4 ms·

Wait wait. So: 1. White people commit racism and violence against blacks causes 2. White people flee to the suburbs causes 3. Urban centers to deteriorate.

Wait wait. So: 1. White people commit racism and violence against blacks causes 2. White people flee to the suburbs causes 3. Urban centers to deteriorate. Let's examine: 1->2 So white people were fleeing... their own violence against blacks? 2->3 So when those violent people left, this cause the areas to get... worse? Apparently you believe white people being present is a problem, and white people leaving is a problem. Their presence hurts blacks, and when they leave it hurts blacks too. So literally everything is the fault of white people, whether they're coming or going, here or there. Even more surreal - these blacks voluntarily moved towards the whites. Then the whites moved to escape the blacks. And the bad guys here are... the whites! The ones who blacks want to live around, and who are trying to flee them. It really is remarkable the rationalizations a mind is capable of.

lwhalen 10y ago
I think your post and mine must have waved to each other when they passed in The Tubes :-)
Kinnard 10y ago
Do you think any of this has to do with the fact that it was illegal to teach Blacks to read and write. Do you think any of this has to do with the mental trauma of enslavement. Do you think the Emancipation Proclamation or the 13th Amendment make all the bad things go away. Ubiquitous discrimination grinds on the soul. Do you blame the oppressed for being ground down?
- douche 10y ago
  We're at least two or three generations away from any of this. Hell, slavery's been abolished for five generations. Five generations ago, my family was poor-as-a-churchmouse country bumpkins (still are, by and large). They didn't have any education, and they got drafted to fight in a war they didn't give a tinker's damn about to fight and die on Little Round Top and a dozen other places in Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, and many of them died.
  - Kinnard 10y ago
    My Grandmother's Grandmother was a slave and my Grandparents fled the segregated South where lynchings were common. Ever see any of that horrifying Civil Rights Movement footage? A lot of those people are still alive. The victims and the perpetrators. All those people protesting the integration of schools, throwing things at harmless black children? Still alive.
  - DanBC 10y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining Started 1934, continued to at least the 1970s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching > Nearly 3,500 African Americans and 1,300 whites were lynched in the United States between 1882 and 1968, mostly from 1882 to 1920. (Someone born in 1968 is 46 / 47.)
thebooktocome 10y ago
A quick thing that can be easily dispelled: minority groups didn't voluntarily move anywhere from '34 to '68 [1], because the FHA policy of redlining prevented them from getting a mortgage in predominately white neighborhoods. Shockingly or not, the higher quality property was reserved for whites. '68 was the end of formal, legal requirements to disapprove of mortgages in heterogeneous communities (for lack of a better term). There's plenty of evidence that the practice continues even to this day, informally. [2] [1] http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/05/the-racist-housing-policy-that-made-your-neighborhood/371439/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/05/the-raci... [2] http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/program_offices/fair_housing_equal_opp/2016pressrelease http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/program_offices/fai...
lkrubner 10y ago
You might want to read up on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight Excerpt: However, some historians have challenged the phrase "white flight" as a misnomer whose use should be reconsidered. In her study of Chicago's West Side during the post-war era, historian Amanda Seligman argues that the phrase misleadingly suggests that whites immediately departed when blacks moved into the neighborhood, when in fact, many whites defended their space with violence, intimidation, or legal tactics. The business practices of redlining, mortgage discrimination, and racially restrictive covenants contributed to the overcrowding and physical deterioration of areas where minorities chose to congregate. Such conditions are considered to have contributed to the emigration of other populations. The limited facilities for banking and insurance, due to a perceived lack of profitability, and other social services, and extra fees meant to hedge against perceived profit issues increased their cost to residents in predominantly non-white suburbs and city neighborhoods. According to the environmental geographer Laura Pulido, the historical processes of suburbanization and urban decentralization contribute to contemporary environmental racism.
peterwwillis 10y ago
It is not my responsibility to teach you basic American history. But here's some things to get you started. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/07/white-flight-alive-and-well/399980/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/07/white-fl... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Great_Migration_(African_American) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Great_Migration_(Africa... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_African-American_Civil_Rights_Movement_(1954%E2%80%9368) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_African-Americ... Read them or don't, I don't really care, but if you want to be less ignorant of how this developed these are useful starting points.
- lwhalen 10y ago
  So what should white people have done/what should they do, to not be guilty of these terrible social sins that appear to be their fault no matter what actions they take?
  - peterwwillis 10y ago
    In a sentence? They need to do something to help. In a larger sense: they should recognize that the entire American society was splintered a long time ago by racism and it never un-splintered. A metric fuck-ton of work needs to be done to rehabilitate the communities and whole socioeconomic strata that have been affected by this. It will probably take 20-50 years to undo, just because so many people have this "It's not my fault, so fuck it, I don't need to do anything" attitude. Societies do not self-heal.
    - lwhalen 10y ago
      I don't know about you, but I am responsible for my own actions. I don't need a hug from Whitey or anyone else to know the difference between right and wrong, or hard work versus sloth. If you do, I feel bad for you son. I choose the action, I choose the consequence, same as pretty much anything else on this planet.
dang 10y ago
You've been using HN exclusively to fight political battles. That's an abuse of this site. We asked you repeatedly to stop, but you've continued doing exactly the same thing, so I'm banning your account. This community has a single guiding value: intellectual curiosity. That is profoundly incompatible with single-purpose ideological participation. If HN is to survive in its intended form, we need to get clearer about differentiating these two. I'm sure there are other internet communities where people can fight their wars-by-other-means. > It really is remarkable the rationalizations a mind is capable of. This kind of incivility is particularly unwelcome here. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12134673 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12134673 and marked it off-topic.

lwhalen 10y ago

I think your post and mine must have waved to each other when they passed in The Tubes :-)

Kinnard 10y ago

Do you think any of this has to do with the fact that it was illegal to teach Blacks to read and write. Do you think any of this has to do with the mental trauma of enslavement. Do you think the Emancipation Proclamation or the 13th Amendment make all the bad things go away. Ubiquitous discrimination grinds on the soul. Do you blame the oppressed for being ground down?

douche 10y ago
We're at least two or three generations away from any of this. Hell, slavery's been abolished for five generations. Five generations ago, my family was poor-as-a-churchmouse country bumpkins (still are, by and large). They didn't have any education, and they got drafted to fight in a war they didn't give a tinker's damn about to fight and die on Little Round Top and a dozen other places in Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, and many of them died.
- Kinnard 10y ago
  My Grandmother's Grandmother was a slave and my Grandparents fled the segregated South where lynchings were common. Ever see any of that horrifying Civil Rights Movement footage? A lot of those people are still alive. The victims and the perpetrators. All those people protesting the integration of schools, throwing things at harmless black children? Still alive.
- DanBC 10y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining Started 1934, continued to at least the 1970s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching > Nearly 3,500 African Americans and 1,300 whites were lynched in the United States between 1882 and 1968, mostly from 1882 to 1920. (Someone born in 1968 is 46 / 47.)

thebooktocome 10y ago

A quick thing that can be easily dispelled: minority groups didn't voluntarily move anywhere from '34 to '68 [1], because the FHA policy of redlining prevented them from getting a mortgage in predominately white neighborhoods. Shockingly or not, the higher quality property was reserved for whites. '68 was the end of formal, legal requirements to disapprove of mortgages in heterogeneous communities (for lack of a better term). There's plenty of evidence that the practice continues even to this day, informally. [2] [1] http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/05/the-racist-housing-policy-that-made-your-neighborhood/371439/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/05/the-raci... [2] http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/program_offices/fair_housing_equal_opp/2016pressrelease http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/program_offices/fai...

lkrubner 10y ago

You might want to read up on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight Excerpt: However, some historians have challenged the phrase "white flight" as a misnomer whose use should be reconsidered. In her study of Chicago's West Side during the post-war era, historian Amanda Seligman argues that the phrase misleadingly suggests that whites immediately departed when blacks moved into the neighborhood, when in fact, many whites defended their space with violence, intimidation, or legal tactics. The business practices of redlining, mortgage discrimination, and racially restrictive covenants contributed to the overcrowding and physical deterioration of areas where minorities chose to congregate. Such conditions are considered to have contributed to the emigration of other populations. The limited facilities for banking and insurance, due to a perceived lack of profitability, and other social services, and extra fees meant to hedge against perceived profit issues increased their cost to residents in predominantly non-white suburbs and city neighborhoods. According to the environmental geographer Laura Pulido, the historical processes of suburbanization and urban decentralization contribute to contemporary environmental racism.

peterwwillis 10y ago

It is not my responsibility to teach you basic American history. But here's some things to get you started. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/07/white-flight-alive-and-well/399980/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/07/white-fl... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Great_Migration_(African_American) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Great_Migration_(Africa... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_African-American_Civil_Rights_Movement_(1954%E2%80%9368) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_African-Americ... Read them or don't, I don't really care, but if you want to be less ignorant of how this developed these are useful starting points.

lwhalen 10y ago
So what should white people have done/what should they do, to not be guilty of these terrible social sins that appear to be their fault no matter what actions they take?
- peterwwillis 10y ago
  In a sentence? They need to do something to help. In a larger sense: they should recognize that the entire American society was splintered a long time ago by racism and it never un-splintered. A metric fuck-ton of work needs to be done to rehabilitate the communities and whole socioeconomic strata that have been affected by this. It will probably take 20-50 years to undo, just because so many people have this "It's not my fault, so fuck it, I don't need to do anything" attitude. Societies do not self-heal.
  - lwhalen 10y ago
    I don't know about you, but I am responsible for my own actions. I don't need a hug from Whitey or anyone else to know the difference between right and wrong, or hard work versus sloth. If you do, I feel bad for you son. I choose the action, I choose the consequence, same as pretty much anything else on this planet.

dang 10y ago

You've been using HN exclusively to fight political battles. That's an abuse of this site. We asked you repeatedly to stop, but you've continued doing exactly the same thing, so I'm banning your account. This community has a single guiding value: intellectual curiosity. That is profoundly incompatible with single-purpose ideological participation. If HN is to survive in its intended form, we need to get clearer about differentiating these two. I'm sure there are other internet communities where people can fight their wars-by-other-means. > It really is remarkable the rationalizations a mind is capable of. This kind of incivility is particularly unwelcome here. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12134673 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12134673 and marked it off-topic.