6 ms·

It's the "wealthy young white people"! I don't get this obsession with race in the US media.

by muro 3y ago

dathinab 3y ago
Racism is sadly quite deep rooted in the US, also from all kinds of people in all kinds of directions. Even not that seldom the way some people fight racism turns out to be racist if you look at it from an external POV with a bit of distance.
- jsemrau 3y ago
  I have lived, worked, and faced racism in 15 countries. Race is always an issue even in the most meritocratic multicultural societies (like Singapore). People will always have a bias about your culture. Just ask any German how many people gave their best Hitler impression when traveling abroad. What I think is new since about 2018 in the US is that perceived victimhood is rewarded. Not actual victimhood, but perceived victimhood.
  - gregjor 3y ago
    "German" describes a nationality, not a race. Ask any American how many people -- including Germans -- give their best cowboy impression when traveling abroad.
    - amanaplanacanal 3y ago
      I'm not sure that makes much of a difference. It's just another version of xenophobia.
- jonathanstrange 3y ago
  It has always amazed me how many people in the US insist on categorizing other people into phenotypical races that we know cannot be justified by genetic research and are also incorrect for tracking ethnic origins and self-identity based conceptions. The explanation is that oppressed groups are often forced to take over inadequate and untenable conceptualizations to identify as a group and fight the oppression. However, at some point you would hope they also start revising those concepts. There was a short trend in this direction but it failed.
  - gregjor 3y ago
    Hardly a uniquely American thing. Imagining or identifying racial and ethnic groupings based on superficial features, or just differences in language and clothing, seems a universal human tendency across cultures and time. If Americans seem more prone to referring to race (and I don't think that's true) it perhaps comes from both a history of immigration and multiculturalism, and a history of slavery and racial oppression.
    - foofie 3y ago
      > Hardly a uniquely American thing. I don't agree. It's one thing to claim that people are aware of "race", but that's not the issue being discussed here. The issue being discussed is the degree of institutionalization that racism is embedded in US culture, to the point that unwittingly racist news stories are published in mainstream media, and once that's pointed out regular everyday people come at their defense supposedly for being something normal, totally unaware of actually proving and reinforcing the point. For contrast, in some countries the editorial guidelines for mainstream news organizations even discourage referring the nationality of those involved in events, due to concerns those could be abused to further racist beliefs in any way.
      - gregjor 3y ago
        You would have to give some examples. The Atlantic article about curtains refers to relative wealth and status, not to race. The wealthy white people in Brooklyn Heights, mentioned exactly once to accurately describe the demographics of that neighborhood, are used as examples of people who don't hang curtains on their windows (or don't close their curtains). According to the author that's a status display, nothing to do with race. If you think American mainstream media don't have editorial guidelines that discourage mentioning race or nationality, you might want to look at those editorial guidelines, because American mainstream media -- such as The Atlantic -- most certainly do have guidelines. In fact they follow guidelines so cautious that people from Trump to Musk have accused the mainstream media of censorship and bias and "wokeness" because the media does leave off things like race and nationality and even relative social status, bending over backwards to appear fair.
- nickdothutton 3y ago
  I am curious to know the opinion of those in the US about what I think of as the great American experiment. Namely the bringing together of people (races) from all-over the world in a society. From obviously troubled beginnings (slavery, a civil qwar, various political assassinations all the way into the 1900s), to the 50s, the civil right turmoil and eventual settlement. Attempt at making a mixing pot through to multiculturalism today. Has it worked? What to try next? Will a steady state be reached? What does that look like?
  - neodymiumphish 3y ago
    I'd say it's worked as expected in the areas where it's actually implemented. In most suburbs, there is a racial mix that's (probably, I don't know the exact metrics) close to the national demographic, and in those areas the culture is fairly homogenous. I grew up as a kid in the military and lived in multiple suburbs during and after my parents' service. The schools, neighborhoods, and local businesses all had what felt like a fair spread of various races, and I never observed any race-based hate. This was across portions of Mississippi, Oklahoma, Ohio, and California. Heavily urban areas seem to shift toward race-oriented living areas, where I think there's a lot more animosity between races because a white person in a predominantly black area or a black person in Chinatown stands out more and generates concern that they aren't a part of the area's culture.
simonswords82 3y ago
It’s a global media thing. The UK media are just as sensational on it and it does an excellent job of polarising people needlessly.
- Clubber 3y ago
  I mean it's not needless, it's for clicks and money.
jollofricepeas 3y ago
Are you saying one should never refer to ethnicity when describing people? It appears to be merely descriptive writing. As maybe this phenomena is localized to American people who identify as white, young and wealthy. How would it differ if the article were “crazy rich Asians” (a film) or “impoverished Eastern European Jews”?
- foofie 3y ago
  > How would it differ if the article were “crazy rich Asians” (a film) or “impoverished Eastern European Jews”? It differs from the fact that in at least some places outside of the US those articles would not include any reference to race or even nationality of those involved, specially gratuituous ones like this.
gregjor 3y ago
Social status/class and race are closely related in the USA. But I didn't read "wealthy young white people" as an indication of obsession with race. Race and class aside, white Americans, Black Americans, Chinese Americans, etc. have different cultural traditions. Wealthy Americans have different habits and status markers than not-wealthy Americans. A wealthy white American has different habits and markers than a wealthy Black American. Just look at how Jay Z dresses compared to Elon Musk or Bill Gates. All wealthy but different kinds of status display.
- foofie 3y ago
  > Just look at how Jay Z dresses compared to Elon Musk or Bill Gates. What point were you hoping to convey? That different people dress differently? Because you could also compare how others dress, like Eminem and Obama, and what would your point be?
  - gregjor 3y ago
    See my longer comment above in the thread.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  >Just look at how Jay Z dresses compared to Elon Musk or Bill Gates. What's that to do with their skin color? They dress differently because one is a singer/pop-star, the other are tech nerds. Eminem also dresses differently than Musk and Gates and they're all white. People dress according to their profession and social status they want to flaunt, not based on skin color.
  - gregjor 3y ago
    How Jay Z and Bill Gates dress has nothing to do with race per se, that was my point. It has to do with social status, social group, cultural background, and in the case of celebrities their public persona. We can maybe agree that Jay Z and Bill Gates both qualify as "wealthy," at least among Americans. Yet they don't have much in common in terms of cultural background. Skin color is one aspect of that but not the only or most important aspect. The article in question mentions race and uses the word "white" exactly once. The sentence in question: > The New York Times recently referred to the “obligatory uncurtained windows” of Brooklyn Heights, a rich enclave in New York City, and The Root pointed out that this seemed common among wealthy young white people living in gentrified urban areas. Brooklyn Heights is 75.2 white people[1], with a median age of 35.3[2] (young, in other words). and the term "gentrified" applies. So describing Brooklyn Heights as a place with a lot of "wealthy young white people living in [a] gentrified urban area" seems factually correct. Pointing out the mostly white population doesn't make anything about the statement racist. Asking how it got so white, or the history of gentrification, may bring up questions about racial inequality in America. But the article is about curtains, not about race. Finding out that not having curtains, or leaving them open, is more widespread among wealthy people of high status and security (the literal and only point of the article), then using Brooklyn Heights as an example of a place with lots of uncovered windows and also lots of wealthy young white people is just supporting evidence. If the authors wanted to present a more rigorous study of no curtains they should have looked at other neighborhoods with different demographics. They're talking about a fashion trend and status marker. They could have talked about $1,000 sneakers and probably landed on a very different demographic. Reading the sentence above as racist seems a stretch. Using it to make some kind of sweeping generalization about American racism, and implying that America has some unique obsession with race you don't find in other countries is simply not borne out by research or experience. Xenophobia, which very often gets expressed in terms of race because skin color is such an obvious marker of difference, is a widespread human tendency, known since ancient times, everywhere. It's not something Americans invented or suffer from more than, say, Germans. In any case the article was about class and status, not about race, so reading racism into it says more about the people commenting in that vein that it does about the article or the authors. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn_Heights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn_Heights [2] https://www.point2homes.com/US/Neighborhood/NY/Brooklyn/Brooklyn-Heights-Demographics.html https://www.point2homes.com/US/Neighborhood/NY/Brooklyn/Broo...
DeathArrow 3y ago
>wealthy young white people What they really meant is nazi bigots every person should hate. You have to understand the unwritten words when reading leftist media.
- subjectsigma 3y ago
  I don’t know why you’re being downvoted; especially during 2016 the liberal media used terms like “angry white men” and “uneducated whites” as both an insult and a dog whistle.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

It's the "wealthy young white people"! I don't get this obsession with race in the US media.

by muro 3y ago

It's the "wealthy young white people"! I don't get this obsession with race in the US media.

Racism is sadly quite deep rooted in the US, also from all kinds of people in all kinds of directions. Even not that seldom the way some people fight racism turns out to be racist if you look at it from an external POV with a bit of distance.

jsemrau 3y ago
I have lived, worked, and faced racism in 15 countries. Race is always an issue even in the most meritocratic multicultural societies (like Singapore). People will always have a bias about your culture. Just ask any German how many people gave their best Hitler impression when traveling abroad. What I think is new since about 2018 in the US is that perceived victimhood is rewarded. Not actual victimhood, but perceived victimhood.
- gregjor 3y ago
  "German" describes a nationality, not a race. Ask any American how many people -- including Germans -- give their best cowboy impression when traveling abroad.
  - amanaplanacanal 3y ago
    I'm not sure that makes much of a difference. It's just another version of xenophobia.
jonathanstrange 3y ago
It has always amazed me how many people in the US insist on categorizing other people into phenotypical races that we know cannot be justified by genetic research and are also incorrect for tracking ethnic origins and self-identity based conceptions. The explanation is that oppressed groups are often forced to take over inadequate and untenable conceptualizations to identify as a group and fight the oppression. However, at some point you would hope they also start revising those concepts. There was a short trend in this direction but it failed.
- gregjor 3y ago
  Hardly a uniquely American thing. Imagining or identifying racial and ethnic groupings based on superficial features, or just differences in language and clothing, seems a universal human tendency across cultures and time. If Americans seem more prone to referring to race (and I don't think that's true) it perhaps comes from both a history of immigration and multiculturalism, and a history of slavery and racial oppression.
  - foofie 3y ago
    > Hardly a uniquely American thing. I don't agree. It's one thing to claim that people are aware of "race", but that's not the issue being discussed here. The issue being discussed is the degree of institutionalization that racism is embedded in US culture, to the point that unwittingly racist news stories are published in mainstream media, and once that's pointed out regular everyday people come at their defense supposedly for being something normal, totally unaware of actually proving and reinforcing the point. For contrast, in some countries the editorial guidelines for mainstream news organizations even discourage referring the nationality of those involved in events, due to concerns those could be abused to further racist beliefs in any way.
    - gregjor 3y ago
      You would have to give some examples. The Atlantic article about curtains refers to relative wealth and status, not to race. The wealthy white people in Brooklyn Heights, mentioned exactly once to accurately describe the demographics of that neighborhood, are used as examples of people who don't hang curtains on their windows (or don't close their curtains). According to the author that's a status display, nothing to do with race. If you think American mainstream media don't have editorial guidelines that discourage mentioning race or nationality, you might want to look at those editorial guidelines, because American mainstream media -- such as The Atlantic -- most certainly do have guidelines. In fact they follow guidelines so cautious that people from Trump to Musk have accused the mainstream media of censorship and bias and "wokeness" because the media does leave off things like race and nationality and even relative social status, bending over backwards to appear fair.
nickdothutton 3y ago
I am curious to know the opinion of those in the US about what I think of as the great American experiment. Namely the bringing together of people (races) from all-over the world in a society. From obviously troubled beginnings (slavery, a civil qwar, various political assassinations all the way into the 1900s), to the 50s, the civil right turmoil and eventual settlement. Attempt at making a mixing pot through to multiculturalism today. Has it worked? What to try next? Will a steady state be reached? What does that look like?
- neodymiumphish 3y ago
  I'd say it's worked as expected in the areas where it's actually implemented. In most suburbs, there is a racial mix that's (probably, I don't know the exact metrics) close to the national demographic, and in those areas the culture is fairly homogenous. I grew up as a kid in the military and lived in multiple suburbs during and after my parents' service. The schools, neighborhoods, and local businesses all had what felt like a fair spread of various races, and I never observed any race-based hate. This was across portions of Mississippi, Oklahoma, Ohio, and California. Heavily urban areas seem to shift toward race-oriented living areas, where I think there's a lot more animosity between races because a white person in a predominantly black area or a black person in Chinatown stands out more and generates concern that they aren't a part of the area's culture.

simonswords82 3y ago

It’s a global media thing. The UK media are just as sensational on it and it does an excellent job of polarising people needlessly.

Clubber 3y ago
I mean it's not needless, it's for clicks and money.

jollofricepeas 3y ago

Are you saying one should never refer to ethnicity when describing people? It appears to be merely descriptive writing. As maybe this phenomena is localized to American people who identify as white, young and wealthy. How would it differ if the article were “crazy rich Asians” (a film) or “impoverished Eastern European Jews”?

foofie 3y ago
> How would it differ if the article were “crazy rich Asians” (a film) or “impoverished Eastern European Jews”? It differs from the fact that in at least some places outside of the US those articles would not include any reference to race or even nationality of those involved, specially gratuituous ones like this.

gregjor 3y ago

Social status/class and race are closely related in the USA. But I didn't read "wealthy young white people" as an indication of obsession with race. Race and class aside, white Americans, Black Americans, Chinese Americans, etc. have different cultural traditions. Wealthy Americans have different habits and status markers than not-wealthy Americans. A wealthy white American has different habits and markers than a wealthy Black American. Just look at how Jay Z dresses compared to Elon Musk or Bill Gates. All wealthy but different kinds of status display.

foofie 3y ago
> Just look at how Jay Z dresses compared to Elon Musk or Bill Gates. What point were you hoping to convey? That different people dress differently? Because you could also compare how others dress, like Eminem and Obama, and what would your point be?
- gregjor 3y ago
  See my longer comment above in the thread.
FirmwareBurner 3y ago
>Just look at how Jay Z dresses compared to Elon Musk or Bill Gates. What's that to do with their skin color? They dress differently because one is a singer/pop-star, the other are tech nerds. Eminem also dresses differently than Musk and Gates and they're all white. People dress according to their profession and social status they want to flaunt, not based on skin color.
- gregjor 3y ago
  How Jay Z and Bill Gates dress has nothing to do with race per se, that was my point. It has to do with social status, social group, cultural background, and in the case of celebrities their public persona. We can maybe agree that Jay Z and Bill Gates both qualify as "wealthy," at least among Americans. Yet they don't have much in common in terms of cultural background. Skin color is one aspect of that but not the only or most important aspect. The article in question mentions race and uses the word "white" exactly once. The sentence in question: > The New York Times recently referred to the “obligatory uncurtained windows” of Brooklyn Heights, a rich enclave in New York City, and The Root pointed out that this seemed common among wealthy young white people living in gentrified urban areas. Brooklyn Heights is 75.2 white people[1], with a median age of 35.3[2] (young, in other words). and the term "gentrified" applies. So describing Brooklyn Heights as a place with a lot of "wealthy young white people living in [a] gentrified urban area" seems factually correct. Pointing out the mostly white population doesn't make anything about the statement racist. Asking how it got so white, or the history of gentrification, may bring up questions about racial inequality in America. But the article is about curtains, not about race. Finding out that not having curtains, or leaving them open, is more widespread among wealthy people of high status and security (the literal and only point of the article), then using Brooklyn Heights as an example of a place with lots of uncovered windows and also lots of wealthy young white people is just supporting evidence. If the authors wanted to present a more rigorous study of no curtains they should have looked at other neighborhoods with different demographics. They're talking about a fashion trend and status marker. They could have talked about $1,000 sneakers and probably landed on a very different demographic. Reading the sentence above as racist seems a stretch. Using it to make some kind of sweeping generalization about American racism, and implying that America has some unique obsession with race you don't find in other countries is simply not borne out by research or experience. Xenophobia, which very often gets expressed in terms of race because skin color is such an obvious marker of difference, is a widespread human tendency, known since ancient times, everywhere. It's not something Americans invented or suffer from more than, say, Germans. In any case the article was about class and status, not about race, so reading racism into it says more about the people commenting in that vein that it does about the article or the authors. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn_Heights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn_Heights [2] https://www.point2homes.com/US/Neighborhood/NY/Brooklyn/Brooklyn-Heights-Demographics.html https://www.point2homes.com/US/Neighborhood/NY/Brooklyn/Broo...

DeathArrow 3y ago

>wealthy young white people What they really meant is nazi bigots every person should hate. You have to understand the unwritten words when reading leftist media.

subjectsigma 3y ago
I don’t know why you’re being downvoted; especially during 2016 the liberal media used terms like “angry white men” and “uneducated whites” as both an insult and a dog whistle.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]