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

#101

Post by Balero » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 1:18 PM UTC

shlant wrote: post #55

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…

> Europe, Asia, etc. they discriminate for different reasons and in different ways, but they all do it and it’s almost always overt. As a Canadian living in Malaysia (just shy of being in the top 10 most racist countries[1]) this is definitely true (although not against me as a Caucasian). There have been several times where I am in a Grab and the casual conversation with the driver all of the sudden turns racist whe…

I lived in KL for a little bit. Many casual conversations turned to how much better things were when the British (which I am) were in charge. Not something I was really expecting!

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

#102

Post by christophilus » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 1:19 PM UTC

starkd wrote: post #85

bhupy wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think we have a biological tendency to be somewhat racist, but among every person that I've met who could be classed as being marginally racist, usually they do not really mean the things they say. Nearly every one of them will create an exception once they have a reasonable conversation with someone from another race. I say, marginally racist, because I have never met a full-fledged racist (in U.S. here). Peronall…

They exist. I once helped a needy young man in Seattle by taking him to get some food. The lady at the checkout counter was black, and oh, man did he spout some shit. It turned out he was a legit neonazi. I actually picked his brain for quite a while to get an idea of the “why” behind things.

Anyway, this experience is the reason I roll my eyes when someone calls ____ a nazi. There are legit nazis in the world, and they’re a truly unpleasant bunch.

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

#103

Post by spywaregorilla » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 1:20 PM UTC

usrusr wrote: post #77

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 stran…

I had no idea people identified as African Americans outside of America

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

#104

Post by DiggyJohnson » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 1:20 PM UTC

usrusr wrote: post #77

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 stran…

Genuinely asking, what would be an example of pure, overt, common racism in American life?

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

#105

Post by ED_Radish » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 1:21 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…

As someone from around the region mentioned in the article. I find it reprehensible too. And at least, from my own bubble of the people I interact with I don't think anyone I know would find it not.

I like to think we're striving in the right direction too. Just at a different stage.

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

#106

Post by Bedon292 » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 1:21 PM UTC

Gracana wrote: post #88

jokethrowaway wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've obviously never been in the position of being elderly, living in a country where pension funds got dilapidated by politicians (no matter how much you paid into it), needing money and your only source of income being a flat you're renting. My dad had one squatter, who was a respectable 60 years old lady: she just stopped paying and the legal and justice system is so shit that it took more than a year to get her…

Why not sell the flat if it doesn't make you any money and extracting rent is so difficult?

The flat was the source of income until someone started squatting. So it was making money. And I would expect selling it would be close to impossible with someone squatting in it already.

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

#107

Post by DiggyJohnson » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 1:21 PM UTC

wikfwikf wrote: post #72

shlant wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I don’t see why that is the case, other than the fact that you disagree with the second sentence and not the first. Doesn’t make the sentences logically incompatible.

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

#108

Post by Bhilai » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 1:22 PM UTC

TomVDB wrote: post #10

Was surprised to see “Singapore”, expected “Bay Area.” When I left my last rental after buying a house, my elderly white landlord asked me to help him put the property on Craigslist. When I did so and mentioned the Cupertino school district, he asked me to remove that part because “it would attract too many Indian families with kids” to avoid the curry smell. He had no issue with other Asian ethnicities, the previous…

Its my theory that this has to do with western kitchens not designed to ventilate properly. Some apartments have no windows near kitchen area and the exhaust does not vent the fumes out, instead vents them back into the apartment making things worse.

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

#109

Post by tomrod » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 1:22 PM UTC

ankittyagi wrote: post #23

I faced same problem in Canada. Vietnamese owner refused to rent me a place citing he does not allow Indian tenants because they are smelly.

Wow this really hits me -- racism is a bad choice function (in the stats/ML sense). The landlord doesn't want "smelly" people, and their experience is "If SMELLY then INDIAN." But that's going to have a huge false positive rate. And SMELLY is not an attribute of INDIAN, so the false negative rate is also going to be huge.

JFC, that's awful and I'm sorry that happened to you.

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

#110

Post by starkd » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 1:22 PM UTC

jnovek wrote: post #57

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…

Just because other countries may have it worse doesn't mean that we're doing well. Look at our prison demographics -- black men are over-represented by a factor of two.

Meaningless stat if taken by itself. You need a more in depth study as to why those people are in prison. There are sadly many black men in prison who deserve to be there. The mere fact they are incacercerated at a larger proportion of their overall population percentage does not mean they innocent bystanders. The reason why so many end up in prison needs to be addressed.