10 ms·

I think one of the problems with the "avoid neighborhoods with segregation" solution is that it's more or less the same idea as affirmative action. As soon as y

I think one of the problems with the "avoid neighborhoods with segregation" solution is that it's more or less the same idea as affirmative action. As soon as you choose not to rent an apartment because "there are too many white people and not enough black" you're effectively practising reverse racism. Living in rural Maine, I've watch the deleterious effect this has on a rural community as young white people flock to Portland or Boston looking for black people for their kids to grow up near. In the meantime, there are 20 other non-race related variables in your community that you're ignoring, like age, health, wealth, gender, sexual orientation, language, education, technological proclivity, Meyers-Briggs results etcetera and so forth. Race, while a dominant segregator in our society, is not he only one, nor, perhaps, the most pervasive here in 2014.

tedks 12y ago
Sometimes we have to look at questions in a hard, unflinching way, and prepare ourselves for the answers that come. It could be that "too much" focus on diversity could create "reverse racism" where there are somehow institutional oppressions exerted over white people. That seems very unlikely in any place where white people are a racial majority and also control all institutions of social or political power. It could also be that focusing on such things leads to the death of communities in rural Maine. But what do we care about more: creating a world where black youth are not gunned down by police officers on a literally daily basis for either absurdly petty crimes or literally no reason (like Oscar Grant, for example), or preserving rural Maine? Personally, I don't care at all if rural communities die. I'm living in a rural "community" in New England myself right now, and it's honestly torturous. I'm glad people are moving to Portland or Boston to raise their children because, frankly, it seems abusive raising a child in this environment. There's no Uber, basically no other apps, very few amusements, and virtually zero culture beyond what the majority in the area (old white people) prefer. The lack of competition in general means that there are very few new things, and lots of old, crappy things. Raising children in this area deprives them of stimulation that will literally mean their brains are less dense and less able to fluidly adapt to new situations. I doubt very much that rural Maine, like my own area, has very much diversity in terms of any of the other factors you've listed (I exclude the MBTI because each MBTI axis is effectively randomly distributed, because the test is based on Jungian psuedoscience that means it has no correlation to the real world -- all areas are diverse in MBTI because all areas are diverse to a random discriminator variable). It is not a bad thing for these areas to die. In the near future, I can easily see the area I'm in dying off as well, and it'll be great for all the people who don't have to live here anymore.
- secstate 12y ago
  Sigh. I wasn't expressing a fear of institutional oppressions of white people. All I'm saying is that in a desperate attempt to integrate white and black people, you're missing a myriad other -isms. For my sake, your final paragraph is horribly misguided. I'm sorry you're unhappy where you live, but I can honestly say that there is an ass-load of wealth, education and age segregation where I live. You can wish for everyone to move into a large urban conglomeration like in some shitty si-fi novel, but the reality is that as long as there is land, people will live there. As they say in real estate, they're not making any more of it. And back before you hijacked my point to rant about how you don't like where you live and wish others didn't either, I would simply restate my original point that trying to seek out integrated neighbourhoods will most likely lead to unintended consequences as we fail to appreciate that perhaps wealth disparity is more of an issue in 2014 than simply being black or white. And the only reason I brought up Maine was that friends of ours moved down to Portland looking for black and Hispanic people to expose their children to. What they found was a shitty neighbourhood full of fairly uneducated folks with whom they shared almost no culture touchstones and as a result they had a miserable time. That may not be everyone's experience, but mashing together black and white people != automatic peacefulness and equality. Is it possible that at some level humans will always segregate themselves based on what is culturally important to themselves? Sometimes we have to look at questions in a hard, unflinching way, and prepare ourselves for the answers that come.
  - tedks 12y ago
    I think New Englanders have it worse than most other American regions because their culture is so bland and denialist because of the Puritanical influences that still roam unchecked. It's probable that Mainers would hate Portland just because it's a place where people have fun. But you seem to be using "culturally important touchstones" as a way to be racist by proxy, so I'll stop this interaction here. I hope you get better.
    - secstate 12y ago
      Sweet. I'm actually from inner city Chicago. I just like the coast of Maine more than being surrounded with shit I don't want and people I should envy. My problem, I know but it's real, and a lot of people are affected by it. I was just being honest about shit a lot of people don't like to talk about. Sure, I could move to Compton and make a go of it with folks not like me, but the whole point of the article is that folks like folks who are like them. The odds of me finding someone in Compton who wants to come over and play Pandemic with me is pretty low compared to a relatively affluent community on the coast of Maine. And there in lies the segregation that most people don't see. Black, white, Hispanic, Chinese, etc ... pretty obvious. But wealth, education and such, that shit is also a problem and much less obviously. Also, please don't call me racist by proxy while insulting an entire region of people who, most likely, don't even all share the same cultural heritage because Americans move around a lot.
jacalata 12y ago
I really don't believe that is a significant factor in why young people leave rural Maine for Portland and Boston.
- secstate 12y ago
  I have direct experience with numerous friends, some with families and others unmarried, moving to urban areas hoping to be exposed to more racial and cultural diversity. Sometimes they find it, sometimes they don't, but it certainly does happen.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago
  The "no fucking jobs" effect also plays a role.
GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago
I also live in small-town Maine and can safely say that these metrics: "age, health, wealth, gender, sexual orientation, language, education, technological proclivity" are all much better optimized by living in the city. And you can also get tortillas that aren't garbage.
- secstate 12y ago
  Holy shit. There's only like 700,000 of us. We're probably related. Also, my point had nothing to do with optimization and everything to do with segregation. I would continue to argue that rural Maine struggles with age, education and wealth segregation even though we're racially not very diverse.
mcv 12y ago
It's true that there are more factors than race, but people's Meyers-Briggs classification is generally not as visible as people's race, and in neighbourhoods, racial segregation has a disproportionately large impact. What this experiment basically shows, is that some degree of affirmative action is necessary. White people need some encouragement to live in black neighbourhoods, and black people need some encouragement to live in white neighbourhoods. But wealth is absolutely also a big factor. Even if they're mixed, it's not good to have a poor ghetto and a rich ghetto. In Amsterdam, people actively complain when a new neighbourhood doesn't have a mix of cheap rentals and more expensive homes for purchase. The city actively tries to get diverse neighbourhoods, and with good reason.

tedks 12y ago

Sometimes we have to look at questions in a hard, unflinching way, and prepare ourselves for the answers that come. It could be that "too much" focus on diversity could create "reverse racism" where there are somehow institutional oppressions exerted over white people. That seems very unlikely in any place where white people are a racial majority and also control all institutions of social or political power. It could also be that focusing on such things leads to the death of communities in rural Maine. But what do we care about more: creating a world where black youth are not gunned down by police officers on a literally daily basis for either absurdly petty crimes or literally no reason (like Oscar Grant, for example), or preserving rural Maine? Personally, I don't care at all if rural communities die. I'm living in a rural "community" in New England myself right now, and it's honestly torturous. I'm glad people are moving to Portland or Boston to raise their children because, frankly, it seems abusive raising a child in this environment. There's no Uber, basically no other apps, very few amusements, and virtually zero culture beyond what the majority in the area (old white people) prefer. The lack of competition in general means that there are very few new things, and lots of old, crappy things. Raising children in this area deprives them of stimulation that will literally mean their brains are less dense and less able to fluidly adapt to new situations. I doubt very much that rural Maine, like my own area, has very much diversity in terms of any of the other factors you've listed (I exclude the MBTI because each MBTI axis is effectively randomly distributed, because the test is based on Jungian psuedoscience that means it has no correlation to the real world -- all areas are diverse in MBTI because all areas are diverse to a random discriminator variable). It is not a bad thing for these areas to die. In the near future, I can easily see the area I'm in dying off as well, and it'll be great for all the people who don't have to live here anymore.

secstate 12y ago
Sigh. I wasn't expressing a fear of institutional oppressions of white people. All I'm saying is that in a desperate attempt to integrate white and black people, you're missing a myriad other -isms. For my sake, your final paragraph is horribly misguided. I'm sorry you're unhappy where you live, but I can honestly say that there is an ass-load of wealth, education and age segregation where I live. You can wish for everyone to move into a large urban conglomeration like in some shitty si-fi novel, but the reality is that as long as there is land, people will live there. As they say in real estate, they're not making any more of it. And back before you hijacked my point to rant about how you don't like where you live and wish others didn't either, I would simply restate my original point that trying to seek out integrated neighbourhoods will most likely lead to unintended consequences as we fail to appreciate that perhaps wealth disparity is more of an issue in 2014 than simply being black or white. And the only reason I brought up Maine was that friends of ours moved down to Portland looking for black and Hispanic people to expose their children to. What they found was a shitty neighbourhood full of fairly uneducated folks with whom they shared almost no culture touchstones and as a result they had a miserable time. That may not be everyone's experience, but mashing together black and white people != automatic peacefulness and equality. Is it possible that at some level humans will always segregate themselves based on what is culturally important to themselves? Sometimes we have to look at questions in a hard, unflinching way, and prepare ourselves for the answers that come.
- tedks 12y ago
  I think New Englanders have it worse than most other American regions because their culture is so bland and denialist because of the Puritanical influences that still roam unchecked. It's probable that Mainers would hate Portland just because it's a place where people have fun. But you seem to be using "culturally important touchstones" as a way to be racist by proxy, so I'll stop this interaction here. I hope you get better.
  - secstate 12y ago
    Sweet. I'm actually from inner city Chicago. I just like the coast of Maine more than being surrounded with shit I don't want and people I should envy. My problem, I know but it's real, and a lot of people are affected by it. I was just being honest about shit a lot of people don't like to talk about. Sure, I could move to Compton and make a go of it with folks not like me, but the whole point of the article is that folks like folks who are like them. The odds of me finding someone in Compton who wants to come over and play Pandemic with me is pretty low compared to a relatively affluent community on the coast of Maine. And there in lies the segregation that most people don't see. Black, white, Hispanic, Chinese, etc ... pretty obvious. But wealth, education and such, that shit is also a problem and much less obviously. Also, please don't call me racist by proxy while insulting an entire region of people who, most likely, don't even all share the same cultural heritage because Americans move around a lot.

jacalata 12y ago

I really don't believe that is a significant factor in why young people leave rural Maine for Portland and Boston.

secstate 12y ago
I have direct experience with numerous friends, some with families and others unmarried, moving to urban areas hoping to be exposed to more racial and cultural diversity. Sometimes they find it, sometimes they don't, but it certainly does happen.
GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago
The "no fucking jobs" effect also plays a role.

GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago

I also live in small-town Maine and can safely say that these metrics: "age, health, wealth, gender, sexual orientation, language, education, technological proclivity" are all much better optimized by living in the city. And you can also get tortillas that aren't garbage.

secstate 12y ago
Holy shit. There's only like 700,000 of us. We're probably related. Also, my point had nothing to do with optimization and everything to do with segregation. I would continue to argue that rural Maine struggles with age, education and wealth segregation even though we're racially not very diverse.

mcv 12y ago

It's true that there are more factors than race, but people's Meyers-Briggs classification is generally not as visible as people's race, and in neighbourhoods, racial segregation has a disproportionately large impact. What this experiment basically shows, is that some degree of affirmative action is necessary. White people need some encouragement to live in black neighbourhoods, and black people need some encouragement to live in white neighbourhoods. But wealth is absolutely also a big factor. Even if they're mixed, it's not good to have a poor ghetto and a rich ghetto. In Amsterdam, people actively complain when a new neighbourhood doesn't have a mix of cheap rentals and more expensive homes for purchase. The city actively tries to get diverse neighbourhoods, and with good reason.