Sometime between seasons four and five of Portlandia, after a two-year stint abroad, I moved from the Kingdom of Morocco to the City of Roses. I settled first in rural Oregon. A year later I settled in Portland proper. And a couple enlightening years after that, I settled for the natural beauty and the promise of this place despite its glaring shortcomings.I’m talking about its lack of racial diversity and its history of racial prohibition. Its integration and then systematic marginalization of communities of color. And its circumstances today as one of the fastest growing metro areas in the country, or the way I see it, one of the fastest growing cradles for whiteness.

—Tiara Darnell, in “Your View: How Can Portland Stay Portland As It Grows? That’s the Wrong Question”