How diverse is Portland really? Everyone talks about it like it's San Francisco in the 70's, but is it racially diverse or super white? Just wondering since my son is Black and I'd love for him to feel less alone. We're looking at moving in the summer time but are still checking things out. Real opinions please!

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It’s VERY White. Portland loves to claim being an ally to everyone but lacks the demographic to prove that. Example: Hair salons will have “BLM” and “Stop Asian Hate” but no nothing about cutting different textures of hair besides…straight. BUT, Portland is very welcoming and everyone is fairly respectful of each other. Your son will not have a problem finding a community

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I agree with this 10000000%. I have lived many many places and I would say this is the least diverse of anywhere I have lived.

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Honestly...it's pretty white. But it is very LGBTQ+ friendly at least in my (very limited) experience. That isn't to say that there isn't an African American community here, I just think the city itself is still fairly white.

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This is spot on.

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The people here in Portland think of themselves as open-minded and progressive, but newcomers experience the city as provincial and very separated by class and race.

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it’s majority white but it’s incredibly loving to other races. No one will feel left out and there are still a good amount of black people. Where I live in Portland, there’s a lot of white people and Indians, asians. Everyone gets along.

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As a brown gal, yes this city is super white but also very welcoming and overly woke. So I haven’t had too many issues

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You’re all smoking something.

I’m a literal life long Houstonian and recent transplant. The most diverse, look it up, city in the US. I feel the same in PDX if you swap Hispanic and African American for Asian. I don’t have a quota and neither should you - but by my barometer no one should feel “embarrassed“.

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I grew up in this city and it wasn’t until I was afforded the opportunity to travel to the east coast for work that I realized how bland Portland is. It really caught me off guard and made me uncomfortable at first because you don’t get exposed to much living culture here. The people are all nice, I never experienced any flat out racism, but being a minority here means you don’t get the opportunity to experience cultural norms and traditions that are consistent across other parts of the country.

It's the whitest place I've ever experienced in my life; I can't imagine being a POC in this city, the advertising for Portland is very misleading. And once you leave the tiny city limits it gets even whiter; very conservative, lots of cult members (literal cult members work in my office); a lot of angry people in this city. It's only the constant gloom and rain that keeps it from sparking.

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Are you mad at a city because it’s demographics skew more white? Have you fully thought through why some places might have less diversity? Historically the PNW was not a place of plantations and black slavery, so less descendants as in the southeast US.

It’s white. You have to do some serious searching for community unless you’re able to befriend a few locals who know where stuff goes down.

It’s very white. Embarrassingly so. Especially in the city itself. There’s a small BIPOC community in north and ne Portland (that feels like it’s getting smaller every year) and considerable LatinX/Hispanic communities in the outlying suburbs. There’s also a sizable asian community. Overall nowhere near as diverse as large cities.

But like someone else said, it’s very LGBTQ+ friendly and in general a pretty progressive city.

There’s very little diversity in Portland compared to other cities. There are historically more black neighborhoods like areas in North Portland but even then a lot of these neighborhoods have changed in the last 10-15 years. Around 10 years ago I lived in the same neighborhood I just moved back to and maybe it’s just my perception but it seems whiter than it was back then. I am white so I can’t tell you from personal experience what sort of community there is, only that the neighborhood I live in is still pretty diverse but the city in general is overwhelmingly white.

The suburbs are particularly white also, for instance I lived briefly in West Linn and the population there is something like 85% white.

It is way whiter than most other major US cities. And — it depends on the neighborhood (the more heavily gentrified areas are whiter). Lots is affected by the city’s past redlining, but there are Black communities here (the photographer Intisar Abioto did a terrific project about Black Portlanders she met, partly because she was tired of people claiming she didn’t exist here; my old church was also super multiracial and lovely). You just gotta seek it out.

I don't know told you Portland was diverse but that it not true. The population is mostly white and while I haven't experienced any racism or hear of it too often it does lack representation.

It's majority white. People here are nice though. They try to be inclusive but they don't know what they don't know sometimes so I can't say your son won't experience any microaggressions.

I grew up in inner city Portland. It’s always claimed to be culturally diverse and accepting, but as I got older I realized that was actually a lot of cultural appropriation going on and not real diversity. They have always had a way of sugar coating and hiding their racist past. Also early 2000’s the North/NE districts experienced rapid gentrification which has now spread entirely across the city. Most folks were forced to move to neighboring cities so it’s not that new BIPOC have moved in or out, it’s just the little bit that’s here has been watered down and spread thin 😕

I gotta say, having lived in SLC and Boise I find it hard to believe that it’s less diverse than those.

Huge Indian population and sizable Asian and Filipino population.

Not very diverse at all but Portland has so many programs to help people of color because of it. It’s a beautiful place but I am from the Bay Area and when I moved here it was definitely uncomfortable at first to be somewhere with mostly white people. Eventually you get used to it though people are very loving here for the most part

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