4 ms·

That video didn't have a single person that wasn't white and young adult/middle aged. Maybe the hat guy is older, but still – diversity didn't seem a priority i

by mstade 10y ago

That video didn't have a single person that wasn't white and young adult/middle aged. Maybe the hat guy is older, but still – diversity didn't seem a priority in the list of features. Maybe that's entirely representative of the demographics, just found it striking.

lgieron 10y ago
As an non-USAn, I'm always suprised how much emphasis is put on this in the USA ("look, these office visualisations have only white people in them, that's unacceptable!"), while at the same time very little is done to really improve the lives of minorities.
- rdtsc 10y ago
  It's because of a painful history, some distant and some not so distant. So it is in people's minds pretty often. Other places have this as well. In Western Europe it is perhaps ww2 stuff. Someone here just yesterday claimed they don't want to use the 'ss' Linux command to diagnose socket issues because of how it relates to 'ww2'. In other parts it is all about nationality, if you call someone by a different nationality, they might be terribly offended by it. It looks silly from the outside, but once you live there it makes sense why there is emphasis on certain things like that. I think you have to grow up in a place to internalize that. When I was in Portland with a co-worker, who was born and raised in US. He leaned over and whispered "Have you noticed, how everyone is white here?. It's freaking me out". But I haven't noticed until he mentioned it. For better or for worse, it is just not something I think about. But he did.
ghaff 10y ago
I'm not sure about age. My anecdata is that I know a reasonable number of people who have moved to, more or less, "the mountains" when they've retired--for at least part of the year. But based on my observations hiking, skiing, etc., the participants in those activities in much of the US are pretty overwhelmingly white, as are the long-time population of cities in the Mountain West.
- yourcelf 10y ago
  Indeed -- the demographics of Montana in particular are overwhelmingly white[1]. As of the 2010 census, 89.4% white, 6.3% native (many of whom live in one of the seven reservations Montana has, rather than the "star" towns of Billings, Bozeman, and Missoula), and less than a percent each for any other races. The state also has only just over a million people total, so there are about 4 times as many white people in New York City as there are in the whole state of Montana. This isn't to excuse the white-washy-ness of the video (e.g. lots of cowboys, no Indians), but just to say that the problem is at least a couple of levels out from just this video. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montana#Demographics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montana#Demographics
Shanea93 10y ago
This is probably because the state of Montana has a 90.6% white population and a 6.2% American Indian population. There are only 2,700 [1] black people living in the state, it looks to me like they're exactly showing the racial diversity of the state. Sure, they could have a single black person so the numbers are correct but then someone will just complain about them including a single, token black person. The Billing specific census information is a little bit older but has the same 0.3% figure for black people [2] - that puts their total black population at 270/95,220. [1] http://www.infoplease.com/us/census/data/montana/demographic.html http://www.infoplease.com/us/census/data/montana/demographic... [2] http://www.infoplease.com/us/census/data/montana/billings/ http://www.infoplease.com/us/census/data/montana/billings/
- mstade 10y ago
  Huh, that's interesting – thanks for sharing!
clean_send 10y ago
As a person of color the first thing I thought when I saw this video was, "Wow I would stick out like a sore thumb."
thaddeusmt 10y ago
Billings is actually one of the more diverse towns in Montana (which isn't saying much) due to how close the Crow and Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservations are. 4.4% Native American according to Wikipedia. But I guess that's not part of the image this marketing team wanted to project...

by mstade 10y ago

lgieron 10y ago

As an non-USAn, I'm always suprised how much emphasis is put on this in the USA ("look, these office visualisations have only white people in them, that's unacceptable!"), while at the same time very little is done to really improve the lives of minorities.

rdtsc 10y ago
It's because of a painful history, some distant and some not so distant. So it is in people's minds pretty often. Other places have this as well. In Western Europe it is perhaps ww2 stuff. Someone here just yesterday claimed they don't want to use the 'ss' Linux command to diagnose socket issues because of how it relates to 'ww2'. In other parts it is all about nationality, if you call someone by a different nationality, they might be terribly offended by it. It looks silly from the outside, but once you live there it makes sense why there is emphasis on certain things like that. I think you have to grow up in a place to internalize that. When I was in Portland with a co-worker, who was born and raised in US. He leaned over and whispered "Have you noticed, how everyone is white here?. It's freaking me out". But I haven't noticed until he mentioned it. For better or for worse, it is just not something I think about. But he did.

ghaff 10y ago

I'm not sure about age. My anecdata is that I know a reasonable number of people who have moved to, more or less, "the mountains" when they've retired--for at least part of the year. But based on my observations hiking, skiing, etc., the participants in those activities in much of the US are pretty overwhelmingly white, as are the long-time population of cities in the Mountain West.

yourcelf 10y ago
Indeed -- the demographics of Montana in particular are overwhelmingly white[1]. As of the 2010 census, 89.4% white, 6.3% native (many of whom live in one of the seven reservations Montana has, rather than the "star" towns of Billings, Bozeman, and Missoula), and less than a percent each for any other races. The state also has only just over a million people total, so there are about 4 times as many white people in New York City as there are in the whole state of Montana. This isn't to excuse the white-washy-ness of the video (e.g. lots of cowboys, no Indians), but just to say that the problem is at least a couple of levels out from just this video. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montana#Demographics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montana#Demographics

Shanea93 10y ago

This is probably because the state of Montana has a 90.6% white population and a 6.2% American Indian population. There are only 2,700 [1] black people living in the state, it looks to me like they're exactly showing the racial diversity of the state. Sure, they could have a single black person so the numbers are correct but then someone will just complain about them including a single, token black person. The Billing specific census information is a little bit older but has the same 0.3% figure for black people [2] - that puts their total black population at 270/95,220. [1] http://www.infoplease.com/us/census/data/montana/demographic.html http://www.infoplease.com/us/census/data/montana/demographic... [2] http://www.infoplease.com/us/census/data/montana/billings/ http://www.infoplease.com/us/census/data/montana/billings/

mstade 10y ago
Huh, that's interesting – thanks for sharing!

clean_send 10y ago

As a person of color the first thing I thought when I saw this video was, "Wow I would stick out like a sore thumb."

thaddeusmt 10y ago

Billings is actually one of the more diverse towns in Montana (which isn't saying much) due to how close the Crow and Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservations are. 4.4% Native American according to Wikipedia. But I guess that's not part of the image this marketing team wanted to project...