Sorry, your wife is Indian, landlord won’t rent to you • Hacker News Board

Re: Sorry, your wife is Indian, landlord won’t rent to you

#71

Post by D13Fd » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 1:07 PM UTC

franciscop wrote: post #31

jrockway wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It being illegal means you can drag the landlord to court and ask them to explain their thinking to the court. You can say, look, here's the income and rental histories and credit scores for your tenants in separate apartments, here's documentation saying we are above that, so what's the reason for the rejection. And, lying under oath is its own crime. This is like saying "murder shouldn't be illegal because everyone…

No way, in most countries you also have the right to remain silent, or not say anything that could incriminate yourself, or can be assumed to lie if you are defending yourself. This is not how any of it works, at all. You cannot force someone to explain things in court like this in any kind of decent way, the laws are there to catch the openly racists IMHO. You probably even need probably cause/crime indication, whic…

In the US a prospective tenant who was discriminated against may have a civil cause of action under the fair housing act.

They can drag the landlord through a federal court case. I guess the landlord could plead the fifth at deposition, if there was something criminal involved, but that will probably only help the plaintiff. Remedies include damages and attorneys fees, which can be large.

As a landlord, you probably aren’t going to be able to just brush off an FHA claim. Even if you ultimately prevail, it’s lilely to be a big, expensive hassle.

Re: Sorry, your wife is Indian, landlord won’t rent to you

#72

Post by wikfwikf » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 1:08 PM UTC

shlant wrote: post #62

yunohn wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> remind people the world is far more racist > generations working to mitigate any form of discrimination I would definitely agree that all humans have the capacity to be racist (other-ist) and that racism is not confined to the USA (obviously). But it’s ridiculous to claim that somehow “it’s worse than the USA” and that the USA has mitigated it all, because that’s easily disproved by speaking to any minority person.

> that the USA has mitigated it all, because that’s easily disproved by speaking to any minority person. The OP literally said "It’s not perfect, but we strive in the right direction" in the next sentence

The claim that the US is not perfect and the claim that it is far less racist than the rest of the world are very very different.

Re: Sorry, your wife is Indian, landlord won’t rent to you

#73

Post by api » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 1:09 PM UTC

lettergram wrote: post #30

Every time I hear “America is racist” I remind people the world is far more racist - see story above. This is common practice everywhere. Europe, Asia, etc. they discriminate for different reasons and in different ways, but they all do it and it’s almost always overt. That’s the culture in the region, imo it’s not “wrong”. People self-select and who am I to discriminate against their culture? They do it for their rea…

The fact that the US has a continuous and often contentious dialogue about racism is why the US is less racist.

They don't talk about it much in places that are really racist because they don't give a damn.

Re: Sorry, your wife is Indian, landlord won’t rent to you

#74

Post by _8j50 » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 1:09 PM UTC

lettergram wrote: post #30

Every time I hear “America is racist” I remind people the world is far more racist - see story above. This is common practice everywhere. Europe, Asia, etc. they discriminate for different reasons and in different ways, but they all do it and it’s almost always overt. That’s the culture in the region, imo it’s not “wrong”. People self-select and who am I to discriminate against their culture? They do it for their rea…

It is a different kind of racism though. Every single country has racist people and they are hardly ever a minority.

However, being looked down upon or discriminated against is one thing. Having to fear for your life and safety because they will hurt you just because of what you look like biologically is a different issue.

Take the infamous Japan for example, if you live there long enough as any non-white minority you should expect to be treated badly based on your appearance alone.

Take a white area in any US state or night time at a sun-down small town. Bad things will happen to you and the cops will be in on it. Or take driving as a minority in certain parts of the US, there is a chance you might run into a cop who might decide to frame you for some crime and at best you will spend a few weeks in jail before being set free. That can happen outside the US in say Russia for example, the US isn't special but the type of racism where you don't get jobs or get called names in public is different than being afraid day in day out or have large portions of a political party advocate for race wars, genoicide,etc...

I mean can you think of any other country where a minorities are incarcerated at a similar rate per capita as the US?

I use to think like you as well but the US is a bit special as with many things in this regard. But racism like many other evils are default settings on humans.

Re: Sorry, your wife is Indian, landlord won’t rent to you

#75

Post by dboreham » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 1:10 PM UTC

bhupy wrote: post #52

lettergram wrote: post #30

Every time I hear “America is racist” I remind people the world is far more racist - see story above. This is common practice everywhere. Europe, Asia, etc. they discriminate for different reasons and in different ways, but they all do it and it’s almost always overt. That’s the culture in the region, imo it’s not “wrong”. People self-select and who am I to discriminate against their culture? They do it for their rea…

Yup, minority here, and I wouldn't feel comfortable living anywhere except the US, Canada, the UK, and maybe ANZ. The Anglo-world in general is far more welcoming to people of color than anywhere else. I'm sure I could be comfortable wherever I am in the world, but it would be extremely difficult for me to thrive and see myself in a position of leadership (either in the private sector or the government) anywhere outs…

Probably biased, but as someone who grew up in the UK then lived in the US for 20 years, the US seems orders of magnitude more racist.

Re: Sorry, your wife is Indian, landlord won’t rent to you

#76

Post by justinsaccount » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 1:10 PM UTC

choko wrote: post #68

justinsaccount wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking of "overt": South African Racism vs. American Racism https://youtu.be/XUuLDkDSJKg Gist of his answer is south African Racism is "blacks can't live here", US Racism is "well you could live here, but your loan was denied, sorry"

It's illegal to deny loans on the basis of race. Your race is also not a factor in your credit score.

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make?

Re: Sorry, your wife is Indian, landlord won’t rent to you

#77

Post by usrusr » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 1:10 PM UTC

lettergram wrote: post #30

Every time I hear “America is racist” I remind people the world is far more racist - see story above. This is common practice everywhere. Europe, Asia, etc. they discriminate for different reasons and in different ways, but they all do it and it’s almost always overt. That’s the culture in the region, imo it’s not “wrong”. People self-select and who am I to discriminate against their culture? They do it for their rea…

I agree that most of the world is worse (or different?), but America is still special because it has so much pure racism that isn't a blend with xenophobia.

Here in Germany for example, black skin Africans report wildly different amounts of discrimination: the lucky ones are those who, due to some inexplicable subtility, tend to get misidentified as African Americans. Suddenly they are on the other side of that strange line separating immigrants from expats, without even trying.

Re: Sorry, your wife is Indian, landlord won’t rent to you

#78

Post by throwawayarnty » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 1:10 PM UTC

As another anecdote. It is common for apartment ads in Netherlands to explicitly say “no foreigners!” in their ads. Which was a shock to me when first seeing them on Facebook by 18-22 year old Dutch university students offering rooms.

Extremely offensive if this ad would show up in usa or other new world countries.

Re: Sorry, your wife is Indian, landlord won’t rent to you

#79

Post by haunter » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 1:10 PM UTC

D13Fd wrote: post #71

franciscop wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No way, in most countries you also have the right to remain silent, or not say anything that could incriminate yourself, or can be assumed to lie if you are defending yourself. This is not how any of it works, at all. You cannot force someone to explain things in court like this in any kind of decent way, the laws are there to catch the openly racists IMHO. You probably even need probably cause/crime indication, whic…

In the US a prospective tenant who was discriminated against may have a civil cause of action under the fair housing act. They can drag the landlord through a federal court case. I guess the landlord could plead the fifth at deposition, if there was something criminal involved, but that will probably only help the plaintiff. Remedies include damages and attorneys fees, which can be large. As a landlord, you probably…

Sounds like incredibly hard to prove

https://www.americanbar.org/groups/public_education/resource...

>Is a landlord allowed to discriminate in the selection of tenants?

>That depends on how you define “discriminate.” The landlord isn’t required to take all applicants. He or she can use legal criteria to select tenants, such as their past history of tenancy, the amount of income they have with which to pay the rent, their credit history, and their past criminal record. The landlord may also use personal criteria in selecting tenants, such as whether they have purple hair or nose rings. In some places, a landlord may even refuse to rent to certain people because of their occupation. But the law has made many other forms of discrimination unlawful.

Re: Sorry, your wife is Indian, landlord won’t rent to you

#80

Post by post_break » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 1:10 PM UTC

orbital-decay wrote: post #47

franciscop wrote: post #20

This is one of the few instances that I've seen open discrimination agains white western people in Japan. In my journey for renting a place, after a couple of visits and getting a "no because he's a gaikokujin (foreigner)" I asked the agent to disclose it firstly. He did, but tactfully: he is a foreigner who is learning Japanese and came to the university in Japan and is hired by traditional company X and blabla. Sti…

Might it be because of the additional legal requirements for a landlord in case of foreign tenants? Or it's really because they don't like non-Japanese?

I think you already know the answer. I've seen people complain because they think foreigners don't know how to properly recycle waste in japan and that was the cause for not renting to gaijin.