Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

techinasia.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 238 posts

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

#161

Post by jleyank »

DiggyJohnson wrote: post #104
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…

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

Try being black or brown in the us south or southeast.

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

#162

Post by pixl97 »

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…

>classed as being marginally racist, usually they do not really mean the things they say.

As someone that moved to a very very racist part of the US in their teens (near a sundown town), this is by far the most scary statement you could write. I believe you would be far more concerned if you understood the enormity of it when you look at it in the converse.

This person you mention that creates an exception 'for one of the good ones' will also create an exception for their buddy when they lynch someone and they just forget to tell the police about it.

I recommend 'Neoslavery' by Knowing Better as a little chunk of more recent American history a lot of people would like to erase. Racism runs very deep in some places.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4kI2h3iotA

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

#163

Post by bhupy »

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."

Even assuming that your grandma was coming from a place of racial animus (itself debatable), nobody is arguing that America is devoid of racism — there's no country on Earth that has truly eradicated racism.

The real point is that the conversation you described happens ten times over in most peer developed countries. If you think it's bad that a few people say this about Obama (who ultimately was elected President twice), imagine what it's like running for office as a person of color in France, Germany, the Nordics, Japan, South Korea, or Italy — it's nigh impossible. Whereas in America, the kind of racism you're describing has been relegated to retirees and people who generally lack power, in Europe, this kind of thinking persists in board rooms, popular culture, and even the British Royal Family (just ask Meghan Markle) — institutions with real cultural influence and power.

Ultimately, while racism continues to be a problem in America, it's much further along in solving that problem than pretty much any other developed country, save for maybe Canada, the UK, and ANZ.

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

#164

Post by starkd »

spywaregorilla wrote: post #132
starkd wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "exceptions" is where racist attitudes get broken down. It creates the cognitive dissonance. It doesn't happen right away, but its a significant step in the right direction. Yes. This includes most "old people". A lot of the talk an jabs or using racial epithets is superficial when you get right down to it. At least, in my experience.

Well allow me to throw my two anecotes into the ring. My grandfather is an asian immigrant who dreamed of coming to the US, which he did late in life. He died in a hospital angrily denying help from black staff members. My grandmother is a sweet old italian lady. She got real mad when one of her grandkids started dating a black guy. She doesn't believe in mixed race couples / people. I'm mixed race but of course I'm…

My main concern is that people are not held back because of it. At some point, everyone needs to develop an innate resiliance (a thick skin) in how they deal with negativity. I think that, in the U.S. at least, there is a greater danger of a social thought-police where people feel like they can't say what they think.

When my grandmother was dying in a hospital, she had some dementia. I don't think she ever uttered a racial epithet to anyone in her whole life, but one day a hospital worker was trying to clean her room up and making a bit of a commotion, she sat up and told him to go away, that she did not like black people. We apolized to the man who seemed to understand the situation. My point is that people are complicated, sometimes they say things on reflex they would not say in a healthier more positive frame of mind.

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

#165

Post by rayiner »

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…

The Reagan quote is great. I was talking with my dad about this the other day. He pointed out that he’s been called “bideshi” (the Bangla word for foreigner) while traveling in a different village in Bangladesh than the one his family is from.

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

#166

Post by baybal2 »

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…

No post body was provided.

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

#167

Post by pixl97 »

speakfreely wrote: post #126
justinsaccount wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

People frequently cite historical racial inequities (race-based loan denials) as proof of racism in 2022 when those specific issues are no longer prevalent.

No longer directly prevalent. The secondary effects caused the primary effects will still take many many generations to even get close to working itself out.

For example, Redlining just being turned into 'your address affects your credit score'.

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

#168

Post by starkd »

pixl97 wrote: post #162
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…

>classed as being marginally racist, usually they do not really mean the things they say. As someone that moved to a very very racist part of the US in their teens (near a sundown town), this is by far the most scary statement you could write. I believe you would be far more concerned if you understood the enormity of it when you look at it in the converse. This person you mention that creates an exception 'for one o…

When is the last time a racial lynching happened that was not prosecuted or was utterly ignored by the local authorities?

I don't deny such attitudes. But I would be suprised if such attitudes extended to a complete abnegation of local authority to prosecute a lynching. Even in a sundown town.

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

#169

Post by lotsofpulp »

tomrod wrote: post #109
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.

I think it is more “If Indian, then x% likelier than average to cause $y in expenses due to odor issues”. And of course, they would not have to make this exclusive to Indians.

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

#170

Post by Lapsa »

b112 wrote: post #153
idk1 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm white and my husband is British Indian. Back in 2010 now before we were married he got a few rental rejects, one specifically mentioned the curry issue. He's never cooked a curry in his life. I just want to give him a hug when these things happen, it's awful.

I'm a white canuck, and love curry and other hot spices. I feel like if I ever rent there, I should invite you guys over, the use the opportunity to cook curry. Even if we just eat steaks, and I put the curry in the fridge for later, your husband will likely get the blame. It would be an interesting test/data point. Does the landlord approach me, and say no more Indian guests? Plus, at least you guys get a free meal…

curry rocks. Indian cuisine is my favorite. if I could - would eat every day at Krishna's
Post reply on HN