camera people and other artists so they can communicate with each other effectively and consistently.

If you don’t know me very well, then hearing how I want to be a film producer might sound odd and random to you, as I have virtually no experience and majored in political science. But it’d be clear to you (as it’s becoming clearer to me) that the last few years have led me up to this dream. My senior thesis was a film thesis about South Korean postcolonial film, where I meticulously watched and analyzed film in a way I never had done before. Several blockbusting movies have been released in the past few years (Get Out, Black Panther) that have forever changed my perception of just how powerful cinema can be to empower marginalized people. I had and continue to have consistent daydreams and fantasies of working on film sets and meeting happy, beautiful and passionate people of color while prancing around my room or in my car. And it’s no coincidence that I made friends here in Louisville who have majored in film and photography, who have real experience on-set, and who aspire to be filmmakers or who work in related TV or ad industries. I want to be a film producer because I’m already connected to people in the industry, because I understand the power film has in helping social movements, and because I can truly see myself happy and fulfilled doing this kind of work and befriending the people I’d work with.

In fact, I’ve been having this one fantasy crop up in my mind for well over a year, or whenever I first found out about the Christmas Day Seminole freedom fighters of 1837. Florida’s indigenous people and escaped African slaves came together and founded the Seminole nation where on December 25, 1837, 500 of their bravest soldiers defended Lake Okeechobee and brought over 1,000 US. troops and their allies to their knees, becoming the most decisive defeat for the US. in its Seminole wars. The author of the article that I linked above said that this day in history comes off as a Hollywood thriller, and I completely agree and continue to fantasize working on a set where Seminole screenwriters, directors and actors come together and finally start turning this epic into a movie. Another fantasy is a fictionalized narrative of 20th-century Navajo officials selling out to big oil and the grassroots resistance against the miners and the res. government. Still another fantasy is the Haitian revolution, or African resistance.

These fantasies are what compels me into the industry right now. I know that it might be a long time before I find one specific narrative as a film production, or these narratives may never happen for me, and they’re narratives that I don’t have the authority to produce by myself. But I think if anything, it’s a glimpse of what could be in store for me, but only if I actually stop just dreaming about it and start doing something about it.

(ARCHIVE POST. ORIGINAL POST DATE: MAR. 21, 2018)

Since graduating from Reed last May, I had occasional bouts of general dullness and unhappiness about my life, though I could never figure out exactly why. Last night, I had a mental and emotional breakthrough where I finally pinpointed the cause: I’m sad because I’ve had a very difficult time thinking about my future, and that’s because I got so absorbed into my time at Reed that it made me forget how to dream a life beyond, that it prevented me from thinking about my future. I’m now tasked with the work to pick up the pieces where I left off.

When I first entered Reed, I had a positive (albeit vague) idea of how an undergraduate education at Reed would be used for my future, mainly that Reed would be give me the practical analysis and framework needed to develop my political activism and become a better grassroots organizer. I can’t deny that Reed gave me that to a certain degree, but it was honestly an unintended byproduct from the learning I received from the institution. Reed College doesn’t care about learning theory to change the world, Reed cares about learning theory for the pedagogical exercise of debating higher forms (i.e. learning theory for its own sake). If I took any lesson away from my classes to use in real life, I wasn’t stopped, but I wasn’t really encouraged or enabled by my professors or through my readings, lectures, class discussions, papers, projects, exams and other assignments. The academic institution that is Reed College (or their more official, more arrogant name “The Reed Institute” on tuition bill statements and paychecks) profoundly lacked the philosophy, departmental structure, staffing and resources to make my education more hands-on and practical. I truly felt like I was mostly on my own for that.

Despite all of this, I have met phenomenal peers, faculty, staff members and friends of Reed who have kicked serious political ass and who long and desire for justice and liberation as much as I do. I have met peers who refused to brake under this capitalist system and who’re organizing their communities into struggles I’ll never know. I know that alums from Reed have reported, mobilized and sacrificed their many talents and resources for peoples’ movements and have died under the hands of the state. And some of my phenomenal peers directed all their power and energy into changing Reed itself as an academic institution, college community, endowment firm and corporate employer, and I was there supporting them.

For the first two years at Reed, my political involvement and aspirations was still mostly outside in the Portland/world community, but by my junior year I became more inwardly focused and by my senior year I became absorbed into Reed student life and campus politics. With the apathy and antipathy from other students, faculty and staff, the oppressive and reactionary words and behaviors from the institution, the terror that is Donald Trump’s presidency, the stress of a senior thesis that I really wrote in one semester because my thesis advisor for the Fall term was pregnant and checked out, and the deep-seated mental, emotional and sexual issues that I finally began to work on by seeing my first therapist (or really the issue of how to survive one of the hardest years of my life), I lost all awareness about whether Reed College was benefiting or serving me, my passions or my future. Rather, I was sacrificing everything for Reed and the betterment of it. I became vulnerable and let myself be used for Reed, not have Reed remain useful for me.

Given how absorbed I was into Reed, no wonder I find it hard to imagine what my life can be like now. No wonder I was so focused on where I wanted to live after Reed, but had no clue what I actually wanted to do. No wonder I only had a one-year plan following graduation, and I simply couldn’t imagine any future period longer than that. No wonder I came here to Louisville, thinking: “What the fuck am I to do here.” No wonder I can’t make an honest opinion about Louisville yet, because I don’t know my purpose here. No wonder I spent lonely nights in my room, listening to music not to escape the stress of thesis but to fantasize about me doing journalism, photography and film making with extreme vanity (i.e. “look how happy and popular I’d look on Instagram if I met and worked with cool, radical celebrities!”), and when I went to sit down to actually ponder about these fantasies, my mind was completely blank. No wonder I start and stop new things, like rock climbing, my writing or my attempt to learn coding. No wonder I ask around for various opportunities but I’m unsatisfied with their responses because I don’t really know what I’m asking for.

My time at Reed made me forget how to dream, and I’m now picking up the pieces.

(ARCHIVE POST. ORIGINAL POST DATE: JAN. 7, 2018)

This isn’t a resolution for the New Year as much as it is a resolution for the rest of my time in Louisville, because I plan on moving to Philadelphia (or New York) after my lease is up in July and wherever I end up will be a different situation than this one and will require me to adjust to a new living environment and reevaluate my desires, needs, priorities and relationships. But as I’m back here from my trip to Portland for the holidays (which I surprisingly really enjoyed), this is what I’m committing myself to for the rest of my time in Louisville:

• Quit my wage job. Hopefully my boss will have forgotten about me and replaced me while I was gone, but if he does contact me, I need to quit anyway by the end of January. Instead, I should focus on my work with the Debt Collective and figure out rent on my own terms, on my own time. There’s too much cool shit I want to do and Pizza Hut is just in the fucking way.
• Wean off YouTube and TV. Cancel my trial with Hulu, and limit my video watching time to the weekends. Even right now, I’m resisting a temptation to watch by making this online post from a note that I started on the plane ride home. I can’t have YouTube bore me and waste any more hours and days out of my life. I refuse to let YouTube take such control over me and make me miss opportunities.
• Focus on good friends and quality self-reflection, not on bad company and lapsed connections. Stop checking for who unfriended or unfollowed me, stop looking at view counts to see who saw my content or not, and stop scrolling over reaction lists to see who’s paying attention to me. These are all dangerous habits that often lead me into pessimistic feedback loops where I focus on who’s not there and who’s not noticing. I need to stop contacting people I know I don’t trust, and stop seeking attention from people who don’t respond to me or don’t fuck with me.
• If someone blows me off, I should stop dwelling in doubt or insecurity but move on to good friends and quality self-reflection. Realize that if someone isn’t responding to me, they aren’t necessarily blowing me off. People can be with me and still blow me off and incredibly inconsiderate while I’m with them. Remember, friends so that you’re not alone is not enough or even in my best interest. Eating alone is better than eating with strife.
• Recognize a moment of crisis and interrogate it, not have it consume my mind, control me and lead me down YouTube, junk music, porn, TV, junk food, depression and other destructive habits. If a moment of crisis hits (no matter how small), I need to pray for my soul and then, pray for the people involved (especially if this doesn’t directly involve me), 
• I’m calling out more bullshit and nonviolently stopping people if they hurt me or the people I care about. This does not mean I should fantasize about myself on “what I would do” to someone. Rather, I’m just trusting myself when shit is actually going down in the here and now.
• Stop fantasizing about a distant future if I’m not willing to sit down and plan out logistics. And as a general rule: I should dream, not fantasize. Being in fantastical bliss over being a photographer, model, media producer or journalist is just self-gratification that’s all and escape from my shitty reality. But if I dream about being a photographer, model, media producer or journalist, that requires me to plan logistics, make decisions, and take risks in my near future. A easy next step can be taking a free class in coding, photography, research or something else.
• Apply for jobs in Philly… and in New York. Anticipate rejection - lots of rejection - but don’t give up. Whatever positions you get/don’t get, I’m reminding myself every time that I’m infinitely worthy - just ask my mother!

(ARCHIVE POST. ORIGINAL POST DATE: NOV. 26, 2017)

If you ever watched PBS Kids, you probably know about the show Arthur. In one two-episode special on Arthur, the gang’s elementary school was set on fire and had to close down, and each character was affected by this traumatic event in a different way and had to cope and process on their own. One character, Sue Ellen, lost her precious journal in the school fire and therefore, felt that her past memories went up in flames. When Muffy gave Sue Ellen a new journal, she couldn’t get herself to write in it for weeks, as one scene showed her flipping through page after page with the same entry: "I have nothing to say.“

That scene always stuck out to me ever since I first watched that special on TV. I attempted to write in journals numerous times in my life, making the same commitment to myself to write in it consistently and capture the many memories of my life, but I always froze up eventually and lost the desire and passion to write. Even Sue Ellen had the discipline to date her pages daily and write "I have nothing to say”; but me, I just left the pages blank.

Sadly, I reached a similar point with my personal website for the past few months. In fact, it took a lot of inertia for me to come back and start writing this most recent post. I have been procrastinating, putting this off, and simply afraid to write a new post. Hell, as I’m writing this post, I’m procrastinating from writing the outline of the interactive online game I’m supposedly creating for the Debt Collective! And as I’m writing this post I’m avoiding attending my ex-co-worker’s shift at the Galaxie Bar where if I don’t go see her tonight, we’ll probably no longer be friends.

But hey, I can only process so much at one time. It’s been a while since I last posted something on my personal website, and here’s the breakdown of why:

• It started when I couldn’t finish writing an article about the South Korean anti-THAAD protests. Relations between North and South Korea and the US. hasn’t been great. It never has been great, as the North and South are still technically in a state of war and the US. has always favored its military over the peninsula since the 1952 armistice agreement. THAAD is one example: a network of military launch sites that the US. pushed South Korea to build in rural areas all across the country with the supposed purpose of “defensively shooting down missiles” that North Korea might deploy on the South. A grassroots resistance movement has been building for years by rural communities and anti-war activists against the building of THAAD, protesting the economic, environmental and geopolitical impact it makes to ordinary people and advocating for peace negotiations instead. At best, THAAD is a sign of brinksmanship that encourages both sides to escalate and at worst, THAAD is a tool for US. imperialist hegemony that threatens the sovereignty of the North and South.
  
  Trump had been making (and still continues to make) incredible threats to “totally destroy North Korea” and assassinate Kim Jong Un for months, taking one of the most hostile anti-North stances by a sitting US. president. His flame war with Kim was responded with increased nuclear weapons tests and an aggressive expansion on THAAD, despite resistance from protesters. As jarring it was for me to hear how Trump wants to destroy a nation of 25 million people - people of my own heritage, regardless of politics - I wanted to focus on the grassroots, so I started to write a new piece stating my support and solidarity for the anti-THAAD protests. I couldn’t finish the article, however, and I deleted it. The reason why is because I wanted to cite everything and include a montage of protest photos from different news outlets, but when I tried to do the research, I got disappointed from the results on the American search engines and I got bogged down by the opposing arguments. I started doubting if I really knew what was going on with THAAD, and if I had the authority to speak about it and if my political viewpoint would be appropriate. In the end, I let my doubts and fears take over me and I decided to say nothing rather than something.
  
  
• My silence further discouraged me from writing… at all. The defeat I felt from stopping my article was intense. It brought up existential doubts of if I should be a writer or journalist. I wondered if I had the experience or authority to write about something, or if writing was really a passion or creative outlet for me. I felt embarrassed that I didn’t know how to research news when I just completed a senior thesis a couple of months ago.
  
  
• My wage work got me really bored and depressed. I no longer work as a $2.13/hr server at the local hipster pizza place, so I now work at the fast food pizza place as a delivery driver. The delivery job pays me more and I make enough money to live on (and I don’t even work that much, less than 25 hours/week), but I already feel the drudgery of dead-end, food service life. It doesn’t help that I have no friends at the fast food place and every interaction with my co-workers is superficial. All I would want to do after I get off of work is go home, eat, watch clips of The Simpsons, Family Guy, Kitchen Nightmares or All Def Digital, watch porn (yeah, I fell off the wagon on that one) and drink on the weekends, just to forget about how meaningless my wage job was. I chose not to invest in writing and journalism as my creative outlet. In fact, I chose to travel a lot instead…
  
  
• I prioritized traveling rather than writing. Since my last piece, I went on trips to New York City, Philadelphia, Lexington and Chicago to meet friends and catch the thrill of being in a bigger city. I recommitted my love for New York, was really surprised by how livable Philly is (I’m already considering Philly as my next move!), and I became closer to someone who I honestly could’ve looked past in Chicago. Now I’m planning a trip to Indiana and St. Louis this coming weekend and a few weeks later, I’m back in Portland for Christmas and New Year’s. Making all of these travels have been great for me, but it meant that I couldn’t focus on my writing or reading. But I should understand that these two creative outlets actually go well together for me - traveling creates the memories that I can interpret and process later into words.

Now that I gave down the breakdown of why I wasn’t active here for a while (and kind of how my life sucked), I’m giving myself some takeaways regarding my future in writing and in general:

• I should not give up on writing and journalism. I like it, it’s fulfilling for me, and the world needs my voice. There will be many more days where I’ll be tempted to feel too stupid, boring, inexperienced, uninspired, lazy or afraid to write, but I need to fight that temptation and continue to prioritize writing in my life. I need to remind myself that writing isn’t about showing how much I know about something (a product of my previous college experience) or how much I care about thinking, but rather creating beautiful stories to help me and others make sense of this shitshow of a world we’re in. And speaking about college experiences…
  
  
• I should educate myself on the media and the basics of research. I’m realizing that unless I want to continue writing academic essays for the rest of my life, my college education won’t provide me with the necessary tools and frameworks to develop my own voice, especially as a journalist. I need to continue my learning after my degree, and a great place to start is this list of MOOC’s - Mass Open Online Courses - that are offered by 200 universities that provide practical skills in the digital media world. I need to approach my future learning openly, which might mean completely starting over and relearning how to write again and research the news.
  
  
• I should probably quit my job at Pizza Hut and figure out a better way to make money. Louisville has a labor shortage, which thankfully means it’s not hard for me to find another job, but the real question I need to ask myself is whether or not I even want a traditional job. I wonder if I’d be happier doing Postmates on my own time, or even starting freelance. I wonder if my weekdays are better spent writing and learning and I only work when I’m saving up to travel and when my rent is due. I need to figure out money so I never lose focus on the things that are actually good and valuable to me - because I know that the more I worry about finances, the more it consumes my energy and character.
  
  
• It’s okay for me to make and lose new friends. Big surprise, I ended up not going to my ex-co-worker’s shift at Galaxie, for if I did, I would’ve put off this post yet another night and would spend money that I wouldn’t want to spend for someone who honestly ghosted me for weeks. The feeling of losing new friends as quickly as I’ve met them is shitty, but it’s just going to happen, and I need to accept it and appreciate the friends that stick around all the more. And as usual, I always overlook the fact that it’s the people I least expect to be friends are still in my life, and the people I most expect to be friends ignore me. Friends will never just be about my expectations I put on others. However, I have to remind myself not to cut people off from my life so fast, but always leave the possibility of reuniting and catching up intact.
  
  
• There’s probably more, but I’m tired. This is good enough though, so I’ll end it here. Maybe this means that I’ll be on this website again a whole lot sooner!

(ARCHIVE POST. ORIGINAL POST DATE: AUGUST 23, 2017)

Yesterday marked my three weeks in Louisville, and I have a lot to say about the city and the groups of people that I’m meeting and being introduced to everyday. I hung out with my housemates, saw people at my work, ate with folks from church and their friends, attended an orientation at a refugee community center and talked to local activists from Louisville Books to Prisoners, Black Lives Matter Louisville and Anti-Racist Action. Here’s what I’ve noticed about myself and Louisville so far:

1. I don’t regret moving here. In fact, moving to Louisville has been healing for my body, heart, mind and soul. I have a new purpose and it’s here in Louisville, not in Portland. Sure, I get homesick from time to time, like when an electronic dance mix was playing at my work and I was transported back to the streets of the Pearl, but I don’t let myself get carried away because I know that they’re past memories and that they should be inspiring me to make new ones, not to relive them. And it’s good that I’m finally starting to get more updates about Louisville on all of my news feeds, though I keep getting invited to Facebook events in Portland and I might make a post in response to that.
   
   
2. I stopped eating meat and stopped masturbating and I feel good about it. I attempted to go vegetarian several times in my life for health reasons, and every time it didn’t work out. I think the reason why I’ve been able to stick to it this time is that as I’m living on my own, I have full control of the food I eat. When I was at home and was even in campus housing, I ate what my parents and my dining hall made, and most of their food had meat. But now, I’m fully responsible for the food that I buy to cook and eat, and this agency has helped me make the decisive measure every time to cut meat and seafood out of my meals. The results of me going vegetarian surprised me: I experience a lot less bloating, redness and inflammation throughout my body, and I feel happier and more alert.
   
   I also stopped masturbating and watching porn and made the decision to prioritize dating and seeing people. While I think sex is great and have no problem with other people masturbating or watching porn, I realized that for me, it was all a sexual crutch to feed into my own insecurities around body image and interests of other people. Basically, I was going off solo because I thought I was too ugly and afraid to meet a real person. I realized further that masturbation was becoming a form of stress release that I didn’t think was healthy for me. All this to say, by quitting porn and masturbation, I gave myself the permission to confront my fears, like the way I look, and seriously consider people, which leads me to my next point…
   
   
3. I’m ready to date but wow, it’s all new to me. Yeah, can anyone help me find a date with someone? Bonus points if they’re queer, specifically bisexual like me? I tried OkCupid and the same people keep coming up. I tried Tinder but it’s shallow and gross. And even if you could help me, my mind goes back and forth on what I really want right now: a new friend? A hookup? Short-term dating? It’s shitty that I missed exploring all of this during my time in college, as it now seems like everyone else knows how to get what they want except me. Maybe the person that I should be loving the most is myself?
   
   
4. My neighborhood’s integrated, but the city’s segregated. I love where I live in Old Louisville. I came from being the only POC family on the entire block to having Black people work, live and play everywhere. Rich, historic 19th-century houses line up next to rent-controlled apartments, shotgun houses, and assisted living. I see barbers colleges, fancy wine bars and laundromats in walking distance to each other. Black elders and frat boys hang out on the same block on a Friday night. But while I love and treasure the diversity in my neighborhood, I already recognize that the city remains segregated - the majority-Black areas are on the west end of the city, and the further east I go past downtown, the more White people there are. Old Louisville is considered to be one of several border neighborhoods that separates east from west. This helps to explain why BLM had no police escort on the west end but was met with riot cops on the east end at their last march.
   
   
5. People talk a lot about crime. In Portland, I never really heard talk of crime, but moving here, I already heard from several housemates and co-workers about “ghetto” and “dangerous” parts of town. When I was riding with people to go see the eclipse on Monday, several of them joked about how they couldn’t leave their former houses without their guns. Knowing how “ghetto” is really a racist code word for “poor Black delinquent”, I finally had enough of being silent and pressed in on why they thought their neighborhoods were unsafe, and they said that they often hear police cars and crime alerts. Several folks from church agreed that the word “ghetto” is fucked up and should be challenged, both on a political and personal level (i.e. asking if they know people who live in those neighborhoods, etc.)
   
   
6. Houseless people and camps exist, but they “blend in”. One of my very first impressions of Louisville was seeing how little houseless people there were. I saw no encampments, no people holding out signs for money, and no signs of harassment by police or pedestrians (thank God). My vision changed over time as I saw more people on the street, more sleeping bags and carts, fences surrounding the undercover areas of bypasses, and holes in the fences that they made so they can go sleep inside anyway (thank God). I learned that the routines of houseless people are different from that of Portland so that they “blend in” to the beat of Louisville - the camps are located towards the waterfront, people hold signs for money during the rush hours of shopping districts, and the only time of the year where folks get sweeped is in May, during the Derby festival.
   
   
7. I see descendants of African slaves, but what about of Kentucky tribes? Being the South, people here are able to talk openly about slavery. Just the other day, two housemates casually brought up the fact that freed slaves often had to choose the last name of their slaveowners as their legal name, and that this would forever remind them of their previous life as property. It’s something that just isn’t discussed or acknowledged openly back in Portland, even within the activist community. But people here seem very quiet about the genocide of Native people, which is in contrast to Portland, where they increasingly acknowledge how we’re on stolen land. Portland has one of the highest urban populations of Native people, so it makes sense why they’d focus on Native genocide.

(ARCHIVE POST. ORIGINAL POST DATE: AUGUST 1, 2017)

After four days of driving and stopping by Salt Lake City, Denver and Chicago, I finally made it to my new home in the heart of Old Louisville yesterday. I got all of my stuff out of my car, took it into my new tentative room, and organized my kitchen stuff away, though I have so much more to do in order to settle down: buy groceries, catch up on emails, get a bed, get furniture, sign my new lease (don’t worry, I’m okay!), register my car, get a new ID card, get a library card, etc. And I haven’t even began to process everything that I experienced on the road and I don’t have the words to describe or analyze my new city today.

However, I already know that I made the right decision because the moment I entered into the city, I felt like home. Taking the first bike ride in Louisville moments after I bought it from the local bike shop, I saw the road, the highway, the sky and the houses and I said to myself: “I can get used to this.” So that’s what I say about my new city of Louisville, today.

By the way, shoutout to the friends and family who wished me luck, prayed for me, checked in on me every night, recommended music and audiobooks for me to listen to on the road and who saw me along the way. I couldn’t have made the trip without them - just the amount of anxiety and horrific visions of crashes that were going through my mind during the first 100 miles was enough for me to give up had I not believed that others were supporting me.

(ARCHIVE POST FROM WEBSITE. ORIGINAL POST DATE: JULY 21, 2017)

I leave Portland for Louisville in just over a week, and tonight as I was working for Postmates, I began to feel particularly sad about going away. As I was waiting for a pizza to finish baking, I was going back and forth with the deep recesses of my mind telling me that I shouldn’t follow through with the move and that Portland is all that I’ve ever known and will know. Only after I began to close my eyes and pray did these messages stop as I envisioned myself trekking through the wilderness with a guiding star. Only positive images of movement and action followed, and by the time the pizza was ready to deliver, my mind cleared up and I knew that disaster would happen if and only if I do NOT follow through.

My emotions changed from sadness to regret when I saw someone on the street who was mumbling near the entrance door to yet another swanky apartment complex I was delivering to. They were sitting on the ground with their blankets and belongings, whispering as if in a slumber, and despite me counting the number of dollar bills I had in my mind to give to them, I passed them right on by as soon as I closed the heavy door. Pangs of regret were coupled with thoughts of my friend Isabel, who I met on the streets and who I’ve committed my friendship to all the way until now, where she finally has her own place. I remembered her comment to a recent Facebook post, expressing her utter contempt at Portland city services on how poorly they treat houseless people. The city literally tries everything other than simply providing housing for people without it, she says.

Her comment made me consider the possible correlation of Portland’s “sweeps” and other fuck-ups against houseless people and the anti-houseless sentiment and behavior expressed by residents. I heard somewhere that people in power have huge influence in determining what is and isn’t moral and acceptable in society - you know, “fish rots from the head down” kinda stuff. This prompted me to think of that one time when this waiter at a crêpe place on Belmont was telling someone to get out for appearing drunk (and poor), cutting them off at every word with a threat to call the police. The waiter kicked them out right as I was walking in with my friends, and while I didn’t end up confronting the waiter, I become angry and go off to my “what-if” scenarios and start saying what I would’ve said in my car as I wait for my next order. “Excuse me, did you just threaten him?” I hypothetically say, “Because if you’re kicking him out, you’re kicking me out. You don’t get to treat people like that/garbage/trash just because you think they’re drunk and poor/can’t pay. I don’t care what justification you made in your mind: if you’re bothering him, you’re bothering me, and now you don’t know what to do ‘cause you’re bothering someone your own size.”

Still angry over that waiter, I get directed to Safeway in downtown. As I enter, I see this store security cop in blue hassling another seemingly-houseless person by asking them for their receipt or proof of payment. As they were rustling through their pockets, I knew that I had to confront the cop. As soon as I was done in line, I walk up to the cop and ask them smugly, “Aren’t you going to check my receipt?” They respond, “I don’t need to check your receipt because I already see it in your bag.” I counter, “Then why are you checking other people for receipts?” They spit back, “I’m doing my job. Is there a problem?” I scoff, “Just what I thought!” and start walking out. The cop yells, “What are you thinking?” and I spit back, “You’re profiling people.” (I should’ve said “houseless people” or “people who live on the street”.) After a brief pause, the cop ends with, “Your comment is not appreciated, sir. Have a good night.”

My feelings were still anger, with some high-and-mighty mixed in. I knew better than to be very proud of myself however, for when I was checking out, a loud, boisterous person asked me if I can save their spot while they go find some soup or whatever. I knew that they were also profiled as houseless because when we both first spotted an unclaimed donut sitting by the conveyor belt, the loud one asked me to pull it up front and when I did, the cashier snatched the donut away as if the loud one was going to steal it. When they returned back in line with only crumpled receipts in their hands, my instinct was to protect my phone and wallet that were laid out for them to see, and even as the loud one was making better small talk than me, I clutched my phone and wallet and put it away for fear of it being stolen. If that cop saw me earlier and called me out as much as I called them out, it’d be game over.

I ended my night hating Portland and hating what I’ve internalized here more than whatever I was reminiscing about at the beginning of my night. I ended my night counting down the days as before, looking ahead to the future, leaving behind this backward town. I ended my night with more bad memories, more negative confirmation and more of a bad taste in my mouth. I ended my night disgusted about the very city I thought I was clingy to. I was going to miss Portland… but then I won’t.

I occasionally drive for Uber and Lyft, and I reached out to their local offices today to learn more about their non-discrimation and reporting policies for drivers and riders in light of the political climate right now. This is what they said to me:

Both riders and drivers deserve the right to cancel a ride if they feel unsafe. If you are a rider and experience abuse or discrimination from your driver, you can cancel the ride on your phone, report them and ask to leave the car. If you are driver and experience abuse, you can cancel the ride on your phone, report them and ask the rider to leave. To report someone on Uber, you can submit it through the app or call 800-353-UBER. To report someone on Lyft, you can submit it through the app or go to https://help.lyft.com/hc/en-us/articles/213584268-Reporting-an-Accident-Safety-Incident-or-Citation to be called back.

Both offices assure that if a rider or driver gets reported, they will be immediately BANNED from the app and an investigation will be started where both parties will be asked to give further information.

Uber and Lyft do NOT offer a way for riders and drivers to report abuse and discrimination they witness on the streets during pickup, ride or drop-off. They advise to call your local law enforcement, but use your best judgment.

Uber and Lyft offer discount codes for people who never used their service before. There are various ones available online and they change over time. As of now, there are NO specific discount codes available for existing riders of Uber or Lyft who are low-income or who use the service as an emergency. However, a rider can use an Uber or Lyft account of someone that is related to them, like a family member or friend.

NOTE: I do not endorse the use of Uber or Lyft for your transportation needs, and I am aware of the critiques of the economic impacts caused by both companies in participating cities. Like any corporate policy, Uber and Lyft cannot guarantee that every report will be adequately investigated. Non-discrimination and reporting policies varies for different public transportation and taxi networks; please reach out to them.