That wonderful Wallace Shawn gathered all his guilt into an indigestible lump to write, in 1996, The Designated Mourner, about intellect under siege as society goes up in flames. Not as good as Aunt Dan and Lemon or Marie and Bruce, but interesting stuff in the run-up to the new millennium. In retrospect, Shawn seemed to have misfired a bit. It wasn’t the top that was vanishing but the middle. 

Another thing we’ve lost besides the middle in our new normal is memory, that decidedly un-pliant thing. Even things from a few years ago seem like ancient history. Perhaps more than designated mourners what we need now are designated reminders, people who can point out that the world didn’t begin with downloads.

One of the most colorful of current reminders is Matt Novak, founder of Paleofuture. After moving that site at Gizmodo, Novak penned “Oregon Was Founded As a Racist Utopia,” a post that seems very timely right now. Not that Oregonians are responsible for the Bundy brigade of anti-government interlopers, but it does speak to the history of regional resistance to authority. The opening:

When Oregon was granted statehood in 1859, it was the only state in the Union admitted with a constitution that forbade black people from living, working, or owning property there. It was illegal for black people even to move to the state until 1926. Oregon’s founding is part of the forgotten history of racism in the American west.

Waddles Coffee Shop in Portland, Oregon was a popular restaurant in the 1950s for both locals and travelers alike. The drive-in catered to America’s postwar obsession with car culture, allowing people to get coffee and a slice of pie without even leaving their vehicle. But if you happened to be black, the owners of Waddles implored you to keep on driving. The restaurant had a sign outside with a very clear message: “White Trade Only — Please.”

It’s the kind of scene from the 1950s that’s so hard for many Americans to imagine happening outside of the Jim Crow South. How could a progressive, northern city like Portland have allowed a restaurant to exclude non-white patrons? This had to be an anomaly, right? In reality it was far too common in Oregon, a state that was explicitly founded as a kind of white utopia.•