5 ms·

Rising Anxiety Among American Whites

18 points by 11thEarlOfMar 9y ago

meri_dian 9y ago
The effect of one's culture and surroundings changing will naturally be anxiety. Consider a proud ethno-cultural place like Iran or Japan. If a large number of non-persian or non-japanese people began moving into each of those respective countries, the result would be anxiety among the established majority. Similarly, it's really just a natural human response that people of European descent are experiencing anxiety in their native countries when faced with large scale migration. I think that a lot of people are unwilling to give sympathy to Europeans because of the recent history of European colonization across the world. But it's not some failing of white people in particular that they in some cases may have anxiety about their communities changing. It's just a result of the human condition, human social behavior. As such they do deserve sympathy. Just like the hypothetical Iranians or Japanese in my prior example.
- praulv 9y ago
  >> "If a large number of non-persian or non-japanese people began moving into each of those respective countries, the result would be anxiety among the established majority." If you really think an intellectual bastion of rational, logical thought such as HN is going to let you get away with those kinds of MAGA reddit Breitbartisms, you probably haven't thought carefully enough.
  - gt_ 9y ago
    So far, you haven’t displaced, or even responded to the claims so much as expressed something along the lines of a threat, a type of discussion that is much more offensive in my view.
    - praulv 9y ago
      I do not tolerate nor deem the claims worthy of a response. There must be a minimum acceptable level of intellectual debate which warrants engagement. The poster is incapable of providing any form of evidence and hence such laziness must be punished to enforce quality of debate in the wider interests of human progress.
  - Knufen 9y ago
    You have made no argument and are not really helping your cause. Please refrain from name calling, over generalization and ad hominems.
    - praulv 9y ago
      At what point does identifying and labelling an ideologically driven argument devoid of any rational substance class as "name calling". Clearly the poster is parroting views consistent with identity politics and I was merely pointing out the blaring lack of propositional logic.
- KingMob 9y ago
  While you can argue that racism is universal, that doesn't excuse anyone for racist behavior, whether they're Japanese, Iranian, or American. If you examine "may have anxiety about their communities changing", it clearly implies they think non-whites are changing their community for the worse. It also implies the community belongs to the whites, and they get to define it. Alternatively, they could (but don't) view their community as something they share, becoming more diverse, more interesting, more inclusive, etc.
  - question_that 9y ago
    If I prefer green grass, and I've built a community with fellow green grassers, a sudden influx of those who prefer red grass will make my life worse. My preference is not malicious, and may possibly be genetic - why is it less valid than the opinion of someone colorblind?
  - whatyoucantsay 9y ago
    Tribalism is a part of human nature and you engage in it, too. It's not pretty in any circumstance.
  - meri_dian 9y ago
    Your assumptions about me are wrong. It doesn't matter how the change manifests itself. People often dislike change, especially of communities they are familiar with. Hence my point that it's not a problem with white people, but rather a condition of human beings. If a community of majority Latinos became subject to sudden white immigration, I'm sure there would be a certain amount of anxiety on the part of the original residents. I can understand and sympathize with these anxieties though. Can you?
- krapp 9y ago
  >As such they do deserve sympathy. No, they don't. White people aren't victims, they never deserved the privilege they enjoyed in the US, so the loss of that privilege isn't a tragedy. They are just now beginning to experience what for the rest of the country has always been normal.
  - meri_dian 9y ago
    People dislike gentrification in part because it displaces established communities. People don't gain or lose the right to sympathy because they are a majority or minority group. They are human beings regardless.
    - krapp 9y ago
      Their culture isn't changing. They're still American, they're still white, they're still Christian, probably. The only change is their relative status amongst an already heterogeneous population, and the assumption that their point of view represents the "default" (and therefore most correct) American identity.
  - Id15eba6u 9y ago
    How did they not deserve the privilege? Did they not work for it?
    - krapp 9y ago
      If I rob a bank, does that mean I deserve to keep the money?
      - specializeded 9y ago
        And if so, if the bank takes it back is it wrong?
      - meri_dian 9y ago
        Almost all cultures and societies on Earth are living on land that once belonged to another group of people. According to you, no one on Earth deserves to keep anything they have, because their ancestors took it from someone else.
patrickg_zill 9y ago
"In 2000 Hazleton’s 23,399 residents were 95 percent non-Hispanic white and less than 5 percent Latino. By 2016 Latinos became the majority, composing 52 percent of the population, while the white share plunged to 44 percent." It's not "Change", it's an engineered "Replacement". Mass immigration is the State's way of electing a new populace.
- madengr 9y ago
  I’d like to know how many are illegal aliens? Probably the majority.
- eganist 9y ago
  > Mass immigration is the State's way of electing a new populace. Mass immigration is the population's way of integrating a new population. Consider that it's the population which elects the state, at least in our case.
  - patrickg_zill 9y ago
    I wish you were correct. However there seems to be plenty of evidence that shows the State does what it wants to do, regardless of the opinion of the people. One example would be Obama promising to close Gitmo, and he was elected with a plurality ; yet Gitmo was never closed.
KingMob 9y ago
Wow, yet another article asking heartland white people what they think. The worst they have to deal with is anxiety about loss of power and jobs. Whereas people of color I know are worried about being in the wrong town after dark, after Charlottesville showed white supremacists are now bold enough to march in the open. The plight of white people no longer being on top is really not that dangerous or urgent.
- Knufen 9y ago
  Yes, how horrible it is to think of other people. And honestly, one problem does not diminish another. Another thing, one is not a whitesupremacist just because he disagrees with your political opinions.
  - KingMob 9y ago
    > And honestly, one problem does not diminish another. Yet, when compared, it is diminished. Loss of a privileged place in society doesn't hold a candle to the suffering of those who are still struggling to obtain one. I didn't say those who disagreed with me were white supremacists just for disagreeing. I said white supremacists marched in Charlottesville because, in fact, there were people marching there, arguing for suppressing non-white minorities. Not that hard to grok.
- gort 9y ago
  > people of color I know are worried about being in the wrong town after dark Is it really more dangerous to be black and in the wrong place than to be white and in the wrong place? I'm not from your country but this is certainly not the impression one gets; I do know a white guy from Baltimore who would disagree, anyway...
  - KingMob 9y ago
    Yeah, because overall there's far fewer black people than white people (13% vs 77%), and many more places it's dangerous for them to be. A white guy wandering in the Baltimore ghettos is liable to be robbed, but no worse. But a black guy in the wrong place is liable to have the police called, which carries the threat of death.
nulldereference 9y ago
This will probably be unpopular but here goes. Honestly, if a community wants to be made of a particular homogeneous ethnicity or race it'd be much better if they were very up-front about it. Its fine, not everyone needs to be multi-cultural or multi-ethnic. I'm looking at examples like Japan, they make it very difficult for outsiders to integrate, see the various "Gaijin" articles out there. I'm OK with this, Japan is up-front about it, you don't get to a case where you immigrate to Japan and the locals start complaining about losing their "ways". Really, just say up front, only WASP's allowed.
alexandercrohde 9y ago
This is one of those discussions where I almost feel like the comments are deliberately trying to be provocative.
rotexo 9y ago
I observe that the article starts out talking about closing coal mines and the decline of manufacturing jobs. As a white person, it sounds to me like the white people interviewed for this article face declining economic prospects (understandably of concern), notice an increased abundance of people of color around them, and then feel angry about the people of color. Emotions are of course not rational things, but I don't really understand the leap there. After all, it seems like racial disparities between whites and people of color still exist, with whites on top (https://news.stanford.edu/2017/06/16/report-finds-significant-racial-ethnic-disparities/ https://news.stanford.edu/2017/06/16/report-finds-significan...). So the real wealth transfer seems to be from low-income whites to high-income whites. Bear in mind, I don't think that's a good thing at all. Indeed, it seems like the antipathy would be better directed at the wealthy, rather than people of color. Or the energy would be better spent lobbying for help transitioning economically away from dying industries like coal power. But somehow this nebulous notion of racial pride gets dragged into the conversation instead. I suppose that's just people being people, but it doesn't leave me too optimistic about our prospects for a more peaceful and sane future.
- kej 9y ago
  Your comment reminds me of this story told by Bill Moyers about LBJ: We were in Tennessee. During the motorcade, he spotted some ugly racial epithets scrawled on signs. Late that night in the hotel, when the local dignitaries had finished the last bottles of bourbon and branch water and departed, he started talking about those signs. “I’ll tell you what’s at the bottom of it,” he said. “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” It makes sense today, too. If the wealthy can convince the poor that their hardships are caused by immigrants, then the newly poor won't consider how much of their previous wealth is being concentrated in a few hands.
  - rotexo 9y ago
    YES to that LBJ quote. I seem to recall also reading a similar observation backed up quite thoroughly with statistics in Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow.
isabelc 9y ago
This has nothing to do with skin color or racism on the part of white Americans. The anxiety is not only among American Whites but also among Black Americans, and 2nd and 3rd generation Americans who speak only English. At least in cities like mine (Miami, Florida). It's not just a fear but a real problem because people cannot get jobs here unless they speak Spanish. Black Americans can sometimes get hired without knowing Spanish, but never whites or 3rd generation "Hispanics" who speak only English. Worse than that is that many businesses will not do any business in English. And they are somehow certified. At all levels. I personally have dealt with business owners, real estate agents, small retail store owners, investors, technicians, restaurant owners, and more who speak no English, only Spanish. You can't even order a pizza in English. My English-speaking son was hung-up on because he tried to order a pizza in English (I speak Spanish so I have to do the ordering). There are pockets of Miami where English is spoken in businesses, particularly the tourist areas by the beach or downtown. Because it's treated like a foreign language. Also, government offices and libraries still mostly speak English. There is real discrimination against non-Spanish speakers and white Americans. I don't know if data exists that shows this but it's witnessed and is common knowledge among people who live here. This was not the case 21 years ago when I began having children. That's why I didn't think it was mandatory to teach my children Spanish. People still spoke English. Now, my kids will likely not get jobs unless we move elsewhere, which is easier said than done.
sbinthree 9y ago
Sure, people can reskill, but it is quite hard to do as life goes on and poverty makes it hard to justify going back to school for four years of CS that many of these people probably can't make sense of. Don't know what the solution is, other than encourage people to retrain. People seem to perceive big companies talking about people needing to learn to code as a way for them to reduce wages, when in practice most software companies would hire as many competent developers as they can and you just can't find the people with the skills.
ralusek 9y ago
Identity politics beget identity politics, and it's always bad, period. The amount of comments in this thread alone talking about what "white people" are and aren't entitled to feel based off of their own privileges is representative of the wider left's own brand of identity politics, and quite frankly, racism. If you're a white person hearing day in an day out about your inherent power in society, and how much you've benefited from "your people's" exploitation of others, the first thing I can guarantee is that you're much more likely to be defensively thinking along these terms of group identity. Regardless of whether or not those perceptions of privilege hold true for your specific situation, a part of you gains awareness that a non-negligible faction is making these categorizations on your behalf. Where the identitarian reaction kicks in fully, though, is among the people for whom these tales of privilege and power quite clearly do not hold true. If you're born to two alcoholic parents who beat you and got you working in the coal mines as soon as you possibly could, it's not difficult to see why the prevailing narrative doesn't sound appealing. The absolute baseline human response to feeling attacked along these hard group lines is an identitarian outcry taking various forms, the mildest of which could be classified as "rising anxiety." I'm not saying that this is a good thing, I think it's a terrible thing, I just also happen to think it is an obvious result of the economic and political climate. Trump and his supporters are not a disease, they're an ill-conceived, but expected reactionary symptom.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

18 points by 11thEarlOfMar 9y ago

The effect of one's culture and surroundings changing will naturally be anxiety. Consider a proud ethno-cultural place like Iran or Japan. If a large number of non-persian or non-japanese people began moving into each of those respective countries, the result would be anxiety among the established majority. Similarly, it's really just a natural human response that people of European descent are experiencing anxiety in their native countries when faced with large scale migration. I think that a lot of people are unwilling to give sympathy to Europeans because of the recent history of European colonization across the world. But it's not some failing of white people in particular that they in some cases may have anxiety about their communities changing. It's just a result of the human condition, human social behavior. As such they do deserve sympathy. Just like the hypothetical Iranians or Japanese in my prior example.

praulv 9y ago
>> "If a large number of non-persian or non-japanese people began moving into each of those respective countries, the result would be anxiety among the established majority." If you really think an intellectual bastion of rational, logical thought such as HN is going to let you get away with those kinds of MAGA reddit Breitbartisms, you probably haven't thought carefully enough.
- gt_ 9y ago
  So far, you haven’t displaced, or even responded to the claims so much as expressed something along the lines of a threat, a type of discussion that is much more offensive in my view.
  - praulv 9y ago
    I do not tolerate nor deem the claims worthy of a response. There must be a minimum acceptable level of intellectual debate which warrants engagement. The poster is incapable of providing any form of evidence and hence such laziness must be punished to enforce quality of debate in the wider interests of human progress.
- Knufen 9y ago
  You have made no argument and are not really helping your cause. Please refrain from name calling, over generalization and ad hominems.
  - praulv 9y ago
    At what point does identifying and labelling an ideologically driven argument devoid of any rational substance class as "name calling". Clearly the poster is parroting views consistent with identity politics and I was merely pointing out the blaring lack of propositional logic.
KingMob 9y ago
While you can argue that racism is universal, that doesn't excuse anyone for racist behavior, whether they're Japanese, Iranian, or American. If you examine "may have anxiety about their communities changing", it clearly implies they think non-whites are changing their community for the worse. It also implies the community belongs to the whites, and they get to define it. Alternatively, they could (but don't) view their community as something they share, becoming more diverse, more interesting, more inclusive, etc.
- question_that 9y ago
  If I prefer green grass, and I've built a community with fellow green grassers, a sudden influx of those who prefer red grass will make my life worse. My preference is not malicious, and may possibly be genetic - why is it less valid than the opinion of someone colorblind?
- whatyoucantsay 9y ago
  Tribalism is a part of human nature and you engage in it, too. It's not pretty in any circumstance.
- meri_dian 9y ago
  Your assumptions about me are wrong. It doesn't matter how the change manifests itself. People often dislike change, especially of communities they are familiar with. Hence my point that it's not a problem with white people, but rather a condition of human beings. If a community of majority Latinos became subject to sudden white immigration, I'm sure there would be a certain amount of anxiety on the part of the original residents. I can understand and sympathize with these anxieties though. Can you?
krapp 9y ago
>As such they do deserve sympathy. No, they don't. White people aren't victims, they never deserved the privilege they enjoyed in the US, so the loss of that privilege isn't a tragedy. They are just now beginning to experience what for the rest of the country has always been normal.
- meri_dian 9y ago
  People dislike gentrification in part because it displaces established communities. People don't gain or lose the right to sympathy because they are a majority or minority group. They are human beings regardless.
  - krapp 9y ago
    Their culture isn't changing. They're still American, they're still white, they're still Christian, probably. The only change is their relative status amongst an already heterogeneous population, and the assumption that their point of view represents the "default" (and therefore most correct) American identity.
- Id15eba6u 9y ago
  How did they not deserve the privilege? Did they not work for it?
  - krapp 9y ago
    If I rob a bank, does that mean I deserve to keep the money?
    - specializeded 9y ago
      And if so, if the bank takes it back is it wrong?
    - meri_dian 9y ago
      Almost all cultures and societies on Earth are living on land that once belonged to another group of people. According to you, no one on Earth deserves to keep anything they have, because their ancestors took it from someone else.

patrickg_zill 9y ago

"In 2000 Hazleton’s 23,399 residents were 95 percent non-Hispanic white and less than 5 percent Latino. By 2016 Latinos became the majority, composing 52 percent of the population, while the white share plunged to 44 percent." It's not "Change", it's an engineered "Replacement". Mass immigration is the State's way of electing a new populace.

madengr 9y ago
I’d like to know how many are illegal aliens? Probably the majority.
eganist 9y ago
> Mass immigration is the State's way of electing a new populace. Mass immigration is the population's way of integrating a new population. Consider that it's the population which elects the state, at least in our case.
- patrickg_zill 9y ago
  I wish you were correct. However there seems to be plenty of evidence that shows the State does what it wants to do, regardless of the opinion of the people. One example would be Obama promising to close Gitmo, and he was elected with a plurality ; yet Gitmo was never closed.

KingMob 9y ago

Wow, yet another article asking heartland white people what they think. The worst they have to deal with is anxiety about loss of power and jobs. Whereas people of color I know are worried about being in the wrong town after dark, after Charlottesville showed white supremacists are now bold enough to march in the open. The plight of white people no longer being on top is really not that dangerous or urgent.

Knufen 9y ago
Yes, how horrible it is to think of other people. And honestly, one problem does not diminish another. Another thing, one is not a whitesupremacist just because he disagrees with your political opinions.
- KingMob 9y ago
  > And honestly, one problem does not diminish another. Yet, when compared, it is diminished. Loss of a privileged place in society doesn't hold a candle to the suffering of those who are still struggling to obtain one. I didn't say those who disagreed with me were white supremacists just for disagreeing. I said white supremacists marched in Charlottesville because, in fact, there were people marching there, arguing for suppressing non-white minorities. Not that hard to grok.
gort 9y ago
> people of color I know are worried about being in the wrong town after dark Is it really more dangerous to be black and in the wrong place than to be white and in the wrong place? I'm not from your country but this is certainly not the impression one gets; I do know a white guy from Baltimore who would disagree, anyway...
- KingMob 9y ago
  Yeah, because overall there's far fewer black people than white people (13% vs 77%), and many more places it's dangerous for them to be. A white guy wandering in the Baltimore ghettos is liable to be robbed, but no worse. But a black guy in the wrong place is liable to have the police called, which carries the threat of death.

nulldereference 9y ago

This will probably be unpopular but here goes. Honestly, if a community wants to be made of a particular homogeneous ethnicity or race it'd be much better if they were very up-front about it. Its fine, not everyone needs to be multi-cultural or multi-ethnic. I'm looking at examples like Japan, they make it very difficult for outsiders to integrate, see the various "Gaijin" articles out there. I'm OK with this, Japan is up-front about it, you don't get to a case where you immigrate to Japan and the locals start complaining about losing their "ways". Really, just say up front, only WASP's allowed.

alexandercrohde 9y ago

This is one of those discussions where I almost feel like the comments are deliberately trying to be provocative.

rotexo 9y ago

I observe that the article starts out talking about closing coal mines and the decline of manufacturing jobs. As a white person, it sounds to me like the white people interviewed for this article face declining economic prospects (understandably of concern), notice an increased abundance of people of color around them, and then feel angry about the people of color. Emotions are of course not rational things, but I don't really understand the leap there. After all, it seems like racial disparities between whites and people of color still exist, with whites on top (https://news.stanford.edu/2017/06/16/report-finds-significant-racial-ethnic-disparities/ https://news.stanford.edu/2017/06/16/report-finds-significan...). So the real wealth transfer seems to be from low-income whites to high-income whites. Bear in mind, I don't think that's a good thing at all. Indeed, it seems like the antipathy would be better directed at the wealthy, rather than people of color. Or the energy would be better spent lobbying for help transitioning economically away from dying industries like coal power. But somehow this nebulous notion of racial pride gets dragged into the conversation instead. I suppose that's just people being people, but it doesn't leave me too optimistic about our prospects for a more peaceful and sane future.

kej 9y ago
Your comment reminds me of this story told by Bill Moyers about LBJ: We were in Tennessee. During the motorcade, he spotted some ugly racial epithets scrawled on signs. Late that night in the hotel, when the local dignitaries had finished the last bottles of bourbon and branch water and departed, he started talking about those signs. “I’ll tell you what’s at the bottom of it,” he said. “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” It makes sense today, too. If the wealthy can convince the poor that their hardships are caused by immigrants, then the newly poor won't consider how much of their previous wealth is being concentrated in a few hands.
- rotexo 9y ago
  YES to that LBJ quote. I seem to recall also reading a similar observation backed up quite thoroughly with statistics in Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow.

isabelc 9y ago

This has nothing to do with skin color or racism on the part of white Americans. The anxiety is not only among American Whites but also among Black Americans, and 2nd and 3rd generation Americans who speak only English. At least in cities like mine (Miami, Florida). It's not just a fear but a real problem because people cannot get jobs here unless they speak Spanish. Black Americans can sometimes get hired without knowing Spanish, but never whites or 3rd generation "Hispanics" who speak only English. Worse than that is that many businesses will not do any business in English. And they are somehow certified. At all levels. I personally have dealt with business owners, real estate agents, small retail store owners, investors, technicians, restaurant owners, and more who speak no English, only Spanish. You can't even order a pizza in English. My English-speaking son was hung-up on because he tried to order a pizza in English (I speak Spanish so I have to do the ordering). There are pockets of Miami where English is spoken in businesses, particularly the tourist areas by the beach or downtown. Because it's treated like a foreign language. Also, government offices and libraries still mostly speak English. There is real discrimination against non-Spanish speakers and white Americans. I don't know if data exists that shows this but it's witnessed and is common knowledge among people who live here. This was not the case 21 years ago when I began having children. That's why I didn't think it was mandatory to teach my children Spanish. People still spoke English. Now, my kids will likely not get jobs unless we move elsewhere, which is easier said than done.

sbinthree 9y ago

Sure, people can reskill, but it is quite hard to do as life goes on and poverty makes it hard to justify going back to school for four years of CS that many of these people probably can't make sense of. Don't know what the solution is, other than encourage people to retrain. People seem to perceive big companies talking about people needing to learn to code as a way for them to reduce wages, when in practice most software companies would hire as many competent developers as they can and you just can't find the people with the skills.

ralusek 9y ago

Identity politics beget identity politics, and it's always bad, period. The amount of comments in this thread alone talking about what "white people" are and aren't entitled to feel based off of their own privileges is representative of the wider left's own brand of identity politics, and quite frankly, racism. If you're a white person hearing day in an day out about your inherent power in society, and how much you've benefited from "your people's" exploitation of others, the first thing I can guarantee is that you're much more likely to be defensively thinking along these terms of group identity. Regardless of whether or not those perceptions of privilege hold true for your specific situation, a part of you gains awareness that a non-negligible faction is making these categorizations on your behalf. Where the identitarian reaction kicks in fully, though, is among the people for whom these tales of privilege and power quite clearly do not hold true. If you're born to two alcoholic parents who beat you and got you working in the coal mines as soon as you possibly could, it's not difficult to see why the prevailing narrative doesn't sound appealing. The absolute baseline human response to feeling attacked along these hard group lines is an identitarian outcry taking various forms, the mildest of which could be classified as "rising anxiety." I'm not saying that this is a good thing, I think it's a terrible thing, I just also happen to think it is an obvious result of the economic and political climate. Trump and his supporters are not a disease, they're an ill-conceived, but expected reactionary symptom.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]