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As mentioned earlier in this thread, there is a perception that when choosing a place to live in the DC area, Virginia is not as welcoming to Black Americans as Maryland and the District. A lot of this is based on residual history of racial strife. The Loving v. Virginia decision, for example, was decided barely two generations ago. The movie Remember The Titans was set in the background of the bumpy integration process of Alexandria's TC Williams High School. Those other racial and ethnic groups, while possibly enduring some prejudice of their own upon arriving here, don't have quite the same history.
Sure, but that was then and this is now. Two generations ago is when dinosaurs roamed the earth given how quickly things have and are changing here in NoVA.
A majority of people in NoVA voted for that dark guy with a Kenyan father with the middle name Hussein over a successful white, extremely WASPy-looking businessman with goldilocks wife and children the last election. I don't think Loving vs. Virginia is relevant at all anymore.
It isn't as if there wasn't any racism in Maryland (esp. the affluent white parts) 46 years ago. In fact, it would be interesting to see intermarriage rates of NoVA vs. Maryland. I have a hunch it might be higher in NoVA, especially in the western suburbs (where I see a very large number of mixed couples and children).
Let me posit a controversial proposition: could it be possible that, in fact, many blacks are more racist than they care to let on and don't want to live with non-black people and are simply using "black professionals as role models" or "residual white racism" as an excuse?
Let me posit a controversial proposition: could it be possible that, in fact, many blacks are more racist than they care to let on and don't want to live with non-black people and are simply using "black professionals as role models" or "residual white racism" as an excuse?
except most of the places blacks looking for heavily black areas choose, have some non-blacks as well. Certainly most of the corridor south of Alexandria does. As do many of the areas in Maryland they pick - including MoCo, Charles Co, and even a few parts of PG. So it seems to me that they are looking more for places that are 40 to 60% black, more than places that are 90% or more black (clearly there are some parts of PG like that, and SOME african americans prefer those - though in many cases I think they get a much better house price for the same commute in places like that, because few non blacks want to live in a 90% black area).
I think the preference for rte 1 over the tech corridor is explained well enough by A. The historic movement south from the city of Alexandria and B. That many african american professionals here work in DC, rather than along the tech corridor, so the tradeoff is not favorable for them. C. Im not even sure its entirely true anyway - isnt there a significant concentration of african americans in Reston?
I mean we could go into a discussion of the extent of discrimination faced by african americans, by asian americans, how they perceive it and why, but I don't think that would be all the fruitful. And not terribly NoVa specific either.
Last edited by brooklynborndad; 04-22-2013 at 02:49 PM..
Sure, but that was then and this is now. Two generations ago is when dinosaurs roamed the earth given how quickly things have and are changing here in NoVA.
A majority of people in NoVA voted for that dark guy with a Kenyan father with the middle name Hussein over a successful white, extremely WASPy-looking businessman with goldilocks wife and children the last election. I don't think Loving vs. Virginia is relevant at all anymore.
Not to get off-topic or particularly political, but while the majority of the country, including at least half of Northern Virginians, may have voted President Obama in twice or otherwise found his racial background irrelevant to their decision, there is a small but virulent group of people who focus on said background via references of varying degrees of subtlety. I won't get into detail here but see Trump, Donald for an example.
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It isn't as if there wasn't any racism in Maryland (esp. the affluent white parts) 46 years ago. In fact, it would be interesting to see intermarriage rates of NoVA vs. Maryland. I have a hunch it might be higher in NoVA, especially in the western suburbs (where I see a very large number of mixed couples and children).
You may be right on your first point except that the Lovings had the legal right to live as a married couple in either MD or DC...but they wanted to come home to VA.
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Let me posit a controversial proposition: could it be possible that, in fact, many blacks are more racist than they care to let on and don't want to live with non-black people and are simply using "black professionals as role models" or "residual white racism" as an excuse?
I would imagine that racial or ethnic prejudice can be found on some level in most all races and ethnicities. However, it is also unfortunately true that confluences of middle/upper-income black professionals are rare. The fact that one such confluence was established in Prince Georges County, MD and does not (yet) exist in Northern Virginia may be partly based on history that one's parents or grandparents may still be alive to recall.
Last edited by FindingZen; 04-22-2013 at 04:09 PM..
I've never seen children of blacks in my neighborhoods in Loudoun and western Fairfax ever being ostracized "for being different." People of all manners of phenotypes live in this region. As others have pointed out, I think income and status matter far more than race in this area. Being "ghetto" doesn't jive well with kids and parents with high educational and professional expectations.
I guess because of your anecdote that means it's not true. I guess you've been to all the schools, talked to all of the students, and been in all the classrooms. You are trying to minimize my point with limited to no knowledge of what you are talking about.
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Originally Posted by IndiaLimaDelta
That depends on the people. According to the latest Pew study, Asians in America are the most likely to live in neighborhoods with other ethnic groups. Blacks not so much. I would argue much of this is based not so much on racism per se, but ideology/philosophy -- propensity for assimilation on the one hand (Asians) and self-segregation on the other hand (blacks).
Agreed. I'm not saying that people segregate themselves strictly because of race. I'm just stating that people may not want to move some where that they may be considered different. Sometimes it's race, sometimes it's not.
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Originally Posted by IndiaLimaDelta
I am not familiar with the area, but I am fully comfortable with areas that are 100% black, 100% white, 100% Hispanic or 100% Asian provided the residents in question display low criminality and high education and, as a bonus, show some traditional Christian values.
You can't have your cake and eat it too. It's either you would live in the area or not. You can't cherry pick conditions of an area. You have to take the good with the bad. There is no such place that exist with what you created, but based on what you said, Capitol Heights wouldn't be your cup of tea, trust me. And that's the point. If you aren't comfortable with a place that doesn't have low crime and doesn't have high education, then you aren't accepting diversity. Diversity is much more than race.
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Originally Posted by IndiaLimaDelta
I don't see any evidence to the contrary that the majority of people in western Fairfax and Loudoun are less open-minded than the average City-data forumite.
LOL. Because you know EVERYONE in these areas and you know that city-data represents the general population in this country?
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Originally Posted by IndiaLimaDelta
Black professionals are not all that rare in western Fairfax.
There are 7.5% Blacks in Centreville, Clifton according to the latest Census doesn't even have a black person living there. Yeah there are just so many black professionals.......just because you throw a dart doesn't mean it will hit a target, much less the target.
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Originally Posted by IndiaLimaDelta
You might not be able to imagine it, but other ethnic groups are not nearly as obsessed with that. Many Asians and Hispanics I know are perfectly comfortable with their kids growing up around white professionals. If they wanted to live with mostly other Asians or Hispanics, they'd have stayed in Asia or Latin America, not come to a country (and a region) where whites are the majority.
Not saying that it's always the case. But there is a reason why places like Annandale have such a large Asian population, for instance. In some ways I believe there are parts of ethnic groups that like to stay close to those who are of the same ethnic group.
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Originally Posted by IndiaLimaDelta
Well, I am sorry it's not possible to get a high priced house without "really, really high paying job." Two of my immediate neighbors who live in seven figure homes are children of immigrants. Their parents worked blue collar jobs, saved money and put their kids through advanced education. Their children are highly paid professionals.
Apparently this is not the "generation of wealth before you" that I mentioned.
... there is a small but virulent group of people who focus on said background via references of varying degrees of subtlety. I won't get into detail here but see Trump, Donald for an example.
How is Donald Trump relevant to whether or not there is more racism against blacks in western Fairfax than in Maryland?
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You may be right on your first point except that the Lovings had the legal right to live as a married couple in either MD or DC...but they wanted to come home to VA.
Again, the situation was remedied 46 years ago -- 46! What did western Fairfax look like 46 years ago? We have a completely different region here today. Different demographically, different culturally, different legally, ad nauseum. It was only starting in 1965 -- one year before Loving v. Virginia -- that, for example, a large number of people from Asia and Latin America could enter the United States legally as immigrants (that's when the national quotas were removed and skill/family reunion became the primary consideration).
Of what relevance is it to newcomers, whatever their ethnicity, today? It strikes me as just so much excuse.
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I would imagine that racial or ethnic prejudice can be found on some level in most all races and ethnicities. However, it is also unfortunately true that confluences of middle/upper-income black professionals are rare. The fact that one such confluence was established in Prince Georges County, MD and does not (yet) exist in Northern Virginia may be partly based on history that one's parents or grandparents may still be alive to recall.
Yes, and in the states of Washington and California, Japanese-American grandparents can tell their grandkids of the days when they were forcibly removed, loaded into trucks and dumped at internment camps guarded by soldiers with guns while their property was expropriated. Are Japanese-Americans, because of that history, avoiding California and the Pacific Northwest? I think not.
Furthermore, ethnic prejudice does not exist in equal measure in all ethno-racial groups. According to at least one study, while anti-Semitic feelings declined with higher education with most ethnic groups, among blacks it actually increased with education. If we are going to throw unproven allegations of residual racism among the residents of western Fairfax, let us at least consider in earnest the possibility that people who seem to obsess about race as the primary residential criterion ("his people") might indeed do so out of their own racism.
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Originally Posted by pgtvatitans
I guess because of your anecdote that means it's not true. I guess you've been to all the schools, talked to all of the students, and been in all the classrooms. You are trying to minimize my point with limited to no knowledge of what you are talking about.
I am trying to minimize your point because you offered absolutely no evidence that there is such discrimination. That you feel that there might be discrimination is not evidence. Logically, I cannot disprove a negative. But you certainly can offer evidence for your proposition. So far I haven't seen one offered.
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I'm just stating that people may not want to move some where that they may be considered different. Sometimes it's race, sometimes it's not.
Residential discrimination based on race is illegal and immoral. I daresay that a definitive statement like that can be made about income or better yet crime level (!).
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You can't have your cake and eat it too. It's either you would live in the area or not. You can't cherry pick conditions of an area. You have to take the good with the bad. There is no such place that exist with what you created, but based on what you said, Capitol Heights wouldn't be your cup of tea, trust me. And that's the point. If you aren't comfortable with a place that doesn't have low crime and doesn't have high education, then you aren't accepting diversity. Diversity is much more than race.
This is called moving the goal post. So, according to your logic, western Fairfax is not diverse, notwithstanding the existence of dozens, possibly hundreds of different ethnicities, languages, cultures, because it doesn't have many black people, but Capitol Heights is diverse because it has poor people and high crime even though it may be more mono-ethnic?
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LOL. Because you know EVERYONE in these areas and you know that city-data represents the general population in this country?
I seem to know more people in this area than you do, apparently, leading to a much greater sampling. I still await this phantom evidence that western Fairfax residents harbor racism against black children.
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There are 7.5% Blacks in Centreville, Clifton according to the latest Census doesn't even have a black person living there. Yeah there are just so many black professionals.......just because you throw a dart doesn't mean it will hit a target, much less the target.
First of all, Centreville and Clifton are not the totality of western Fairfax (Clifton is arguably not even that western to begin with). From various census data I've seen, western Fairfax areas are variably around 5-20% black, depending on the level of urbanization and housing cost. As you can imagine, the 20% areas do not necessarily contain a lot of black professionals while it may very well be that 5% areas contain a substantial number within that percentage.
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Not saying that it's always the case. But there is a reason why places like Annandale have such a large Asian population, for instance. In some ways I believe there are parts of ethnic groups that like to stay close to those who are of the same ethnic group.
Annandale is about 20% Asian -- it is hardly the most Asian in the region. Furthermore, there is an increasing migration of Asians away from Annandale to western Fairfax and eastern Loudoun (to places like Centreville, Chantilly, Herndon, Sterling, Ashburn, etc.). Today Asians are the most widespread ethnic group in the region. By all quantitiatve measure, they are apparently very comfortable living with people of other ethnicity, despite the fact that many of them do not have the advantage of speaking as their first tongue the language of their neighbors. Indeed, it's precisely because they seem to prioritize such rational considerations as school quality and safety (low crime) over ethnic solidarity that they now exist in substantial numbers in areas that previously had few if any Asians.
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Apparently this is not the "generation of wealth before you" that I mentioned.
Somehow I doubt the demographers meant penniless parents arriving here without any English-speaking ability and working as a mechanic and a drycleaning shop clerk as "generation of wealth."
How is Donald Trump relevant to whether or not there is more racism against blacks in western Fairfax than in Maryland?
Trump is no more or less relevant to this end of the discussion than the President. Nonetheless, I don't want to take this thread any further off-topic. If you truly have no idea what I'm talking about, I would recommend putting both gentlemens' names into your preferred search engine, or perhaps even the P&OC forum here.
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Again, the situation was remedied 46 years ago -- 46! What did western Fairfax look like 46 years ago? We have a completely different region here today. Different demographically, different culturally, different legally, ad nauseum. It was only starting in 1965 -- one year before Loving v. Virginia -- that, for example, a large number of people from Asia and Latin America could enter the United States legally as immigrants (that's when the national quotas were removed and skill/family reunion became the primary consideration).
The points that you make here and subsequently in response to my post are generally beyond the scope of this geographic-based forum. Suffice it to say, at the risk of repeating myself, that remnants of black/white relations in the region may make some other areas more attractive for black residents than western Fairfax.
On a more practical level, easier access to cultural necessities - e.g. barber shops, hair salons, Southern/soul food - may also be a factor in why potential black residents choose areas other than western Fairfax.
Trump is no more or less relevant to this end of the discussion than the President. Nonetheless, I don't want to take this thread any further off-topic. If you truly have no idea what I'm talking about, I would recommend putting both gentlemens' names into your preferred search engine, or perhaps even the P&OC forum here.
I think among the residents of western Fairfax and Loudoun, President Obama polls far higher than Donald Trump ever did or would. My point here is that, far from being residually racist as has been alleged, the people in western Fairfax seem pretty comfortable with a half-African leader of our country with an Arabic/Muslim name.
I've been to areas that are truly, palpably racist against blacks in this country (from west Texas to Bensonhurst, NY). Today's NoVA is so far from that in so many ways that it's incomprehensible to even bring it up in the same context.
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that remnants of black/white relations in the region
And I guess I am repeating myself when I ask what is meant by "remnant... in this region." I accept and recognize that Virginia has a racist history. What am I asking is whether, specifically, NoVA is today and, if so, what evidence there is that it is more so than Maryland.
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On a more practical level, easier access to cultural necessities - e.g. barber shops, hair salons, Southern/soul food - may also be a factor in why potential black residents choose areas other than western Fairfax.
This is a fair point. However, there weren't widespread Asian or Hispanic barber shops, hair salons or ethnic cuisine here but a few years ago. Yet those folks came... and arguably thrived.
I don't see a problem with his issue. Yeah, it may be the 21st century but there are cultural issues that exists between all races and groups of people. This is no different from a Muslim befriending mainly Muslims (in order to avoid tension or differences) or Koreans moving to Annandale or Centreville because they fit in better/know more people/assimilate better.
You'd be surprised how important it is to fit in, feel like you belong, see people who resemble you, and share a similar culture to you really is. This is usually a problem for people who feel the most important parts of their cultural or social values are not recognize by the general community.
Anyway, Fairfax is pretty low in terms of a Black population. Highest population I saw was in Woodbridge and Alexandria. I'm not totally familiar with this area though.
It could just be based on what folks' are used to and comfortable with. A white person who grew up on tree lined streets in middle class white suburbia probably couldn't fathom the idea of living in an apartment on Route 1 but if you grew up in one you might consider it a pretty attractive way to save a few bucks. People tend to follow familiar lifestyles.
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If they wanted to live with mostly other Asians or Hispanics, they'd have stayed in Asia or Latin America, not come to a country (and a region) where whites are the majority.
