Portland, Oregon

Portland, OR was beautiful! They call it the City of Roses. The food was good. Very fresh and tasty but I was tired of Vietnamese and Thai after a while. A bonus was being there during the sunny season Lol(End of June beginning of July). It rains and is typically dreary. I was working the Conference on Racial and Social Justice and learned more about Portland from a few indigenous participants. Historically, it was not a good look. While we did not experience any negative or outwardly racist events it is very much a white city. We were very few and far between. A few of the conference workers were from Portland and we kept asking them where “WE” were in the city. Even though we got to explore, we didn’t find many instances of US. We also noticed that everywhere we went there was a staff shortage. Neighborhoods closed, relatively early and the one spot where we saw the most black folks essentially turned us away because it was only one bartender for the entire restaurant.

We did stumble upon a leather goods shop owned by a Mexican family and we stopped to converse with them about the city. They were great. It’s a multigenerational family run boutique with an in-house workshop and the owners were super friendly. We did hear of black owned restaurants, Caribbean, Italian and soul food but by the time we found them, it was time to go. One of my friends got to experience an amazing Haitian fine dining spot called Kann. He said the food was amazing. I trust him! Reservations were required and he was extremely lucky to get one. It’s apparently that good. We did some exploring and came across a an underground wine bar named after Nina Simone. Bar Nina was cool. Not black owned though.

While we were in Portland Wu-Tang, the Final Chamber tour was in town at the Moda Center. There were at least 14 of us. We were definitely the raisin in the milk. Living in DC, affectionately known as the Chocolate City, which is currently experiencing a vanilla swirl, I am use to attending concerts of that nature with more people that look like me than not. This was my first experience being in the minority at a hip-hop concert.

I would go back to Portland, but I would be hell-bent on trying to find as many black owned spots as I could. I know there are more than the little that I discovered. I would love to hear from anyone who has experienced Portland, or who is from Portland to tell me more about Black Portland.