So in this week's Letters to the Editor, Harry wrote in to compliment the Mental Health Association of Portland's Jason Renaud and Jenny Westberg on their guest editorial regarding the lack of data being kept on police shootings. (Which is definitely worth a read if you've yet to do so). We also got a voicemail suggesting that our Soiled Mattress Down by the River seek public office based on its responsiveness to the will of the people!
But the real action was in response to Ian Karmel's column about the kinder, gentler attitude longtime/native Portlanders might consider taking toward newcomers. A truncated version of the exchange that ensued between self described "pissy townie" Carlos Covarrubias made it into the print edition, but behold the argument in its entirety, and after the jump, weigh in on who you think won.
Carlos:
What can a pissy townie like me say about this? I've been in this town my whole life. I used to like it when I was about 13 years old and thought Korn was cool; I'm 28 now and figured out that Portland like Korn also sucks.
Maybe the problem "oldcomers" have with newcomers is that they are loud spoken fake liberals (secret libertarians) that wear their controlling politics on their sleeves.
Sorry to give a little bit of push back on this but the last thing a brown guy like me wants to hear considering that I have and will continued to be hassled and profiled by the racist ass Portland Police, given shit service at hip dive bars in my gentrified old 'hood cause I wear a Blazers' Jersey rather than a Timbers scarf, and told to hold my tongue by a bunch of drunk hipsters when I tell ya'll how you are directly contributing to a perpetuation of the same busted ass bourgeois system that has been in place in Portland, Oregon for the last 100 years.
Do you all know that Portland ends at 162nd, not 82nd? Quit voting down taxes for Portland Public Schools and quit talking shit on poor people that live in Gresham, they're just people trying to get by. Thats why we don't like ya'll. Thanks for not having kids. See you next rant.... Pricks.
Ian:
Since you didn't really get the point of my column, I guess I'll just try to address your points...
Maybe if they had kids they'd care more about schools. I absolutely don't believe you've been given bad service because you wore a Blazers jersey. If someone tells you to hold your tongue, tell them to fuck off, I don't care if they're a hipster. Hipster, by the way, has become a uselessly encompassing term. You seem like the kind of person who would call someone a hipster because they had a bicycle and a button-up at the same time. I do know where Portland ends, I'm from Portland. I'm capable of reading maps. When I write about Portland, I tend to write about Portland as a cultural force that affects the world as a whole, and that shit tends not to be happening in the suburbs. When Tigard, or Gresham, or Beaverton, or 152nd and Powell become the epicenter of culture in our city, I'll write about that. If it hurts your feelings that the street you grew up on isn't what people think of when people think of Portland I suggest you do something to change that.
Until you do that, I continue to welcome people to our city who actually want to contribute and build and move Portland forward. Everyone has to move here at some point, right? Or their parents? Or their grandparents? Or is Covarrubias a [Chinookan] name, Carlos?
Carlos:
It's cute that you would attack my name and lineage but the ironic thing is that my name is Spanish, Mexican if you will (although I prefer Chicano), and do have roots to native Central American Indians and even some North American Indians; most people of Mestizo descent do, although our Spanish surnames rarely reflect it. If you bothered to pay attention in history class you'd also know that Mexico's territory before being annexed (but really stolen by a bunch of drunk cowboys) extended from Texas to California and almost all the way up to Oregon using the inherently racist rhetoric of Manifest Destiny. It seems you have taken on this spirit of Manifest Destiny for folks to move to this town and gentrify and appropriate whatever they damn well please. Forget the King neighborhood, let the realty companies rename Alberta the Alberta Arts District and we can all throw a big party on Alberta street with no permits and piss in the neighbors yards in the name of art. We can all get Dia de los Muertos tattoos and put on American Indian head dresses at music festivals in the name of Rock n' Roll. Lets throw a soul night at the Goodfoot or Eagles Club while black folks can't put on a hip hop show without the cops showing up and violating everyone's Fourth Amendment rights. Let's open businesses in black neighborhoods that cater only to the white upper middle class and hire hip young white kids part time so that we can duck paying their health insurance.
The fact is that gentrification is real in this town and its fucked up. I'm all for people moving here and contributing but I don't feel that most do; most just seem to come here to drink and pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist. The systemic racism in this town is on level with anywhere else in the country. The director of the NAACP's economic department even called this town a "case study in gentrification".
I also take your attempts to discredit me personally as extremely offensive and the fact is I do volunteer with an organization that puts on bimonthly community forums on race to encourage dialogue about these sorts of issues. I also take offense that you would deny me my experiences as a person of color that does routinely receive subpar service at restaurants, bars, and coffee shops because I don't often fit in with the image of the establishment. But denial has always been integral element of maintaing the status quo; something that you seem to be cool with.
I get the point of your column, you don't give a shit about anything. You are a hedonist that will defend ignorance if it serves you and keeps you and your friends from feeling uncomfortable in a new place. But being cynical doesn't shield you from the world's problems, they're still there. Whether you chose to address them is up to you.
Ian:
I'm denying your experiences as a person who thinks you get inferior service because you wore a Blazers jersey, special guy. You know, that thing you actually said. That exact thing you actually said. I didn't say shit about your experiences as a person of color. Don't employ your basic fucking bait-and-switch freshman year bullshit tactics with me. You seem incapable of carrying on a debate without retreating to the ironclad fortress of racial framework - you already know I don't stand a chance in there, because I'm whiter than you.
I didn't attack your name, I used it as an example to express that we're all immigrants here in this city. My mother's side of the family has been here for many generations. - broke, alcoholic Foster Road Portland originals. We still had to come out here at some point. So did your family. I earnestly, EARNESTLY don't give a fuck what part of what country "Covarrubias" is from, but I can tell you, just like Karmel, it isn't from Oregon.
I think it's interesting that you celebrate Mexico's expansion into the west coast and attack the United States expansion into the west coast. They both had the same idea, steal land from Indians, Mexico just wasn't as good as the United States. Sorry your preferred imperialists suck. Maybe you should buy a Timbers scarf, you seem to enjoy rooting for losing teams. You live in Oregon, Carlos, you're just as guilty of America's original sin as everyone else who wasn't brought here at the tip of a gun.
You clearly don't get the point of my column. Cynicism and hedonism are not through-lines whatsoever. The point of THIS column was telling Portlanders who's parents were born in New York to stop complaining when people who were born in New York move to Portland.
Please print this electronic mail and present it at the Powells on Hawthorne for 50% off a used copy of Howard Zinn's "A People's History of Missing the Fucking Point"
Carlos:
So you don't believe gentrification is a problem or do you?
Ian:
I don't think it's ONLY a problem. I think there are plenty of problematic issues with gentrification and I think there are good things that happen because of gentrification.
Carlos:
Name one good thing. I see none depending on what your agenda is
Carlos, again, approximately 30 minutes later:
Good things about gentrification? Eh? No. Maybe.
Ian:
We can go anecdotal - my friend George, who grew up in a part of Los Angeles that was partially gentrified, says he likes how the power doesn't go out as often when it rains and people don't get shot outside his dad's house as often.
Or we can go with research. Don't get so impatient, I have to write stuff that I get paid for.
http://content.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1818255,00.html"The researchers found, for example, that income gains in gentrifying neighborhoods — usually defined as low-income urban areas that undergo rises in income and housing prices — were more widely dispersed than one might expect. Though college-educated whites accounted for 20% of the total income gain in gentrifying neighborhoods, black householders with high school degrees contributed even more: 33% of the neighborhood's total rise. In other words, a broad demographic of people in the neighborhood benefited financially. According to the study's findings, only one group — black residents who never finished high school — saw their income grow at a slower rate than predicted. But the study also suggests that these residents weren't moving out of their neighborhoods at a disproportionately higher rate than from similar neighborhoods that didn't gentrify."
Carlos:
Well thats all well and good but have you bothered to look at Portland's numbers? Its pretty bad.
And yes we can all google articles that will say what we want, it is TIME magazine and it is from 6 years ago, before Portland was full on hipster appropriation love.
I say nay to gentrification in my town and there is a definite pattern of bohemian in, poor out, and than finally yuppies in to seal the deal with condos. Have you been down Alberta lately? Its pretty pathetic. Most artists/bohemians don't realize the role they are playing and then are confused when landlords sell their rental spaces to make way for the final solution.
Besides all of that I am saying, let the townies bitch. You are completely hypocritical in saying some people deserve to run their mouths and others don't.
Ian:
Everyone can run their mouth as much as they want - they shouldn't be shocked when someone might disagree with them.
Carlos:
Yup. Cheers pal.
