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Because knowing and interacting with minorities tends to make people less racist. That's why there's a huge difference between the level of racism that minoriti

Because knowing and interacting with minorities tends to make people less racist. That's why there's a huge difference between the level of racism that minorities have to encounter between cities and small towns. For example https://www.reddit.com/r/okc/comments/12vli29/black_family_moving_to_edmond/ https://www.reddit.com/r/okc/comments/12vli29/black_family_m...

rayiner 3y ago
That seems circular. Also, I don’t think your premise is correct. For example, the kind of “diversity” that exists in San Francisco (where there is a sharp class divide between whites and Asians on one hand and blacks and Hispanics on the other) probably breeds racism, even if it’s a subtle kind: https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/white-liberals-present-themselves-as-less-competent-in-interactions-with-african-americans https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/white-liberals-presen... Also, your premise doesn’t match my experience, at least as a south Asian. I’ve never felt any racism or stereotyping in rural America. But I have in Toronto, where there’s a large underclass of south Asians. I’ve also experienced racism from other minorities in urban parts of the US. I think it’s quite possible that the conflict that inevitably arises when groups live alongside each other in the real world causes racism. I suspect the only exception to that is ethnically diverse places that are culturally and economically homogenous across ethnic lines. There’s virtually no places like that, pretty much anywhere.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- consumer451 3y ago
  I spent the last 30 minutes trying to edit an appropriate reply explaining my own immigrant experience. Then I deleted all of it. This is hard to respond to. I will try again: > Also, your premise doesn’t match my experience, at least as a south Asian. I’ve never felt any racism or stereotyping in rural America. But I have in Toronto, where there’s a large underclass of south Asians. With $500, my mother and 5yr old me left Soviet Poland and landed in Massachusetts. Upon landing, no matter how well I did in school, I was a "dumb Polak immigrant." [0] Later, when I was a teen, we moved to the West Coast, and there that stereotype did not exist. I was re-born. Yay! :) In my experience, as immigrants to The West, we bring our own ridiculous class/race hatred straight here with us, and in the melting pot places like the East Coast for me, and Toronto for you, we can't escape it.. Like we left our continents because of that dumb crap, and somehow we brought it all here. Imho, we are very fortunate that North America is so large, and innocent, so that we can all find a comfortable spot for ourselves, somewhere. > ethnically diverse places that are culturally and economically homogenous across ethnic lines" This seems circular to me. It is likely that I just don't understand. If you don't mind, please explain further. [0] I would like to point out that my brother in law recently admitted to us that even as a teenager, he didn't know that Polaks were an actual group of people from an actual country named Poland. He literally thought that Polish were a theoretical group of dumb people. He grew up dirt poor in Kentucky, and has now worked his way to be a multi-millionaire. After all that, he could admit that level of ignorance to our Polish family, and we were all good. This is the glory of "Western multiculturalism." Love it, or hate it. Personally, I love it. I mean you can't make this stuff up, and we are all very lucky to be here.
  - rayiner 3y ago
    In a way my experience was similar. I encountered no racism in the (at the time) very white Virginia town where I grew up. Nobody had stereotypes about Bangladeshis. That place now has a large foreign population, and ironically the only times I’ve encountered racism there are from foreigners (specifically Arabs). So it doesn’t seem to me to be true that “diversity” makes people less racist. In particular, I don’t think people in places like San Francisco are less racist, where day in and day out they see certain groups only in service jobs while other groups work in tech and finance.
    - consumer451 3y ago
      A really interesting data point on racism, in general, which I learned from Sapolsky (via Sean Carroll) is that using fMRI scans, it appears that most adult humans have a racist friend/foe type response when viewing photos showing "the other." However, this visual response can be hacked with something as silly as the person in the image wearing a baseball cap from "our team." So, clearly racism is a really crappy heuristic. Learning this made me feel happy and sad at the same time... but I think mostly happy, because if that ugliness can be hacked so easily, then it must truly be nonsense. https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2021/02/15/134-robert-sapolsky-on-why-we-behave-the-way-we-do/ https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2021/02/15/134-...

rayiner 3y ago

That seems circular. Also, I don’t think your premise is correct. For example, the kind of “diversity” that exists in San Francisco (where there is a sharp class divide between whites and Asians on one hand and blacks and Hispanics on the other) probably breeds racism, even if it’s a subtle kind: https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/white-liberals-present-themselves-as-less-competent-in-interactions-with-african-americans https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/white-liberals-presen... Also, your premise doesn’t match my experience, at least as a south Asian. I’ve never felt any racism or stereotyping in rural America. But I have in Toronto, where there’s a large underclass of south Asians. I’ve also experienced racism from other minorities in urban parts of the US. I think it’s quite possible that the conflict that inevitably arises when groups live alongside each other in the real world causes racism. I suspect the only exception to that is ethnically diverse places that are culturally and economically homogenous across ethnic lines. There’s virtually no places like that, pretty much anywhere.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
consumer451 3y ago
I spent the last 30 minutes trying to edit an appropriate reply explaining my own immigrant experience. Then I deleted all of it. This is hard to respond to. I will try again: > Also, your premise doesn’t match my experience, at least as a south Asian. I’ve never felt any racism or stereotyping in rural America. But I have in Toronto, where there’s a large underclass of south Asians. With $500, my mother and 5yr old me left Soviet Poland and landed in Massachusetts. Upon landing, no matter how well I did in school, I was a "dumb Polak immigrant." [0] Later, when I was a teen, we moved to the West Coast, and there that stereotype did not exist. I was re-born. Yay! :) In my experience, as immigrants to The West, we bring our own ridiculous class/race hatred straight here with us, and in the melting pot places like the East Coast for me, and Toronto for you, we can't escape it.. Like we left our continents because of that dumb crap, and somehow we brought it all here. Imho, we are very fortunate that North America is so large, and innocent, so that we can all find a comfortable spot for ourselves, somewhere. > ethnically diverse places that are culturally and economically homogenous across ethnic lines" This seems circular to me. It is likely that I just don't understand. If you don't mind, please explain further. [0] I would like to point out that my brother in law recently admitted to us that even as a teenager, he didn't know that Polaks were an actual group of people from an actual country named Poland. He literally thought that Polish were a theoretical group of dumb people. He grew up dirt poor in Kentucky, and has now worked his way to be a multi-millionaire. After all that, he could admit that level of ignorance to our Polish family, and we were all good. This is the glory of "Western multiculturalism." Love it, or hate it. Personally, I love it. I mean you can't make this stuff up, and we are all very lucky to be here.
- rayiner 3y ago
  In a way my experience was similar. I encountered no racism in the (at the time) very white Virginia town where I grew up. Nobody had stereotypes about Bangladeshis. That place now has a large foreign population, and ironically the only times I’ve encountered racism there are from foreigners (specifically Arabs). So it doesn’t seem to me to be true that “diversity” makes people less racist. In particular, I don’t think people in places like San Francisco are less racist, where day in and day out they see certain groups only in service jobs while other groups work in tech and finance.
  - consumer451 3y ago
    A really interesting data point on racism, in general, which I learned from Sapolsky (via Sean Carroll) is that using fMRI scans, it appears that most adult humans have a racist friend/foe type response when viewing photos showing "the other." However, this visual response can be hacked with something as silly as the person in the image wearing a baseball cap from "our team." So, clearly racism is a really crappy heuristic. Learning this made me feel happy and sad at the same time... but I think mostly happy, because if that ugliness can be hacked so easily, then it must truly be nonsense. https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2021/02/15/134-robert-sapolsky-on-why-we-behave-the-way-we-do/ https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2021/02/15/134-...