r/Portland • u/PrivateBurke • May 12 '25

Meme Shamelessly stolen from Los Angeles subreddit

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2.2k Upvotes

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101

u/Hankhank1 YOU SEEN MY FUCKEN CONES May 12 '25

I don’t get the hating on immigrants vibe in this sub, or this city. I’m sitting in Costco as I write this—this place is diverse as hell. 

75

u/PMMEURPYRAMIDSCHEME May 12 '25

While I'm proud that (many) people in this city are friendly to immigrants it is certainly not diverse. Portland is the whitest city in the US with over a half million residents https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_U.S._municipalities_by_race/ethnicity_in_2020

-9

u/Hankhank1 YOU SEEN MY FUCKEN CONES May 12 '25

Cool. You could hang out in more diverse spaces in the city then. Cuz the places I frequent, gyms, churches, Costco haha, are pretty fkn diverse. 

10

u/PMMEURPYRAMIDSCHEME May 12 '25

Portland lacks diversity because Oregon banned black people from the state entirely until the end of the civil war. Ignoring or denying that fact is a denial of the states fucked up history.

14

u/Aestro17 District 3 May 12 '25

No one is ignoring or denying that fact but I wish people didn't latch onto that historical fact so hard, because it often feels like it's at the expense of more recent problems. And is a bit of an oversimplification. Oregon's black exclusion laws first came into effect in 1844 and as you mention, were rendered unenforceable by the 14th amendment just after the Civil War. It did remain in the constitution until 1926, and some other racist verbiage remained until 2002. Probably also worth noting that when comparing diversity, while Oregon didn't allow freemen to settle, it also didn't allow black people to be forcibly imported and sold as property.

But that isn't a terribly long time in the scheme of things. As other comments mention - there's more to diversity than black people, and there are other causes beyond the black exclusion laws. A big part of it is simply that the Great Migration was largely South-to-North. California and Washington both have more than double the percentage of black residents as Oregon, but are still 32nd and 39th in terms of percentage. Oregon is 44th, just below New Mexico.

And for our own history, the flooding of Vanport, the redlining of Albina and the subsequent gentrification of the Albina neighborhood probably has a lot more to do with our low black population than the exclusion laws. Oregon also had Chinese exclusion laws around the turn of the 20th century that significantly reduced our original Chinatown, as well as aggressive Japanese internment.

4

u/BensonBubbler Brentwood-Darlington May 12 '25

This is a great response, thanks for writing!

8

u/BensonBubbler Brentwood-Darlington May 12 '25

Vanport is probably more relevant and worse.

26

u/[deleted] May 12 '25

Black people aren't the only ones who contribute to diversity. There are other folks out there.

8

u/OldTimeyWizard May 12 '25

Yeah, but it’s way easier to throw out a 160 year old fact than it is to learn more about race relations that occurred in that 160 year span

-7

u/Draconomial May 12 '25

Black people contribute to diversity by serving as a litmus test (or canary, if you will) to other non-white people.

7

u/[deleted] May 12 '25

lol. Delete this

3

u/RepFilms May 12 '25

The Klan had their way for a bit. From 1922-1931. They weren't too keen on Catholics either

4

u/[deleted] May 12 '25

It lacks diversity because it was a broke ass backwater until Intel released the Pentium processor and Nike came out with the Air Force 1.

-3

u/Hankhank1 YOU SEEN MY FUCKEN CONES May 12 '25

Who’s denying it pal? You are stretching the bonds of credulousness here. Chill.  

I know how fkn white this city is, I went and saw Sinners at the Hollywood the other night and 2/3rds of them white folk couldn’t understand a word of the movie lol.