Shortly after Christmas, Karley Buckland, a 14-year old white girl, was attacked on a Portland MAX train by at least three black girls who beat her, spit on her and called her a “white girl”as fellow blacks cheered and videotaped the attack.
Portland, Oregon is a progressive city full of bike riders, outdoor enthusiasts, microbreweries, coffee shops, indie bands and book shops. It is always rated as one of the most livable and most green cities in the U.S. and Forbes has ranked Portland as the third safest city in the nation.
The city is even the subject of a popular TV show called Portlandia that makes fun of the Stuff White People Like types who inhabit “The City of Roses.”
Portland added over 10,000 white residents from 2000-2010 and local economist Joe Cortright calls these new arrivals the “beer, bikes and Birkenstock” crowd.But the unemployment rate in Portland is actually higher than the U.S. average. And salaries in other liberal Northwest meccas such as Seattle and San Francisco are roughly 20% higher than in Portland. So why are whites flocking there?