race question

[globetrotter]

ok, I know this is pretty sensitive, but I am very curious.

not having grown up here, and being subject to American media, I always thought that blacks and whites were pretty well integrated by this point. since moving to the states, I have very little contact with African Americans - at my old dojo, I work with one African American Lady, we had one friend who was African American but married to a white guy in the last town we lived, my son's teacher, my son's wrestling coach and most of his team. aside from people I encounter casually, no contact at all. I have more contact with actual african immigrants, including a couple of friends.

my wife has noticed (we live across the street from a school) that black and white kids don't seem to play together at all. I havent been to a social event where there have been any type of reasonable representation of blacks and whites on an equal status.

this weekend my son had a birthday party. there are 7 black kids and 10 white kids in his class. I do believe that he plays, to some extent, with all of the kids. every white kid RSVP'd and came. not a single black kid RSVP'd or came. my town is such that the economic status of everyone should be pretty equal - there are single parent families among the whites, and there is a college proffesor amoung the African Americans.

Am I missing something, is this a coincidence or is this just the way it goes in America? I am honestly curious if there is just some big element of American culture that I don't get.

 

[Coho]

I think integration is facilitated if everyone has equal financial status, and more likely when everyone is equally wealthy as opposed to being equally poor. Where I live, it seems that Whites and Asians are very much integrated as evidence by many white-asian couples and their happa offsprings. However, there are very few black-white couples even though I know they exist. And the only time I come into contact with someone I can identify as Latino (excluding white Latinos) is when I order fastfoods. Also, a lot of my "black" friends are not American blacks. They are often first generation African Americans as their parents immigrated to the US from Africa. People of African descent not originally enslaved in the US (Nigerians, South Africans, Caribbean blacks, etc.) and their children are many times more educated than African Americans and they mostly hold professional jobs. Eg. Colin Powell, Condi Rice, Barack Obama, etc.

Originally Posted by globetrotter

ok, I know this is pretty sensitive, but I am very curious. not having grown up here, and being subject to American media, I always thought that blacks and whites were pretty well integrated by this point. since moving to the states, I have very little contact with African Americans - at my old dojo, I work with one African American Lady, we had one friend who was African American but married to a white guy in the last town we lived, my son's teacher, my son's wrestling coach and most of his team. aside from people I encounter casually, no contact at all. I have more contact with actual african immigrants, including a couple of friends. my wife has noticed (we live across the street from a school) that black and white kids don't seem to play together at all. I havent been to a social event where there have been any type of reasonable representation of blacks and whites on an equal status. this weekend my son had a birthday party. there are 7 black kids and 10 white kids in his class. I do believe that he plays, to some extent, with all of the kids. every white kid RSVP'd and came. not a single black kid RSVP'd or came. my town is such that the economic status of everyone should be pretty equal - there are single parent families among the whites, and there is a college proffesor amoung the African Americans. Am I missing something, is this a coincidence or is this just the way it goes in America? I am honestly curious if there is just some big element of American culture that I don't get.

 

[Bogie]

It's different in different places. That's to say, it's difficult to generalize race relations in America. In the places where it does seem there's a discrepancy, I don't thinks it's always so much an issue of racism, but more so that people tend to feel most comfortable with people who are most like them. Some people would call that racism. I just call it human nature. To me racism is an active hatred.

 

[lawyerdad]

As Coho suggests, I think it's hard to generalize usefully at the "America" level. The extent of social integration varies widely, in my obviously-not-exhaustive experience, by geography and economic class.

For whatever limited value the anecdotal information is worth, my daughter's 7th birthday party was this weekend. She goes to a fairly racially diverse school, and I would say the RSVP rate did not significantly vary by race.

 

[Coho]

I agree. I think the greatest barrier that separates people is economics, evidently more so than race, religion, and political differences. The reason we see more Whites/Asian mixes now than before, and if you're in Northern CA I think they're outnumbering "pure-borns", is that most Asians have achieved economic parity with the Whites in this country. In contrast, some of the most racists area of the United States tend to also be some of the poorest areas of the South, where you also find the highest rates of obesity(Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana,etc) since poverty and obesity go hand in hand.

Originally Posted by lawyerdad

As Coho suggests, I think it's hard to generalize usefully at the "America" level. The extent of social integration varies widely, in my obviously-not-exhaustive experience, by geography and economic class.

For whatever limited value the anecdotal information is worth, my daughter's 7th birthday party was this weekend. She goes to a fairly racially diverse school, and I would say the RSVP rate did not significantly vary by race.

 

[DNW]

Originally Posted by Coho

I agree. I think the greatest barrier that separates people is economics, evidently more so than race, religion, and political differences. The reason we see more Whites/Asian mixes now than before, and if you're in Northern CA I think they're outnumbering "pure-borns", is that most Asians have achieved economic parity with the Whites in this country. In contrast, some of the most racists area of the United States tend to also be some of the poorest areas of the South, where you also find the highest rates of obesity(Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana,etc) since poverty and obesity go hand in hand.

+1. One thing I've noticed is that, other than Asians, second generation Indians are extremely well integrated with other races.

 

[Quirk]

Originally Posted by globetrotter

ok, I know this is pretty sensitive, but I am very curious. not having grown up here, and being subject to American media, I always thought that blacks and whites were pretty well integrated by this point. since moving to the states, I have very little contact with African Americans - at my old dojo, I work with one African American Lady, we had one friend who was African American but married to a white guy in the last town we lived, my son's teacher, my son's wrestling coach and most of his team. aside from people I encounter casually, no contact at all. I have more contact with actual african immigrants, including a couple of friends. my wife has noticed (we live across the street from a school) that black and white kids don't seem to play together at all. I havent been to a social event where there have been any type of reasonable representation of blacks and whites on an equal status. this weekend my son had a birthday party. there are 7 black kids and 10 white kids in his class. I do believe that he plays, to some extent, with all of the kids. every white kid RSVP'd and came. not a single black kid RSVP'd or came. my town is such that the economic status of everyone should be pretty equal - there are single parent families among the whites, and there is a college proffesor amoung the African Americans. Am I missing something, is this a coincidence or is this just the way it goes in America? I am honestly curious if there is just some big element of American culture that I don't get.
IIRC, you moved from NY to Chicago?

 

[globetrotter]

Originally Posted by Quirk

IIRC, you moved from NY to Chicago?

yes, I ahve to change my profile

 

[Southern-Nupe]

Originally Posted by Bogie

It's different in different places. That's to say, it's difficult to generalize race relations in America. In the places where it does seem there's a discrepancy, I don't thinks it's always so much an issue of racism, but more so that people tend to feel most comfortable with people who are most like them. Some people would call that racism. I just call it human nature. To me racism is an active hatred.
I agree completely, aside from race alone, you have to then look at how socio-economic factors contribute to further divisions. People desire to be around people like them, in addition wealthier Blacks prefer to be around Blacks in their same class, just as wealthier Whites prefer to be around wealthier Whites. We tend to gravitate towards those in which we have things in common.

 

[lakewolf]

I think the main sign that racism is alive and well in America is that you classify officially and openly your citizens by their ethnical origin.

So there is African-American, Asian-American, Mexican-American etc.... only whites are called plainly Americans...

 

[Southern-Nupe]

Originally Posted by lakewolf

I think the main sign that racism is alive and well in America is that you classify officially and openly your citizens by their ethnical origin.

So there is African-American, Asian-American, Mexican-American etc.... only whites are called plainly Americans...
This day forth I will call them European Americans.

 

[Saucemaster]

*****-American?

 

[texas_jack]

Originally Posted by lakewolf

So there is African-American, Asian-American, Mexican-American etc.... only whites are called plainly Americans...

I agree that this is annoying but is somewhat neccesary in a country like the US where there are large groups of recent immigrants and immigrants from the distant past. You have to be able to differentiate an african-american from a Nigerian immigrant and an a chinese-american from a dude visiting from Bejing.

 

[Get Smart]

Originally Posted by lakewolf

I think the main sign that racism is alive and well in America is that you classify officially and openly your citizens by their ethnical origin.

So there is African-American, Asian-American, Mexican-American etc.... only whites are called plainly Americans...

I wouldnt call that a sign of racism, more like overly PC-ism

I agree that it's stupid using "hyphen American" to describe oneself or anyone else

 

[Piobaire]

Originally Posted by lakewolf

I think the main sign that racism is alive and well in America is that you classify officially and openly your citizens by their ethnical origin.

So there is African-American, Asian-American, Mexican-American etc.... only whites are called plainly Americans...

I agree lakewolf. I have always thought the left-wing people that created political correctness did it out of a benign racism.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6992670.stm

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.../wswiss113.xml

And good to see nothing of the sort in Switzerland!