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What makes you think there are fewer xenophobes and ethno-nationalists in the Bay Area than in other parts of the country?
by haram_masala 6y ago
What makes you think there are fewer xenophobes and ethno-nationalists in the Bay Area than in other parts of the country?
- danans 6y agoPercentage of population that are immigrants, number of local elected officials and leaders who are immigrants or people of color, basically all the stats that index for this sort of thing. For an example drawn from another part of the country, look at the district in Iowa that repeatedly reelected Steve King (R) to Congress, renowned and avowed xenophobe and ethno-nationalist, until he became an embarrassment. What makes you think that any given Bay Area Congressional district would have the same number or more xenophobes than his district? I didn't say the Bay Area was by any means perfect. The diversity here is still tainted by huge inequality, some of which falls along ethnic lines, which is what the article in part caricatures. But xenophobia isn't a major vector of the problems at this point.
- haram_masala 6y agoSo basically, being an immigrant or a PoC precludes being a xenophobe or ethno-nationalist. That's what I thought.
- danans 6y agoBeing an immigrant makes you much less likely to be a xenophobe, and being a POC in the US makes you much less likely to be an ethno-nationalist. The Bay Area has a high representation of both immigrants and POCs, so statistically lower representation of xenophobes and ethno-nationalists. However, nothing precludes an individual of either or both of those groups from being xenophobes or ethno-nationalists. This isn't inconsistent. These aren't absolute categories, but rather categories of statistical likelihood. When you are talking about the entire population of a region - there are no absolutes, just likelihoods over large numbers.