5 ms·

I suppose it may be off-topic, but I don't live in America now and want to learn more. If you live in America, what have you seen personally day-to-day?

by g09980 9y ago

Spooky23 9y ago
I’m white. One of my former colleagues is black. He was getting pulled over for various traffic violations every 6-8 weeks on average. Last time we were on a business trip together, about 5 years ago, we waited about 15 minutes to be seated at a chain diner type place. Nobody acknowledged the three of us. A group of 4 college kids walked in and a waitress appeared and seated them ahead of us within 2 minutes. Lots of casual bullshit. It’s sad.
glhaynes 9y ago
Looking for personally-seen day-to-day anecdotes, though often well-intentioned, is where a lot of this discussion ends up going wrong, imo, and it leads to people coming away with the idea that racism in the USA is a mostly "past" problem. Blatant, open racism is pretty taboo in most areas of society, and, even in private situations, it's rare in my experience (though by no means non-existent) to hear openly racist statements, "the n-word", etc. The more enlightening thing to look at is pervasive systemic/institutional racism. I'd recommend doing some googling on those terms if you'd like to learn more.
- g09980 9y ago
  > doesn't exactly take a lot of trying to find racism/oppression in most situations > is pretty taboo in most areas of society, and, even in private situations, it's rare in my experience English is not my native language so I may be misreading the subtext, but it seemed contradictory
  - glhaynes 9y ago
    My point is that racism is far more than discrete instances of people yelling racial slurs. The racism that affects black people in the USA is perhaps mostly not that sort of racism (though if I were black, I'd surely have many more of those types of anecdotes to point to than the several I have), but more subtle racism is pervasive and has a huge, constant effect.
Veratyr 9y ago
I'm Australian but I've been living in the SF Bay Area for 3 years. I don't see much outright hostile "blacks suck" racism, at least in the Bay Area, it's more people holding the wrong expectations/biases. For example seeing a person of Spanish descent at a counter and assuming they don't speak English or seeing them walking around and assuming they're a repairman or cleaner. I think the real problem is that it's hard to break out of poverty in general and all Spanish speaking/African Americans started that way, while the same isn't true of people of European descent. Whites are also more likely to have relatively affluent friends/family to fall back on or help them out while others aren't. Also I'm somewhat ashamed to admit it but at least working in tech as a foreigner, it's easy to develop racist biases here. When _every_ time you notice an African American is because they're shouting/yelling in the streets or asking for handouts, you unconsciously come to assume they're all like that, despite the fact that when you look around at any given time, the vast majority are acting just like anyone else.

I suppose it may be off-topic, but I don't live in America now and want to learn more. If you live in America, what have you seen personally day-to-day?

by g09980 9y ago

I suppose it may be off-topic, but I don't live in America now and want to learn more. If you live in America, what have you seen personally day-to-day?

Spooky23 9y ago

I’m white. One of my former colleagues is black. He was getting pulled over for various traffic violations every 6-8 weeks on average. Last time we were on a business trip together, about 5 years ago, we waited about 15 minutes to be seated at a chain diner type place. Nobody acknowledged the three of us. A group of 4 college kids walked in and a waitress appeared and seated them ahead of us within 2 minutes. Lots of casual bullshit. It’s sad.

glhaynes 9y ago

Looking for personally-seen day-to-day anecdotes, though often well-intentioned, is where a lot of this discussion ends up going wrong, imo, and it leads to people coming away with the idea that racism in the USA is a mostly "past" problem. Blatant, open racism is pretty taboo in most areas of society, and, even in private situations, it's rare in my experience (though by no means non-existent) to hear openly racist statements, "the n-word", etc. The more enlightening thing to look at is pervasive systemic/institutional racism. I'd recommend doing some googling on those terms if you'd like to learn more.

g09980 9y ago
> doesn't exactly take a lot of trying to find racism/oppression in most situations > is pretty taboo in most areas of society, and, even in private situations, it's rare in my experience English is not my native language so I may be misreading the subtext, but it seemed contradictory
- glhaynes 9y ago
  My point is that racism is far more than discrete instances of people yelling racial slurs. The racism that affects black people in the USA is perhaps mostly not that sort of racism (though if I were black, I'd surely have many more of those types of anecdotes to point to than the several I have), but more subtle racism is pervasive and has a huge, constant effect.

Veratyr 9y ago

I'm Australian but I've been living in the SF Bay Area for 3 years. I don't see much outright hostile "blacks suck" racism, at least in the Bay Area, it's more people holding the wrong expectations/biases. For example seeing a person of Spanish descent at a counter and assuming they don't speak English or seeing them walking around and assuming they're a repairman or cleaner. I think the real problem is that it's hard to break out of poverty in general and all Spanish speaking/African Americans started that way, while the same isn't true of people of European descent. Whites are also more likely to have relatively affluent friends/family to fall back on or help them out while others aren't. Also I'm somewhat ashamed to admit it but at least working in tech as a foreigner, it's easy to develop racist biases here. When _every_ time you notice an African American is because they're shouting/yelling in the streets or asking for handouts, you unconsciously come to assume they're all like that, despite the fact that when you look around at any given time, the vast majority are acting just like anyone else.