XPost: alt.culture.alaska, alt.appalachian, alt.politics.democrats.d   
   XPost: soc.culture.african.american   
   From: jon.ball@cocks.com   
      
   PORTLAND, Ore.— Victor Pierce has worked on the assembly line of   
   a Daimler Trucks North America plant here since 1994. But he   
   says that in recent years he’s experienced things that seem   
   straight out of another time. White co-workers have challenged   
   him to fights, mounted “hangman’s nooses” around the factory,   
   referred to him as “boy” on a daily basis, sabotaged his work   
   station by hiding his tools, carved swastikas in the bathroom,   
   and written the word “nigger” on walls in the factory, according   
   to allegations filed in a complaint to the Multnomah County   
   Circuit Court in February of 2015.   
      
   Pierce is one of six African Americans working in the Portland   
   plant whom the lawyer Mark Morrell is representing in a series   
   of lawsuits against Daimler Trucks North America. The cases have   
   been combined and a trial is scheduled for January of 2017.   
      
   “They have all complained about being treated poorly because of   
   their race,” Morrell told me. “It’s a sad story—it’s pretty ugly   
   on the floor there.” (Daimler said it could not comment on   
   pending litigation, but spokesman David Giroux said that the   
   company prohibits discrimination and investigates any   
   allegations of harassment.)   
      
   The allegations may seem at odds with the reputation of this   
   city known for its progressivism. But many African Americans in   
   Portland say they’re not surprised when they hear about racial   
   incidents in this city and state. That’s because racism has been   
   entrenched in Oregon, maybe more than any state in the north,   
   for nearly two centuries. When the state entered the union in   
   1859, for example, Oregon explicitly forbade black people from   
   living in its borders, the only state to do so. In more recent   
   times, the city repeatedly undertook “urban renewal” projects   
   (such as the construction of Legacy Emanuel Hospital) that   
   decimated the small black community that existed here. And   
   racism persists today. A 2011 audit found that landlords and   
   leasing agents here discriminated against black and Latino   
   renters 64 percent of the time, citing them higher rents or   
   deposits and adding on additional fees. In area schools, African   
   American students are suspended and expelled at a rate four to   
   five times higher than that of their white peers.   
      
   All in all, historians and residents say, Oregon has never been   
   particularly welcoming to minorities. Perhaps that’s why there   
   have never been very many. Portland is the whitest big city in   
   America, with a population that is 72.2 percent white and only   
   6.3 percent African American.   
      
   “I think that Portland has, in many ways, perfected neoliberal   
   racism,” Walidah Imarisha, an African American educator and   
   expert on black history in Oregon, told me. Yes, the city is   
   politically progressive, she said, but its government has   
   facilitated the dominance of whites in business, housing, and   
   culture. And white-supremacist sentiment is not uncommon in the   
   state. Imarisha travels around Oregon teaching about black   
   history, and she says neo-Nazis and others spewing sexually   
   explicit comments or death threats frequently protest her events.   
      
   Violence is not the only obstacle faced by black people in   
   Oregon. A 2014 report by Portland State University and the   
   Coalition of Communities of Color, a Portland non-profit, shows   
   black families lag far behind whites in the Portland region in   
   employment, health outcomes, and high-school graduation rates.   
   They also lag behind black families nationally. While annual   
   incomes for whites nationally and in Multnomah County, where   
   Portland is located, were around $70,000 in 2009, blacks in   
   Multnomah County made just $34,000, compared to $41,000 for   
   blacks nationally. Almost two-thirds of black single mothers in   
   Multnomah County with kids under five lived in poverty in 2010,   
   compared to half of black single mothers with kids under five   
   nationally. And just 32 percent of African Americans in   
   Multnomah County owned homes in 2010, compared to 60 percent of   
   whites in the county and 45 percent of blacks nationally.   
      
   In other words, Democrats are ignorant white racists.   
      
   https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/07/racist-   
   history-portland/492035/   
         
      
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