8 ms·

Maybe I'm misunderstanding how this site works (had this account for years but only commented a few times). It looks like my comment was downvoted, can someone

by zingar 12y ago

Maybe I'm misunderstanding how this site works (had this account for years but only commented a few times). It looks like my comment was downvoted, can someone explain why? Is thinking about stereotypes offensive? Or it was deemed irrelevant?

dijit 12y ago
sometimes people downvote for no reason. the reason you're not getting replies is likely because the US are asleep though. I think it's a valid question- although it's probably more about causation; Asian-Americans are less snobbish when it comes to areas to live, my assumption is that they live in area's that Americans wouldn't want to live anyway.
- robin_reala 12y ago
  Are ‘Asian-Americans’ not ‘Americans’ in the first place?
  - zingar 12y ago
    You seem to be saying that race shouldn't matter. But how can we discuss this paragraph (about a neighbourhood that is different where the only reason given for that is race) without exploring what race means in that context? (personally, I don't agree in any context, race matters in pretty much every context in the world because discrimination based on race is present in every context, and to ignore it only allows that discrimination to continue)
    - jacalata 12y ago
      I read him as saying that in a conversation about race, why is it ok to pretend that one race is "normal people".
    - robin_reala 12y ago
      Actually, it was purely a semantic objection: if race is important then why not ‘European-Americans’?
    - lentil_soup 12y ago
      Well the whole "race" idea in humans is basically flawed, there are no biological races in our species [0]. Also, by saying Asian-American what do we mean? is it people with Chinese ancestors, or is it Japanese, or Indian, what about Russian? [0] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_%28human_classification%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_%28human_classification%29
    - beachstartup 12y ago
      stop misdirecting, you know damn well he implied that asians aren't really american. race matters, but not for nationality. nationality means the country that you are a citizen of you can't run these stupid verbal tricks on HN and expect to get away with them. for example, i know white people of south african nationality who would take great offense if you considered them to be american, or european in any context other than a simple mistake.
      - zingar 12y ago
        No, I didn't know anything of the sort. I only noticed "Asian-Americans" and "Americans" in the same sentence once you pointed it out. I understand the offense that this could cause but to be honest I'd find it odd if he was using "less snobbish" as a negative term. If anything I thought he was being negative towards the "Americans". Also I sense we both believe that discrimination is wrong, you've taken this fairly strongly. But we approach this matter differently. Your point about how I would react being described as anything other than South African is dead on. But the truth is that apartheid and colonialism has meant that not all South Africans were born with the same opportunities. So nationality may exist in some abstract sense apart form race but it is not a great equaliser. A whole lot of what I know about the US leads me to believe that this is something our countries have in common. This is not a verbal trick: I firmly believe that the only way to deal with discrimination is to recognise it even where nobody is using the words. If anything the "trick" is pretending that a stamp on a form wipes out the tremendous advantages or disadvantages of skin colour.
  - kaitai 12y ago
    Just want to respond to this because it is a pet peeve of mine. There's a cultural habit of using Asian along with our other labels (black, latino or hispanic, white, native, desi), but Asian is a word not like the others, as it refers to a continent and makes you think maybe the person or their parents is really from that continent. I wish we had another word or another set of words, as there are plenty of folks in California whose Asian-American families have been in the area for a century and a half. Oh well.
  - beachstartup 12y ago
    not to a lot of people, no. it isn't good to say in polite company, but sometimes it slips out because it's kind of hard to disguise an entire racial worldview (i.e., only white people are real americans) i'm an american and my race is asian, i hear little subtle things like this all the time, everywhere. it's gone down in the past 10 years but it's still there.
- pcrh 12y ago
  San Francisco is about 40% Asian -- they live everywhere!
- beachstartup 12y ago
  > Asian-Americans are... > my assumption is that they live in area's that Americans wouldn't want to live anyway. yeah, real americans wouldn't want to live there, amirite? trustworthy, dependable, high standards having white americans, not like those filthy asian americans who are only pretending to be citizens. after all we all know where they're really from wink wink nudge nudge i've got news for you, pal. "Americans" (i.e. "white people") have been moving into black and latino neighborhoods in SF for decades, pushing them out systematically (see soma, mission) the asians are the only ones with enough money to resist it. in fact, asians as a demographic have the highest income in the entire country, so that might explain a few things that your shitty conclusions don't cover, like why white people don't seem to be able to displace them.
  - dijit 12y ago
    I'm not american, so I was merely speculating. in the UK we consider white people to be indiginous (even if there are british citizens who are from different descents who are equal to me in every way). regardless, there is a certain set of areas where white people simply do not live, and they are almost entirely inhabited by Indians or British with indian descent. (fun fact: on forms they have a "British Indian" check-box) race doesn't matter, but they're culturally different and I was suggesting that it might explain why they'd be willing to accept lower standards of living for some money saved (which is the case in the UK) Please stop implying I'm racist because I used the colloquial term "Americans" to mean "white people" who have out-bred and/or killed the native populace.
schoolixer 12y ago
In short, it s because you seem to assume that the description of the neighborhood given was also the reason why it is cheaper. (It isn't, the reason is because its way the away from the center of town with almost nothing but residential areas). Generally stereotypes as a concept are considered inherently pejorative in the USA. Secondly, your inference that people are avoiding the neighborhood is because of the local population. People aren't avoiding the area, the neighborhood is mostly staying the same. Large numbers of people moving into a neighborhood is the exception to the norm. Particularly in San Francisco where there are protections on existing residents such as rent control. Thirdly, in the USA we would view asian-american as a cultural description, or nationality description, rather than as a racial description. When someone says 'asian grocery store' they don't typically mean 'because asian people shop there,' but a place where foods sold in asia are more available. This point of view would be particularly so in the bay area worldview. In the USA, it is generally considered offensive/patronizing to compliment people based on their race for any reason. People want to be recognized for their abilities on an individual level, or because of some meritocratic reason. I could go on, but the other reasons are more or less permutations of the above.
- sfjailbird 12y ago
  > you seem to assume that the description of the neighborhood given was also the reason why it is cheaper The OP wrote: "Sure, it’s 80% Chinese American, but [it's cheaper]". That made me wonder too why the ethnicity would be a drawback.
  - schoolixer 12y ago
    All he is saying is that the demographics are heavily skewed, which is typically considered unusual. The ideal being an area that is representative of the population at large.
    - disputin 12y ago
      "typically considered unusual" - In SF specifically? Certainly not unusual elsewhere eg London where there is clear cultural clustering.
edpichler 12y ago
Don't worry. This always happens to me.

by zingar 12y ago

dijit 12y ago

sometimes people downvote for no reason. the reason you're not getting replies is likely because the US are asleep though. I think it's a valid question- although it's probably more about causation; Asian-Americans are less snobbish when it comes to areas to live, my assumption is that they live in area's that Americans wouldn't want to live anyway.

robin_reala 12y ago
Are ‘Asian-Americans’ not ‘Americans’ in the first place?
- zingar 12y ago
  You seem to be saying that race shouldn't matter. But how can we discuss this paragraph (about a neighbourhood that is different where the only reason given for that is race) without exploring what race means in that context? (personally, I don't agree in any context, race matters in pretty much every context in the world because discrimination based on race is present in every context, and to ignore it only allows that discrimination to continue)
  - jacalata 12y ago
    I read him as saying that in a conversation about race, why is it ok to pretend that one race is "normal people".
  - robin_reala 12y ago
    Actually, it was purely a semantic objection: if race is important then why not ‘European-Americans’?
  - lentil_soup 12y ago
    Well the whole "race" idea in humans is basically flawed, there are no biological races in our species [0]. Also, by saying Asian-American what do we mean? is it people with Chinese ancestors, or is it Japanese, or Indian, what about Russian? [0] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_%28human_classification%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_%28human_classification%29
  - beachstartup 12y ago
    stop misdirecting, you know damn well he implied that asians aren't really american. race matters, but not for nationality. nationality means the country that you are a citizen of you can't run these stupid verbal tricks on HN and expect to get away with them. for example, i know white people of south african nationality who would take great offense if you considered them to be american, or european in any context other than a simple mistake.
    - zingar 12y ago
      No, I didn't know anything of the sort. I only noticed "Asian-Americans" and "Americans" in the same sentence once you pointed it out. I understand the offense that this could cause but to be honest I'd find it odd if he was using "less snobbish" as a negative term. If anything I thought he was being negative towards the "Americans". Also I sense we both believe that discrimination is wrong, you've taken this fairly strongly. But we approach this matter differently. Your point about how I would react being described as anything other than South African is dead on. But the truth is that apartheid and colonialism has meant that not all South Africans were born with the same opportunities. So nationality may exist in some abstract sense apart form race but it is not a great equaliser. A whole lot of what I know about the US leads me to believe that this is something our countries have in common. This is not a verbal trick: I firmly believe that the only way to deal with discrimination is to recognise it even where nobody is using the words. If anything the "trick" is pretending that a stamp on a form wipes out the tremendous advantages or disadvantages of skin colour.
- kaitai 12y ago
  Just want to respond to this because it is a pet peeve of mine. There's a cultural habit of using Asian along with our other labels (black, latino or hispanic, white, native, desi), but Asian is a word not like the others, as it refers to a continent and makes you think maybe the person or their parents is really from that continent. I wish we had another word or another set of words, as there are plenty of folks in California whose Asian-American families have been in the area for a century and a half. Oh well.
- beachstartup 12y ago
  not to a lot of people, no. it isn't good to say in polite company, but sometimes it slips out because it's kind of hard to disguise an entire racial worldview (i.e., only white people are real americans) i'm an american and my race is asian, i hear little subtle things like this all the time, everywhere. it's gone down in the past 10 years but it's still there.
pcrh 12y ago
San Francisco is about 40% Asian -- they live everywhere!
beachstartup 12y ago
> Asian-Americans are... > my assumption is that they live in area's that Americans wouldn't want to live anyway. yeah, real americans wouldn't want to live there, amirite? trustworthy, dependable, high standards having white americans, not like those filthy asian americans who are only pretending to be citizens. after all we all know where they're really from wink wink nudge nudge i've got news for you, pal. "Americans" (i.e. "white people") have been moving into black and latino neighborhoods in SF for decades, pushing them out systematically (see soma, mission) the asians are the only ones with enough money to resist it. in fact, asians as a demographic have the highest income in the entire country, so that might explain a few things that your shitty conclusions don't cover, like why white people don't seem to be able to displace them.
- dijit 12y ago
  I'm not american, so I was merely speculating. in the UK we consider white people to be indiginous (even if there are british citizens who are from different descents who are equal to me in every way). regardless, there is a certain set of areas where white people simply do not live, and they are almost entirely inhabited by Indians or British with indian descent. (fun fact: on forms they have a "British Indian" check-box) race doesn't matter, but they're culturally different and I was suggesting that it might explain why they'd be willing to accept lower standards of living for some money saved (which is the case in the UK) Please stop implying I'm racist because I used the colloquial term "Americans" to mean "white people" who have out-bred and/or killed the native populace.

schoolixer 12y ago

In short, it s because you seem to assume that the description of the neighborhood given was also the reason why it is cheaper. (It isn't, the reason is because its way the away from the center of town with almost nothing but residential areas). Generally stereotypes as a concept are considered inherently pejorative in the USA. Secondly, your inference that people are avoiding the neighborhood is because of the local population. People aren't avoiding the area, the neighborhood is mostly staying the same. Large numbers of people moving into a neighborhood is the exception to the norm. Particularly in San Francisco where there are protections on existing residents such as rent control. Thirdly, in the USA we would view asian-american as a cultural description, or nationality description, rather than as a racial description. When someone says 'asian grocery store' they don't typically mean 'because asian people shop there,' but a place where foods sold in asia are more available. This point of view would be particularly so in the bay area worldview. In the USA, it is generally considered offensive/patronizing to compliment people based on their race for any reason. People want to be recognized for their abilities on an individual level, or because of some meritocratic reason. I could go on, but the other reasons are more or less permutations of the above.

sfjailbird 12y ago
> you seem to assume that the description of the neighborhood given was also the reason why it is cheaper The OP wrote: "Sure, it’s 80% Chinese American, but [it's cheaper]". That made me wonder too why the ethnicity would be a drawback.
- schoolixer 12y ago
  All he is saying is that the demographics are heavily skewed, which is typically considered unusual. The ideal being an area that is representative of the population at large.
  - disputin 12y ago
    "typically considered unusual" - In SF specifically? Certainly not unusual elsewhere eg London where there is clear cultural clustering.

edpichler 12y ago

Don't worry. This always happens to me.