5 ms·

Racism. It's mostly driven by racism but we're not allowed to call it that.

AlexB138 7y ago
While probably part of it, I don't personally believe that to be a primary cause. America is probably at or near the least racist it has been in its history. I think the entities driving narratives that make people believe racism is rampant, and cause people to make flippant accusations of racism, have more to do with it.
jjb123 7y ago
How so? Do you mean that people "would" help if they weren't racist? San Francisco, which has one of the largest homeless populations per capita, has a homeless population that is 35% caucasian (the largest represented racial group). (Edited to add: Caucasians make up 40.2% of the city population) https://sf.curbed.com/2017/6/16/15818104/homeless-sf-count-2017 https://sf.curbed.com/2017/6/16/15818104/homeless-sf-count-2... https://datausa.io/profile/geo/san-francisco-ca https://datausa.io/profile/geo/san-francisco-ca
- rhacker 7y ago
  Across the West (where I travel the most) see that most homeless is white. I would say too, that, even in places with much higher Mexican or migrant populations, such as Tucson, AZ - the homeless population is also mostly white. At least visibly. Homelessness doesn't seem to be related to racism, it seems to be a very white specific thing (at least in these western states - CA, WA, OR, MT, CO, UT, NV, AZ, NM, WY).
  - lazyasciiart 7y ago
    “Visible” homelessness is often quite a different demographic to overall homelessness - for instance women and children tend not to be visible. There may be a similar effect with race.
    - navigatesol 7y ago
      Anything to prevent us from feeling sorry for white men, am I right?
    - rhacker 7y ago
      The actual counts generally back this up. https://www.library.pima.gov/content/homelessness-statistics/ https://www.library.pima.gov/content/homelessness-statistics... It's kinda hard to find, but Tucson's homelessness was 72% caucasian, 19% native american. I don't think there is any interagency that is putting these numbers in one place yet... that's probably desperately needed for this country to start tackling the problem. There may actually be a reason why white people are specifically affected- and it is probably related to family processes.
      - lazyasciiart 7y ago
        No, they don't. To start: of course this is tracked federally, it has been for years. Here's a recent report https://files.hudexchange.info/resources/documents/2018-AHAR-Part-1.pdf https://files.hudexchange.info/resources/documents/2018-AHAR... You will note that it calls out that African Americans are extremely disproportionately represented in homeless groups (13% of population, 40% of homeless people), and in the overall demographic table we can see that white people make up about 50% of homeless people vs ~70% of the population. It also mentions that among the population of unsheltered people, which are the group I'd call more visible, white people are slightly less under-represented, at 60%. The only place '72%' comes up in the report you linked is the BoS counties, not Tucson, so I'll assume you meant that. That seems well out of proportion to the total population so I'd ask some questions about how well the counts cover tribal lands, etc (since it's actually a count used for federal assistance, which is handled differently on tribal lands). There is increasing attention given to the lack of attention to homelessness on tribal lands, and they definitely used to not be counted - this report gives some info on how they can be undercounted even if included http://www.ruralhome.org/storage/documents/rpts_pubs/na_homeless_count_toolkit.pdf http://www.ruralhome.org/storage/documents/rpts_pubs/na_home...
        7y ago
infinitezest 7y ago
In my experience the case is exactly the opposite. The term "racism" is so overloaded at this point that you can call someone a racist if they've mentioned anything even tangentially related to race. It's an insult more than a descriptor.
rayiner 7y ago
Not allowed to call it that since when? It seems to me that we’re allowed to call everything racism these days. E.g. Warren talking about “environmental racism, economic racism, criminal-justice racism, health-care racism.” I don’t disagree with your point in a certain sense, but your framing is fluffy and unsatisfying. America is one of the least racist countries in the world. For example, 82% of French support banning Islamic head coverings, versus just 28% of Americans: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2010/07/14/french-support-for-ban-on-full-islamic-veil https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2010/07/14/french-supp.... I’m a Bangladeshi married to an Oregonian. (Not like Portland, like rural Oregon coast.) I’ve lived in red states, visited rural parts of the country, and currently live in a precinct that voted for Trump. The degree to which Americans are willing to accept you into their communities, given minimal attempts to conform, never ceases to amaze me. (And when I hear about how “profoundly racist” America is, I can’t help but think sheepishly: “man, what would they say about Bangladesh?”) So how much explanatory power does leveling charges of racism really have? Clearly racism exists and is a bad thing and produces many problems. But racism is also a structural problem endemic to humans, not anything unique to Americans. How much can you really rely on racism alone to explain the level of division within American society?
- lazyasciiart 7y ago
  A lot of divisions in America are driven by generations of policy based on racism - from redlining, white flight and zoning policies that changed the structure of cities and are now used as weapons against newcomers and change, to the very existence of many cities and governments that were created in order to be a separate white space from the larger cities nearby, and the use of these boundaries to avoid funding the basics of society for everyone (school districts, libraries, roads, etc). The vast majority of Americans are not racist in the sense that they are personally antagonistic to an individual of another race. But many of them are racist in the sense that they think black people on average are poorer because they have shitty culture, not because white people historically prevented them from buying land, prevented them from being educated, prevented them from using opportunities like the GI bill, etc.
  - sol_remmy2 7y ago

While probably part of it, I don't personally believe that to be a primary cause. America is probably at or near the least racist it has been in its history. I think the entities driving narratives that make people believe racism is rampant, and cause people to make flippant accusations of racism, have more to do with it.

jjb123 7y ago

How so? Do you mean that people "would" help if they weren't racist? San Francisco, which has one of the largest homeless populations per capita, has a homeless population that is 35% caucasian (the largest represented racial group). (Edited to add: Caucasians make up 40.2% of the city population) https://sf.curbed.com/2017/6/16/15818104/homeless-sf-count-2017 https://sf.curbed.com/2017/6/16/15818104/homeless-sf-count-2... https://datausa.io/profile/geo/san-francisco-ca https://datausa.io/profile/geo/san-francisco-ca

rhacker 7y ago
Across the West (where I travel the most) see that most homeless is white. I would say too, that, even in places with much higher Mexican or migrant populations, such as Tucson, AZ - the homeless population is also mostly white. At least visibly. Homelessness doesn't seem to be related to racism, it seems to be a very white specific thing (at least in these western states - CA, WA, OR, MT, CO, UT, NV, AZ, NM, WY).
- lazyasciiart 7y ago
  “Visible” homelessness is often quite a different demographic to overall homelessness - for instance women and children tend not to be visible. There may be a similar effect with race.
  - navigatesol 7y ago
    Anything to prevent us from feeling sorry for white men, am I right?
  - rhacker 7y ago
    The actual counts generally back this up. https://www.library.pima.gov/content/homelessness-statistics/ https://www.library.pima.gov/content/homelessness-statistics... It's kinda hard to find, but Tucson's homelessness was 72% caucasian, 19% native american. I don't think there is any interagency that is putting these numbers in one place yet... that's probably desperately needed for this country to start tackling the problem. There may actually be a reason why white people are specifically affected- and it is probably related to family processes.
    - lazyasciiart 7y ago
      No, they don't. To start: of course this is tracked federally, it has been for years. Here's a recent report https://files.hudexchange.info/resources/documents/2018-AHAR-Part-1.pdf https://files.hudexchange.info/resources/documents/2018-AHAR... You will note that it calls out that African Americans are extremely disproportionately represented in homeless groups (13% of population, 40% of homeless people), and in the overall demographic table we can see that white people make up about 50% of homeless people vs ~70% of the population. It also mentions that among the population of unsheltered people, which are the group I'd call more visible, white people are slightly less under-represented, at 60%. The only place '72%' comes up in the report you linked is the BoS counties, not Tucson, so I'll assume you meant that. That seems well out of proportion to the total population so I'd ask some questions about how well the counts cover tribal lands, etc (since it's actually a count used for federal assistance, which is handled differently on tribal lands). There is increasing attention given to the lack of attention to homelessness on tribal lands, and they definitely used to not be counted - this report gives some info on how they can be undercounted even if included http://www.ruralhome.org/storage/documents/rpts_pubs/na_homeless_count_toolkit.pdf http://www.ruralhome.org/storage/documents/rpts_pubs/na_home...
      - 7y ago

infinitezest 7y ago

In my experience the case is exactly the opposite. The term "racism" is so overloaded at this point that you can call someone a racist if they've mentioned anything even tangentially related to race. It's an insult more than a descriptor.

rayiner 7y ago

Not allowed to call it that since when? It seems to me that we’re allowed to call everything racism these days. E.g. Warren talking about “environmental racism, economic racism, criminal-justice racism, health-care racism.” I don’t disagree with your point in a certain sense, but your framing is fluffy and unsatisfying. America is one of the least racist countries in the world. For example, 82% of French support banning Islamic head coverings, versus just 28% of Americans: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2010/07/14/french-support-for-ban-on-full-islamic-veil https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2010/07/14/french-supp.... I’m a Bangladeshi married to an Oregonian. (Not like Portland, like rural Oregon coast.) I’ve lived in red states, visited rural parts of the country, and currently live in a precinct that voted for Trump. The degree to which Americans are willing to accept you into their communities, given minimal attempts to conform, never ceases to amaze me. (And when I hear about how “profoundly racist” America is, I can’t help but think sheepishly: “man, what would they say about Bangladesh?”) So how much explanatory power does leveling charges of racism really have? Clearly racism exists and is a bad thing and produces many problems. But racism is also a structural problem endemic to humans, not anything unique to Americans. How much can you really rely on racism alone to explain the level of division within American society?

lazyasciiart 7y ago
A lot of divisions in America are driven by generations of policy based on racism - from redlining, white flight and zoning policies that changed the structure of cities and are now used as weapons against newcomers and change, to the very existence of many cities and governments that were created in order to be a separate white space from the larger cities nearby, and the use of these boundaries to avoid funding the basics of society for everyone (school districts, libraries, roads, etc). The vast majority of Americans are not racist in the sense that they are personally antagonistic to an individual of another race. But many of them are racist in the sense that they think black people on average are poorer because they have shitty culture, not because white people historically prevented them from buying land, prevented them from being educated, prevented them from using opportunities like the GI bill, etc.
- sol_remmy2 7y ago