I think you are pretty off-base here.    There is a deep history of city plans and policies doing systematic damage to a once-thriving black community in Portland.    That community was limited in their housing options and required to live in only one section of the city. It may not be significant to you, but it is to plenty of people who have a generational history here.       
It's not guilt that drives some to want to redress some of the historic wrong-doings but respect.    At least that's how I see it.     I find it ignorant of people who are not of a particular culture to sneer and deride a group of people that they don't even want to understand.