Did you guys know this?

[boston bean]

Portland is the whitest big city in America, with a population that is 72.2 percent white and only 6.3 percent African American. “I think that Portland has, in many ways, perfected neoliberal racism,” Walidah Imarisha, an African American educator and expert on black history in Oregon, told me.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/07/racist-history-portland/492035/

[PatrickforO]

1. I genuinely had no idea. I was in Portland in 2007, and

I didn't notice - I just noticed a lot of gentrification downtown, etc. It was nice, but then, I'm a white male in his fifties.

Funny how I didn't notice.

[FarCenter]

2. Whiter than Minneapolis/St Paul? I'm surprised.

[JI7]

3. yes. this isn't unusual. even in very liberal areas there is bigotry

Remember that trump and giuliani chime ftom nyc and thst are two of the biggest racists

[Jean-Jacques Roussea]

4. Let's work on the Grand Wizard about to be inaugurated first.

[JI7]

5. similar had been said about liberal areas in washinton state

[pnwmom]

9. Not comparable. Seattle has its problems, and its history,

but not equivalent to Portland's.

From the article at the OP:

From its very beginning, Oregon was an inhospitable place for black people. In 1844, the provisional government of the territory passed a law banning slavery, and at the same time required any African American in Oregon leave the territory. Any black person remaining would be flogged publicly every six months until he left. Five years later, another law was passed that forbade free African Americans from entering into Oregon, according to the Communities of Color report.

In 1857, Oregon adopted a state constitution that banned black people from coming to the state, residing in the state, or holding property in the state. During this time, any white male settler could receive 650 acres of land and another 650 if he was married. This, of course, was land taken from native people who had been living here for centuries.

This early history proves, to Imarisha, that “the founding idea of the state was as a racist white utopia. The idea was to come to Oregon territory and build the perfect white society you dreamed of.” (Matt Novak detailed Oregon’s heritage as a white utopia in this 2015 Gizmodo essay.)

With the passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, Oregon’s laws preventing black people from living in the state and owning property were superseded by national law. But Oregon itself didn’t ratify the 14th Amendment—the Equal Protection Clause—until 1973. (Or, more exactly, the state ratified the amendment in 1866, rescinded its ratification in 1868, and then finally ratified it for good in 1973.) It didn’t ratify the 15th Amendment, which gave black people the right to vote, until 1959, making it one of only six states that refused to ratify that amendment when it passed.

[JDC]

6. They should come to New Hampshire sometime

My town has less than 2% minority. 5000 people, but my neighboring towns are the same.

[Dem2]

12. The entire state

basically

[MADem]

7. Yes, it's one of the most historically racist cities in the nation, frankly.

All that "progressive" vibe doesn't translate to people of color, who still feel unwelcome.

A year or so ago we had a thread going about this, and IIRC this article was included:

http://gizmodo.com/oregon-was-founded-as-a-racist-utopia-1539567040

A few salient bits:

When Oregon was granted statehood in 1859, it was the only state in the Union admitted with a constitution that forbade black people from living, working, or owning property there. It was illegal for black people even to move to the state until 1926. Oregon’s founding is part of the forgotten history of racism in the American west.

Waddles Coffee Shop in Portland, Oregon was a popular restaurant in the 1950s for both locals and travelers alike. The drive-in catered to America’s postwar obsession with car culture, allowing people to get coffee and a slice of pie without even leaving their vehicle. But if you happened to be black, the owners of Waddles implored you to keep on driving. The restaurant had a sign outside with a very clear message: “White Trade Only — Please.”

It’s the kind of scene from the 1950s that’s so hard for many Americans to imagine happening outside of the Jim Crow South. How could a progressive, northern city like Portland have allowed a restaurant to exclude non-white patrons? This had to be an anomaly, right? In reality it was far too common in Oregon, a state that was explicitly founded as a kind of white utopia.

America’s history of racial discrimination is most commonly taught as a southern issue. That’s certainly how I learned about it while going to Minnesota public schools in the 1980s and 90s. White people outside of the South seem to learn about the Civil War and civil rights movements from an incredibly safe (and often judgmental) distance.

Racism was generally framed as something that happened in the past and almost always “down there.” We learned about the struggles for racial equality in cities like Birmingham and Selma and Montgomery. But what about the racism of Portland, Oregon, a city that is still overwhelmingly white? The struggles there were just as intense — though they are rarely identified in the history books.

According to Oregon’s founding constitution, black people were not permitted to live in the state. And that held true until 1926. The small number of black people already living in the state in 1859, when it was admitted to the Union, were sometimes allowed to stay, but the next century of segregation and terrorism at the hands of angry racists made it clear that they were not welcome.

[duffyduff]

11. There are lots of racists in Oregon.

The southern and eastern parts of the state are every bit as red as the deep South. With that comes some pretty vile attitudes.

[bravenak]

8. IT IS ABSOLUTELY TRUE

[Buckeye_Democrat]

10. I've only been there once, passing through via Amtrak.

There was a layover in Portland on my way down to California. I didn't see any African Americans get on the train there, now that I think about it.

There was a homeless white man who wandered inside the station and who briefly sat next to me before an angry security worker ordered him to leave. I was surprised by how mean the security worker acted about it.

[betsuni]

13. Portlandia: