So many thoughts running through my head, but I will just say that the article lost me with calling Portland right-wing. Anything after that had no credibility.
It wasn't just Greg Oden that's said something like this over the years. When you've got multiple people telling you the same thing, perhaps there's some validity.
Being white, but having lived in Portland and in Dallas, I be interested in knowing if a majority of black people would rather live in a city with a low % of black population, without a strong history of racism (Portland), versus a city that had a higher % black population, with with a much worse history of racism, that I would argue still exists throughout the city (Dallas). It sounds like most black NBA players would rather live in the Dallas environment, even with its racism. I was appalled by some of the racist behaviors I saw when I lived in Dallas. I haven't lived in either for 18 years, but elements of the confederation seemed alive and well when I was there.
Good gawd he's an ignorant buffoon. I'm quite sure you can text pictures of your weenie from Portland as easy as you can anywhere else.
The quote from Oden is something we have discussed for decades. '“It isn’t a great city to live in if you’re a young African American male with a lot of money,” said Oden, Translation: The nightlife is not as good as a lot of NBA cities. They have all the money in the world and just like most men their age they want to "meet" as many good-looking women as possible. They want the club scene that is available in cities like Miami, LA, Houston, NY, and Atlanta. Not saying Portland has no nightlife, just that for rich young males, it just isn't as good. In Portland, they are big fish in s small pond, but they of course would prefer to be big fish in a very large pond. And of course, diversity is a big part of the equation. They are stars with a lot of money and are only young once.
Also, and we should be honest, the police had (and deservedly still have) a reputation for being racist dipshits who like to target black people in nice cars, especially the professional athletes who live in the city. 2007 is not very many years after pulling over half the Trail Blazers like they were being hunted for sport. And the denizens are awfully pearl-clutchy about black people who don't code switch. Too much of a fish bowl panopticon thing going on here. Also the night life kind of sucks if you don't like steak bites.
Also, there's a lot of temptation to make unwise decisions, and a lot of people hanging around trying to make money off of unwise decisions.
It's a great city to be rich and famous in if you don't want to take personal responsibility for your choices, too.
