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Well, I think about this. I like the outdoors. I like a city that has a very good public transportation system. Portland is more walkable than many cities. I like cycling. Portland is set up for that. Plenty of outdoor opportunities in nearby areas. I can think of reasons to live in Portland. I also consider another factor. And this is with any place. I consider how I might be treated while living there. When I see hardly very few, if any, Blacks moving to the Portland area, I start thinking, "are there reasons why I as a Black man should stay away from Portland"? I mean, there are things that would attract me to Portland.
I feel like there are a few other cities that offer what Portland offers with larger or more affluent black population. Seattle The Bay and Los Angeles would be much more attractive to me personally and better for my career. How do the salaries in Portland compare to these other west coast cities also?
Heck, the Black working class is just as ignored or even more so. I'm beyond sick and tired of so many people speaking as if Black America consists of nothing but the Black underclass.
As a Black middle class, college educated professional, this angers me alot. We're not the underclass. Black working class and middle class people are here. And we're in larger numbers than the underclass. The Black underclass is certainly larger than the underclass of other groups. However, us middle class Blacks, the working class Blacks, we're here. I think it's easy to ignore the Black middle class because then there are no excuses. No excuses for associating Black people exclusively with underclass and dysfunction.
I feel like there are a few other cities that offer what Portland offers with larger or more affluent black population. Seattle The Bay and Los Angeles would be much more attractive to me personally and better for my career. How do the salaries in Portland compare to these other west coast cities also?
Seattle I could see as a better option. My #1 issue is the rapid increase in the cost of living. I did live in the Seattle metro area as a child.
Los Angeles, well, this is what I know. There are racial tensions that exist there between Blacks and Hispanics and it has erupted into violence. I would really have to consider where I would live.
Portland has things that would attract me there. I don't know what the salaries are for Portland.
One major concern I have is being able to live my life without dealing with a bunch of hostility.
As a Black middle class, college educated professional, this angers me alot. We're not the underclass. Black working class and middle class people are here. And we're in larger numbers than the underclass. The Black underclass is certainly larger than the underclass of other groups. However, us middle class Blacks, the working class Blacks, we're here. I think it's easy to ignore the Black middle class because then there are no excuses. No excuses for associating Black people exclusively with underclass and dysfunction.
Back in the early 1990s, I used to end my emails with an "Editorial Observer" quote from Brent Staples of The New York Times to the effect that the real tragedy — among Blacks every bit as much as whites — was the equation of street values and culture with "authenticity."
I assume you've also heard of, if not read, a book by former Penn, now Yale, sociologist Elijah Anderson titled "Code of the Streets." In that book, also published in the 1990s, but after Staples' remark, he describes how young Black males in lower-income neighborhoods are caught in a tug-of-war between "decent" and "street" values, and how some of them "code switch" in order to balance the countervailing forces.
Staples' memoir "Parallel Time: Growing Up in Black and White" was the first of what became a literary genre in the 1990s, the Black male coming-of-age memoir. (I had the pleasure of interviewing him for an alumni newsletter I launched when I worked at his undergraduate alma mater, Widener University in Chester, Pa., where he grew up. I wrote in that article that he "crossed a highway, walked through a door into another world, and didn't look back." It turns out he did, at least once.)
I think that there are a non-trivial number of "bourgeois" Blacks who have been on the receiving end of shaming or hostility from other Blacks because their manners and mannerisms mark them as "inauthentic." I know I did. And while the wound has healed, the scars remain.
Which was another reason why I wrote that neighborhood guide to the Oak Lanes.
West Oak Lane is a solidly Black working/lower-middle-class neighborhood — one of those "middle neighborhoods" whose survival policy wonks now fret about. I told the City Council member whose district includes it that it struck me as a rowhouse version of the East Side Kansas City neighborhood I grew up in.
The only difference between the two: My home neighborhood has gone downhill while West Oak Lane has not.
It is also why I've brought up places like Bowie, MD and Cedar Hill, TX in other threads. Places with large Black populations that are middle class. Good places to live.
Back in the early 1990s, I used to end my emails with an "Editorial Observer" quote from Brent Staples of The New York Times to the effect that the real tragedy — among Blacks every bit as much as whites — was the equation of street values and culture with "authenticity."
I assume you've also heard of, if not read, a book by former Penn, now Yale, sociologist Elijah Anderson titled "Code of the Streets." In that book, also published in the 1990s, but after Staples' remark, he describes how young Black males in lower-income neighborhoods are caught in a tug-of-war between "decent" and "street" values, and how some of them "code switch" in order to balance the countervailing forces.
Staples' memoir "Parallel Time: Growing Up in Black and White" was the first of what became a literary genre in the 1990s, the Black male coming-of-age memoir. (I had the pleasure of interviewing him for an alumni newsletter I launched when I worked at his undergraduate alma mater, Widener University in Chester, Pa., where he grew up. I wrote in that article that he "crossed a highway, walked through a door into another world, and didn't look back." It turns out he did, at least once.)
I think that there are a non-trivial number of "bourgeois" Blacks who have been on the receiving end of shaming or hostility from other Blacks because their manners and mannerisms mark them as "inauthentic." I know I did. And while the wound has healed, the scars remain.
I've never heard of "Code Of The Streets". However, I do get what you're talking about. I come from an educated, middle class background. However, I have dealt with that kind of pressure. Ironically, I got alot of that pressure in a high school that was 90% White. There were some Black kids who didn't see me as "authentically Black". There was that pressure to "code switch". It was something that I needed to refuse. I never grew up with "street values", so that is foreign to me.
I grew up in an odd situation. Middle class, predominantly White area. I also went to school with alot of White kids who were working class and lower class. I was in a part of the Atlanta area that was still rather redneck in its character. However, there was a small Black population (the county I lived in was about 4% Black when I moved there in the late 1990s. It's about 21% Black today). I struggled to fit in for alot of reasons. I wasn't "Black enough" for some of the Black kids. And some of the White kids just didn't like Black kids at all. Ironically, some of the biggest "you talk White" comments I would get came from White kids. Go figure.
Maybe if I read "Growing Up In Black and White", I might be able to relate to it. In my case, I dealt with things by disassociating myself with some of the people I was around. My way of dealing with things was existing in a state of relative isolation. To me, where I lived wasn't my world. I was simply a prisoner of it. I knew there was a world outside of where I was living during middle school and high school. When you have cable TV (or you watch the documentaries on PBS), you think "one day I'm leaving you suckers behind".
I don't consider myself part of the bourgeois. To me to has a connotation of snobbery. I just consider myself a Black middle class person who is rather nerdy. I stopped worrying about being "authentically Black" a long time ago. I am aware that Black people who do get shamed for "not being Black enough" or "not authentic".
And I won't lie to you. I have been scarred in some ways. I know my younger sister got scarred big time. Of course, in her case, because of the nearly 5-year age difference, and her being female, I think she got it differently. My middle school was 4% Black when I was going there. Her middle school was more like 10% Black when she was going there. She was catching so much crap from other Black girls. When I was in middle school, I caught a bunch of crap from mostly White boys (interestingly, I caught far less hostility from White girls). High school I not only got it from some of the White kids (especially redneck types for some reason), I got it from some of the Black kids. My sister got it mostly from Black females. I think it affected her immensely. She rarely had Black female friends. And the one Black female friend she had, pretty much quit associating with my sister around high school. My sister was made fun of for not being "Black enough", for "talking White", for "acting White". Thankfully, my sister could play an instrument and was in marching band during high school. She found her niche. She lives in Colorado now (a place I would still consider living in).
Seattle I could see as a better option. My #1 issue is the rapid increase in the cost of living. I did live in the Seattle metro area as a child.
Los Angeles, well, this is what I know. There are racial tensions that exist there between Blacks and Hispanics and it has erupted into violence. I would really have to consider where I would live.
Portland has things that would attract me there. I don't know what the salaries are for Portland.
One major concern I have is being able to live my life without dealing with a bunch of hostility.
Portland's history and current demographics/politics worry me. I'd bet you'd meet a lot less hostility in the Bay and LA.
Portland's history and current demographics/politics worry me. I'd bet you'd meet a lot less hostility in the Bay and LA.
My perception of the Portland and much of the Pacific Northwest is that its where the far left meets the far right. Its been a hotbed for both. In the city of Portland, obviously the far left far outdoes the far right but in areas outside the city that reverses. Statistics seem to bear that out too. Washington has more hate crimes than Texas in TOTAL number not per capita in both 2020 and 2021. Oregon outdoes both per capita.
Im not a fan of political extremes so Portland would never be on my list of places to move to. Seattle is a lot more diverse so that helps it.
My perception of the Portland and much of the Pacific Northwest is that its where the far left meets the far right. Its been a hotbed for both. In the city of Portland, obviously the far left far outdoes the far right but in areas outside the city that reverses. Statistics seem to bear that out too. Washington has more hate crimes than Texas in TOTAL number not per capita in both 2020 and 2021. Oregon outdoes both per capita.
Im not a fan of political extremes so Portland would never be on my list of places to move to. Seattle is a lot more diverse so that helps it.
I think that's a good description...far left meets far right...I'm neither so yeah Portland just doesn't not attractive to me.
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