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> I don’t see people protesting racism invalidating the existence of socioeconomic inequality in America. I have. Mostly college kids in private colleges; they

by Mezzie 4y ago

> I don’t see people protesting racism invalidating the existence of socioeconomic inequality in America. I have. Mostly college kids in private colleges; they're in a bubble and only exposed to other well-off kids, which means that none of them have experience with classism and therefore they can dismiss it, whereas racism is a problem for rich POC and therefore, because it can affect their classmates, it's a huge issue (just like homophobia, transphobia, and sexism). But it happens outside of that as well. One example is the framing of what happened in Flint as a solely racial issue, when the city is poor as hell (I made 28k and I believe I was in the top 20% of household income for the city) and about half its residents are white. The people making those arguments had never been to Flint and wouldn't have cared about the white students I saw who were so poor they only had a single set of clothes. Flint wouldn't have happened to a city of rich black people. (Of course, the fact that the city proper has more POC is partially due to the impacts of racism so the disproportionate impact is caused by racism and I wouldn't deny that). Like how I see racism mostly dismissed from people who live in poor, white majority areas: It's really hard to understand the pervasiveness of racism if you're in that situation. (And from racists, of course, just like classists dismiss classism.)

zozbot234 4y ago
"College kids in private colleges" are a tiny minority, are you sure that they comprise most of those protesting racism in the U.S. e.g. as regards policing and criminal justice? That's quite disappointing if true.
- Mezzie 4y ago
  No. The OP just had mentioned not being sure if it DID occur, so I weighed in to say it did. I wouldn't say they're most of the people against racism (particularly when it comes to criminal justice and incarceration issues), but they do have an outsized media presence precisely due to their privilege. These topics are so filter bubbled I don't have a good sense of which, if either, of the two dismissals is objectively more common.
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > "College kids in private colleges" are a tiny minority, are you sure that they comprise most of those protesting racism in the U.S. e.g. as regards policing and criminal justice? That's quite disappointing if true. They are tiny minority with a disproportionately loud voice. They are also probably the group where the people with the loudest voices in society tend to be drawn from.
rTX5CMRXIfFG 4y ago
I only meant to say that in my subjective experience of the internet, I hardly see it happening but I did not discount that it could happen. Anyway, this is really a small part of my entire comment.
- Mezzie 4y ago
  It was, yes! Just a part I found interesting to contrast our bubbles. I'm a nerd about the subjectivity of the modern internet experience.
relaxing 4y ago
> Flint wouldn't have happened to a city of rich black people. Bizarre statement since no such thing exists. Previous attempts at creating a rich black city were met with violent white supremacy. The possibility a black community could be rich enough to buy influence to prevent its municipal water from being switched to a source that corrodes its water mains is so far removed from reality, it hardly seems useful to speculate on. > the fact that the city proper has more POC is partially due to the impacts of racism No, it’s entirely due to racism through explicit public policies such as redlining.
- cafard 4y ago
  Temple Hills, Maryland, is upper middle class and predominantly black.
  - relaxing 4y ago
    I don’t think there’s any way you can define $66k as upper middle class. That is below the statewide median.
- Mezzie 4y ago
  I'm going to assume you're referring to Black Wall Street, which happened 100 years ago in OK, and was only part of a municipality. I think whether or not there was a repeat of that would depend on a lot of things: Where it was, what group of black people were involved (for instance, a neighborhood of upper-class African immigrants is going to be treated differently than a neighborhood of well-off African Americans), etc. If it was a city with Flint's demographics (about 50-50 black and white) where the median income was 200k instead of 20k, I stand by my statement that it wouldn't have happened. I'm also going to assume you're not from here/have never lived in the region. Flint's decline took place mostly AFTER the Fair Housing Act was put into place, and the reason there were so many black people in Flint to begin with is that (like Lansing and Detroit), the auto industry actually treated black people relatively decently. Unlike in Detroit, the white flight from Flint didn't result in the outer areas developing instead: The area just lost half its population because there were no more auto jobs. It wasn't explicit public policies that made black people in Flint less able to leave, for the most part. Implicit and private racism played big parts, as does generational poverty and the latter generational affects of slavery (e.g. since most of Flint's Black people moved there in the 20s-40s and the city crashed in the 60s-70s, they didn't really have time to build the communities needed to do things like help them leave a newly dead Rust Belt city). Flint in particular is a giant clusterfuck of interconnected issues of class, race, etc., which is why it was my example. (And also because I used to live there). One problem I have with modern racial discourse is the insistence on flattening all history into one singular (usually American centric) model. Local history and context matters.

by Mezzie 4y ago

zozbot234 4y ago

"College kids in private colleges" are a tiny minority, are you sure that they comprise most of those protesting racism in the U.S. e.g. as regards policing and criminal justice? That's quite disappointing if true.

Mezzie 4y ago
No. The OP just had mentioned not being sure if it DID occur, so I weighed in to say it did. I wouldn't say they're most of the people against racism (particularly when it comes to criminal justice and incarceration issues), but they do have an outsized media presence precisely due to their privilege. These topics are so filter bubbled I don't have a good sense of which, if either, of the two dismissals is objectively more common.
tablespoon 4y ago
> "College kids in private colleges" are a tiny minority, are you sure that they comprise most of those protesting racism in the U.S. e.g. as regards policing and criminal justice? That's quite disappointing if true. They are tiny minority with a disproportionately loud voice. They are also probably the group where the people with the loudest voices in society tend to be drawn from.

rTX5CMRXIfFG 4y ago

I only meant to say that in my subjective experience of the internet, I hardly see it happening but I did not discount that it could happen. Anyway, this is really a small part of my entire comment.

Mezzie 4y ago
It was, yes! Just a part I found interesting to contrast our bubbles. I'm a nerd about the subjectivity of the modern internet experience.

relaxing 4y ago

> Flint wouldn't have happened to a city of rich black people. Bizarre statement since no such thing exists. Previous attempts at creating a rich black city were met with violent white supremacy. The possibility a black community could be rich enough to buy influence to prevent its municipal water from being switched to a source that corrodes its water mains is so far removed from reality, it hardly seems useful to speculate on. > the fact that the city proper has more POC is partially due to the impacts of racism No, it’s entirely due to racism through explicit public policies such as redlining.

cafard 4y ago
Temple Hills, Maryland, is upper middle class and predominantly black.
- relaxing 4y ago
  I don’t think there’s any way you can define $66k as upper middle class. That is below the statewide median.
Mezzie 4y ago
I'm going to assume you're referring to Black Wall Street, which happened 100 years ago in OK, and was only part of a municipality. I think whether or not there was a repeat of that would depend on a lot of things: Where it was, what group of black people were involved (for instance, a neighborhood of upper-class African immigrants is going to be treated differently than a neighborhood of well-off African Americans), etc. If it was a city with Flint's demographics (about 50-50 black and white) where the median income was 200k instead of 20k, I stand by my statement that it wouldn't have happened. I'm also going to assume you're not from here/have never lived in the region. Flint's decline took place mostly AFTER the Fair Housing Act was put into place, and the reason there were so many black people in Flint to begin with is that (like Lansing and Detroit), the auto industry actually treated black people relatively decently. Unlike in Detroit, the white flight from Flint didn't result in the outer areas developing instead: The area just lost half its population because there were no more auto jobs. It wasn't explicit public policies that made black people in Flint less able to leave, for the most part. Implicit and private racism played big parts, as does generational poverty and the latter generational affects of slavery (e.g. since most of Flint's Black people moved there in the 20s-40s and the city crashed in the 60s-70s, they didn't really have time to build the communities needed to do things like help them leave a newly dead Rust Belt city). Flint in particular is a giant clusterfuck of interconnected issues of class, race, etc., which is why it was my example. (And also because I used to live there). One problem I have with modern racial discourse is the insistence on flattening all history into one singular (usually American centric) model. Local history and context matters.