“For many years, Portland held the distinction of being the whitest big city in the United States,” writes the @nytopinion columnist @Tressie McMillan Cottom. “From its inception, Oregon had laws that restricted the number of Black people within its borders. When a state starts with a constitutional imperative geared to making it whites-only, whiteness is the nucleus of everyday life.” Congress may have made Juneteenth a national holiday in 2021, but “this nation still has not fully acknowledged its national debt to slavery,” Tressie writes. “How can it find a unifying national message around Black freedom without acknowledging white accommodation of slavery? A rodeo is as good a way to explore those tensions as any other. Like a rider wrestling a bull beneath bright lights, reconciling national narratives is not a pastime for the faint of heart.” Read more at the link in the bio. | 📷 Mason Trinca for The New York Times #Juneteenth #Portland #blackrodeo #nytopinion