Thanks, Karol, for an insightful post.

Regarding... "The Black woman who blogs on BlueO" -- we've just been joined by former state rep. Jo Ann Bowman. She hasn't posted her inaugural post yet, but we're excited to have her aboard!

Karol,

I absolutely agree -- I'm not sure how to have that conversation, but as Portlanders, we really need to have it.

The historian Richard White said that the history of the Pacific Northwest is the history of race. In many ways, that is true. It is the history of Native American groups pushed off of their land and denied their traditions. It is the history of thousands of Northwestern Japanese Americans who were forced into internment camps. It is the history of the 1920's KKK chapter in La Grande, one of the largest in the nation. It is the history of African-Americans who forged a community following the devastation of Vanport but who remain segregated through economic and cultural isolation. It is the history of Latino communities who are used for their labor and not respected for their valuable contributions. It is also the history of the entire state of Oregon, which was founded in great part by white people who were trying to escape the South after the emancipation of African-Americans.

We think because we are majority white that we do not have a racial history -- we do. Thanks so much for shining a light on our need to talk about it.

Not too long ago I thought that Portland and most of the educated class of America was over racial discrimination. Sure there were bigots in the South and in older generations. Yes there were skin heads in Portland, but for the most part I thought we were well past it. The fact that Obama won a white state like Iowa really proved to me that we as a nation had moved past our past.

During the discussions about Barack's prior visit to Portland last fall I read comments that the only reason white folks went to hear and support Obama was because of white guilt. That bothered me because I knew it wasn't true of me and it was a discordant message after the inspiration of the candidate. Then came Ferraro's claim that Barack was lucky he was black and she was attacked because she was white. Then the reaction to Obama's pastor.

I am convinced that Ferraro does not believe she is a racist and many of those who are attacking Obama because he stayed in the church with a pastor that offended them also believe that they are not racist. I can see how whites and blacks look at the same statements and hear different messages. To me Ferraro was offensive and she just doesn't get it. I am more sensitized by my support of Obama to how different people hear Ferraro's comments, how she sends the message to whites that blacks have an unfair advantage because they have preferences (because she believes that). Yet I am offended because it implies that my candidate is an affirmative action candidate, not just the far superior person for the job that I see.

The complaints against pastor Wright also come from many who attend churches that say offensive things against gays or Muslims, but don't see any problem with their pastor. They truly seem unable to walk in the other man's shoes.

My hope remains that we can get past this. The younger generation, as shown by the outpouring support for Obama, is my hope. I have three children in college and they describe a different scene on campuses. They live in multi-racial communities, date outside their race, and they and their friends generally seem to have moved past our past. I am truly inspired by Obama, the more so because of his talk on Tuesday. I am hopeful, but anxious, that he will be able to lead our country to a better place, if only we will let him.

Karol, this winter I went to a forum at Concordia College, actually a lecture and q/a on gentrification by Prof. Nathan McCall in support of his new book, Them. The audience was, I'd say, 70% black, with a healthy representation of hispanics as well. It was a real breath of fresh air -- it really drove home how rare it is in my Portland life to be in a discussion where I (white) am in the racial minority. Hearing/reading analysis is one thing, but an opportunity to see/hear/feel the emotion of an ethnic group is something else entirely. I grew up in a much more multicultural area (Boston) which had its own shortcomings, but the fact that you didn't need to seek out multicultural experiences is something I miss. I'll be looking for that kind of event in the future (I think that was part of a monthly series, that may still be going on) and hope there are many more to come.

As for the Obama speech, I was very impressed. To paraphrase Jon Stewart, he actually addressed the American people as though they were adults. He actually rose to the defense of someone he loves, and rejected the notion that his defense constituted an endorsement of the man's views. What novel concepts. It's the sort of thing we all do in our daily lives, but...we can't understand that a politician might approach things in a similar way?! Says who?

While I will definitely agree that the issue of race and division in Portland, and Oregon as a whole (it's a huge part of most of what I focus my time on), I'd like to point out that this discussion HAS been happening, with intent and purpose in many areas of this city and by many people. I love the fact that Obama's words have put the spotlight on this, but it does a disservice to those who have been talking and working for a long time, from all different communities to think that it's not happening. What has to happen now is for that conversation to come into the mainstream and to widen. And as someone mentioned earlier, we have GOT to stop being afraid of offending someone in this conversation. For me, as a white person, to be so caught up in being afraid that I might offend someone of color with an honest conversation, is incredibly disrespectful of that person. It's as if I have decided that they are not strong enough, or can't handle it. Well, when did I get to decide that? Am I so afraid of looking my own history in the eye that I'm going to project it onto someone else and convince myself that THEY are the ones who can't deal with it?

We think because we are majority white that we do not have a racial history -- we do

So true. One of the greatest "priviledges" that I, as a white person, get to enjoy is not having to think about myself as white. For some reason, white is not a color, and so I am not reminded of that everyday in some way or other. Someone mentioned police incidents earlier; a perfect example. White people in this country/state/city honestly do not have to think about race, unless it's specifically brought to their attention. We really, truly can choose not to think about it. The society in which we live reinforces that. We are the "norm"; it's everyone else who is "different."

Thank you for this post Karol. As usual, hoest and insightful.

Here is my confession about race: I rarely think about it. And when it does impact me, it's often fleeting.

Is this bad? I have no idea.

I do remember the original reaction Lupita and I had, 12 years ago, coming into a popular Beaverton diner. We were just up from the Bay Area, normal California, and went in for breakfast. Two things just floored us: you could buy a plate of food large enough to feed a whole family for less than $6, and the place was so white I felt like I was snowblind. No african-americans. No asian-americans. Hell, not even latinos in the kitchen. Nothing. Just pure unadulterated white.

A few things have changed in the last decade. There are more latinos now. But outside of a few Portland districts and some high-tech, I just don't see much color. Which is too bad.

Maybe it's the Berkley boy still in me, but the whole thing still strikes me as just damned unnatural. I like my people like TV: in full living color.

Portlanders might want to check out the Restorative Listening Project. Its specific focus is gentrification but it's inevitably mostly a conversation about race. The Nathan McCall talk mentioned earlier was a special event in that series.

I do want to disagree with Karol on one point. This is not a safe place to talk about race. The more honest the conversation the more emotionally challenging people will find it. Go back and read the threads here about the proposed renaming of Interstate Avenue if you don't believe me.

It's a measure of how bad things are that Barack Obama's speech was so truly extraordinary when all he did was speak honestly about what by rights should be the most trivially obvious facts about race as we experience it in the USA.

I attended the most recent gathering in the listening project series and those of us who were there got some really good advice.

One white participant was waxing rhapsodic about how rewarding he had found it to speak to/smile at a couple of black people because they had returned his greeting in kind.

Charles Ford, who has managed over the years to become Portland's iconic elderly irascible black man, said: "You might get cussed out you know. Do it anyway. I've been cussed out a few times. You know what I did? I got over it. That's what you have to do. Get over it."

If you ask me, Mr. Ford hit on the key to whether or not we can have real transformative conversations about race in Portland Oregon. If a substantial number of those of us who consider ourselves progressives/liberals can leave the defensiveness behind, then it can happen. If not, then Barack Obama is ahead of his time and change is another generation or more down the road.

Way to get the ball rolling, Karol!

I've been pondering Obama's speech and the very rich subject of race in America since he gave it. (Actually, Karol and I were emailing a bit about it, which was a blast.) I'd like to throw something out there that's topical, and I wonder if others have a similar or contrasting experience.

Since the Wright affair blew up, I've had a number of discussions--with a mostly white and totally non-black cohort--where we feel there's something a little weird going on. Aside from the impolitic ways in which he expressed it, was the substance of Wright's critique really that far off the mark? Is it really a shocker to suggest that rich whites run the show in America? Or that blacks have gotten screwed? And is it really so unreasonable to think that these violate the very sense of what we think "America" should stand for?

We've lived in a time when self-appointed defenders of patriotism have defined what it means to be American and how one should act. I'm a white male, but I've chafed mightily at those descriptions. When I heard Wright's comments, I recognized that they were political gasoline, but his anger--after DeLay and Rove and Cheney and Rummy and Ashcroft and on and on--was something I strongly related to.

I know it's not possible to defend Wright in the US in 2008, and all things being equal, I don't want to. But Obama had it right when he said that there's a context to outrage. I just wonder if more whites didn't instinctively understand that context than are admitting publically.

Obama on race in 1990...

The link doesn't go anywhere, Karol.

The link just has an extra "http://" -- if you delete that out, you can still get to the article.

Doretta, thanks for providing the name of that series -- I was racking my brain for that!

I love timing. I have no idea which listserve or information site I belong to sent me this email today but it appears to be a fantastic organization and idea.

National, regional and local racial issues have long brought feelings of anger, fear and despair to many Americans. This week's political scene has raised these issues again. Although people of good will recognize these problems, they may feel powerless to address or correct them. Are you one of these people? Do you wish to address this issue in a "safe" peaceful way? ERACE promotes ERACISM by providing a forum for concerned citizens to come together to face the difficult and painful subject of racism.
The purpose of ERACE is to create an atmosphere where people feel free to explore perceptions, assumptions and biases without fear of ridicule or personal attack. Within the ERACE setting, people can open their hearts and minds by questioning others and themselves in structured conversations with an experienced Facilitator.

ERACE, is a grass-roots all volunteer group that was started by a Black woman and White woman in New Orleans

This is their site: ERASE

Kevin, I'm not a link-master, to be sure. I found the story on slate.com.

buckman

I suspect you will, if you use that sort of language. There is nothing at all "bigoted" about affirmative action. While you may object to the policy, or argue that the costs of the policy outweigh the benefits, the policy was adopted for precisely the opposite reasons than bigotry. Affirmative action was adopted under the Johnson administration to address real inequities in hiring practices that pervaded our society.

In the spirit of productive discourse, if you want a more reasoned argument against affirmative action, I point you to the work of Paul Sniderman, who argues less against the policy, but states that the damage that the policy does by creating white racial resentment outweighs its benefits.

I will also note that the esteemed Senator from Illinois seems familiar with this branch of social science literature.

Hi Bridget, Thank you for sharing your story from the library. I often jump to conclusions when I see people grab for their purse or don't want to sit with me on the bus when there is an open seat next to me. I realize many times its a selfish reaction on my part; people have their own business to worry about.

As much as people need to talk about some institutional forms of racism, there are times when its simply not the case. No one should feel bad for being any color and you should not feel bad for being white. Its a matter of birth and evolution and it is up to us how we handle it. You feeling bad does nothing and my feeling bad does nothing and that is what breeds this resentment.

Raising our children in the way you mention is the way to go, but I think its important to teach history as well, to remind us how far we've come and how far we can go.

Bridget's story and Karol's response illustrate in a benign setting a principle that also applies in more questionable circumstances: that part of our struggle is with the gap between intentions and effects, as well as differing perceptions of them.

White people, especially when feeling defensive, often focus on their intentions -- "it was just a joke," "I didn't mean anything by it." People on the wrong end of racism in general will tend to focus on the effects, and often infer intention from effect.

Bridget's story is particularly interesting in a couple of ways. One is that it's not typical of many such situations -- she wasn't doing something dodgy & then trying to deny any problem. She was doing what all us white people need to, treat everyone considerately. The other thing is that she was sharp enough and paying attention enough to the man in question to see his feelings, and to speak to him. If more of us had / did these three things: treat people the same, with consideration, pay attention to how our actions affect other people, and communicate when the effects warrant it, it would go a long way on the small-scale interpersonal level.

To my mind Bridget's actions were both not racist to start with, and also anti-racist in that she was aware enough of what really does happen to correctly interpret the black man's reaction and to reach out to reassure him in a way that focused on his burden (the books, but also the doubt) rather than her own feeling-bad at the misunderstanding.

Everything she did right I think illuminates places where things (and white people) go wrong. We can have difficulties acknowledging black people, acting toward them in a normal or courteous way, paying attention to signals about how they are feeling, and with self-consciousness about any of the foregoing.

Quite some time ago now, I recognized a habitual pattern of behavior that dismayed and ashamed me: that in situations of crossing paths with another person, going through doorways and the like, often I acted differently and less politely to black people than white people. It was not conscious in the sense of thinking "I'm white so I get to go first," but the effect was the same as if I had been thinking that.

Rather, I realized, on some level I was acting as if they weren't there -- a version or a piece of what Ralph Ellison wrote about in Invisible Man. The intention didn't matter to the people I was affecting, but it did matter to the problem I needed to fix.

If I had consciously been thinking I had a right to precedence due to white skin, I would have needed to work on that attitude. But instead, on one level I was just being rude, and I needed to work on that, and on another level, I needed to work on whatever weird psychological dynamic was causing me to see-but-not-see the black persons when this happened and then act as if they were not there.

I don't act that way anymore. But I think it has a bearing on what a couple of people have said about not being conscious of race most of the time, or the tendency to think of whiteness as raceless, the cultural default in a sense. I think a piece of these kinds of microdymamics is that we tend to live pretty segregated lives, but whites much more so than blacks, Asians, latinos, Native Americans, so that when we encounter a person of another race we are taken by surprise, suddenly have to think about something we are aware of somewhere in our minds -- if someone brought it up in conversation we'd know what they were talking about -- but not in our usual social interactions.

So we often act abnormally, either with excessive self-consciousness, or desire to avoid interaction, or both. My pseudo-invisibility reaction was one type of avoidance. Fears may sometimes be for personal safety but I think often may be of doing something wrong, thereby causing that. Or it can take the form of excessive engagement, greeting a stranger in a weird half-hearted way that one wouldn't do if the stranger were white (more outgoing people than me may not have this problem).

To my mind Portland's and the PNW's demographics probably make this kind of issue more frequent as casual stranger social interactions are less frequent. On the flip side, they may reduce certain kinds of white fears of being or ending up in a minority situation. In some places in Oregon that is changing with respect to latino populations in particular & that change is bringing fears to the fore that contribute to some of the uglier aspects of the immigration debates.

Bridget, I don't think you need to feel bad about being white, nor anyone else. Some of us may need at times to feel bad about the way we act, and change it. You give the impression of probably being someone who takes people as they come, and being considerate, aware and self-possessed, so that may not be an issue for you. But unfortunately you share an identity with a lot of people who do have things to work on, and whose actions are going to result in responses from black people or others that may not be quite fair to you personally, but are understandable and largely unavoidable I think. I understand the feeling that you shouldn't have to deal with this (a feeling you share I'm sure in a somewhat different way with a lot of members of racial minorities), and it's good to share the feeling here I think. But I hope you don't let it detract your attention from the ultimate source.

Karol, I'm not sure if this kind of thing is what you have in mind, clearly there are whole other dimensions at the level of politics, social life (e.g. neighborhoods etc.), culture and so on that also need to be part of a discussion. Anyway, I hope it doesn't become too burdensome for you to listen to this kind of stuff from white folks -- ultimately they are our problems that we have to deal with in order to stop making them black people's problem.

Slightly meta on my previous comment: I focused on actions deliberately. There are three reasons. First is that changing actions is what affects other people most directly. Second is that in self-examination, unrecognized actions can be a little easier to bring into view, and provoke thinking about attitudes, beliefs etc. different from just focusing on "what I think." Third is that actions can be changed.

The changeability piece is terribly important, I believe. In my view, one of the obstacles to talking about race and even more about racism is that in our culture we tend to treat personal racism as an existential and binary condition. You either are a racist, or you are not. And there is a tendency to talk about that as if it's a permanent and thoroughgoing condition.

Since pretty much people now see being a racist as a bad thing, and they don't want to think of themselves in that way, this leads to a lot of denial. And it obstructs self-examination and change, because it feels like one is being asked to take on a huge burden of bad feeling.

But if we change the question from "Am I (or is he or she) a racist," to "Do I do racist things, have racist reactions, use racist thought patterns" that do not define my whole being, that makes the task of change seem less daunting and doesn't require trying to start from the slough of despond. IMO.