PORTLAND PROGRESSIVE REGRESSIVE

Out of the top five, what does Oregon, Colorado, and Washington have in common? image via blogs.seattletimes.com

If you’re confused in 2016, you might be a Portland Progressive Regressive.

Why do things look so perfect in the rear view mirror in Portland?

More important, why do we keep looking?

The Portland Progressive Regressive likes the good old days, but looks forward to the future.

Their vision might not be 20/20, but it still helps to pay attention.

Memory is an issue for the Portland Progressive Regressive.

Standing on what you don’t remember is always shaky ground.

Mr., Mrs, Ms, and LGBTQ Portland Progressive Regressive stand out at different times of year, like birds showing their special plumage and doing their special dance during mating season. Once you see it you can’t un-see.

And like the Atlantic Magazine tagging Portland as America’s whitest city, good historical research is fading fast.

It might be America’s whitest city now with hipsters and millennials moving in and adding their kids, but Baby Boomers got there first.

The Portland Progressive Regressive movement needs to fix balky history.

From The Atlantic:

In 1857, Oregon adopted a state constitution that banned black people from coming to the state, residing in the state, or holding property in the state. During this time, any white male settler could receive 650 acres of land and another 650 if he was married. This, of course, was land taken from native people who had been living here for centuries.

If that white male settler and his wife each got 650 acres, their spread totals 1300 acres. That’s a lot of land.

Much more than the reputed 320 acres for a man and another 320 for his wife that’s been rumored for years, and it can’t be right.

640 acres has always been the going rate for couples.

From the Oregon Encyclopedia:

Arguably the most generous federal land sale to the public in American history, the law legitimized the 640-acre claims provided in 1843 under the Provisional Government, with the proviso that white male citizens were entitled to 320 acres and their wives were eligible for 320 acres. For citizens arriving after 1850, the acreage limitation was halved, so a married couple could receive a total of 320 acres. To gain legal title to property, claimants had to reside and make improvements on the land for four years.

The Portland Progressive Regressive needs to choose a source. 1300 acres or 640 acres or 320 acres handed out to the wagon train travelers?

It’s only one number, but it’s a big number to make a mistake on.

One element of whiteness most history ignores when the topic is Oregon, is the mix of races in the Midwest. In border states a southern farmer with race attitude might move up and work land next to a farm owned and operated by a black family.

Imagine the welcome the new family rolled out when their new neighbors came calling.

The harshness of Oregon’s exclusion laws points to our rural ancestors dislike of their African-American co-farmers. Even when they left the Midwest.

History geeks love finding the changes in land grabbing over the years.

From U.S. History Scene:

The Homestead Act of 1862 stated that any current or future citizen, with a mere ten dollars, could claim a homestead of up to 160 acres of government land, and “improve” the land by putting it to use as a family plot. This meant erecting a dwelling and farming the soil for a period of five years. If the claimant did so for the allotted period, they could then gain ownership of their land free of charge. The act did not define what it meant to be the “head of a family,” save for an age restriction of twenty-one years if a single individual sought land, which made the Act egalitarian; it allowed African Americans, persecuted and famine-struck immigrants, and even women a chance to find freedom and success in the West.

“And even women” is the key for the Portland Progressive Regressive.

Imagine a hard working young woman in the Midwest preparing for her wagon train adventure to Oregon. Alone.

Depending on the times, she might bank 320 acres. Double that if she got married before hitting the trail.

How many arranged marriages happened for the sake of Oregon farm land?

Today’s head of a family in a Portland Progressive Regressive household could be anyone.

They move into a high tech house masqueraded as a Craftsman Bungalow, hire nannies and mannies to care for their kids while they kill it everyday in the cut-throat sharing economy, spending their evenings breathing that SE Portland air/fumes.

They are the envy of all, but no one talks about the grind, the commitment, the drive it takes to stay on task.

Build a house on an in-fill lot and the neighbors hate you for owning their sanctuary. Move to the suburbs and find an active drug house next door. If it’s not one thing, it’s another.

If Portland is America’s whitest city, then you know there are strong currents ripping under the calm surface.

Let’s hope it gets expressed through art and coffee by free roaming pioneers.