Like most Democrats, I rejoiced when Obama won the 2008 election, not just because he signaled an end to the Bush era and wasn’t John McCain—but because sending an African-American to the White House was an opportunity to assuage my (white liberal) guilt over slavery and its ongoing legacy in the United States.

But how is a white liberal to assuage her guilt when she lives in Portland, Oregon—one of the whitest cities in the country?  And how is a white liberal to raise white children in a white city?

For most of her elementary and middle school career, my 13 year old daughter attended Sunnyside Environmental School in SE Portland.  Sunnyside is classic Portland: left, green—and almost entirely white.   I believe there were never more than 5-6 African-American kids in the whole school.

When she was small, I didn’t worry about it so much, but by the time she got to middle school, the anxiety was overwhelming.  How could I raise thoughtful, sensitive, urban21st- century kids in an all white educational environment?

I myself had a very different upbringing, having gone to middle and high schools that were majority black—in Seattle’s central district.  It was the only time in my life that I’ve been a minority—although of course I was a privileged minority.

The experience left an indelible mark.  The school culture—assemblies, dances, lunchtime-revolved around African-Americans, and if my white friends and I participated, we did so with the understanding that we were not the leaders and we were not in control.  It was a humbling, exhilarating experience—to know that the world was much larger and much different than we were.  Or maybe not as different as we thought.

My world has only become narrower since.

This year my daughter goes to Beaumont Middle School in NE Portland, where about 26 percent of the students are African-American.  She is still part of the majority, but for the first time in her life, she has African-American friends and acquaintances.

She talks about it a lot.  I feel more connected to the world, she says.  Or, avoiding my eyes:  I used to be afraid of black people.

My heart sinks and rises at the same time.

Last summer, I interviewed several local African-Americans about what it was like to be "black in the white city." Here’s what Chaucer Barnes,  a 30-year-old Weiden & Kennedy employee, had to say about the day he moved to Portland, from N.Carolina--in which he took the MAX to Pioneer Square:

“Just architecturally, that space tells a story of, ‘You are in the center of this.’ So I recognized myself as being in the white-hot center of Portland, Oregon. I looked up and down, and mine was the only brown face on that train, and I was like: Wow. I heard people say Portland is white, but I wasn’t prepared for how white white could be. I didn’t understand that anything could be this big and this white.”

Later, Barnes said:

“In a town this white and this progressive, exoticism is probably a double-sided coin. People want you at their parties and in their pictures, but they are only based on that one shallow dimension.”

This is the white Portlander’s dilemma; we are eco-conscious, we are progressive, and there are way too many of us.  And we are desperate to assuage our guilt.

Find the original post here.