quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: You're hedging the question and by extension you're kind of not answering it
Predominantly black areas, for instance, exist where they do now because of discriminatory housing and loan policies that date back to
well
today
but even more blatantly so in the 1980's and prior
Black people live in where 'black people neighborhoods' are today primarily because those neighborhoods were established as black people areas by the real estate and bank interests that kept black homeowners locked there. I like it when it is explained as that it's mostly just a manifestation of that they like to live among 'their own kind' though. It is a telling myopia.
You're right, of course, from a historical perspective. There are a lot of reasons housing distribution exists the way it does. Education, job, price, laws, socioeconomic, cultural -- heck, is there a Church's Chicken close by or is it a Popeyes?
But the data shows that 75% of people move every five years. After a lot of these discriminatory practices were abolished. Doesn't this imply that it's a lot more about personal decisions to live in these ethnic centers?
But it's always been that way, hasn't it? Whether it's race or religion. If I'm a Greek Orthodox, and there's a Greek Orthodox neighborhood, I'm highly likely to choose it over other options.
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posted
theamazeeaz: No. I'm by no means an expert on this topic. But I do know statistics.
You make some excellent points. And I'd only really have two replies: - You restate their headline as "75% of white people have no minority Facebook friends". Yes. Succinctly speaking, this is the point I've danced around the whole time. THIS should have been the title. Maybe I'm just an old timer. When it stated "friends", I didn't automatically think "Facebook friends". Thus why I find the headline sensational. - From a statistics perspective, they either got a statistically significant sample or they didn't. If they didn't, their data is meaningless. If they did, it only means what you said -- that 75% of white people have no ethnic Facebook friends. Maybe there are a lot of blacks who aren't on Facebook? Maybe they're too cool to accept nerdy white people Facebook friend requests. But a significant Facebook sample is not equal to a significant real world sample.
If they had added the word "Facebook" to the title, I'd have no grumble at all with the article.
Posts: 688 | Registered: Nov 2008
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Heh, who are you kidding, man?
I know you know what 'it's all because whites are racist' implies. It doesn't imply the sort of nuanced analysis you're implying. It implies what you flat-out stated. That the article, or the headline, or both, is blaming it "all on racism".
"I didn't say that "the article blames the situation entirely on racism". I didn't even imply that." & "But no ... it's all because the whites are racist. Cool."
You absolutely, 100% outright stated that the article was blaming the situation entirely on racism. It wasn't even an implication! Heh. I don't know why or even if you do expect people to take this nonsense seriously. I'm not even talking about whether you're right about the article.
But man, if you want to insist you didn't state it was due to racism, I think you skipped the step where you edit that exact statement out of your very first post. Remember, though! When you try and fail to execute these tedious shenanigans, be sure to sneer at everyone else for being childish. It is not in the least bit funny!
I'm not going to call you an idiot. I'm just going to type for a second and make a nuanced analysis of your logic, your intelligence, and probably your upbringing. But you're pretty good at drawing conclusions.
posted
Gosh, Rakeesh, I should have gone back to my actual post.
"I love the moronic implied causality in this piece... But no ... it's all because the whites are racist. Cool."
I downright SAID in the very same post racism was only implied at. Way to pick and choose, man. I thought you'd at least make it difficult to rebut you. You need a dictionary?
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quote:But no ... it's all because the whites are racist. Cool.
Oh wait.
Please note that this quote was truncated by someone who wanted to mislead you. Specifically before this, I stated that the racist charge was IMPLIED. And there was no implication that it was a sole cause nor the sole point of the article. Go back, read it over. No worries.
So ... I had two statements: - The article blames the situation entirely on racism. (misquote) - The article causally implied that whites are racist. (actual syntax)
There's quite a difference between the literal text of the article and the causal implication of racism in the headline. Headlines often say one thing to get you to read and change tact as soon as it gets to the text.
If you took out the term "entirely", I'd have no qualm with the analysis of my argument. And if you changed the headline to "Facebook Friends", I'd have no beef with the article either.
quote:Originally posted by Herblay: But I don't think it's about integration only, because Hawaii is actually pretty racially progressive.
I'm not sure if you're writing this from personal experience (like, you live here) or not, but I can say that Hawaii is far from progressive racially, compared to the rest of the US. At least here on Oahu, there's a lot of racial tension and some racially motivated violence, as well as a great deal of cultural xenophobia. (specifically, a hatred or fear of Americans and American culture, as well as some directed at the Japanese and Australians, who are also frequent visitors/immigrants)
The socioeconomic divide between native Hawaiians and immigrants is very large, more so than between any other racial or cultural groups in the US. The massive tourist industry, subsidized housing for military, and skyrocketing housing prices caused by the two has pretty much forced the entire local population into poverty. There is some farm land on the western side of the island, but for the majority of residents you're either 1. military, 2. a wealthy landowner/retireee, or 3. in the service or tourism industry, where you're literally just making enough to pay rent and groceries. There's almost no industry or agriculture. Almost everyone in the first 2 categories are "foreigners" (or "haoles"), and most of the people in the 3rd category are locals. There are very few natives who still own land, and with properties here often being worth $1 million or more, there's very little chance of any native making enough money to buy property. Almost all property that is bought is by upper middle class or higher people looking to retire in Hawaii/rent vacation houses.
So, if you can imagine living in a land where all the property is owned by cultural and racial foreigners who don't speak your language, and you have to work for these people just to earn enough money to survive (and most of these people *don't* work), you can imagine there being some resentment.
That being said, you may be referring to the lack of black/white racial tension here, which is great. Almost all black people who live here are at least upper middle class or military, and aren't targetting as much as whites are by locals. I can't think of any time I've experienced or even heard of discrimination between whites and blacks here, so there's that I guess.
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quote:The fact that the author was astonished by this fact demonstrates he lacks a grasp of basic statistics.
It's not an academic article though, it's talking in simple terms about what is a pretty astonishing disparity even if statistically it makes sense.
But it shouldn't be astonishing. Or if it is, it should be astonishing not because white social circles are surprisingly racially closed, but because black social circles are (based on this data). That's not an academic point (although I grant that I approached it academically in my post); it's simple logic.
None of which is to say the primary point that black people on average have more white friends than vice versa is invalid or uninteresting. The author simply used a frame to introduce the fact that was flawed, and seems unaware of it.
Maybe I'm just used to the numerical literacy of sites like 538, but an analysis that fails to account for basic data where they're easily available, and then draws fundamentally flawed conclusions as a result, seems kind of risible.
Posts: 2926 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Herblay: theamazeeaz: No. I'm by no means an expert on this topic. But I do know statistics.
You make some excellent points. And I'd only really have two replies: - You restate their headline as "75% of white people have no minority Facebook friends". Yes. Succinctly speaking, this is the point I've danced around the whole time. THIS should have been the title. Maybe I'm just an old timer. When it stated "friends", I didn't automatically think "Facebook friends". Thus why I find the headline sensational. - From a statistics perspective, they either got a statistically significant sample or they didn't. If they didn't, their data is meaningless. If they did, it only means what you said -- that 75% of white people have no ethnic Facebook friends. Maybe there are a lot of blacks who aren't on Facebook? Maybe they're too cool to accept nerdy white people Facebook friend requests. But a significant Facebook sample is not equal to a significant real world sample.
If they had added the word "Facebook" to the title, I'd have no grumble at all with the article.
I know statistics too.
I realize there will be some bias in some direction when you exclude a subset of the population (non-Facebook users), but I feel that Facebook has penetrated the population thoroughly enough that it's a better metric than you might think.
I googled "percentage of american adults on facebook" and one of those google boxes with the answer comes up. It's 57 of all adults, or 71 precent of those who use the internet. That's a lot of people.
I've used Facebook for nearly a decade (!!). College students will friend nearly everyone they know (and like), and will bump into people, have a 5 minute conversation with a that person, and send a friend request later that day. People usually accept (though Facebook won't tell if you they don't). Old people will friend just the people in their circle (which is also much much smaller than a college student's), and I imagine they will notice if someone denies them, and complain to their face.
If a significantly fewer percentage of black people use Facebook, it's probably more related to not having a computer (poor) or tech literacy.
I clicked the link to learn more about the study, but neither mentions Facebook event once. The survey had people describe 7 close friends then asked their race after. There's no mention of Facebook in the article (unless my ctrl-f missed it).
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posted
Guys! I feel like unless any of you have Jamaican neighbors you have no business trying to make the case for other people's understanding of racism as you are too blinded by unchecked privilege.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
It mentioned social media friends. It didn't specify Facebook by name.
If they polled people's names, I doubt it was a huge sample. If they went with public profiles, a way to increase the sample size, you're further shrinking the demographic.
Posts: 688 | Registered: Nov 2008
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quote:Originally posted by Herblay: Gosh, Rakeesh, I should have gone back to my actual post.
"I love the moronic implied causality in this piece... But no ... it's all because the whites are racist. Cool."
I downright SAID in the very same post racism was only implied at. Way to pick and choose, man. I thought you'd at least make it difficult to rebut you. You need a dictionary?
Well, if I'm reading you right, you're saying that these are two different claims:
a) claim that the article moronically implied the sole cause was racism
b) claim that the article blamed it all on racism
and that the difference is so crucial that someone must be "misquoting" you or trying to mislead others by paraphrasing the former to the latter.
Right?
I disagree that there's any meaningful difference.
However, if there is a difference, I did not intentionally "misquote" or try to mislead anyone as to what you said.
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posted
No, not b). I never said "blamed it all on racism". Just that it was implied in a misleading headline that white people are racist.
Posts: 688 | Registered: Nov 2008
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quote:Originally posted by Herblay: But the data shows that 75% of people move every five years. After a lot of these discriminatory practices were abolished. Doesn't this imply that it's a lot more about personal decisions to live in these ethnic centers? [/QB]
Two years ago when I was looking for a new apartment, I went to a complex, saw an apartment, did the whole rigamarole of asking about applying, security deposit, credit check, etc.
The guy who gave me the tour, the assistant manager of the very large complex, took one look at me (young, white, female) and said, "Oh, you won't have to worry about any of that," very much implying that they weren't going to delve too deeply into my background*. And they didn't, or they would have discovered my shit credit and charged me much more than the minimum security deposit. Do you really think that all the Latinos or Blacks who live in my complex got such consideration?
And in the two years I've lived in my complex, I've noticed changes occurring to drive families (mostly Latino) out and bring in more singles/couples (mostly white). One policy that's fairly vivid in my mind is the flyer from last summer that prohibited people from playing soccer on the grass because it "promoted littering". Baseball and football are fine....
Do you really think that minorities are moving out of my complex willingly? Or are they leaving because they feel unwelcome and/or are being forced out?
*Yeah, I know my leasing office is very shady, unfortunately, I have no proof of any of this, and I desperately needed an apartment at the time, so I wasn't going to walk away.
Posts: 959 | Registered: Jan 2002
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quote:If they had added the word "Facebook" to the title, I'd have no grumble at all with the article.
So this part was making me think I was crazy. But I'm not crazy. (Shut up other people who live in my head!)
I think you're getting this strange idea that they are talking about Facebook friends from this part (emphasis mine):
quote:In fact, PRRI's data show that a full 75 percent of whites have "entirely white social networks without any minority presence."
They're not talking about Facebook here. Honestly, I have difficulty seeing how someone who read the whole article with enough attention to understand it could think that they were, seeing as how they included this part:
quote:How PRRI calculated the racial breakdowns of friend networks
As part of their American Values Survey, PRRI researchers asked respondents to name up to seven people with whom they regularly discussed important matters. They then asked a battery of demographic questions about these people -- their relationships to their respondents, as well as their gender, religion and, germane for these purposes, their race. They used these numbers to derive average racial breakdowns of the friend networks of the average black, white and Hispanic survey respondent.
As they were not using Facebook friends to determine this, do you now not have a problem with the article?
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
No, scifibum, you're still altering my text. Adding the word "all" to the second claim changes the context. A single cause and the sole cause are two different things.
So, the headline still bothers me. - The claim is generalized, that 75% of whites have no minority friends at all. - The actual question asked was for people to name a maximum of 7 people with whom they discussed important matters in the last six months. - 1700 people were polled. based on a population of 330 M, this equates to a confidence level of 99% and a confidence interval of about 3. So, we can safely say with a 99% certainty that somewhere between 72 and 78% of white people had no ethnic friends with whom THEY CLAIMED TO HAVE DISCUSSED IMPORTANT MATTERS IN THE LAST 6 MONTHS.
Okay, this is where it gets stupid: - On average, people only listed 3.4 people. - Family members were more likely to be listed.
So ... let's say you are asked this question. You list the top 3 or 4 people you discuss important matters with, and they're most likely to be family members.
<shakes head>
Unfortunately, as a white man, I don't have any black family members. And if I'm going to list three people and include family, it's what? My brother, sister, and best friend? Maybe my mom?
A more honest headline might be: three quarters of whites don't have a non-white best friend.
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posted
herblay there is this very large disconnect between the messages you are actually conveying versus how carefully you think you are arguing/presenting
this is now a repeat trend across multiple subjects from this to tobacco to so much else, and honestly you could do without said trend
you launch out with a pretty unconventionally flawed position and then when people come up and investigate the breeze flowing through the rather large holes in your position, perhaps casually stick an arm through to gauge the diameter of the holes, you respond with a whole bunch of *sigh* way to not get anything about what I'm saying *shakes head* you are intentionally misrepresenting me *sighs and shakes head* this place used to be a place where real substantive debate happened *shakes head and sighs at the same time then folds head into hands and gently weeps, weeps for all of you* *shakes head again* *puts a video on repeat of shrugging and sighing and shaking head and shrugging more for four hours* *sighs* *grumbles* *sighs* *sighs*
I agree. From my perspective: - I say one thing, generally an oblique observation on a topic. Sometimes in jest, other-times an opinion. Example: I think the article headline is misleading. - I get in conversations with several people, often allowing myself to get engaged in cross-talk. - I use logical syntax. For example, 'the article blames is on racism' has a different meaning than 'the article blames it ALL on racism'. - In the cross-talk, I sometimes get careless and misrepresent myself. Other times, people accidentally misquote me. Sometimes, as has occurred several times in this post, people omit context clues or directly change words in my quotes to support their arguments. - It turns into a confusing knot of people attacking, and me defending, a myriad of different, unimportant arguments. - I get sick of the attacks, crap I probably deserve for fighting back, and I get a little snotty.
Why should I care? I don't know. All this talk about the fact that I think the article headline is misleading? It's stupid, really. Splitting hairs for two pages about an opinion I off-handedly gave. I think some people get a kick out of riling me up. Other people only half-read what's going on and probably get an incorrect impression.
As far as this thread goes, the actual data is kinda interesting but very limited. The article is mildly sensationalist and implies some things that aren't really there. That's about it.
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quote:Originally posted by Herblay: No, scifibum, you're still altering my text. Adding the word "all" to the second claim changes the context. A single cause and the sole cause are two different things.
I was saying "you are saying the second claim is NOT your claim, right?"
Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
I feel sort of like I've been trolled but I don't know.
Anyway, I'm glad Herblay made some more substantive comments at one point and I'm sorry for wasting the forum's time trying to make sense of the other ones.
Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: You're hedging the question and by extension you're kind of not answering it
Predominantly black areas, for instance, exist where they do now because of discriminatory housing and loan policies that date back to
well
today
but even more blatantly so in the 1980's and prior
Black people live in where 'black people neighborhoods' are today primarily because those neighborhoods were established as black people areas by the real estate and bank interests that kept black homeowners locked there. I like it when it is explained as that it's mostly just a manifestation of that they like to live among 'their own kind' though. It is a telling myopia.
You're right, of course, from a historical perspective. There are a lot of reasons housing distribution exists the way it does. Education, job, price, laws, socioeconomic, cultural -- heck, is there a Church's Chicken close by or is it a Popeyes?
But the data shows that 75% of people move every five years. After a lot of these discriminatory practices were abolished. Doesn't this imply that it's a lot more about personal decisions to live in these ethnic centers?
But it's always been that way, hasn't it? Whether it's race or religion. If I'm a Greek Orthodox, and there's a Greek Orthodox neighborhood, I'm highly likely to choose it over other options.
Simply put, you're wrong (mostly).
My knowledge is mostly limited to Af-Am history, so I can't speak to other ethnic enclaves. For example, Dearborn, locally, is a place where Arab-Americans mostly choose to congregate because of an especially differentiated subculture, language, food, where-they-grew-up, etc, and they have nicer neighborhoods within the enclave to move to depending on socioeconomic status...
But the same can't be said of most poor black neighborhoods. Economics traps most of them in place. First they were trapped in inner cities and other places that whites abandoned. Then they were kept from earning a living or earning real equity in their homes because their house values tanked quickly. Even after you lift the legal barriers in place, you have SYSTEMIC barriers that don't simply go away because you've stopped actively supporting oppression.
If you had a really rocky hill, and you spent every day slowly taking those rocks and rolling them down the hill, then one day you stopped, would the rocks all roll back up the hill? Nope. They're down there until someone picks them up and puts them back where they found them.
Most of these inner city folks simply don't have the tools at their disposal to leave where they are.
It sounds like you're using a variant of the "poor people are only poor because they don't want to be rich" argument that the GOP rolled out in the last election.
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quote:In 2010, Jacob S. Rugh, then a doctoral candidate at Princeton, and the sociologist Douglas S. Massey published a study of the recent foreclosure crisis. Among its drivers, they found an old foe: segregation. Black home buyers — even after controlling for factors like creditworthiness — were still more likely than white home buyers to be steered toward subprime loans. Decades of racist housing policies by the American government, along with decades of racist housing practices by American businesses, had conspired to concentrate African Americans in the same neighborhoods. As in North Lawndale half a century earlier, these neighborhoods were filled with people who had been cut off from mainstream financial institutions. When subprime lenders went looking for prey, they found black people waiting like ducks in a pen.
“High levels of segregation create a natural market for subprime lending,” Rugh and Massey write, “and cause riskier mortgages, and thus foreclosures, to accumulate disproportionately in racially segregated cities’ minority neighborhoods.”
Plunder in the past made plunder in the present efficient. The banks of America understood this. In 2005, Wells Fargo promoted a series of Wealth Building Strategies seminars. Dubbing itself “the nation’s leading originator of home loans to ethnic minority customers,” the bank enrolled black public figures in an ostensible effort to educate blacks on building “generational wealth.” But the “wealth building” seminars were a front for wealth theft. In 2010, the Justice Department filed a discrimination suit against Wells Fargo alleging that the bank had shunted blacks into predatory loans regardless of their creditworthiness. This was not magic or coincidence or misfortune. It was racism reifying itself. According to The New York Times, affidavits found loan officers referring to their black customers as “mud people” and to their subprime products as “ghetto loans.”
“We just went right after them,” Beth Jacobson, a former Wells Fargo loan officer, told The Times. “Wells Fargo mortgage had an emerging-markets unit that specifically targeted black churches because it figured church leaders had a lot of influence and could convince congregants to take out subprime loans.”
In 2011, Bank of America agreed to pay $355 million to settle charges of discrimination against its Countrywide unit. The following year, Wells Fargo settled its discrimination suit for more than $175 million. But the damage had been done. In 2009, half the properties in Baltimore whose owners had been granted loans by Wells Fargo between 2005 and 2008 were vacant; 71 percent of these properties were in predominantly black neighborhoods.
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