Years ago I worked in Atlanta for an extended period of time, long enough that I noticed, and began to feel uncomfortable about the fact that in my hotel all the guests were white, and all the serving and working staff were black; that I was the only white person who rode MARTA (Atlanta’s most excellent, clean, and efficient public transportation) to the airport; that only white people shopped at the mall in Buckhead; and that all the managers at the bank where I worked were white, while all the women who processed the cheques in the basement were black.

(And don’t get me started on Hilton Head, South Carolina.)

But god forbid as a citizen of a country where every person you meet has a different skin shade and eye shape from the next, I should express how uncomfortable this rampant and obvious segregation makes me feel.

No wonder you people have to go into therapy to deal with your white guilt.

That’s a great question. And why are there so many Irish people in Boston and not in Salt Lake City? But, given this fact, I would be wrong to infer that Salt Lake City has a strong anti-Irish feeling. Let’s not ascribe feelings of hostility where none exists. An absence of an ethnicity in a community doesn’t automatically mean hostility.

I don’t think it’s *necessarily* a case where a city is unwelcome to certain ethnicities except in some cases where the city is obviously actively hostile - cities where there is a long history of pogroms, lynchings, racially charged violence, etc.

From what I’ve seen, ethnic groups have a tendency to form tight enclaves and the settlement is pretty arbitrary, except in the original African-American’s case, where it was a forced settlement. People cluster with others who share their language, culture, and history. That’s just the way it is.

There is a large cluster of Iraqis settled in the Michigan area, which doesn’t strike me as an area very similar to the desert. And a big group of Somalis in Lewiston, Maine(!). So it’s definitely not a climate thing.

It’s not that Portland is necessarily unaccommodating to black people, they just haven’t settled there. These places become outliers from the main settlement patterns and, once established as such, are difficult to change. And forced integration is usually pretty disastrous. If you don’t believe me, read up about Boston’s busing experiment in the 1970s.

I must admit when I do see someone of African descent, I actually take note because it is a rare occurance.

I’m pure Chinese, and living in Singapore. They’re both Chinese as well. So I’ve always imagined the place to have a big asian community? Gotta ask her more about it.