Census 2010: Racial and ethnic diversity in Pittsburgh city proper vs. other cities in the Northeast/Midwest (violent crime, unemployment rate)

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by checkmatechamp13

I guess the ones who identified as "some other race" were descended from the indigenous groups that originally inhabited North and South America (rather than having European blood), but considered their ancestry to be different from that of Native Americans. Anybody else have another theory?

Some of the Hispanics who pick "some other race" write in the name of their country of origin (e.g., Mexico or Mexican). That's not entirely different from your theory, since in many Latin American countries there is a significant portion of indigenous background in the population. But that is part of why I think many of those people and their descendants will eventually gravitate to "white" as they start treating their country of origin in the traditional American way (meaning people may still self-identify as Irish or Italian, but don't think of that as a race category).

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by bradjl2009

I've noticed on missing person ads in other cities that even many indgenous people will have their race shown as white even though they aren't "white" in appearance at all.

Lots of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern peoples also self-identify as "white" even when they have darker complexions.

Incidentally, all of this really points out that the traditional "races" are pretty ill-defined and generally more trouble than they are worth--it would be nice if we actually dumped the concept entirely at some point (you can still talk about ethnicities and well-defined genetic subgroups without using the concept of "race").

[bradjl2009]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

Lots of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern peoples also self-identify as "white" even when they have darker complexions.

Incidentally, all of this really points out that the traditional "races" are pretty ill-defined and generally more trouble than they are worth--it would be nice if we actually dumped the concept entirely at some point (you can still talk about ethnicities and well-defined genetic subgroups without using the concept of "race").

That sounds reasonable and I agree with you about the idea of races; it sounds like a good idea to me. I don't think many other countries in the Americas lump people into races (and the stereotypes that come with that race) as ours does. I'm actually surprised at the moment Census doesn't do a separate option for people who are Arab/North African who are considered white but are rather different culturally than Europeans.

[bradjl2009]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

Some of the Hispanics who pick "some other race" write in the name of their country of origin (e.g., Mexico or Mexican). That's not entirely different from your theory, since in many Latin American countries there is a significant portion of indigenous background in the population. But that is part of why I think many of those people and their descendants will eventually gravitate to "white" as they start treating their country of origin in the traditional American way (meaning people may still self-identify as Irish or Italian, but don't think of that as a race category).

When the Italians, Irish, Polish, etc people immigrated to America the people who were here and native born at the time didn't consider those groups to be "white" when they came here, which sounds rather baffling to us today. It also goes with your other post about how it is somewhat silly to lump people into a broad racial group based on appearance.

[ElijahAstin]

Originally Posted by Lucario

Sometimes Latinos see themselves as triracial - black, white and Native, but really neither one exclusively - and just call themselves "other". Still others simply say they are of the one or two countries they originate in and eschew race.

As a Latino, do you find it a bit ridiculous the way the Census lumps people of Spanish-speaking background together as one cohesive whole, irrespective of their widely differing cultural and ethnic histories?

[Lucario]

Originally Posted by HeavenWood

As a Latino, do you find it a bit ridiculous the way the Census lumps people of Spanish-speaking background together as one cohesive whole, irrespective of their widely differing cultural and ethnic histories?

Yeah, I do. It's pretty obvious that many among us have nothing in common except for the Spanish language (and sometimes, not even that).

[BrianTH]

As a brief follow up, here are some statistics on the changing composition of the average neighborhood that white, black, and Latino people live in:

Boston Review — Ryan D. Enos: A World Apart



I'm a little more cheered by those statistics than the author of the source. It is true that white/black integration is proceeding at a frustratingly slow pace, but both white/Latino and black/Latino integration is moving along more quickly. So an optimistic take would be that Latinos are helping to "bridge the gap", and this scenario is more plausible the more you believe (as I do) that the line between "white" and "Latino" is bound to blur significantly as native-born people start to dominate the "Latino" category.

[pman]

Originally Posted by rahmednoma

What benefits, exactly, has "diversity" brought to Detroit, Baltimore, and Philadelphia? Are the cities safer? Are the property values higher? Do people want to live in these cities? Compared to say, Prague, Milan, and Warsaw, which are decidedly lacking in "diversity."

actually crime is down in philly as its gotten more diverse (largely increases in asian and hispanic populations as well as others immigrants such as africans) and there is decidedly less blight than areas where whites left and nobody took their place. property values are also up significantly.

[bradjl2009]

User created just this month and before today the most recent post was in December 2011. That's all I am going to say.

[Pitts10yrs]

Sadly, it has been the burden of the white population, including European countries, to rescue the rest of the world, and in doing so they are always seen at fault, quickly blamed for their efforts. Similar to what you see in Pittsburgh, populations regardless of race will always want gravitate to better neighborhoods, and you see that globally with muslims exodus into countries like Germany, England, France, and Spain. There looking for a better life. The problem is once there they are not socializing to the culture and basically bringing with them their problems. Multi-culuturlism is an absurd idea. There has to be a commonality among the people or there is no social harmony. With so much effort being placed on cultural differences, and promoting superiority unknowingly, there is nothing but friction.