"The Air I Breathe: Growing up tolerated and underestimated in Portland"

"When I first left Portland after high school in the fall of 1996, I never thought I would come back. Growing up, I always had the sneaking suspicion that no one outside of the five or so blocks that made up my Northeast Portland neighborhood wanted me to be there. Portland did not appear to love me, its own son, but merely tolerated and continually underestimated me. So when I graduated from high school, I left and didn’t look back, until I was pulled back several years ago...

[In Philadelphia,] The story of African Americans is written, though perhaps apologetically, in permanent ink and projected on the walls of buildings and placards; it is carved in the statues and monuments of black people who make that city what it is.

All of these things brought about a new kind of social and emotional security that may be a given to most white Americans. A sense of belonging, a sense that one’s own interests are being looked out for and that the feelings and beliefs of one’s fellow citizens mirror those of one’s own, a sense that one belongs to a community. For a black person in Portland, this shared sense of history and belonging is notably absent...

For the first six months of third grade, I felt like an exhibit. It took that long for the other kids to realize that I was just as curious, interested, and articulate about the world as they were... When they found out I was familiar with the way they lived and breathed in the world, I began to make friends....

Perhaps the most difficult thing about living in Portland was the lack of an authentic visual and social acknowledgment, recognition, and appreciation of African American people. Without a historical anchor, I fear the potential of what Portland could be in the twenty-first century will be lost to the unrelenting pressure to maintain and preserve a very particular understanding of its history... Though there is no precedent for such large-scale social, political, and ethical reform, if there is any city that can investigate the anthill beneath its boot, it is Portland. It is for a purely selfish reason that I hold out hope that this city and the people who control it will chart a new course for the future. "

http://oregonhumanities.org/magazine/quandary-fall-winter-2014/the-air-i-breathe/925/

I am lucky not to feel the same about my almost-zero-black-people West Coast hometown (probably for class reasons), but there is certainly a sense that I am a transplant and now, having lived in 3 regions of the country that have a long history of black people, I am realizing that there are certain basic securities that I missed out on.

(but, yes, feeling like an exhibit... this happens to me constantly with new people, until they figure me out for  themselves)

Related: a short article about being black in Portland  that features a beautiful video made by this author