6 ms·

It is easy to assume it's about race, but I think it's more a class issue. They would be doing the same thing if it were poor white people I would imagine.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
jerkstate 8y ago
s/would be/are/g plenty of white people in the bay area that can't afford housing.
kryogen1c 8y ago
Took the words right out of my mouth. Assuming this is a race issue is basically meaningless political grandstanding. It's a class issue, and the issue is universal. Rich don't want to live around middle class, middle class don't want to live around the poor, and the poor don't want homeless people living in their front yard. Humans are simply tribal, and want to be with members of their tribe. Landlords want to make money, and as the parent pointed out, low income housing is clearly not a priority in the area.
- rayiner 8y ago
  People are tribal about race and culture too, not just class. Redlining laws were aimed at minorities that could afford to live in the white neighborhoods they were moving into. We've made that illegal now, so people look for other ways to achieve the same effect.
  - castlecrasher2 8y ago
    If you double-down again you'll achieve the rare quadruple-down, and Mew will appear.
- zippy5 8y ago
  To be fair, if I owned a home in silicon Valley, it would presumably be most of my net worth, not to mention a significant shift in housing prices could bankrupt me. I would likely vote to artificially limit supply in the interest of self preservation.
- teachrdan 8y ago
  The argument that X group "want to make money" and therefore will never discriminate is provably false. Restaurant owners (and hotel owners, and gas station owners...) in the South refused to serve black patrons for a century after the end of slavery. What's your explanation for that behavior, if not racism? You might argue it's because their white customers would retaliate by not patronizing their business. But that just proves that businesses will discriminate based on race, even if it's not due to the owner's racism but their white customers'.
weberc2 8y ago
Isn't it plausible that it's neither race nor class, and people just want their property values to keep climbing? I assume people like it when their property appreciates in value, but maybe that incentive is nullified by increased property taxes?
- mertd 8y ago
  Tax doesn't keep up with the value increase due to prop 13.
  - weberc2 8y ago
    So there is another possible motive besides racism or classism?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
partiallypro 8y ago
Absolutely, I've seen such petty claims on HOAs generally aimed at the poor. Doesn't matter their race (usually they are white, simply because there are more white people in the US.)
throwawaymath 8y ago
It's probably both. If they don't want poor families moving near them, that's classist. If they more readily assume a black or hispanic family is poor than a white or asian family (as an example), that's racist. For example, seeing a family of any race with obvious signs of poverty (large family size, rundown vehicle or none at all, shabby clothes, etc) and not wanting them to move in would be classist. But assuming a black family is poor because they don't have obvious signs of prosperity (very nice car of the right brand, very nice clothes that aren't loud, few and well-behaved children, etc) is racist if the same class heuristics aren't used to determine if an asian family isn't poor. Although classism is its own problem, it's also very often just a more palatable presentation of racism. In particular, if your baseline class assumption about various races is different and you don't want to associate with people below a certain class, the effect will be racism.
CodeSheikh 8y ago
I think it becomes a race issue when majority of those displaced families are immigrants and out of those majority are Hispanic families. Yes, I agree there will always be a couple of poor white families out of 100 displaced families but it is not fair to say it is NOT a race issue and just a class issue.
teachrdan 8y ago
As someone who also grew up in the suburbs of DC, I can tell you that the anxiety was explicitly around Latino families moving in--not just poor ones. I'm honestly baffled that anytime someone on HN brings up racism in the US it's immediately countered with: "It's about class, not race." There's ample history in Jim Crow laws that white Americans discriminated explicitly by race. Specific to the region mentioned by the grandparent, Washington, DC, like much of the South, had racial covenants that made it illegal for African Americans to live in much of the city. Of course there has been, and continues to be, very real discrimination by class. But we know that legal discrimination by race in the US existed well into living memory. Why would we immediately assume that it has stopped? https://wamu.org/story/14/01/17/how_racial_covenants_shaped_dc_neighborhoods/ https://wamu.org/story/14/01/17/how_racial_covenants_shaped_...

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

jerkstate 8y ago

s/would be/are/g plenty of white people in the bay area that can't afford housing.

kryogen1c 8y ago

Took the words right out of my mouth. Assuming this is a race issue is basically meaningless political grandstanding. It's a class issue, and the issue is universal. Rich don't want to live around middle class, middle class don't want to live around the poor, and the poor don't want homeless people living in their front yard. Humans are simply tribal, and want to be with members of their tribe. Landlords want to make money, and as the parent pointed out, low income housing is clearly not a priority in the area.

rayiner 8y ago
People are tribal about race and culture too, not just class. Redlining laws were aimed at minorities that could afford to live in the white neighborhoods they were moving into. We've made that illegal now, so people look for other ways to achieve the same effect.
- castlecrasher2 8y ago
  If you double-down again you'll achieve the rare quadruple-down, and Mew will appear.
zippy5 8y ago
To be fair, if I owned a home in silicon Valley, it would presumably be most of my net worth, not to mention a significant shift in housing prices could bankrupt me. I would likely vote to artificially limit supply in the interest of self preservation.
teachrdan 8y ago
The argument that X group "want to make money" and therefore will never discriminate is provably false. Restaurant owners (and hotel owners, and gas station owners...) in the South refused to serve black patrons for a century after the end of slavery. What's your explanation for that behavior, if not racism? You might argue it's because their white customers would retaliate by not patronizing their business. But that just proves that businesses will discriminate based on race, even if it's not due to the owner's racism but their white customers'.

weberc2 8y ago

Isn't it plausible that it's neither race nor class, and people just want their property values to keep climbing? I assume people like it when their property appreciates in value, but maybe that incentive is nullified by increased property taxes?

mertd 8y ago
Tax doesn't keep up with the value increase due to prop 13.
- weberc2 8y ago
  So there is another possible motive besides racism or classism?
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

partiallypro 8y ago

Absolutely, I've seen such petty claims on HOAs generally aimed at the poor. Doesn't matter their race (usually they are white, simply because there are more white people in the US.)

throwawaymath 8y ago

It's probably both. If they don't want poor families moving near them, that's classist. If they more readily assume a black or hispanic family is poor than a white or asian family (as an example), that's racist. For example, seeing a family of any race with obvious signs of poverty (large family size, rundown vehicle or none at all, shabby clothes, etc) and not wanting them to move in would be classist. But assuming a black family is poor because they don't have obvious signs of prosperity (very nice car of the right brand, very nice clothes that aren't loud, few and well-behaved children, etc) is racist if the same class heuristics aren't used to determine if an asian family isn't poor. Although classism is its own problem, it's also very often just a more palatable presentation of racism. In particular, if your baseline class assumption about various races is different and you don't want to associate with people below a certain class, the effect will be racism.

CodeSheikh 8y ago

I think it becomes a race issue when majority of those displaced families are immigrants and out of those majority are Hispanic families. Yes, I agree there will always be a couple of poor white families out of 100 displaced families but it is not fair to say it is NOT a race issue and just a class issue.

teachrdan 8y ago

As someone who also grew up in the suburbs of DC, I can tell you that the anxiety was explicitly around Latino families moving in--not just poor ones. I'm honestly baffled that anytime someone on HN brings up racism in the US it's immediately countered with: "It's about class, not race." There's ample history in Jim Crow laws that white Americans discriminated explicitly by race. Specific to the region mentioned by the grandparent, Washington, DC, like much of the South, had racial covenants that made it illegal for African Americans to live in much of the city. Of course there has been, and continues to be, very real discrimination by class. But we know that legal discrimination by race in the US existed well into living memory. Why would we immediately assume that it has stopped? https://wamu.org/story/14/01/17/how_racial_covenants_shaped_dc_neighborhoods/ https://wamu.org/story/14/01/17/how_racial_covenants_shaped_...