Friend there’s video of proud boys and neo nazis marching in Portland for all of this century
They assassinated a Marxist here in the 2010s at a lefty bar
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Like the reason the antifa / black bloc / whatever is in largest numbers here has quite a lot to do with just response to the right wing militias that openly intimidate here
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Portland was probably seen as like a utopia by George Fuckin Wallace, just read about its 20th century history, and the people responsible for that have not simply vanished
When I first ran away here as a teenager from Alabama there were still business flying confederate battle flags near the center city. Shocked me back then but now I know better
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I’m sure there is some level of bad shit there (like everywhere) but it has to be a top 10 major metro for a trans person, right?
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I think it manages to be that (for USA) despite the “level of bad shit” being higher than most metro areas including ones in the South
Quotes because there’s obviously a million ways to define that, and in my posts I was talking about very focused/organized bad shit from groups outside the government
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Like I’ve been part of groups in Alabama, Tennessee, Virginia, and Oregon that tried to stand as shields between nazi marches and the communities they targeted. Shit is a little different in Oregon. The PNW in general. Pre-2016 the PNW is where any of their national meetings were held for quite a long time
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Like on almost every day, if you’re close enough to the center of Portland, you’re not going to encounter those types, and what you will encounter is tolerance/embrace and welcoming bathrooms. But there’s neighborhoods still well within the city limits where the cashier at any convenience store is a coin flip to have nazi or nazi adjacent tattoos. And bars where you physically probably aren’t safe, etc
But then there’s bars closer in that have live local country music that attracts at least some portion of acts and audience that believes there is a Trans Menace but you are safe at least at this point in time, because they sort of accept that it’s not fully their turf, at least for now
With probably a higher percentage of acts and audience being queer and/or trans than those militantly against it.
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And the explicitly queer bars have moved away from the city center somewhat, because of gentrification. So like 82nd Ave (locals know instantly what this means) will have a queer bar and a queer-unsafe bar relatively close. And it’s where the sex workers all do street solicitation
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OK Portland sounds a lot less hospitable than LA!
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My post-high-school group of ultra-liberal friends all migrated to Portland over 20 years ago, and not a single one of them has moved elsewhere since. Which is probably indicative of something…
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Yeah I don’t have the reference for comparison that I do with so many other places. I would have to experience the gritty areas myself to see how they compare, and I haven’t been there since making deliveries to like Hawthorne/Compton/Gardena 12+ years ago
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Yeah it undoubtedly has a lot to offer in every aspect you could think of, but the point is that it’s heterogeneous rather than uniform, and even if the hostile people are outnumbered 99 to 1, they’re still kinda militant about it
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Portland has a really disproportionate amount of UP posters so there’s plenty of ppl here to take issue with what I’ve said or to agree with it or whatever else
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I just got back from a celebration of life at a bar in Portland. Overheard some talk about who’s a real communist and who’s a pretender.
I’ve hung out with my friend’s crowd up there before and had some spirited discussions about whether Dick Cheney brought down the Twin Towers and Venezuela is actually a worker’s paradise unfairly maligned by US media. I try to stick to the issues we agree on.
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I am sure you could find bars in the enormity of LA where the vibes would be off for LGBTQ folks, but I think you would really need to go to the fringes to find places where it was legit not OK.
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There is almost nobody I’ve ever hung out with in Portland who wouldn’t think those ppl are batshit insane
But I’ve come across ppl who’d say that stuff when organizing in Alabama and Virginia
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Those were probably my friends you overheard.
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Wait yours doesn’t glow in the dark?
Oh. When you said ultra-liberal I pictured the type with “in this house we believe” USA flag signs in their yard/windows for almost 10 years now, and Harris Walz signs this fall
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They’re all 50 and up. Crusty old zine punk types. The guy who died was in a band called Welfare State, and had lots of friends in local bands.
I had some fun conversations about the 90s Portland band scene, which sounds pretty awesome.
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