Flossin Magazine Volume #20: REPRESENT

How Representative Akasha Lawrence Spence Helped To Put Oregon On BLASK

At a time where economic turmoil and radical civil unrest are boiling over and long-term racial discord is twisting thorns of insecurity into the souls of the American people, there is something about Representative Akasha Lawrence Spence’s role in politics that denotes a bit of destiny.

Amongst the 60 leaders in the Oregon State House of Representatives tasked to oversee districts of around 63,850 citizens over a two-year election cycle, Representative Lawrence Spence is one of only two African-Americans along with Representative Janelle Bynum. Additionally, of the 30 Senate seats in Oregon, only two of those are filled by African Americans, Senator Lew Frederick and Senator James Manning.

However, Rep. Lawrence Spence wasn’t elected for this job as per usual, she was appointed by Multnomah County Commissioners to replace former state Rep. Jennifer Williamson, D-Portland, who resigned in December of 2019 to run for Oregon Secretary of State in the 2020 election--a race she ironically dropped out of abruptly in February. Currently, Rep. Lawrence Spence will continue as appointed until January of 2021, having chosen not to run in the general election.

It is most certain that upon acceptance of this appointment,  Rep. Lawrence Spence, like any of us, couldn’t possibly have predicted the massive domino effect that was about to impact the systemic world order of health, economic and racial justice. Subsequently, the fallout of each of these dominos is hitting the Black community in particularly menacing ways and at a time when Black representation in positions of influence is so crucial, it would seem that fate may have placed Representative Akasha Lawrence Spence in this gap for a reason.  Not only is she a Representative of District #36, which spans from Portland’s SW Waterfront, Chinatown, upper SW Hills and parts of Multnomah Village, she has also taken up the movement of her broader Black community as one of the leaders who helped to shape an internal collective known as BLASK.

Shaped by over 60 Black organizations, with strong leadership coming from Nkenge Harmon Johnson, Director of the ULPDX and subcommittee leads from Joy Alise Davis Director of PAALF, Jesse Beason NHF, working in tangent with a strong core of Black community leaders representing the needs of Black Oregonians, BLASK stands for the Black Ask.  The collective galvanized to create, “The Oregon Cares Fund (TOCF) a $62 million targeted investment in the Black community” carved out of the CARES Act’s Coronavirus Relief Fund (CRF), which to date has already left Black communities behind.

Rep. Lawrence-Spence teamed up with Rep. Bynum, Sen. Frederick, and Sen. Manning, to introduce the TOCF during the special session where the Oregon State Legislature worked to divide up the $1,388,506,837 in CRF it got from the 2 trillion dollar CARES act passed by Congress in March. $400 million of Oregon’s CRF will be set aside into a fund to reimburse local governments for money spent on Covid-19 relief efforts including, public health, medical and payroll expenses.

TOCF was a hefty lift but BLASK organizers are fiercely united making sure the Black community has a seat at the table and not the “per usual” crumbs. Oregon had already awarded a culturally responsive funding for the Latinx Leadership Network earlier this year, a package which included “fully funding the proposed Oregon Worker Relief Fund, which is critical to the financial security of undocumented workers.”

TOCF has the full support of the Governor Kate Brown, House Speaker Representative Tina Kotok and others from the Oregon State Legislature Joint Emergency Board.

The Power in Representation

BLASK may never have gotten the traction it needed in the Oregon State Legislature had it not been for the addition of Representative Lawrence-Spence to the ranks, serving to strengthen the political push with her peers and her community. In hindsight, she herself admits that she was resistant to the appointment initially, but calls out two emotional triggers that had resurfaced from several years back that prompted the calling to represent. The first was the tragic and sudden death of her mother and the second was witnessing the displacement of modest food cart owners to make way for a Waldorf-Astoria luxury high-rise.

“In college my first degree was in political science and anthropology, I was always interested in the theory of the states.  When we are born, we tacitly consent to being governed, but what does being governed mean? For me, it is a contract. They do certain things and we have a certain responsibility to hold them accountable.  So when my mother passed away suddenly from health issues I felt could have been correctable, it changed the trajectory of my life. I began to look around and think about the ways our government and our health care system was not being held accountable to us.” 

Around the same time as her mother’s passing, she was frequenting an active food cart hub in downtown Portland. It was a popular space where people from different cultures and socio-economic status would gather and interact.  Many of the owners operating these carts had come to the city as fleeing immigrants, leaving behind professional practices in search of a safer life. They had leased spaces on a vacant lot near the center of town and for decades, brought the flavor of their homeland into a receptive community.  When the property sold to a high priced developer, they were given their marching orders.

‘They were completely displaced and seen as no longer valuable to the space, although they are the ones that had added the value.  So, I was angry because my mother died, and she didn’t need to. That it was a failure of our healthcare system.  And I was upset for these small businesses that had no right or recourse to stop that development from happening to them because they didn’t own anything.  It really sparked in me the question of, ‘who gets to decide?’ The institutions that we consent to be governed by are there to help us.  Schools, police, elected officials don’t do that unless we insert ourselves into the conversation.  But I don’t want a seat at a table that is inept, corrupt, and inequitable. I’d rather sit on the floor than at your table. For me that was my awakening and why I decided to take this position. ``

This isn’t the Representative’s first bout in the political arena. As self-described, she started off as a “young and yes, to some degree, cocky,” campaigner for a variety of politicians near her native home of Brooklyn, New York, including Senator Chuck Schumer. But over time, she grew disillusioned by bi-partisan politics and compromises, and left to pursue architecture.

            “I thought, 'what are we compromising here?' Are we compromising people who need you to continue to fight for them? Or are we compromising so that something gets done that is better than nothing?  I couldn’t reconcile the compromise at that point. I felt there were other ways to get the job done and to do good work. That’s when I got a degree in architecture.

She made the move to Oregon seven years ago, and today, everything Rep Akasha Lawrence Spence focuses on centers around economic justice and her steadfast belief that you can’t have environmental or social justice without it.  She used this defining value when launching her architect design firm, The Fifth Element, where her company works as “a conscientious real estate developer, fortifying small businesses through property ownership”. As a self-described civic activist, she also started a meetup group called “Melanated”, focusing on bringing women of color together for individual or collective betterment based upon three defining pillars: civic engagement, financial empowerment and community stewardship. 

Early in her architecture career, she played a defining role in winning a bid for a development expansion project of a local high school. However, the project could only be built with legislature approved funding; leading her to the realization that everything leads back to politics.

“What gets built and the way we build it, where money comes from, what projects we decide to fund and who gets those projects, everything, everything, everything is political. And the moment that we think we can get away from it or disassociate from it, we have taken ourselves away from the decision making and where real power exists.”

Being a political representative comes with its fair share of sacrifices, including financial. Representative Lawrence-Spence takes home a modest stipend of $26,000.00 to do the job: poverty wages in most urban cities. So, while working diligently in the public sphere, she also manages her private business and shares her musings on politicians who have the luxury to focus on and hold longtime political positions.

“I understand what wealth does for a person and a community. It gives you time. Time to show up and time to run, because running for political office is a full time job.”

As the top two contributing factors impacting minority representation in America, time and money undeniably have an adverse effect on the equity of the playing field, especially considering the diversity of its citizens.

For now at least, Black Oregonians are grateful to have her representation which means an extra foothold in a crowded space.

“America is the richest country in the world, but people go to bed hungry. And it is not because we don’t have abundance: we have so much, but it is hoarded, right?  I mean, at first, we didn’t have money for anything such as free college or free health care, and then THIS happened and all of a sudden they found trillions of dollars. So now we’ve seen America naked and the government showed us their cards. We know what they are capable of and we know that they have been BS-ing us all this time. They had the ability to allocate this money and mandate it for XYZ, but were “scared” and didn’t see everybody as worthy, because that’s the real thing right? This is why the rallying cry of “Black Lives Matter” is a real one, a visceral one, because we were told that we were not people at the inception of this country, we were 3/5th a person. How do we get to a place where we have our own and we are not genuflecting and going on our knees to the government asking to be seen as worthy, asking to be seen as full people?”

The devaluation of Blacks in America has unfortunately been one of our country's ugliest characteristics. Programmed to believe that their Lives only amount to the lowest common denominator, the narrative imposed upon the Black American psyche for centuries can only be seen as a blatant maneuver to emasculate the Black male through brutality and has taken a toll on the Black family structure across the country. Looking ahead, the ability to fortify BLASK as a coalition that is impenetrable by governmental infiltrators will mean that Black Oregonians will have to galvanize, help each other to unpack the baggage of generational trauma and most importantly, recognize their capability, significance and influence inherent in moving forward as a coordinated force to claim their rightful place at the center of the economic power core. Rep Lawrence-Spence offered a closing response to this perspective,

”It goes back to the history of this country which has us believing that there is nothing scarier than an educated and powerful Black man that is able to take care of his community.  Consider the White Nationalist going to our Capitals with assault rifles. If that were us [Black], we wouldn’t have lived to tell that tale. While they are seen as patriots and willing to die for America, it is US who have died for it. The foundation of our country is built with the blood sweat and tears of OUR ancestors. For them, nothing is scarier than Black people who have power and are ready to take hold of themselves and our community. That’s why I advocate for wealth.  We don’t want to rely on someone to feed us. There is something powerful about having a Black doctor where I don’t have explain certain issues; or a Black shopkeeper who is not going to follow me around the store; or for someone Black who may have been incarcerated, to be able to reenter into a community that looks like them and who are more than ready, willing and able to give them a second chance because they have the means. Ownership and Wealth will enable us to have school curriculums that are representative of our legacy and our history and not an erasure of our contribution. And also not having us believe that our history starts at slavery, but reinforcing that we have a long proud legacy. We are the first people, right? One of the wealthiest people in the world at one time was King Mansa Musa, an African Man.”