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As a white male married to a brown woman, my education process has really developed over the last 10 years. my wife's experience, after we moved from a vary polarized college town in norther indiana to Eugene OR, was quite devestating. in Indiana, people were clear about their views and racism. In 'liberal' eugene, on the other hand, everyone claimed to have a racial minority friend, but she was continually shut down through systemic racism - the work heirarchy, the comments and polarization at parties, behaviour at city and professional speaking engagements. this was further reinforced through her working for a women's organization that continually ran into issues of race, to the point that the support service was shut down.

additionally, as i was developing the racial minority outreach for a city program, i could often only get so far until the organization director would take me aside to note that 'we don't want to really move too fast and grow the program to that extent'.

my wife still swears that eugene was the most painful racial experience in her life, even in comparison to living in an indiana town that held KKK rallies while we lived there.

we do not regret leaving eugene for further schooling, but still somehow managed to move back to portland to settle for many of the quality of life perks. we're drained sometimes w/our experience of lack of racial integration and cultural competency in the city, but travel regularly to spend time w/ people who more adequately reflect our experience and interests.

posted 4 years, 9 months ago
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