5 ms·

> just talking to someone of color in a flirty way will get significant social push back. This will be true in almost any public school anywhere.

briga 9y ago
Not really. I don't know where you live but this isn't true in Canada.
- ShabbosGoy 9y ago
  As a counterpoint to your low effort dismissal, "yes really". As a man of color, I could not talk to white girls at the primarily white public schools I attended without significant social pushback. Even today, in 2017, I still have to watch my back if I'm seen walking with a white woman. And I live in one of the most liberal states in the US. Just because it never happened to you, or you never witnessed it personally, doesn't mean it can't happen. This response seriously disappointed me. Not only did you not provide data or citations of any kind, your tone comes off as morally superior/holier-than-thou. So I'll give some back to you, Canada sure seems like a swell place to live if it contains people like you.
  - briga 9y ago
    And apparently your experience in one part of the world is completely universal and applies everywhere. You're sure reading a lot into my reply.
  - Mz 9y ago
    Or maybe the Canadians are just saying that this is the internet and not everyone here is American? It may be generally true across the US. That doesn't make it automatically true "anywhere."
  - forapurpose 9y ago
    The GP merely said that it isn't a problem everywhere, disagreeing with the GGP. The GP didn't say that it isn't a problem anywhere. Overlooking that misunderstanding, I think you make a valid and important point. Lots of people here are speculating about things they have no experience with or knowledge about. I'm given to understand that as a primary cause of continuing racial discrimination - people don't experience the problems directly and therefore assume they don't exist. A great example is the problems black people encounter with some law enforcement - before the cell phone videos, much of the population didn't experience a problem themselves and assumed there wasn't one. Now even Newt Gingrich talks about it.
  - tremon 9y ago
    Not to diminish your experience, but the GGP specifically said any public school anywhere. A single datapoint is then enough to disprove that assertion.
  - moosey 9y ago
    I am half European/Mexican. I have a full beard and as a result of my heritage, I appear, for the most part, to be Iranian. I live in a city in a liberal state. I also have an adopted daughter who is almost 100% European descent, red hair and blue eyes. I cannot go anywhere with her by myself without being questioned by people on the street, or the person at the checkout lane, or a few random passersby, about who I am, who she is, how we are associated. It pisses off my wife, who is 100% European as well, to no end. To have her see this, or hear about what people asked me in any given day, has been a real eye opener. It's easy for people to put away casual racism (or just not allow it to surface) when some guy with dark skin and a beard shows up. That equation seems to change when I'm hauling around my daughter. If anyone thinks that this is normal, ask yourself: would you do the same thing if you saw a white man walking around with two black or hispanic children? The number of social disarmaments that I've had to my interactions with people since the turn of the century cause me anxiety and tension. People like to say "that wasn't the experience at my school", but repeated experiments have shown that even in highly liberalized areas with decent racial integration that in fights men with 'Hispanic' or 'Black' sounding names are thought to be more aggressive [1], and that black children receive more severe punishment at the school level, in CA and other non-southern states [2]. Toss in the fact that having a non-white name means that you are in the 50% reduced callback pile at work [3]... What I'm trying to say is that people who argue that your experiences with race are not true are either of European descent, or they grew up in some goldilocks zone of racial integration that I've yet to experience. They also deny evidence to the contrary, and there is a lot of evidence that even though I'm not beaten up or thrown in prison, we still get the shaft to some extent in our modern society. [1] https://www.vox.com/2015/10/9/9482537/implicit-bias-names https://www.vox.com/2015/10/9/9482537/implicit-bias-names [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/25/opinion/black-students-little-rock-punishment.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/25/opinion/black-students-li... [3] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/17/jobs-search-hiring-racial-discrimination-resume-whitening-callbacks https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/17/jobs-search-hi...
Kluny 9y ago
Another Canadian here. Can confirm, white people dating people of other colors does not inspire any particular comment, in school or elsewhere.
- ycombinete 9y ago
  It will be true anywhere where a difference in color can be expected to correspond with a large cultural difference in partners.
dragonsky67 9y ago
In Australia, I'd say that this type of behaviour would be very unusual. Our young people would have to be some of the most inclusive people you could find. This is not to say we don't have our bigots, but they tend to be very quiet and not that usual.
- forapurpose 9y ago
  What about the anti-immigrant laws there, which I assume must be politically popular because they have been sustained. The treatment of the refugees in the detention camps is horrific and criminal.
  - bwilli123 9y ago
    The issue wasn't immigrants per se but the method by which they arrived. They were described as "queue jumpers", which plays against an ordinary australian's notion of fair play. The numbers of legal immigrants (including refugees) are higher than ever but since the "stop the boats" policy, the number of "illegals" has been reduced to a trickle.
    - forapurpose 9y ago
      That was the rationalization. My understanding is that it was crafted to exclude non-white immigrants, like Trump's immigration policies or like election law in the U.S. south, which always works out to exclude non-white voters. Also, it doesn't address the treatment of the refugees in the camps.
  - glaugh 9y ago
    Here's a timely article about Australia's friendliness toward immigration: https://www.economist.com/news/asia/21730004-and-australians-still-them-australia-admits-more-migrants-any-other-big-western-country https://www.economist.com/news/asia/21730004-and-australians...
ionised 9y ago
Not where I grew up.
stronglikedan 9y ago
I went to high school in South Florida in the late eighties/early nineties, and interracial dating was quite prevalent. There was no significant social stigma about it at all. (A few loud mouth bigots don't count as significant.)

briga 9y ago

Not really. I don't know where you live but this isn't true in Canada.

ShabbosGoy 9y ago
As a counterpoint to your low effort dismissal, "yes really". As a man of color, I could not talk to white girls at the primarily white public schools I attended without significant social pushback. Even today, in 2017, I still have to watch my back if I'm seen walking with a white woman. And I live in one of the most liberal states in the US. Just because it never happened to you, or you never witnessed it personally, doesn't mean it can't happen. This response seriously disappointed me. Not only did you not provide data or citations of any kind, your tone comes off as morally superior/holier-than-thou. So I'll give some back to you, Canada sure seems like a swell place to live if it contains people like you.
- briga 9y ago
  And apparently your experience in one part of the world is completely universal and applies everywhere. You're sure reading a lot into my reply.
- Mz 9y ago
  Or maybe the Canadians are just saying that this is the internet and not everyone here is American? It may be generally true across the US. That doesn't make it automatically true "anywhere."
- forapurpose 9y ago
  The GP merely said that it isn't a problem everywhere, disagreeing with the GGP. The GP didn't say that it isn't a problem anywhere. Overlooking that misunderstanding, I think you make a valid and important point. Lots of people here are speculating about things they have no experience with or knowledge about. I'm given to understand that as a primary cause of continuing racial discrimination - people don't experience the problems directly and therefore assume they don't exist. A great example is the problems black people encounter with some law enforcement - before the cell phone videos, much of the population didn't experience a problem themselves and assumed there wasn't one. Now even Newt Gingrich talks about it.
- tremon 9y ago
  Not to diminish your experience, but the GGP specifically said any public school anywhere. A single datapoint is then enough to disprove that assertion.
- moosey 9y ago
  I am half European/Mexican. I have a full beard and as a result of my heritage, I appear, for the most part, to be Iranian. I live in a city in a liberal state. I also have an adopted daughter who is almost 100% European descent, red hair and blue eyes. I cannot go anywhere with her by myself without being questioned by people on the street, or the person at the checkout lane, or a few random passersby, about who I am, who she is, how we are associated. It pisses off my wife, who is 100% European as well, to no end. To have her see this, or hear about what people asked me in any given day, has been a real eye opener. It's easy for people to put away casual racism (or just not allow it to surface) when some guy with dark skin and a beard shows up. That equation seems to change when I'm hauling around my daughter. If anyone thinks that this is normal, ask yourself: would you do the same thing if you saw a white man walking around with two black or hispanic children? The number of social disarmaments that I've had to my interactions with people since the turn of the century cause me anxiety and tension. People like to say "that wasn't the experience at my school", but repeated experiments have shown that even in highly liberalized areas with decent racial integration that in fights men with 'Hispanic' or 'Black' sounding names are thought to be more aggressive [1], and that black children receive more severe punishment at the school level, in CA and other non-southern states [2]. Toss in the fact that having a non-white name means that you are in the 50% reduced callback pile at work [3]... What I'm trying to say is that people who argue that your experiences with race are not true are either of European descent, or they grew up in some goldilocks zone of racial integration that I've yet to experience. They also deny evidence to the contrary, and there is a lot of evidence that even though I'm not beaten up or thrown in prison, we still get the shaft to some extent in our modern society. [1] https://www.vox.com/2015/10/9/9482537/implicit-bias-names https://www.vox.com/2015/10/9/9482537/implicit-bias-names [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/25/opinion/black-students-little-rock-punishment.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/25/opinion/black-students-li... [3] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/17/jobs-search-hiring-racial-discrimination-resume-whitening-callbacks https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/17/jobs-search-hi...

Kluny 9y ago

Another Canadian here. Can confirm, white people dating people of other colors does not inspire any particular comment, in school or elsewhere.

ycombinete 9y ago
It will be true anywhere where a difference in color can be expected to correspond with a large cultural difference in partners.

dragonsky67 9y ago

In Australia, I'd say that this type of behaviour would be very unusual. Our young people would have to be some of the most inclusive people you could find. This is not to say we don't have our bigots, but they tend to be very quiet and not that usual.

forapurpose 9y ago
What about the anti-immigrant laws there, which I assume must be politically popular because they have been sustained. The treatment of the refugees in the detention camps is horrific and criminal.
- bwilli123 9y ago
  The issue wasn't immigrants per se but the method by which they arrived. They were described as "queue jumpers", which plays against an ordinary australian's notion of fair play. The numbers of legal immigrants (including refugees) are higher than ever but since the "stop the boats" policy, the number of "illegals" has been reduced to a trickle.
  - forapurpose 9y ago
    That was the rationalization. My understanding is that it was crafted to exclude non-white immigrants, like Trump's immigration policies or like election law in the U.S. south, which always works out to exclude non-white voters. Also, it doesn't address the treatment of the refugees in the camps.
- glaugh 9y ago
  Here's a timely article about Australia's friendliness toward immigration: https://www.economist.com/news/asia/21730004-and-australians-still-them-australia-admits-more-migrants-any-other-big-western-country https://www.economist.com/news/asia/21730004-and-australians...

ionised 9y ago

Not where I grew up.

stronglikedan 9y ago

I went to high school in South Florida in the late eighties/early nineties, and interracial dating was quite prevalent. There was no significant social stigma about it at all. (A few loud mouth bigots don't count as significant.)