Thursday, January 23, 2020

Portland May Day 2017 Vs First Amendment


 Portland May Day 2017

The protest that occurred in Portland, Oregon, May of 2017, stood out to me the most when writing about this prompt because of how the First Amendment was violated. Our class discussed what violates the First Amendment specifically when it comes to one of the 6 freedoms; speech.

People are allowed to peacefully protest, and freedom of speech isn't violated until violence is involved. The gathering that occurred in Portland began as a city permitted and peaceful protest but later turned into a protest of violence. "Protesters shattered business windows, set bonfires in the streets, and vandalized a police car." The overall outcome of this protest, in my opinion, is a good example of the First Amendment being contravened.

I also thought this was a good article to share because of how the writer Jim Ryan from The Oregonian covered this piece. In many channels, a reader can pick up the tone on whose side the writer is taking. In this piece, it is easy to see that the writer talks more positively about the protesters than the police.

In many examples in this piece, the writer uses sarcasm when talking about how the police handled things "proud of the professionalism" and "worked to keep the peace in Downtown Portland under very difficult circumstances." Overall I believed this story was significant to write about because it demonstrated when freedom of speech was being violated and how it's important how to communicate a story because the media can be very opinionated.
https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2017/05/portland_may_day_demonstration.html