If I can verify the source, I am going to write a letter to his campaign making it very clear I will not be voting for him if he is that out of touch.

On a similar note, I went to the the Women, Race, and Gentrification film presentation on 4/10 and found the film very well done. The panel discussion afterward was interesting, but only one of the panelists had a good handle on the issues.

I did get to hear several white homeowners stand up to talk about how “guilty” they felt for moving in and displacing the indigenous population. It is nice to get the acknowledgment, but at the end of the day they go back to their overvalued home and the poor go back to whereever it is they go now.

Listening to the stories and feelings of those displaced by gentrification is not a bad thing, but it does nothing to change conditions and certainly does not “heal” the displaced.

As a white man living in a diverse neighborhood (our neighborhood high school is the only majority black high school in Oregon), I want the neighborhood to retain its multicultural roots.

I don’t want the city to spend my tax money pushing its vision of high-density condos down our throats, which will only displace more black-owned businesses and minority residents with chain stores and rich white folks.

As a black man not from Portland, gentrification happens all over and I have yet to hear what a successful policy to prevent it or stem it looks like. I think looking to local government as somehow a large real estate market force ignores the fact that once white people decide something is cool there ain’t no stopping them.