How black people still need to outwit racists in rural America • Hacker News Board

Re: How black people still need to outwit racists in rural America

#101

Post by collyw » Mon, Feb 12, 2018, 6:26 PM UTC

ggg9990 wrote: post #86

scarface74 wrote: post #46

I don't disagree with the article but let me give a more positive anecdote. I'm Black and live in Forsyth County GA. Yeah this Forsyth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WErjPmFulQ0 We were looking for a house and were welcomed with opened arms by the builder, I can still go to pick up my son from a teen group where no one knows me and ask any random person have they seen my son and they know exactly who I'm talking ab…

My guess is that your household income is at least $150k? Wealth can be a partial vaccine against discrimination.

Or maybe people are discriminating against poverty / class rather than race.

Re: How black people still need to outwit racists in rural America

#102

Post by AnimalMuppet » Mon, Feb 12, 2018, 6:31 PM UTC

amazingman wrote: post #97

scarface74 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it an exception or do we mix racism with classicism? No I don't believe that racism is dead but do believe classicism is worse. Studies show that minorities have a harder time getting jobs, apartments, and are stopped more often by the police. But studies have also shown that income mobility regardless of race is statistically rare. I've heard a lot of classist comments from both White people (calling people "red…

In my experience as an American, it’s basically impossible for most Americans to talk about race and class problems at the same time. It seems as if for most people they exist in a zero-sum relationship; either everything wrong is because race(ism) or everything wrong is because class(ism). It’s not only exasperating, but seems to have stalemated progress on a societal level for generations.

This may be because Americans believe that class mobility is high (even though it isn't as high as it once was). But if class mobility is high, then if you're lower class, well, that's kind of your own fault. Go fix it. Move up.

But if you're of the wrong race, that clearly can't be your fault, and you can't "fix" it.

That split in how we think about class and race may be the underlying mechanism as to why we can't talk about both class and race at the same time.

Re: How black people still need to outwit racists in rural America

#103

Post by dsfyu404ed » Mon, Feb 12, 2018, 7:50 PM UTC

HammerJack wrote: post #100

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bunch of Californians moved in and changed politics for (what the locals would consider) the worse.

I think it depends which side of the fence you were on before we passed amendment 64. CO has always been a purple state, I get the feeling you consider yourself red/conservative/etc and are noticing the red:blue ratio swing against you. I cannot say I share your concerns for a number of reasons. Locally, as in at the city level, we fight the old guard regularly just to pass enough taxes to keep our infrastructure fro…

If it was so terrible before people like you showed up then why did you chose to show up here?

You see yourself the same way 16th century missionaries saw themselves, you think you're civilizing the barbarians but you're destroying someone else's way of life.

You are conflating high taxes and high government involvement in everyday life with a high quality of life and that's simply not the case. It might have been the case where you came from but it's not the case where you went.

They might not be the greatest at articulating it but the people who disagree with you are disagreeing with you because they have a fundamentally different view of the responsibility of government and the individual to each other (on the local level or otherwise).

You need to learn to think in terms of value. Does X increase quality of life enough per dollar to be worth it. If you don't learn to think about value you'll eventually run out of other people's money.

Re: How black people still need to outwit racists in rural America

#104

Post by LyndsySimon » Mon, Feb 12, 2018, 7:57 PM UTC

> They took to heart several recommendations gleaned from the conversation, including that they should bypass Harrison, an Arkansas town with a long history of KKK activity.

I live in Harrison, AR - in fact, I just moved back here after spending five years in Charlottesville, VA.

You're far more likely to be harassed for having a Hillary sticker on the back of your car than for the color of your skin.

Re: How black people still need to outwit racists in rural America

#105

Post by junkcollector » Mon, Feb 12, 2018, 8:20 PM UTC

HammerJack wrote: post #100

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bunch of Californians moved in and changed politics for (what the locals would consider) the worse.

I think it depends which side of the fence you were on before we passed amendment 64. CO has always been a purple state, I get the feeling you consider yourself red/conservative/etc and are noticing the red:blue ratio swing against you. I cannot say I share your concerns for a number of reasons. Locally, as in at the city level, we fight the old guard regularly just to pass enough taxes to keep our infrastructure fro…

It's probably the politics that led to the roughly 50% rise in cost of living across the state in the last decade.

There is little comfort to be had when you're losing your home and car because someone tells you that at least the homeless shelters and public transit are much better now.

They hate you, because they see you as a giant economic jackboot stepping on the face of the poor forever.

Re: How black people still need to outwit racists in rural America

#106

Post by scarface74 » Mon, Feb 12, 2018, 11:24 PM UTC

collyw wrote: post #101

ggg9990 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is that your household income is at least $150k? Wealth can be a partial vaccine against discrimination.

Or maybe people are discriminating against poverty / class rather than race.

No it's definitely both. But, while there are a lot of studies showing discriminitstion, to a point, depending on what part of the country you are in, how well connected you are, status (not necessarily income) and how well you can "fit in", it can be less of an issue.

Re: How black people still need to outwit racists in rural America

#107

Post by collyw » Tue, Feb 13, 2018, 4:17 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #106

collyw wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe people are discriminating against poverty / class rather than race.

No it's definitely both. But, while there are a lot of studies showing discriminitstion, to a point, depending on what part of the country you are in, how well connected you are, status (not necessarily income) and how well you can "fit in", it can be less of an issue.

Where I come from in the UK there isn't a lot of racism (that I am aware of) but I do see huge similarities in the way that classes treat each other to the way races treat each other in the US.

Re: How black people still need to outwit racists in rural America

#108

Post by r3vo » Tue, Feb 13, 2018, 9:58 PM UTC

I live in Atlanta and have lived in the American south all of my life.

I don't really appreciate the stereotype that people here are more racist and backwards than in other parts of the country. It actually seems to me that in many ways we have superior race relations down here. The amount of blacks living here is much higher than it is in other parts of the country. Most days when I walk to work I don't see any white people at all. You notice that when there are race riots and events of racial tension they never occur in the south?

I think the fear that a black person would have some sort of wild racist encounter down here is misplaced.

Re: How black people still need to outwit racists in rural America

#109

Post by TheCoelacanth » Wed, Feb 14, 2018, 1:36 AM UTC

akkat wrote: post #90

jogjayr wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct me if I'm wrong but AFAIK, Social Security and medicare are benefits available to everyone, rich or poor, after reaching retirement age. The amount you get out has some relation with how much you put in when you worked (it may not be perfectly linear, perhaps favors poorer people, I don't know). Unemployment benefits are for people who have lost jobs meaning they previously paid into unemployment insurance pl…

> Unemployment benefits are for people who have lost jobs meaning they previously paid into unemployment insurance plans If you don't include that as "welfare and benefits of the poor" I don't know what you would include. I guess you're right in the sense that only a small portions of ones taxes go to pay people who never worked and never plan on working. I double checked and you are right that most of SS and medicar…

Things that I would qualify as welfare and benefits for the poor would be things like TANF, SNAP, Section 8, CHIP, Medicaid, etc.

These are things where eligibility is determined primarily based on some criteria that try to determine need rather than based on having paid into the system to fund it.

Social Security is essentially a government run pension. Unemployment and disability benefits are effectively government run insurance programs. The size of payment you receive and your eligibility is based on how much you paid into the system. Medicare is kind of halfway between health insurance and a pension because the premiums are subsidized if you paid into the system earlier in life. Low income people do generally get slightly better payouts proportionally to what they pay in so you could argue that some portion of these programs is a welfare benefit for the poor, but low income people also tend to die earlier, so some have also argued that they are a net transfer from low to high income people.