Monday, November 14, 2016

At last, the Oregon myth revealed in national press

I thought you might like this story from The Washington Post.
http://wapo.st/2fKV8MC

"When Oregon was admitted into the Union in 1859, it was founded as a white utopia, the only state with black exclusion laws written into its Constitution — language that voters didn’t take action to remove until 2000. The Ku Klux Klan found a stronghold in Oregon well through the 1920s, and a code of ethics for local real estate agents prohibited housing sales to nonwhites. Housing discrimination was finally outlawed in 1957.

The contentious presidential race and the election of Trump, whose campaign has energized white supremacists, seems to have provided an opportunity for Oregon’s racial tensions to surface. A local high school was roiled last week after a commenter on the 2017 class’s Facebook page suggested that students create a “Ku Klux Klub.” On Election Day, dozens of students at a high school in a town north of Salem gathered with pro-Trump signs, displayed a Confederate flag and shouted comments including “Pack your bags, you’re leaving tomorrow” to Hispanic students, the Salem Statesman Journal reported.

“Oregon is very rural and racist, even though we perpetuate progressiveness,” Teressa Raiford, a Black Lives Matter protester and organizer of Don’t Shoot Portland, said Thursday night."

posted from Bloggeroid

No comments:

Post a Comment