An interesting read...
Stumbled onto this this morning:
http://www.blueoregon.com/2008/05/this-morning-in.html
What made Obama's crowd turnout in Portland and his win in Oregon both monumental is the fact that Oregon is overall a fairly ethnic unfriendly state. I moved to southern Oregon in 1990, Coos Bay to be exact, and I lived there for several months before I figured out there were very few non-white residents there. How this escaped me for so long is beyond me... but when I asked about it, someone informed me the KKK was still active in Oregon, especially southern and coastal Oregon. Hmph, how did I miss THAT? This explains why Hillary campaigned heavily in southern Oregon. Let's face it, she's an Arkanas girl & she knows how things work, so she headed straight for the largely uneducated, bigoted small town Oregonians to seek her supporters. What Obama pulled off here means more than people know. Admittedly things are slightly better in Portland, it holds more educated people, and that opens doors for non-whites on some levels, but things are not equal here no matter how much people want to claim that they are. For a black man to attract 75,000 people to hear him speak... falls into the witnessing a miracle category in this state.
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Even in Portland, I mean if you're a black driving a nice car cops think you're up to no good and you get shot to death then tasered soooo...
I still remember one of the doctors I saw, forgot which one now as I saw so many there (one of the pulmonologists I think), saying something along the lines of when he moved there from a city that was very diverse someone warned him it's all white and you'll only see a few blacks and they were all moved there to work for the Trailblazers.
I do think Portland has come a long way as it wasn't that long ago (the 80s I think?) when they were really bad and had national stories about the racist groups there. Other cities in OR too are doing better. But get away from the cities, and yeah...