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Portland Stabbing Survivor Says Portland Has a 'White Savior Complex' in Emotional Video

Micah Fletcher wants everyone to remember the targeted girls.

The 21-year-old survivor of the Portland stabbing is asking people to place their attention on the girls victimized instead of him.

In an emotional video posted to Facebook, Micah Fletcher, a poet and student, is calling out his own city for its “white savior complex.”

“We need to remember that this is about those little girls. I want you to imagine that for a second, being a little girl on that MAX,” Fletcher said. “This man is screaming at you. His face is a pile of knives. His body is a gun. Everything about him is cocked, loaded and ready to kill you,” he continued. “There is a history here with this. You can feel that this has happened before, and the only thing that was different was the names and faces. And then a stranger, two strangers, three strangers, come to your aid. They try to help you. And that pile of knives just throws itself at them. Kills them.”

In the video, Fletcher thanked people for the money donated to him for medical expenses while also addressing the major issue he has with the aftermath of this incident.

“We in Portland have this weird tendency to continue patterns that we’ve done forever and one of them is the same old, just to put it bluntly, white savior complex,” Fletcher said in the video. “I think it’s immensely, immensely morally wrong and irresponsible how much money we have gotten as opposed to how much support, money, love, kindness that has been given to that little girl.”

Fletcher was one of three people who were stabbed for stepping in when a man verbally assaulted Destinee Mangum, 16, and her 17-year-old Muslim friend, who was wearing a hijab, on a MAX train. As a result of the stabbing, Ricky John Best and Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche died from their wounds. Jeremy Christian, who has ties to white supremacist groups, was arrested by police after.  

In addition to making the video, Flethcer linked to a fundraiser organized to benefit the two teenage girls who were verbally attacked. The group hopes to raise $150,000 to provide the girls with safe transportation and mental health services.

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