Afro Carribean moving to Portland (live, rated, best)

[mindspring78]

My best friend and I are planning to move to Portland. I am from New York City and she's from upstate NY. I've been reading posts and replys about other Afro American/Carribean inquiring about the state of diversity in the city. Most replys praised the city for being progressive and tolerant but mostly white, and a few people had negative experiences. I would really appreciate if residents of Portland would offer a little more insight about their city in terms of diversity, and how welcoming do you think people really are. Do residents feel uncomfortable, insecure, or ignorant in their interactions with a black person?

[PNW-type-gal]

Originally Posted by mindspring78

My best friend and I are planning to move to Portland. I am from New York City and she's from upstate NY. I've been reading posts and replys about other Afro American/Carribean inquiring about the state of diversity in the city. Most replys praised the city for being progressive and tolerant but mostly white, and a few people had negative experiences. I would really appreciate if residents of Portland would offer a little more insight about their city in terms of diversity, and how welcoming do you think people really are. Do residents feel uncomfortable, insecure, or ignorant in their interactions with a black person?

The entire Pacific Northwest (including Seattle) is predominately white/Caucasian (I think it's somewhere between 85-90%, with the largest minority being the generic "Asian/Pacific Islander"). The advantage of this is that racial tensions are fairly low because there aren't a lot of clashes. The disadvantage of this is, I believe, people think that the city is racially integrated and tolerant when it really isn't. Not that the city is actively intolerant (because I don't think it is), but I think it's easy for the majority to overlook the problems of the minority.

And there is a small percentage of the population that I would describe as "backwoods boors" in opinion - they aren't the majority by any means, but they definitely exist here, as they do elsewhere. I've occasionally seen Confederate Flag on trucks and thought to myself "you boys are a long way north of the Mason-Dixon line for this."

Working in high tech, we had a lot of foreign-born coworkers, and the reports for them were varied. The ones who lived in the very metro and urban areas had fewer problems.