Call For Loiter-In At Clackamas Town Center
Portland, Or. – State Representative Janelle Bynum from Happy Valley is calling for a loiter-in at Clackamas Town Center this week. Bynum, who is African American says her teenage daughter and two friends were sitting in a car in the mall parking lot Friday when they were told to leave and that they were loitering. Bynum believes they were profiled.
She has issued the call for the loiter-in on her Facebook page and says “let’s figure out if there’s a difference between loitering or being the wrong color.” She says she reviewed the shopping mall’s code of conduct and says nothing on their page indicates a time limit for sitting in the parking lot on your phone.
She says she received a message from the mall’s GM and says “something felt very cold about his message. It is as if he is “gathering information” from his team to referee the truth with my daughter, when in fact, there will be multiple truths. This is what people don’t understand about discrimination. You can be vigilant about criminal activity while disproportionately and illegally targeting certain people based on race. It’s called collateral damage.”