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A black neighborhood in Portland, Oregon rejected plans to build a Trader Joe's, fearing that the store would result in further gentrification and residents being priced out. Or, as several conservative blogs argue, black activists wanted to keep out whites, and if the races were reversed the mainstream liberal media would be shouting "racists" from the hilltops. As Top Conservative News argued last week:

Why is it considered perfectly normal for residents of a black neighborhood to want to keep their neighborhood black? If the races had been reversed, the media would be denouncing the Portland African American Leadership Forum as the Ku Klux Klan.

According to the Associated Press, the Portland African American Leadership Forum said they would continue to be opposed to development that didn't benefit the black community. It accused the Portland Development Commission, which green lighted the Trader Joe's, of contributing to "to the destructive impact of gentrification and displacement on the African American community." Mayor Charlie Hales and the urban renewal agency's executive director, Patrick Quinton, signed on to a letter supporting that claim. Last week, Trader Joe's backed down, and said the following in a statement: "We run neighborhood stores, and our approach is simple: If a neighborhood does not want a Trader Joe's, we understand, and we won't open the store in question."

There are two ways to look at this. On the one hand, gentrification is a widespread problem. As large chains and desirable stores move into low-income neighborhoods, young professionals are drawn in by low rents. Landlords raise the rents because people can pay more, and the original tenants have to move. So when the PAALF says they worry a Trader Joe's will attract "non-oppressed populations," they mean people who can afford to pay landlords more. Including some white people. The neighborhood would rather have affordable housing built in the lot, which has been empty for years.