Why Aren't There More Black People In Oregon?

Walidah Imarisha

Walidah Imarisha spoke Tuesday at the third annual Governing for Racial Equity conference in Northeast Portland in a Northeast Portland hotel ballroom Tuesday morning.  Imarisha, is a Portland-based writer and educator. 

Imarisha took  the podium at the third annual Governing for Racial Equity conference to talk about the narrative of Portland as a "progressive mecca" and to answer the question, "Why aren't there more black people in Oregon?

"Oregon represents a "useful case study" of the policies of institutional racism, exclusion and containment. Oregon is unique only in the fact that they wrote it down," she said, referencing policies from a century ago that barred most people of color from owning property. 

Imarisha talked about the state's entrance to the union and how pioneers codified the exclusion of blacks into the state constitution. She talked about Vanport

and the legacy of redlining minorities into specific areas of the city, of the impact construction of Emanuel Hospital and Veterans Coliseum had on black neighborhoods. 

Redlining is the practice of denying, or charging more for, services such as banking, insurance, access to health care, or even supermarkets or denying jobs to residents in particular, often racially determined, areas.

She pointed out, Portland and Oregon still have communities of color because earlier generations stayed and fought for change. "Communities of color don't need saviors," she said, "We need allies."

Read the original article:

Racial equity: Government workers from around the U.S. get brief lesson in Oregon's checkered past