Eugene weekly., February 02, 2017, Page 14, Image 14

Although covert racism comprises a lot of intangible
characteristics like micro-aggressions, there are clearer
effects outside campus, such as the fact that there aren’t
really any cohesive communities for people of color in
Eugene. One of the first things King realized about Eugene
was that there were no ethnic neighborhoods. “There’s
not a Mexican neighborhood,” she says. “Where’s the
neighborhoods?”
She also found that there was no community for black
people outside of the church. “For black folks in Eugene
who aren’t religious, there’s no solidarity network and I feel
like that sort of depresses a lot of our blackness,” King says.
“I want to have a community connection with other black
folks, but I don’t want to have to go to church to get it.”
She adds: “Other places where I’ve lived, black folks,
we generally are happy people, enjoying life. Even if we’re
struggling, we have a community. I don’t feel that here.”
Eric Richardson is the president of the Eugene chapter
of the NAACP. As a person who also isn’t religious,
Richardson agrees that there is “no place to hang out with
black folks on a regular basis” outside of church.
WHITE UTOPIA
Frankly, the community members who inhabit the
welcoming, idealistic version of Eugene so often put forth
are the ones this town was built for — the white people who
benefited from exclusionary property rights and sundown
laws that literally banned people of color from living in
Eugene, and Oregon as a whole, for decades.
Stanford educator Walidah Imarisha’s conversation
project, “Why Aren’t There More Black People in Oregon?
A Hidden History,” addresses this history directly. Imarisha
has taught at Portland State University and Oregon State
University in the past, and still tours Oregon regularly for
lectures and town hall series, speaking about Oregonian
black history, especially in rural communities.
“The founding idea of Oregon itself, and the entire
Northwest, was as a racist white utopia,” Imarisha says.
“When we look at demographics in the Northwest and
Oregon, it’s not a coincidence that it’s overly white; it’s
by design.”
She adds: “The fact that there are any black communities
in Oregon in general is amazing.”
Imarisha says people tend to talk about racism in
Oregon as if it were an isolated event that happened a long
time ago, not a living legacy that thrives to this day. But
that history is not so distant.
It wasn’t until 2002 that a ballot measure was passed
removing discriminatory racial references from the Oregon
Constitution, such as: “No free Negro, or Mulatto, not residing
in this state at the time of the adoption of this constitution,
shall come, reside or be within this state, or hold any real
estate, or make any contracts, or maintain any suit therein.”
However, there has still been pushback to just let the
past be the past, no matter how close in time our white
supremacist tendencies can be traced. Here’s an example of
a letter to the editor from last summer (errors kept intact):
Dear feedback to Eugene Weekly:
we are sick and tired of listening to all this bull shit
about how racist Oregon was and is. And it doesn’t
matter whether we get all this arrogant bull shit from
white people or black people but it is coming from the
Eugene weekly regularly.
If you guys at Eugene weekly insist on beating a
dead horse, and continue to call Oregon a racist state,
don’t be surprised if a large group with money, decides
to sue you for libel and shut down your newspaper
because it is libelous against the state, and all the
people in it. I warned you. Go ahead and keep libeling
the whole state of Oregon and everyone in it, and you
will end up in court. [Signed “Oregonian”]
Just because Eugene isn’t a place that sees lynchings
or burning crosses every week does not mean we’re a
community that’s been liberated from racist ideologies
and racist acts. It’s important to realize, though, that overt
racism does still occur in our city.
14
February 2, 2017 • eugeneweekly.com
UO PROFESSOR
NANCY SHURTZ
I N E V I TA B LY
IGNORED THE
L E N G T H Y, P A I N F U L
HISTORY OF
B L A C K FA C E T H AT I S
S T I L L E X T R E M E LY
DAMAGING TO
BLACK PEOPLE.
AS EUGENE’S
NAACP PRESIDENT
ERIC RICHARDSON
P O I N T S O U T, T H I S
SHOWS THERE IS
O N LY O N E V E R S I O N
OF AFRICAN-
A M E R I C A N S T H AT
PEOPLE TEND TO
ACKNOWLEDGE: AN
O V E R - E X A G G E R AT E D ,
LAUGHABLE,
BUFFOONISH
C A R I C AT U R E .
ERIC RICHARDSON