We are all told and hopefully aspire to the idea that race doesn't matter, we shouldn't pay attention to it, that we should be color-blind. Then we have a topic about Oregon not being as racially diverse as other states---with the apparent motivation of:
-How could Oregon possibly not be a racist place because it isn't diverse?
-Or how could Oregonians possibly have a discussion about race when it is mostly white people?

In other words suggesting: how could you and why would you "say no to drugs" if you have never taken them and don't know what they are like. Yes, many people can learn not to be racists and bigots without being submerged in a melting pot. Some people have the intelligence and wherewithal to be good inclusive people, simply because they are smart enough to be so.

How ironic, we want to be color blind, but now we are told we can't be, because we aren't diverse enough. People who say this are essentially saying white Oregonians are to blame for the lack of diversity. Not history, geography, or the plausible fact that many minorities may not want to move to Oregon because they don't like the culture. Statistically many minorities are some of the most bigoted groups in the country. Perhaps minorities don't want to move to a progressive, creative and open-minded place. Not to be silly, but many minorities might also not like the weather.

You ask: "How does being a part of a relatively homogeneous majority -- or a relatively small minority -- affect your life?" Well, it doesn't--- as color-blind people we wouldn't and shouldn't notice this.

Obama effigy hanging from a tree at George Fox College in Newberg, OR.
What more needs to be said about "The White State"!
Paul Paz

While I agree with scottmil's direction, I will sail on a different tack. I want to be color-blind too, but I stick out as a bi-racial, native-born Portlander.

I worked for a company that had nearly a thousand employees and there were always fewer than 10 "minority race" employees.

I've often been the lone "minority" where I've worked. I've wondered, “I sure as hell am not the only qualified minority employee so why aren't there more of us here?”

But I don't live in Oregon for its cultural diversity. Every few years I compile a pro and con list to rediscover why I do. I like many of the people I know here. I like the weather and the outdoors. But I don't expect Oregon to be something it isn't. If you don't like Oregon's lack of cultural diversity (at the present time) perhaps you should live elsewhere.

When I want an infusion of "otherness" I go traveling. I don't have to go far. Vancouver, B.C. has a large Asian population. San Francisco is culturally diverse too. I get a dose of "otherness" and return to Portland somewhat mollified, but deep down something is missing.

Oh well, I've been willing to pay that price for living in Portland thus far. Everywhere you go, there you are. By that I mean Portland is fine; maybe I'm not connecting with it.

In agreement with scottmil I've embarked on a journey of letting go the labels used to define me. I can use my racial identity label as a crutch or an excuse not to develop fully as a human. I strive to understand the causes of suffering so I can eliminate them.

But overdue attention to race, not dealing with race, arguing about race in ways that don't create a better life leads to more suffering.

Unfortunately there are people in Oregon, of all races, who are not color blind and who are not focused on reaching a higher state of awareness. They point fingers, swear at, or attack those who are not like them.

Since I'm considered black by the naive and inexperienced, I watch my step. I've got to be aware of where I am. I have to know my place. As much as I want to be color blind, I find myself looking over my shoulder and that is tiresome.

It's also hard to ignore that my inter-racial parents couldn't get married in Oregon in the 1950s. I've read that black families couldn't buy houses in Raleigh Hills in the early 1960s. I've been threatened in the work place by people who were intolerant of my “race” in the 1980s. One guy proclaimed, “I'm not going to work with a nigger.” Fortunately, there were witnesses so it wasn't just my word against his. Hey, I've got no control over my racial composition, leave me alone!

You might say, “Trurl9, all that bogus crap happened yesterday.” Yes, I agree with you, but the underlying problems still exist today and that's why race problems remain intransigent.

But every day I strive to understand and eliminate the causes of suffering. I work around, and seek to forgive those who haven't found the enlightenment or color blindness I strive for.

I've been to other countries and hung out with foreign cultures to better understand that we're all trying to make it through the Universe.

Whites in Oregon don't have a vocabulary for being in the minority. They may become frustrated when race pops up and slaps them when they feel they've done nothing to provoke it. However, sometimes the mere presence of white people is considered a provocation, and that saddens me.

But consider that minority groups tend to be oppressed in numerous ways. In the case of blacks who bear the stigma of 400+ years of unequal and destructive oppression, could there be deep psychological issues that keep blacks and whites from living together effectively? I think that is the case.

Our culture has an untreated psychosis affecting blacks and whites.
Blacks and whites don't trust each other. Blacks and whites are afraid of each other. So far we've brokered a tense tolerance bounded by positive results from the civil rights movement. But we are not close to being integrated or as effective as we can be.

Over time I've learned that I'm neither black nor white. Like Obama I've been in situations where I haven't been white or black enough. I've learned to extract myself from such limitations but they tediously crop up occasionally.

What most people don't realize or discuss is that race is not only a condition of appearance, more importantly, it's a state of mind.

The racial make up of a state is due to its history. Oregon would be far more diverse today were it not for the harsh treatment of the Native Americans and the expulsion of the Japanese. I believe strongly that the vicious reaction to renaming the Interstate to Cesar Chavez boulevard had a racial component to it. The white majority are uncomfortable with the presence of brown skinned, black haired people speaking a different language. If the Native Americans had not been killed off or "removed", white Oregonians might not be so bothered by the Hispanics, many of whom are Indians or of Indian descent.

I am a person of color living in Eugene, I have lived in Portland and Sacramento. I don't like living in a town where most everything in business and politics is created by, directed toward, and made to benefit people without color as they are the clear majority. Businesses and politicians have no need to appeal to a diverse audience because it wouldn't help them in the long run. I notice the lack of differing viewpoints and backgrounds, things that I regard as highly beneficial to a worth-while community.

This viewpoint is egregious and racist. To suggest that because there are a majority of white people that automatically means they are all bigoted and racist. Do you propose people should not go to certain areas of Atlanta or Chicago, or for that matter Africa because everything is made to benefit people with color? Do you have something to back your bigotry up?

What Jess W is getting at is the idea of 'white privilege' or institutional racism which is something that white U.S. Americans often get nervous about, feel guilty about, or reject. This is not a personal slam against white people or any race. It is just a fact that in most places in the U.S. (not all, however), white people have structural and historical privileges. The privilege is not asked for or earned, it just is. That is the first step to helping different races get along.

I have attended many Duck football games in Eugene, and think that black athletes are regarded as gladiators or animals rather than humans. When plays are going well during games, fans are out of their seats cheering. When mistakes are made, some fans have been heard saying (to paraphrase), "that f'n N%&&*#".

While a visit to Portland quickly reminds one that it is the whitest place many of us have ever seen, the suburbs, such as Beaverton and Hillsboro are quite diverse. Whites in Beaverton class rooms are frequently a minority. Asians and Latinos being the largest groups represented.

I think Oregon (and Portland specifically) sticks out in its whiteness because so many people claim an appreciation of diversity. This was discussed at "The Restorative Listening Project", an ongoing conversation about gentrification in North and Northeast Portland. White people like the idea of diversity, but we're such a white culture here, it's hard to know exactly what diversity in Oregon looks like.

Portland "sticks out in its whiteness," yes, because it is such a progressive place and somehow the lopsided views of certain and many progressives, that if a place isn't diverse it is an indication of a serious racist component. This view is overblown and irrational. Instead of helping what racism might be here, I propose it makes it worse. Because people don't like to be labeled as things they are not, and this creates resentment and probably pushes people with a borderline problem over the edge because they fight back irrationally.

It's not that a lopsided population makeup means racism, more that it's difficult to have a real appreciation for diversity when it isn't present.

Sorry, my writing wasn't clear---I wasn't suggesting that a lopsided population means racism at all. What I was saying is that many try to suggest that it indicates a racist population. This suggestion is a terrible one, with no foundation. It automatically infers that people in countries without racial diversity, perhaps because of strict immigration policies are flawed and bigoted and cannot possibly be anything but racists---which is ridiculous.

I certainly think racial diversity can in many ways force people, through simple function of exposure, to be more familiar with other cultures and races, but it certainly isn't always a prescription to cure bigotry or even necessary to do so.
So, you cannot possibly assume Oregon is more racist then other places because of its lack of diversity---there is no logical foundation to do so.

Here i must fully agree with your well stated point. "racial diversity can in many ways force people, through simple function of exposure, to be more familiar with other cultures and races, but it certainly isn't always a prescription to cure bigotry or even necessary to do so.
So, you cannot possibly assume Oregon is more racist then other places because of its lack of diversity---there is no logical foundation to do so."
--- Definitely!!! Maybe I need to read through your entire posts before responding. *heh*

From Portland, OR.
"We're color blind" is a cliche with absolutely no meaning. To pay no mind to a person's racial experience, to be 'color blind' is as much an injustice as using one's own racial status as a power lever (if possible for that individual). It is a part of white privilege to be able to 'ignore' race. When someone is a minority in a state where people who look like them and have similar racial experiences are relegated to living in certain areas, defacto segregated schools, limited variation within the minority population and, with the help of main-stream media, stereotyped by the majority at large, ignoring race becomes very difficult (unless they're just asleep).
The new direction in social studies is a crucial step in helping us understand the socio-historic context of race and how it relates to our current affairs. To engage in or examine our current polity without making connections to the past and how that past affects our social fabric today is a travesty. Being "color blind" is like writing the 'dark side' of American / Oregon history out of the books. Sorry Scotty Mills, bad take.

So, Profess, do you propose that everyone in a place that isn't diverse racially is racist? How is that not a bigoted, overreaching and cliched viewpoint? Those views apply to mediocrity.

There are many people who indeed do not care about racial history, cultural history, religious history or any other matter-of-fact history. Many people don't concern themselves with these things because they find them boring, uninteresting and superfluous---preferring to focus on substantive issues and the meat of the individuals personalities, their ideas, their philosophies, their creativity, not the bourgeois crap they can't change and were born into.

Yes, it makes sense to analyze these things if they directly relate to the subject at hand. I personally, don't care much about my own personal history, my own culture, my own race, my religious history---I try to be defined as loosely as I can by these things, because they are indeed trivial. This is not because I have white privilege, it is because I decided at a young age to try not to conform. Generally, the people I admire the most pay little attention to these things, because they are busy with bigger and better ideas.

Clearly, I used color-blind as a cliche and in a sarcastic manner.

"White privilege" is also a terrible and insulting stereotype. People who use it are as guilty of bigotry as the people they are attempting to defend.

...On white privilege...

White privilege is a sociological concept which describes advantages purportedly enjoyed by white persons beyond what is commonly experienced by the non-white people in those same social, political, and economic spaces (nation, community, workplace, income, etc.). It differs from racism or prejudice in that a person benefiting from white privilege does not necessarily hold racist beliefs or prejudices themselves. Often, the person benefiting is unaware of his or her supposed privilege.

1. I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.

2. I can avoid spending time with people whom I was trained to mistrust and who have learned to mistrust my kind or me.

3. If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area which I can afford and in which I would want to live.

4. I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant to me.

5. I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.

6. I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.

7. When I am told about our national heritage or about "civilization," I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.

8. I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.

9. If I want to, I can be pretty sure of finding a publisher for this piece on white privilege.

10. I can be pretty sure of having my voice heard in a group in which I am the only member of my race.

11. I can be casual about whether or not to listen to another person's voice in a group in which s/he is the only member of his/her race.

12. I can go into a music shop and count on finding the music of my race represented, into a supermarket and find the staple foods which fit with my cultural traditions, into a hairdresser's shop and find someone who can cut my hair.

13. Whether I use checks, credit cards or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of financial reliability.

14. I can arrange to protect my children most of the time from people who might not like them.

15. I do not have to educate my children to be aware of systemic racism for their own daily physical protection.

16. I can be pretty sure that my children's teachers and employers will tolerate them if they fit school and workplace norms; my chief worries about them do not concern others' attitudes toward their race.

17. I can talk with my mouth full and not have people put this down to my color.

18. I can swear, or dress in second hand clothes, or not answer letters, without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty or the illiteracy of my race.

19. I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my race on trial.

20. I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.

21. I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.

22. I can remain oblivious of the language and customs of persons of color who constitute the world's majority without feeling in my culture any penalty for such oblivion.

23. I can criticize our government and talk about how much I fear its policies and behavior without being seen as a cultural outsider.

24. I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to the "person in charge", I will be facing a person of my race.

25. If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven't been singled out because of my race.

26. I can easily buy posters, post-cards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys and children's magazines featuring people of my race.

27. I can go home from most meetings of organizations I belong to feeling somewhat tied in, rather than isolated, out-of-place, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance or feared.

28. I can be pretty sure that an argument with a colleague of another race is more likely to jeopardize her/his chances for advancement than to jeopardize mine.

29. I can be pretty sure that if I argue for the promotion of a person of another race, or a program centering on race, this is not likely to cost me heavily within my present setting, even if my colleagues disagree with me.

30. If I declare there is a racial issue at hand, or there isn't a racial issue at hand, my race will lend me more credibility for either position than a person of color will have.

31. I can choose to ignore developments in minority writing and minority activist programs, or disparage them, or learn from them, but in any case, I can find ways to be more or less protected from negative consequences of any of these choices.

32. My culture gives me little fear about ignoring the perspectives and powers of people of other races.

33. I am not made acutely aware that my shape, bearing or body odor will be taken as a reflection on my race.

34. I can worry about racism without being seen as self-interested or self-seeking.

35. I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having my co-workers on the job suspect that I got it because of my race.

36. If my day, week or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether it had racial overtones.

37. I can be pretty sure of finding people who would be willing to talk with me and advise me about my next steps, professionally.

38. I can think over many options, social, political, imaginative or professional, without asking whether a person of my race would be accepted or allowed to do what I want to do.

39. I can be late to a meeting without having the lateness reflect on my race.

40. I can choose public accommodation without fearing that people of my race cannot get in or will be mistreated in the places I have chosen.

41. I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help, my race will not work against me.

42. I can arrange my activities so that I will never have to experience feelings of rejection owing to my race.

43. If I have low credibility as a leader I can be sure that my race is not the problem.

44. I can easily find academic courses and institutions which give attention only to people of my race.

45. I can expect figurative language and imagery in all of the arts to testify to experiences of my race.

46. I can chose blemish cover or bandages in "flesh" color and have them more or less match my skin.

47. I can travel alone or with my spouse without expecting embarrassment or hostility in those who deal with us.

48. I have no difficulty finding neighborhoods where people approve of our household.

49. My children are given texts and classes which implicitly support our kind of family unit and do not turn them against my choice of domestic partnership.

50. I will feel welcomed and "normal" in the usual walks of public life, institutional and social.

Thanks, for the list mainly describing the functional outcome of what it means to be a majority and minority of any color in any place---and accounts of what it means, or feels like, to be discriminated against. It adds nothing substantive to what has been said.

I want to make sure this response gets posted, I didn't see that my previous one did. I completely agree with you here. The term "white privilege" is a misnomer and should properly be called "majority privilege". It seems I agree with you more than I initially thought. You make another well stated point.

This whole list comes down to being a minority. When you're a minority, you're different from most of the other people around you by definition. You could be a different race, or a different religion, or whatever.

This whole "white privilege" thing is a manipulation. It's an attempt to make "everyone a minority." But everyone isn't, and that's just a fact about life.

It seems to me that there are more productive things to do than to cut-and-paste long lists like this into the discussion. If I'm willing to treat everyone I meet with initial kindness and respect, that ought to be enough.

What else do you want? Please reply with specificity. What do you want us to do?

Positive individual interactions demolish most people's concepts of racism. Treating everyone we meet with respect should be a mode of operation for all of us. I think that is what I and most people want, I think there is little more we (as individuals) can do. These are things I fully agree with you about.

As for why I 'cut and paste' items into posts, it was an attempt to bring light to some elusive aspects of "majority privilege" that were in question. I could have referenced the many books on my shelf at home to get the same or similar information, but chose to use the speed and efficiency of the internet instead. The concept of "white / majority privilege" is not meant to prey on anyone's guilt. It describes dynamics that are not relegated to individuals, but to characteristics inherent in majority / minority situations. Re-read the definition I posted at the top of the list. Knowledge of these dynamics can and should help buffer our individual interactions and help us understand how others might feel under various circumstances.

I have some questions about your most recent response kraznayazvezda, what is a 'hyper-intellectual'? When was there an attempt to 'draft' you into an ideological project? What groups outside whites are not considered minorities? 

Any examination of our country's history will reveal that the concept of whiteness with regard to race explicitly excludes all other races. You are correct, everyone isn't a (racial) minority, just those who differ from the (racial) majority. Believe me, I know these dynamics don't apply strictly to whites and racial minorities but to any majority / minority circumstance. I have seen the situation inverted from the norm with similar results (one white male in a sea of people not like him, being deprived of some of the benefits listed above, having to mentally adjust). Speading awareness and empathy for how others may feel is the only scam I have going in trying to elaborate on majority / white privilege. Hope it works.

Words like "white privilege" are a scam. They're part of a hyper-intellectual superstructure of racial theory designed to prey on white guilt.

I don't pick on people based on what color they are. I try to treat everyone I meet with respect and kindness. That's what I'm supposed to do, and I do it.

If that's not "enough," then too bad. I don't choose to be "drafted" into anyone's ideological project.

As a newcomer (within the last two months) I was surprised by the whiteness of the gay community. I have not seen but a handful of blacks or latinos in gay events and rarely asians. Are gays more racists than other groups in Portland?