ELLEN URBANI MAKES GOOD TROUBLE

Ellen Urbani wrote an essay published in Time Magazine.

“Our president wants you to believe I am a terrorist, a professional agitator stalking the Pacific Northwest.“

The title of the essay was, “I’m a Mom Who Came Out to Protest for Black Lives in Portland. I Was Shot by Federal Agents.”

That’s where the wheelchair in the top image comes in.

A few years ago Ms Urbani took to Facebook and asked if anyone had a spare wheelchair for her mom. They were going to Portland for a march.

I’d first heard her at a Willamette Writers meeting at the Old Church in Portland. She held the stage along with the attention of everyone in the room. I was intrigued after years of speakers coming and going from the same stage. She was the first one who seemed to enjoy the experience.

Instead of stage fright, she was an inspiration for bashful writers to embrace their journey. She knew her audience then and what they needed.

When she needed a wheelchair I followed the same impulse and offered up a lightweight rig I used to take my father in law around in. That was for her mom, now for her.

From Time:

. . . there are only a few women left, standing arm in arm in the yellow shirts those agents know mark us as mothers, just empty asphalt between us and the men some other mothers raised.

And that is when they shoot us, point blank, with impact munitions. The woman on my right falls forward; the woman on my left is struck in the head; I feel my bone break. My right ankle is encased in a bulky cast after a fall the previous week, and those American sons shoot my other foot out from under me.

With one foot already disabled, the other broken by a close up shot from a gunman, and this is when the wheelchair hit the road again. Why? Because she was headed back to Portland again and needed new wheels.

Her mom stopped by and picked it up. The first time was for her, now she needed it for her daughter. The symmetry was sweet.

Who Is Ellen Urbani

And why does good trouble draw her out?

She says it best herself:

Those federal agents are the brothers-in-arms of men I love–my father the Navy submariner, my former father-in-law the disabled Marine, the police officer I swooned over in my youth–and I am a white woman, the high school cheerleader those feds once fell for, the sorority girl they courted, the one person those officers truly referred to when they swore an oath to serve and protect. If they are willing to turn on me, to fire on me, for finally breaking my silent complicity and standing with and for my Black neighbors, what havoc will be wreaked on the Black bodies left behind if I vacate this street?

Wheelchair With Snacks

Good people do good things. It makes us all better.

So does common courtesy.

The next time you see images of protesters on TV marching for a better America, remember who they are and who supports them. The next time you march, notice who else has joined you.

Compare a peaceful protest crowd to a Trump rally and come to your own conclusions. If you see Ellen Urbani, you’re in good company.

Then vote for Joe Biden.