Oregon county pays $100K over Blue Lives Matter flag
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — An Oregon county has agreed to pay $100,000 to a black employee who sued alleging she was harassed after asking that a Blue Lives Matter flag not be displayed in the o ce.
Karimah Guion-Pledgure said in her January lawsuit against Multnomah County that the flag demeans the Black Lives Matter movement, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported Saturday. She said she was harassed by others in the o ce after she and other black co-workers complained.
The settlement, reached Thursday, was first reported by Portland’s alternative bi-weekly newspaper, The Portland Mercury.
Black Lives Matter is an activist movement formed in 2013 that campaigns against violence and systemic racism toward black people.
Proponents of Blue Lives Matter say it’s meant to support and honor the work and sacrifices of law enforcement o cers. The Blue Lives Matter flag is a black-and-white American flag with a blue stripe replacing one white stripe in the middle. Thin Blue Line USA, which sells the flags, says the thin blue line represents offices in the line of duty and the black represents fallen officers.
Guion-Pledgure’s lawsuit said the Blue Lives Matter movement “coopts” the Black Lives Matter movement and “repurposes it to shift focus to law enforcement — a chosen profession, not a racial identity — and thus denigrates, dilutes, and demeans the purpose of the Black Lives Matter movement.”
About a month before the probation o cer put up the Blue Lives Matter flag in 2017, white supremacist demonstrators displayed that same flag alongside Confederate flags during a “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, the lawsuit notes.
One person died and dozens of others were injured when a man deliberately rammed his car into the crowd of counter-protesters. Members of Blue Lives Matter condemned the use of their flag at the rally.