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I am following this immigration issue in Arizona with interest and not a little amusement. Mayors Newsom and Villaraigosa have proposed boycotting Arizona. I am assuming they are pandering to their liberal and supposedly nonracist political bases. Yet, when I think of the Progressive Bastion of California, I get a decidedly racist feeling. Three thoughts:
1) Schools-Good and bad schools, and associated property values have mirrored racial divides for at least couple decades. When many minorities are in a school, scores are often lower, and upper middle class and higher parents fight like cats and dogs to get into the "better" schools with, news flash, white and sometimes asian kids of educated parents. Progressives are just as likely as conservatives to be guilty of this. Many of means are also increasingly choosing private schools (but not at the levels of the East).
2) White flight-Californians (and Americans as a whole) have been fleeing to the suburbs for decades to avoid the socially diverse, higher crime cities.
3) Racist Exports-For the last couple decades, racist groups have been springing up in rural, largely white areas of the West, chiefly Idaho, Montana, E. Oregon and Washington, etc. The racists are not so much home grown, but largely transplants from California. Most frighteningly, a good number are retired police officers from S. Cal.
So, it seems that some overt things like "profiling" in AZ connote racism, but the occult racist dynamics of the Golden State over decades do not. Feels like old-fashioned hypocrisy.
As for me, I confess to feelings of racism from time to time. I am a college-educated, world-traveled Liberal, I admire diversity, and I enjoy elements of many cultures. I am a staunch supporter of great public schools for all children. I am most comfortable, however, where crime is low, kids don't bring guns to school, nuclear families persist, and parents are engaged in their children's education and ethical development. These are usually white-dominated college towns. On a personal level, I am intellectually curious, but as a parent, want a safe, indeed, enriched environment for my child.
Like many, I observe that black-dominated area often have homicide and broken homes, hispanic-dominated areas have more litter and crime, rural white poor areas have more meth and DUIs, asian-dominated areas excel economically and have lower crime, but each of those areas have wonderful people. Where would I want to live? It is a difficult position to balance one's observations, intuitions, prefererences, distasteful as they may be to some, with the needs of one's family, and with the needs of the larger society.
My only point with this thread is to question whether are we in a good position to paint Arizona as a racist state and impy California is not? Or to impy that the white residents of a state are more racist than the minority groups? Or more broadly, should we be thowing these accusations around so easily?
Yet, when I think of the Progressive Bastion of California, I get a decidedly racist feeling. Three thoughts:
1) Schools-Good and bad schools, and associated property values have mirrored racial divides for at least couple decades.
Property values in California don't always follow schools.
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When many minorities are in a school, scores are often lower, and upper middle class and higher parents fight like cats and dogs to get into the "better" schools with, news flash, white and sometimes asian kids of educated parents. Progressives are just as likely as conservatives to be guilty of this. Many of means are also increasingly choosing private schools (but not at the levels of the East).
Exists in AZ as well
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2) White flight-Californians (and Americans as a whole) have been fleeing to the suburbs for decades to avoid the socially diverse, higher crime cities.
Exists in AZ as well, and you even admit it
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3) Racist Exports-For the last couple decades, racist groups have been springing up in rural, largely white areas of the West, chiefly Idaho, Montana, E. Oregon and Washington, etc. The racists are not so much home grown, but largely transplants from California.
Exists in AZ also. It's no coincidence that AZ's nutjobs sound like the old nutjobs of OC and the IE - many of them probably WERE from California.
AZ right now is going through a wave of political demagoguery fueled by ethnic hatreds which involves unworkable solutions to problems that are real, just as California did when 187 was passed. 187 wound up resulting in more CA Latinos getting involved in politics, both as voters and as candidates. The same thing will most likely happen in AZ. In the end AZ will work its problems out just as CA did, in my opinion. Unfortunately people will suffer but the end result will be SB 1070 declared unconstitutional, Arpaio in prison, and the Maricopa County Sheriffs Department operating under a consent decree like that which the federal government imposed on the LAPD for several years.
First of all, there is no "we" because California has ~38.6 million people, each person with their own points of view and ideas of what their 'utopia' looks like.
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Mayors Newsom and Villaraigosa have proposed boycotting Arizona. I am assuming they are pandering to their liberal and supposedly nonracist political bases. Yet, when I think of the Progressive Bastion of California, I get a decidedly racist feeling.
I will say this time and time again, they are politicians. The only thing they care about is staying in power. Newsom does this by pandering to left/far-left (by American standards) positions because the demographic profile of the average San Franciscan voter fits that. Villaraigosa is doing the same in LA, because it not only fits the left/liberal profile of the average Angeleno, but also the massive Latino vote that is here in Los Angeles. Those are simple realities that people need to realize.
At the same time, Jan Brewer is facing a tough re-election battle in Arizona, along with John McCain (who has been seen as 'soft' on illegal immigration). They are appealing to the Conservative Base that's in Arizona, while also conveniently ignoring the fact that their state too, like California, has been mismanaged fiscally from a governmental level.
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1) Schools-Good and bad schools, and associated property values have mirrored racial divides for at least couple decades. When many minorities are in a school, scores are often lower, and upper middle class and higher parents fight like cats and dogs to get into the "better" schools with, news flash, white and sometimes asian kids of educated parents. Progressives are just as likely as conservatives to be guilty of this. Many of means are also increasingly choosing private schools (but not at the levels of the East).
I don't know what kind of Asian people YOU know, but as an Asian American that went to school with other Asian Americans in LA, most of us weren't very rich but we still did well in school.
Again, I repeat there is only so much that the reason a school is failing is because of the school itself. Why aren't the parents taking more responsibility of their kids? Why don't the kids themselves assume more responsibility in learning? Many Asian parents, mine included, were very active in the learning process because their mentality is why would we spend thousands and thousands of dollars coming to America just to be poor? It doesn't mean we were rich to begin with, but it means that we had to work extremely hard for what we had. A lot of the Asian people in the US are educated, but they don't come here with a lot of money. That's why they came to begin with.
Most of the people I know who went on to good universities were a product of public schools. There can only be so much blame levied at the schools themselves until it fails.
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2) White flight-Californians (and Americans as a whole) have been fleeing to the suburbs for decades to avoid the socially diverse, higher crime cities.
I don't know, because the last time I checked, Asian people were still considered minorities. Schools in Northern California, especially around Cupertino and Sunnyvale actually had their test scores RAISE because of Asian minorities (now majorities). This led to a new type of White flight phenomenon. These communities are extremely safe communities, with high average incomes. Yet the Whites still leave. Why is that?
3) Racist Exports-For the last couple decades, racist groups have been springing up in rural, largely white areas of the West, chiefly Idaho, Montana, E. Oregon and Washington, etc. The racists are not so much home grown, but largely transplants from California. Most frighteningly, a good number are retired police officers from S. Cal.
Have you ever thought..its because Southern California has 24 million, Northern California has 14 million people, and the rest of the Western United States only has 32 million people? With that kind of sample, Californians will be represented in EVERY SINGLE TYPE OF CATEGORY, including racists.
What people need to stop doing is saying that all Californians are supposed to be this one type of person. We are NOT!
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So, it seems that some overt things like "profiling" in AZ connote racism, but the occult racist dynamics of the Golden State over decades do not. Feels like old-fashioned hypocrisy.
I agree with you here. However, more and more, at least in my experience, is that White people are in fact being targeted. I think that's the hugest hypocrisy of all.
I always tell some of my Asian friends (you'd be surprised of what a lot of Asians think about White Americans), some of my Hispanic friends, and some of my Black friends that you don't get rid of racism by being racist toward another group of people. A lot of these ethnic activist groups use the term "they control..." "they oppress....", and I always ask "who's they?" And it always turns out to be some cryptic answer involving "rich white people" and "poor racist white people". That makes absolutely no sense to me.
It doesn't help that a lot of Liberals of all ethnicities expect to get rid of the "racial problem" by constantly talking about race. They can't get over the fact that we are all just people, trying to survive and make it in life. There aren't very many people who have the intention of going outside and saying "you know what, I am going to do everything possible to sabotage my life". It also doesn't help that a lot of Conservatives think that getting rid of Political Correctness can be done by being hostile toward dissenting ideas as a matter of "political correctness" or "traitorous thinking".
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Like many, I observe that black-dominated area often have homicide and broken homes, hispanic-dominated areas have more litter and crime, rural white poor areas have more meth and DUIs, asian-dominated areas excel economically and have lower crime, but each of those areas have wonderful people. Where would I want to live? It is a difficult position to balance one's observations, intuitions, prefererences, distasteful as they may be to some, with the needs of one's family, and with the needs of the larger society.
I feel that people are so fixated on the immutable identities of people (such as their ethno-racial identities) for things that have very little to do with their identities. How do you know that something else is not correlated with these things?
I am not trying to be politically correct, but rather intellectually honest. There are a lot of rich areas in LA, such as Ladera Heights or Baldwin Hills, that are Black dominated but are amongst the safest areas in LA. You can not explain all these things away as "statistical anomalies" because then you are ignoring an important intervening variable which could possibly affect the results of your observation.
Since we are all trying to educate each other, I think its important to more or less get a holistic picture before making an informed opinion.
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My only point with this thread is to question whether are we in a good position to paint Arizona as a racist state and impy California is not? Or to impy that the white residents of a state are more racist than the minority groups? Or more broadly, should we be thowing these accusations around so easily?
The problem with this statement is that you're assuming that ALL Californians think the same way as Newsom or Villaraigosa. However, just because California has a sour history does not mean that individuals themselves can not criticize what they feel is an injustice. Freedom of Speech is, for good and for bad, a part of living in a Democratic society.
Just because someone protests Arizona law, does not mean they think everything in California is fine. Its kind of like when Westerners protest the actions in Darfur; sure, the West may not have the cleanest history when it comes to human rights, but it does not mean that we are suddenly morally reprehensible for pointing out the obvious abuses in that region.
Thanks for your responses all. I suppose the take home is encouraging. Namely you agree the two Governors were pandering and posturing rather than speaking for California. I completely agree.
I did not mean to smear all Californians, just open a discussion as to how we are all working through our perceptions of indentity, racial or otherwise, and throwing racist allegations is easy, but not very thoughtful.
Lifeshadower, many, many good points that I hope educate others and they did me. Fascinating about white flight from Sunnyvale. Asian Americans are very frequently fascinating examples of success despite difficulties. We need more of that, and less fingerpointing. But that a whole other topic.
My late-night plea for consideration rather than fingerpointing can be summed up as "get the log out of your own eye before pointing out the speck in your neighbor's." You bring up the excellent point that imperfect people, and by extension, imperfect groups of people, can see injustice, perhaps aided by their own mistakes. And the imperfection of the messager does not negate truth of the message. However, in a political society predicated at least a bit on trust, the moral truth of introspection before judgment is manifested in authority and credibility over time. While we may be right in an absolute sense, without some serious work in self-improvement first before fingerpointing, we have little credibility. As one example, the new-found demands for fiscal conservatism and deficit reduction of conservatives (both rebuplicans and Tea Party Activists) after a period of unbelievable fiscal imbalance and nonexistent oversight, has no credibility. Their indignation over deficits is right, but at the same time laughable.
Asian Americans are very frequently fascinating examples of success despite difficulties.
Some people think that the part of the success of Asian Americans is partly due to the demographic class from which they came. A lot of Asian American immigrants in the past 50 years came from the wealthier, more educated classes. It wasn't the guy picking rice outside Saigon that made it here in 1975. It was the family whose dad was a professor, a businessman, an engineer, a dentist and who had money (and brains), in other words the cream of the crop, who made it here. Compare them to the destitute who have migrated north over the past 50 years.
Thanks for your responses all. I suppose the take home is encouraging. Namely you agree the two Governors were pandering and posturing rather than speaking for California. I completely agree.
I did not mean to smear all Californians, just open a discussion as to how we are all working through our perceptions of indentity, racial or otherwise, and throwing racist allegations is easy, but not very thoughtful.
Lifeshadower, many, many good points that I hope educate others and they did me. Fascinating about white flight from Sunnyvale. Asian Americans are very frequently fascinating examples of success despite difficulties. We need more of that, and less fingerpointing. But that a whole other topic.
I hope you didn't think of me as coming off as hostile. After all, it was late in the night and I had just come back from a party where I was actually talking in depth about this topic
The point of mentioning Sunnyvale, San Jose, and Fremont (basically, the safest part of the East Bay and Silicon Valley) was to show that White Flight is an extremely complex phenomenon, not necessarily correlated with crime and failing schools. There's something to be said about feeling like a minority in your own country, seeing the place where you grew up change right before your eyes. Ironically, increasing diversification of suburban areas (like the ones I mentioned) is in part, leading to gentrification of the central cities that they left to begin with. San Francisco and Oakland are becoming much whiter than they were 10 years ago, and so are cities such as New York, Chicago, and Washington DC. This has in part, fueled Black flight into the suburbs OR leaving Northern and Western states back to the South. It remains seen what this will result in.
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My late-night plea for consideration rather than fingerpointing can be summed up as "get the log out of your own eye before pointing out the speck in your neighbor's." You bring up the excellent point that imperfect people, and by extension, imperfect groups of people, can see injustice, perhaps aided by their own mistakes. And the imperfection of the messager does not negate truth of the message. However, in a political society predicated at least a bit on trust, the moral truth of introspection before judgment is manifested in authority and credibility over time. While we may be right in an absolute sense, without some serious work in self-improvement first before fingerpointing, we have little credibility. As one example, the new-found demands for fiscal conservatism and deficit reduction of conservatives (both rebuplicans and Tea Party Activists) after a period of unbelievable fiscal imbalance and nonexistent oversight, has no credibility. Their indignation over deficits is right, but at the same time laughable.
That's probably one of the wisest things I've heard in political discussion in a while. I just want to say I'm relieved that we can even have this discussion without resorting to ad-hominem attacks.
You're right that in order to have a semblance of credibility amongst others, the messenger has to at least make the attempt to recognize the wrongs with themselves and at least make the attempt to address those wrongs while encouraging others to do the same.
The thing about California politicians is that, like most politicians, they are using the short term gains made in the last 20-30 years to further their own objectives. San Francisco, despite what most people think, was one of the most racist cities in the United States especially toward Asian Americans. Los Angeles had a race riot a mere 18 years ago, but hasn't had anything of the sort lately outside of the gang fights. Most people, with the most basic fact checking, would know that. It's all about 'keeping up appearances' of being the hippie capital of the US, or being the center of American liberal mass culture (Hollywood). That's why I really don't listen to people like Newsom or Tony V. because they don't speak for everyone.
The more important point is simply that "how much introspection is enough in order to criticize the injustices of others?" In addition, how do we measure introspection, and cross-reference that to the amount of criticism allowed to be levied? To use another international relations example, can a country with a bloody colonial history such as Great Britain be allowed to criticize nations like Zimbabwe for human rights abuses? After all, the scale of Great Britain's imperial excesses GREATLY EXCEED the abuses levied by Mugabe toward the average Zimbabwean.
No matter how much bad faith it is to criticize others for doing things you do yourself (which people do all the time), its part and parcel of living in a Democracy. If the person receiving the criticism dismisses it solely as a hypocritical statement without examining the possible merits to the statement, then there will never be room for improvement but rather hard-headed thinking. If no one talks about anything wrong in society at all because we all didn't meet the requisite amount of introspection, no one would ever say anything. That's way worse than being hypocritical.
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Originally Posted by Charles
Some people think that the part of the success of Asian Americans is partly due to the demographic class from which they came. A lot of Asian American immigrants in the past 50 years came from the wealthier, more educated classes. It wasn't the guy picking rice outside Saigon that made it here in 1975. It was the family whose dad was a professor, a businessman, an engineer, a dentist and who had money (and brains), in other words the cream of the crop, who made it here. Compare them to the destitute who have migrated north over the past 50 years.
More often than not, you're correct. It really has to do with the fact that its extremely expensive to fly to the United States, then pay for all the officiating paperwork to become a citizen, then pay for a place to live, then pay for a semblance of the lifestyle you left behind at home. In addition, its much easier to come to the United States as a skilled worker than the impossibility to becoming a citizen as an unskilled worker. That's why you have the cream of the crop of all these societies (which is actually extremely destructive since this pretty much means that all the poor people and uneducated people are left, IE brain drain). There are plenty of Indian, Chinese, and Filipino professionals in the United States...how many are left back in their home countries?
However, the Southeast Asian refugee movement of the 1970s is a completely different story. You have a greater subsection of society moving in, which included BOTH the rich and educated (such as the people who ran the South Vietnamese government), and the poor and destitute were allowed to come as refugees to the United States. The Cambodian, Hmong, Laotian, and Vietnamese have a much poorer than average income, less educated, and are much more prone to crime than most people want to admit.
[SIZE=3]Vietnamese Americans only have a college degree attainment rate of 16%, only about one-quarter the rate for other Asian American ethnic groups. Further, Laotians, Cambodians, and Khmer only have rates around 5%.
Most of the big Asian gangs, at least when I was growing up, typically consisted of Cambodians (like TRG in Long Beach), Laotians, and Vietnamese (like ABZ here in the San Fernando Valley and elsewhere). Unlike most other states, California has had to deal with these problems simply because there are more Asian Americans here than in any other state.
However, not all is bad. Things are improving in those community day by day because the people in my generation are going to college in bigger numbers and are getting higher paying jobs than their uneducated parents did. However, the point is that it isn't purely ethnicity or race that is determinant of outcome. The reason why many people have a problem with Hispanics in particular is just their SHEER NUMBERS and their seemingly near replication of massive parts of their society as a result. However, its something that time needs to take care of, since many of those kids communicate way more in English than in Spanish (especially here in America). I say this coming from an area that was mostly Hispanic. Most of them just want to survive and be successful in America. Granted, there's a huge gang problem in the Latino community that sorely needs to be addressed, but again it will take time to get rid of.
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Agree, silly to ever generalize vast urban regions or socio-economic gps, esp when top 1% of earners pay ~50% of taxes in socio-economically "complex" places like CA or NYC
For ex., large disparities exist between Indians who have been migrating to US legally for past ~50yrs to engineering grad school at Stanford or Berkeley (often originally poor in India but gained access to IITs via competitive entrance exams), many of whom are top engineers/entrepreneurs/execs in SV...and many Indian immigrants (perhaps majority now) who are uneducated, often illegal, immigrants engaged in various businesses of dubious legality or social value...and are more likely to live/work in SF's EastBay or places like NYC's Queens/LI or Edison NJ
And places like Cupertino were new, tract-home suburbs of '70s (with many well-educated engineers, nearly all legal immigrants) but are now Chinese ghettos w/immigrants of dubious education level and immigration legality; ironically, doubt many Indian or white or Jewish or Chinese engineers at Apple or Google would want to raise their kids in any ethnic ghetto, no matter how suburban or affluent, as it doesn't reflect demographic reality or Darwinism of top colleges or companies or industries
Suspect many of asymmetries in any city/suburban region reflect wildly divergent education/income levels of various legal immigrants, native citizens and illegals....and regions like LA or Phx or SF's East Bay or City of SF (outside yuppie PacHts/FinDt) or SJ have notably weaker and different socio-economics than does PaloAlto area, which has arguably highest education/income/wealth lvls in world today, reflecting competitive ethos of SV's role as epicenter of world's tech industry and its smartest engineers and entrepreneurs
Some people think that the part of the success of Asian Americans is partly due to the demographic class from which they came. A lot of Asian American immigrants in the past 50 years came from the wealthier, more educated classes. It wasn't the guy picking rice outside Saigon that made it here in 1975. It was the family whose dad was a professor, a businessman, an engineer, a dentist and who had money (and brains), in other words the cream of the crop, who made it here. Compare them to the destitute who have migrated north over the past 50 years.
The real test comparing apples to apples is to compare the academic performance of poor Asian kids living in Asia to poor white American kids living in Appalachia. My bet is that the Asian kid will come out ahead.
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