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The Three Bay Areas (2017)

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Re: The Three Bay Areas (2017)

#41

Post by aabhay »

pkkim wrote: post #21

There are two reasons I'm guessing the author doesn't see himself as part of the working class. 1. He doesn't make fun of the working class like he does to the other two. Either because he doesn't know them well enough to do so, or because he doesn't want to insult them. 2. The UAW locals in the Bay Area represent graduate students, postdocs, and nonprofit workers. No one in "service jobs or government jobs" or "nurs…

Tons of UAW members see themselves as teachers. That’s essentially what a humanities PhD or post-doc have to do to attend university.

Re: The Three Bay Areas (2017)

#42

Post by fotta »

> charmed by the feral chickens that roamed the streets freely.[0]

Holy shit I never thought I’d see my hometown mentioned in this context. Yes, the chickens roam old town (maybe a square mile) freely but you don’t really see them elsewhere. They are really loud though.

[0] https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/2-California-towns-wh...

Re: The Three Bay Areas (2017)

#43

Post by csa »

ThrowAwayBay wrote: post #32

This ignores a huge chunk of the bay area: first generation tech immigrants. Not working class, not elites, not hip.

I am fairly certain that this was written from the perspective of people who were born and raised in the Bay Area, which first generation tech immigrants by definition cannot be.

It’s also a whimsical satire piece, so I wouldn’t expect it to include every group. That said, note the the site has follow on stories for each group, so maybe they expanded the groups.

Re: The Three Bay Areas (2017)

#44

Post by onecommentman »

ThrowAwayBay wrote: post #36
dan-robertson wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think the article is supposed to be a description of every small class of people in the Bay Area. I think it is merely to give an impression of the inner lives of some different people in roughly the same place. Certainly I didn’t read it as “here are representatives of the three sets which partition the population of the Bay Area” so much as “here is what the Bay Area means to three different stereotypes of…

Sure, but as a first generation tech immigrant, it made me feel transparent and ignored, since living in the south bay it feels like we are the majority or at least the single largest group. EDIT: Also, the title is The Three Bay Areas, not "A Tale of Three Bay Areas" or alike.

Please don’t obsess about this, especially online. You play into the stereotype of the Bay Area as some latter-day 19th Century Boston, which was described in that era as "applying first principles to trifles". Forget it, kid, it’s Chinatown. Or not.

Re: The Three Bay Areas (2017)

#45

Post by novok »

pkkim wrote: post #21

There are two reasons I'm guessing the author doesn't see himself as part of the working class. 1. He doesn't make fun of the working class like he does to the other two. Either because he doesn't know them well enough to do so, or because he doesn't want to insult them. 2. The UAW locals in the Bay Area represent graduate students, postdocs, and nonprofit workers. No one in "service jobs or government jobs" or "nurs…

Many journalist types are the first group playing in the second group. It's hard to make it otherwise.

Re: The Three Bay Areas (2017)

#46

Post by 8f2ab37a-ed6c »

tathougies wrote: post #15

> You are utterly certain that you are not racist, even though your friend circle is exclusively white, Asian or hapa. I love how asians are the new whites. For all its worship of success, Americans hate success like no other.

That's been fascinating to watch from the inside of tech companies as well.

I've seen instances of US-born American Asians to not fall under the "People of Color" label when referred to by Latin-American or Black employees, thus being associated more with White Americans, and yet they themselves would self-label as "People of Color" in other conversations.

My impression is that, at least in coastal metropolitan cities, East and South Asians are informally part of the white "class". Economically those two groups are more accomplished than most white ethnicities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_U... , which I imagine makes other minorities less than thrilled about being affiliated with them, as they don't get to share the same levels of success.

Re: The Three Bay Areas (2017)

#48

Post by why_only_15 »

cbHXBY1D wrote: post #47
aluminum96 wrote: post #22

Article is paywalled?

Yep. I'm paywalled out of it. Anyone want to give a summary?

This is medium's paywall. Just open an incognito tab or the like. Personally I have no guilt about it because medium doesn't pay the people who write on it.

Re: The Three Bay Areas (2017)

#49

Post by DevKoala »

I have definitely met tons of individuals in SF/Oakland who fit these stereotypes. Also, the individuals I met who resemble the second stereotype are the most inconsistent in terms of ideals. They want to be rich, but they’d rather accrue “moral capital”. It’s quite the oxymoron.

Re: The Three Bay Areas (2017)

#50

Post by tathougies »

8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #46
tathougies wrote: post #15

> You are utterly certain that you are not racist, even though your friend circle is exclusively white, Asian or hapa. I love how asians are the new whites. For all its worship of success, Americans hate success like no other.

That's been fascinating to watch from the inside of tech companies as well. I've seen instances of US-born American Asians to not fall under the "People of Color" label when referred to by Latin-American or Black employees, thus being associated more with White Americans, and yet they themselves would self-label as "People of Color" in other conversations. My impression is that, at least in coastal metropolitan citie…

It's almost like this is all more about interclass dynamics than skin color. But skin color is a convenient distraction and factionalism drives votes.
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