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

#141

Post by scarby2 » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 1:39 PM UTC

christophilus wrote: post #102

starkd wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

> There are legit nazis in the world, and they’re a truly unpleasant bunch

Used to play airsoft with a guy who had a totenkopf tattoo. He wasn't pleasant at all. Not sure anyone wanted him there but so long as he didn't break any of the rules they weren't sure if they could refuse him service.

Though as a counter my friends dad has a bunch of neonazi tattoos under his hair (he doesn't shave it any more) and was a very solid bloke who had a troubled path getting there.

Even the actual neo-nazis can reform.

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

#142

Post by christophilus » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 1:39 PM UTC

justinsaccount wrote: post #76

choko wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I guess he’s saying the US process of denying a loan has nothing to do with race.

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

#143

Post by starkd » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 1:39 PM UTC

foobarbecue wrote: post #130

starkd wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't deny they exist, but they have been marginalized in society. They don't hold any significant power in terms of holding people back.

The problem isn't overt racists so much as subtle, persistent bias, which absolutely holds people back in very significant ways. See my comment about my grandmother. And... unless you're in a marginalized minority group, you really aren't in a position to know how racist people are. Oh yeah, I just remembered, we also recently had a president for four years who was overly racist. Remember his attacks on Judge Curiel?…

Not true. Any body can understand it. It's a basic human empathy characteristic. Telling people they are not in a position to know anything about it, is merely an attempt at thought control by disregarding their opinions. It's not really a discussion.

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

#144

Post by yunohn » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 1:40 PM UTC

rfrey wrote: post #82

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.

I'm only 25% down the comment thread, but so far not one commenter (including your parent) has said the USA has mitigated it all.

It’s important to read the phrasing and implications, than look for the literal “we’ve solved it all”. I’d quoted the relevant portions in my comment, if you think their phrasing is perfectly logical, so be it.

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

#145

Post by dismantlethesun » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 1:40 PM UTC

DiggyJohnson wrote: post #107

wikfwikf wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They are just different claims. Which is what the Op was getting at.

Does the US have to be better than the rest of the world? All counties, everywhere?

This isn't really even allowing for equality with say Canada.

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

#146

Post by usrusr » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 1:41 PM UTC

spywaregorilla wrote: post #103

usrusr wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

"get identified", not "identify" (even if I wouldn't bet that the latter never happens, it would be a clever image projection).

A mistake on the side of the potential xenophobe that usually turns out quite positive for the misidentified. "Welfare seeker" vs "impersonation of the Marshall Plan", the difference could not be bigger. The face of the "good GI", in popular memory, has black skin because that used to be so much of a standout feature back in the day.

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

#147

Post by thematrixturtle » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 1:43 PM UTC

Bhilai wrote: post #123

For westerners in thread complaining about the smell of Indian food/curries, guess what, your food smells too (meat being cooked/bbq'ed smells yucky to vegetarians who have never experienced meat.) Even your bodies have a rotten cheesy odor. I am not being racist, I dont care what anyone cooks or eats. Its just a matter of perspective and I am providing a perspective that you have probably not heard about yourselves.

Interestingly enough, in parts of India, it can be quite difficult to rent an apartment if you're not a vegetarian. (Although this is more an issue of caste than race.)

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

#148

Post by Bedon292 » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 1:43 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #22

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…

Is it legal to mandate, as a landlord, not cooking with curry? Or requiring a cleaning surcharge if one does so without e.g. properly ventilating, washing one’s hands and using odor absorbers?

I doubt a mandate like that would be possible. Especially stating curry directly. They already aren't allowed to damage the place, but proving its a "damage" is probably the hard part. And typically they are already placing a deposit to cover any potential damages.

I had a rental for a while and there was extras for pets, but I do not think you could really do it for anything else. There was a 'pet fee' of like $1-200 per pet to cover carpet cleaning and such. Then an additional 'pet deposit' of half a month rent, on top of the main deposit of a month of rent. The fee was kept no matter what, and then the deposit was there to cover any additional damage like scratches and such.

You might be able to claim lingering smells, no matter what they were caused by, as damages to keep their deposit. Still a lot that could go wrong with it. As you might already have a new tenant lined up, and once they move in good luck proving in court the smells were from the previous tenant. Or you have to leave it vacant for some time to get it cleaned, costing income.

Edit: Just speculating based on my experience in the US. Mostly VA and NC. Obviously could be very different elsewhere in the world.

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

#149

Post by thematrixturtle » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 1:44 PM UTC

tibbydudeza wrote: post #48

Afaik Singaporean housing is based on a govt racial quota system - if you sell/lease your property it must match to the demarcated race for that area - there are numbers. It seems that he is an outlier being a mixed race couple - dunno how that works in that case ????. Also Singapore in the early days suffered from race riots between it's Chinese/Malay/Tamil (Indian) citizens and the founders did not want racial ghet…

Racial quotas only apply to buying public housing. Private housing and leases on public housing are a free-for-all.

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

#150

Post by starkd » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 1:44 PM UTC

foobarbecue wrote: post #120

starkd wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Racism is often subtle and insidious. I'll never forget asking my grandma what she thought of Obama when he was running for president the first time. She said "I like his ideas, but he just doesn't... LOOK right." The dog whistle version of this, which you heard public figures using on TV, was "he doesn't look presidential."

That seems like mind-reading on your part. Even if you are partially right, any individual's thoughts on this are generally more complex and likely to be expressed in different ways on any given day, and in the long term, tend to shift in ways that aren't easy to map.