I HAD a Dream

An Oregon native is ever the optimist about racial differences. A land of diversity and tolerance, the west coast breeds the belief that we really are all equal, that our only differences are the privileges with which we are born and that every group in our country can be educated, trained and set free in this capitalist playground, if only we had the resources.

Living in NYC has put a whole new spin on my feelings about diversity. In Oregon it was so free and easy to talk about equality, rights, access (and beyond!) when everyone within 100 miles was white and middle class. Those that weren't white had been swallowed up by a small town and had thus had their ethnic identity, lingo and habits absorbed right out of them.

In NY, with it's tiny--though very divided--neighborhoods, most groups have not only preserved their identities, but amplified them. A long time city girl and former Oregonian once told me: "In the city it's hard to be open minded about ethnic groups because, for some reason, they live out their worst stereotypes; black men hit their wives, Dominicans sit on their stoops all day, Asians are unsanitary. The longer you live here, the more racist you'll become."

At the time, slightly horrified, I brushed this off as yet another racist comment from someone outside the superior (and yet ironically equal) Oregon bubble, but I'm starting to see what she meant. After just a year of living here, I've seen enough from various groups to start feeling the kind of discrimination I thought only existed at a Republican rally. I've succumbed to the temptation to block out fights in the street, hold contempt for beggars, turn my nose up at the fried chicken stalls of Harlem and below-health-code nail salons of China Town.

Short of being born male, I've been given the most classic set of advantages in the US and, like those before me I used to criticize, I'm starting to forget I even have them.
If everyone in NYC becomes the worst version of themselves, then I'm now the over-privileged, well-educated, skinny, white, blond girl who looks down on anyone who isn’t the same.

What happened to me?


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