Sort of a delicate question about racism. (Philadelphia, Pittsburgh: condo, neighborhoods)
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First off, I am White, but I don't want to live in a racist area.
That being said, I lived in Central PA (near Harrisburg) in 1994-95 and the people were VERY racist. I didn't like that, and we wound up moving because we didn't want to raise a family with people who felt this way.
I also found them very ignorant and they made a big deal about us coming from NY like we were hoods or something.
We've been considering the Pitts. area (along with a few others). Can anyone tell me if the Pittsburgh area is more welcoming to people from other states/races/ways of thinking?
I know Philly is not like this (as closed minded) but what about Pittsburgh and the suburbs?
Overall I've found the city proper of Pittsburgh (especially the East End, Downtown, Near North Side, Near Mt. Washington, and South Side) to be quite liberal with numerous Obama bumper stickers, hybrids, rainbow flags, etc. You'll see interracial couples walking hand-in-hand, same-sex couples walking hand-in-hand, young families with foreign adopted children walking around, etc. in perfect harmony. With that being said there is racism here, but there's even racism in supposed liberal meccas such as San Francisco; Portland, OR; and Boston, too, if you look hard enough for it.
Pittsburgh is the most racially-integrated place I've ever lived. Yes, I'm sure there are some old-school "yinzer" whites living in outlying places like New Kensington, Coraopolis, McKeesport, etc. who hold not-so-nice views towards minorities. I also know for a fact that there are some African-Americans in parts of the East End who harbor angry grudges towards whites and especially gays for whatever reason. Asian-Americans here tend to flock to white-dominated neighborhoods and typically segregate themselves from African-Americans (just from my own observations). Overall, though, most people here whether they be black, white, Asian, Latino (the few we have), gay, straight, liberal, conservative, Christian, Atheist, Jewish, Muslim, etc. get along well. Most people here seem to have adopted the mindset of "If you're not bothering me, then I don't care".
We're just as racially-integrated and open-minded as Philadelphia, if not even more so, if that's what your overall question was. I can say this as someone who, like you, moved away from the "red" part of Pennsylvania.
I also just wanted to add that I'm surprised you viewed Harrisburg as being a "very racist" place because I have several friends who live there or have lived there and sing its praises for overall livability. I'd imagine there is a difference in the mindset between places like Duncannon, for example, and Midtown Harrisburg, but that is true of any area where you'll have more liberal urban areas and conservative rural/outlying suburban areas. My theory is that the people who live in the outer suburbs, exurbs, and rural areas tend to be more racist merely because they have much more limited exposure to people different than they are---not because they are inherently racist. If enough gays, blacks, Hispanics, or whatever else moved into places like Duncannon you'd probably see racial tensions decrease over time as people assimilate and realize that their fears were unfounded. I know tensions have been running high lately in places like Hazleton and the dying Schuylkill County coal towns where these historically majority-white areas are seeing a sudden influx of minorities from the larger cities who are seeking cheaper housing, but I suspect in a few more years most of those tensions will have subsided, too.
Thanks for your prompt reply. I don't mean to insult anyone with this thread and yes, there are racists all over the world, of all colors.
I just didn't like a place where the "N" word was tossed off so openly. Maybe H-burg has changed since 1995.
I'm the first to admit I want to live in a mostly white suburb only because that is where I feel most comfortable but I don't have a problem with anyone as long as they are law abiding. I have lived in some very white states (VT) where you had creepy, strange and yes, very racist people in addition to all the liberal, law abiding ones.
Thanks for your prompt reply. I don't mean to insult anyone with this thread and yes, there are racists all over the world, of all colors.
I just didn't like a place where the "N" word was tossed off so openly. Maybe H-burg has changed since 1995.
I'm the first to admit I want to live in a mostly white suburb only because that is where I feel most comfortable but I don't have a problem with anyone as long as they are law abiding. I have lived in some very white states (VT) where you had creepy, strange and yes, very racist people in addition to all the liberal, law abiding ones.
I've never heard the "N" word used here by someone who wasn't African-American. I've also not heard the "F" word used here by someone who wasn't gay. For the record I don't condone ANY usage of EITHER word and wish both minority groups would stop using the words affectionately within their own communities when their prior generations fought so hard to get the mainstream majority to stop pejoratively hurling it at them in the first place, but I digress.
I must admit I was even shocked the other day while listening to the radio to hear Mark Madden, who I always thought was the self-proclaimed voice of Pittsburgh's old-school angry white "yinzer" crowd, promoting same-sex marriage (and being given an on-the-air "thumbs-up" by most listeners who called in, too).
If you're looking for a safe predominantly-white suburb where people still tend to be more open-minded and progressive you can probably look at Mt. Lebanon, Upper St. Clair, and Bethel Park, for starters. Probably nearby Dormont, too, albeit I'm not as familiar with Dormont. I'm not sure if Oakmont and Sewickley, while predominantly white upscale suburbs, are as "liberal", overall, as Mt. Lebanon and its surrounding environs. I really don't feel like there are any desirable Pittsburgh suburbs that are also inherently hostile towards minorities. I get a "backwater" vibe once you head further out into the Monongahela Valley (McKeesport and places further South), and once you get past Harmarville heading northeastwards through New Kensington and into Armstrong County along the Allegheny River, so I'd suspect these areas are places you don't want to be holding hands and prancing about if you're a same-sex couple, interracial couple, etc. if you don't want to risk glares or comments.
We're just as racially-integrated and open-minded as Philadelphia, if not even more so, if that's what your overall question was. I can say this as someone who, like you, moved away from the "red" part of Pennsylvania.
Having come from from Philadelphia, I would say that in Pittsburgh, the city seems to be better- and more peacefully-integrated, but the suburbs are still much more segregated (although that is starting to change). As far as the suburbs go, I've found that while people can be a bit ignorant with respect to other ethnic groups (especially those beyond the white-black dividing line), they seldom aim to offend anyone, and as such, are generally amenable to being educated. When I (a Jew by ethnic background) dated a Catholic girl from (essentially judenrein) Ross, her parents were interested in learning more about the Jewish faith and always bent over backwards to make me feel welcome.
While I did experience a bit of anti-Jewish animus from native 'Burghers during my years at Pitt, interestingly enough, the bulk of it came from out-of-towners from places like New Jersey and Rhode Island who should have known better.
Having come from from Philadelphia, I would say that in Pittsburgh, the city seems to be better- and more peacefully-integrated, but the suburbs are still much more segregated (although that is starting to change). As far as the suburbs go, I've found that while people can be a bit ignorant with respect to other ethnic groups (especially those beyond the white-black dividing line), they seldom aim to offend anyone, and as such, are generally amenable to being educated. When I (a Jew by ethnic background) dated a Catholic girl from (essentially judenrein) Ross, her parents were interested in learning more about the Jewish faith and always bent over backwards to make me feel welcome.
While I did experience a bit of anti-Jewish animus from native 'Burghers during my years at Pitt, interestingly enough, the bulk of it came from out-of-towners from places like New Jersey and Rhode Island who should have known better.
I also get the sense that there are many here who aren't intentionally racist to offend but rather just aren't as well-exposed to other cultures, races, ethnicities, faiths, lifestyles, etc. and would be open-minded towards broadening their horizons on this front. I must say that for all of the maligning I hurl at Northern Virginia for various reasons (much of it being deserved on the traffic, urban planning, and cost-of-living fronts) I will always be grateful that I was immersed within such a highly-diverse area for my year-and-a-half tenure there because I really enjoyed dating outside my own race, sampling new cuisines, attending heritage festivals, etc.---all of which were experiences I otherwise wouldn't have had exposure to having grown up in an overwhelmingly WASRC (White Anglo-Saxon Roman Catholic) area and now living in a predominantly "zebra" (white and black) area. I suspect now that the "secret" about Pittsburgh's high overall quality-of-life is out, attracting new migrants from various backgrounds from all over the world, we'll see more and more of this obliviousness towards other customs, ideals, ethnicities, etc. evaporate.
In my primary job working at an Oakland bank I interact with people from Asia, Africa, Europe, South America, and numerous other U.S. states on a daily basis. All have something to share with me about them that makes them unique, and I feel myself learning more and more each day about the differences between us that makes us all individuals. In this role alone I can safely say that Pittsburgh's population is indeed growing again---at a moderate pace even---and that makes me feel quite pleased.
Moving here from a childhood and young adulthood spent mostly in New England, I have to say Pittsburgh is far, far more racist than I was used to. It was sort of shocking to me.
Growing up, the only racism I saw in Connecticut was the sort of generalized fear of black people (specifically young black men) which is omnipresent in American suburbia. But little outward hostility, and certainly no one using the "N word."
Pittsburgh has some of that genteel racism. But it also has an in-your-face, if not especially hostile, racism which is common among the lower-middle and working class whites (yinzers essentially). Off the top of my head:
1. When I lived in Bloomfield, my next door neighbor railed about how bad the nieghborhood had been getting ever since "the blacks" had been moving in.
2. When I had a black girlfriend, I was informed by one friend I was "going to have black babies" (as if there was something wrong if I did) while another told me I was "a mud shark in reverse."
3. One of my wife's friends, who grew up in Troy Hill and had older parents, told my wife and a mixed group of people a racist joke (something like "it's just like those blacks, we keep knocking them back down, they keep climbing back up."
4. When I moved to Lawrenceville, a neighbor down the street told me "there are blacks moving in around here, but the good kind." Admittedly not exactly racist, but clearly he's used to dealing with people who are.
5. Recently talking with my next-door neighbor, he warned me that the neighborhood was getting dangerous, and to watch out, because "some brothers" were coming down the alley. They were three 10-12 year old boys. After they passed, he suggested I get a gun, and he'd take me to the shooting range.
Admittedly, while yinzers (and those one generation removed) say some really stupid ****, they also live fairly socially integrated with blacks, so as offensive as the comments can be, as many of their neighbors are friends, or even dating, members of another race. But I'd hardly call the area progressive on race compared to somewhere like Denver or Seattle, where it seems like no one really gives a crap if you're black or not.
Moving here from a childhood and young adulthood spent mostly in New England, I have to say Pittsburgh is far, far more racist than I was used to. It was sort of shocking to me.
Growing up, the only racism I saw in Connecticut was the sort of generalized fear of black people (specifically young black men) which is omnipresent in American suburbia. But little outward hostility, and certainly no one using the "N word."
Pittsburgh has some of that genteel racism. But it also has an in-your-face, if not especially hostile, racism which is common among the lower-middle and working class whites (yinzers essentially). Off the top of my head:
1. When I lived in Bloomfield, my next door neighbor railed about how bad the nieghborhood had been getting ever since "the blacks" had been moving in.
2. When I had a black girlfriend, I was informed by one friend I was "going to have black babies" (as if there was something wrong if I did) while another told me I was "a mud shark in reverse."
3. One of my wife's friends, who grew up in Troy Hill and had older parents, told my wife and a mixed group of people a racist joke (something like "it's just like those blacks, we keep knocking them back down, they keep climbing back up."
4. When I moved to Lawrenceville, a neighbor down the street told me "there are blacks moving in around here, but the good kind." Admittedly not exactly racist, but clearly he's used to dealing with people who are.
5. Recently talking with my next-door neighbor, he warned me that the neighborhood was getting dangerous, and to watch out, because "some brothers" were coming down the alley. They were three 10-12 year old boys. After they passed, he suggested I get a gun, and he'd take me to the shooting range.
Admittedly, while yinzers (and those one generation removed) say some really stupid ****, they also live fairly socially integrated with blacks, so as offensive as the comments can be, as many of their neighbors are friends, or even dating, members of another race. But I'd hardly call the area progressive on race compared to somewhere like Denver or Seattle, where it seems like no one really gives a crap if you're black or not.
New England isn't exactly a bastion of racial equality either. While outward racism is certainly less socially acceptable, let us remember that quite a few of the country's most violent race riots occurred in Boston. I would venture to say that older Yinzers are simply saying what older New Englanders are thinking. Older is a key word, given that as society has become more integrated over the years, race-related issues, while certainly still problematic, are definitely becoming less severe with time.
Eschaton, anecdotally I can also rattle off individual run-ins with racism since moving here:
1.) My landlady made a Polish Hill-oriented joke (or what she thought was a joke, anyways) when she asked me "What's the border between Poland and Africa?" Her reply? "Bigelow Boulevard".
2.) A co-worker at my second job, while in discussion with me about Polish Hill, said that it was a solid neighborhood, and he had "a few buddies there who would make sure the element stays out".
3.) Just the other day at my primary workplace I was next to several colleagues who disparaged "Sharon Needles", the Pittsburgh-area contestant who won this year's "RuPaul's Drag Race", as they proclaimed "men should act like men" and said it was "unnatural" to be trying to be something you're not.
4.) The other day an African-American client at my primary workplace waited until my African-American colleague was finished with his current client before approaching us for service, even though I was readily available. She didn't personally know either of us, which makes me think she was waiting for someone of her own race to assist her for whatever outdated ideological reason.
Does this make the area "racist?" No. It means there are some misguided yinzers amongst us that still need to die off before this area can realize its fullest potential as a near-Utopia. If you ignore the yinzers, though, as I do, then Pittsburgh is a phenomenal place in which to reside.
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