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The Bay Area

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Re: The Bay Area

#11

Post by [deleted] »

jmagoon wrote: post #9
nemothekid wrote: post #6

>I can’t help noticing that 100% of the people I see who are building the future and making the big bucks are ethnically Chinese, Indian, or white. And 100% of the people I see who are washing floors or guarding doors or serving fast food are black and Mexican and Central-American. Painting this social issue as racism is incorrect and using racism as a boogeyman, sweeps the real issues under the rug. I'm confident th…

I've always heard of this referred to as institutional racism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_racism "When racism is built into the institution, it appears as the collective action of the population", thus "San Francisco is racist".

[deleted]

Re: The Bay Area

#12

Post by vondur »

You will mostly see Hispanic people working the types of jobs Mr. Bray lists because many of them are illegals, and are paid under the table. It keeps labor costs low. It's not really racism so much as economic exploitation.

Re: The Bay Area

#13

Post by msandford »

nemothekid wrote: post #6

>I can’t help noticing that 100% of the people I see who are building the future and making the big bucks are ethnically Chinese, Indian, or white. And 100% of the people I see who are washing floors or guarding doors or serving fast food are black and Mexican and Central-American. Painting this social issue as racism is incorrect and using racism as a boogeyman, sweeps the real issues under the rug. I'm confident th…

I started to read your comment and went "wuh oh" but kept reading. You made an excellent point that there may well be poor whites who are underserved as well.

I imagine that college educated parents with high income (or lack thereof) is a better predictor of future earnings than skin color or sex. I don't have any kind of study to back this up, it's an educated guess. I would love it if someone found something and posted a link with evidence for or against.

I grew up in one of the richer flyover states (MN) and I can assure you that 20 years ago and even 10 years ago there were plenty of poor whites working all kinds of unskilled jobs. Here in Texas (where I live now) it's very uncommon to see whites mowing, painting, etc for a living. Where I grew up in MN it was basically all whites doing that kind of work.

Re: The Bay Area

#15

Post by twrkit »

This is one of those unfortunate situations where no matter what he says it's going to make things worse. And now to nitpick:

>I can’t help noticing that 100% of the people I see who are building the future and making the big bucks are ethnically Chinese, Indian, or white. And 100% of the people I see who are washing floors or guarding doors or serving fast food are black and Mexican and Central-American.

As someone who works in tech and lives in the Bay Area, I can tell you without a doubt there are many people in the industry who are indeed 'black and Mexican and Central-American.' Conversely (and somewhat anecdotally), I see plenty of Asian-Americans and whites working in fast food.

Re: The Bay Area

#16

Post by angryindianguy »

>I can’t help noticing that 100% of the people I see who are building the future and making the big bucks are ethnically Chinese, Indian, or white. And 100% of the people I see who are washing floors or guarding doors or serving fast food are black and Mexican and Central-American.

I am sorry I used to think that Tim Bray was a smart guy. Hell Indians in India are far more poorer than African Americans. Now if some indians worked hard and pulled themselves up, and got jobs / started companies in SF. But hey its still racism. There is no institutional racism, what exists is a black latino culture that looks down upon education. Thats the problem that needs to be addressed not some institutional racism boogeyman.

People want to work with other people who will help them succeeds in fact Asians and Indians show that SF is not at all racist.

Re: The Bay Area

#17

Post by nemothekid »

jmagoon wrote: post #9
nemothekid wrote: post #6

>I can’t help noticing that 100% of the people I see who are building the future and making the big bucks are ethnically Chinese, Indian, or white. And 100% of the people I see who are washing floors or guarding doors or serving fast food are black and Mexican and Central-American. Painting this social issue as racism is incorrect and using racism as a boogeyman, sweeps the real issues under the rug. I'm confident th…

I've always heard of this referred to as institutional racism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_racism "When racism is built into the institution, it appears as the collective action of the population", thus "San Francisco is racist".

I don't think I can refer to is as institutional racism. Maybe there are some laws that disproportionally effect minorities in California - I'm not an expert so I don't know. However, I don't think the term racism actually belongs. It seems to me that these are the effects are due to class, and (through the indirect effects of racism of old), blacks and other minorities are disproportionally poor. Because, especially in urban centers, that minorities make up most of the poor, I'm guessing, that one may mistakenly assume its due to racism, when its actually because of socioeconomic background.

Re: The Bay Area

#20

Post by jmagoon »

[deleted] wrote: post #11
jmagoon wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always heard of this referred to as institutional racism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_racism "When racism is built into the institution, it appears as the collective action of the population", thus "San Francisco is racist".

[deleted]

The first two lines of the article:

"Institutional racism is any system of inequality based on race. It can occur in institutions such as public government bodies, private business corporations (such as media outlets), and universities (public and private)."

It goes on to say that the definition is contested, with one definition what you've quoted above.

Additionally: "Institutional racism is the differential access to the goods, services, and opportunities of society."

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