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One more thing, white people doesn't automatically equate to yuppies and hipsters... People have become so scared of white people being hipsters in NYC than they assume every white person that moves into a working class area is automatically a hipster... I still have family in Cypress Hills in East NY and that area has always had some white folks in the area even though the numbers are small... The majority of the white folks that you see there have been there for years or if they're new they are either Russian or second/third generation Italians from what I see...
The area is still 95% Black/Hispanic/Indian and it's a decent working class area of East NY that deals with some problems but isn't what most would associate with hood...
First of all, your ancestors were not brought here as slaves,
Sonya.
Actually, you may be interested to know that some of the ancestors of many...maybe even MOST... Old Stock White Americans were brought here as slaves.
Many Americans would not have been born, had their ancestors not successfully escaped from captivity. White slaves, considered more expendable than Africans, were often deliberately worked to death. There are plenty of books out there on the subject. Just googling the term 'Highland Clearances' should point you to those sources.
And have you ever heard of Serfdom? Many white Americans are descended from Serfs. (Agricultural slaves)
Discrimination? Poles, Norwegians, Irishmen, Sicilians, Jews, people with heavy Southern accents.... all faced discrimination, until fairly recently (and three of those groups probably deserved to be kept at arm's length, considering their behavior when they reached these shores). But none of those groups are being discriminated against (or avoided) these days, because they made the most of the opportunities that existed (and learned to behave themselves).
Other groups had the same opportunities, but did nothing with them. And their behavior did not improve.
But back to the subject of this thread. DH and I are former Yuppies. We are nonwhites who worked our way out of extreme poverty (helped every step of the way by White People, and mostly hindered by our 'own people'). As students, we bought a derelict building in a slum adjacent the campus. We were landlords, before we were car owners. We quickly learned that the quality of our tenantry was the most important thing. So, as we scrubbed and fixed, we brought in fellow students... then, when we could actually afford paint, we were renting to instructors at the U.
Then, we bought a bigger building. We upgraded our tenantry there, too. No honest landlord can make money renting to people who will not behave themselves. YUPPIES BEHAVE. While other tenants tear things up, Yuppies will upgrade their units. While other tenants leave the finishes in a place coated with grease from frying food, Yuppies will deep-clean. Heck: some of them even refinish their own floors...strip old paint off their own cabinets...expose the brick on their chimneys...put up track lighting. Even the sloppy ones tend to leave your units smelling better than when they moved in. When we sold those buildings, they were filled with professors, rich grad students, and a few young doctors. We helped gentrify the neighborhood. The quality of the tenantry allowed us to make huge profits on those buildings.
Our final building, when we moved to a bigger city, was one where we pulled out all the stops... totally went crazy with awnings and potted topiaries.... Baroque music in the lobby... murals... stenciling in the hallways... all to dispel the air of hopelessness that permeated the downtown. And we filled the place with resident physicians and young attorneys (The surgeons had lines of credit. The Attorneys had rich daddies.) (Who else would appreciate...and pay for...such amenities?). It helped nail down the area, in a city that's rather hopeless, and mostly just torn-down. We could not have done that, without catering to "Yuppies".
We finally got out of residential rental. Too much risk of litigation. But we left that arena knowing that Owner and Tenants are a team. Who would you want playing on your team?
Oh, and to the poster who included giant televisions in his characterization of Yuppies... You do realize that many Yuppies pride themselves on not owning televisions, don't you? (they can always watch the news on the cardio machines at the Gym) And regarding another post, I don't think many Yuppies wear Polo, anymore. It's considered, alternately, as being either ghetto or granny.
Last edited by GrandviewGloria; 03-19-2012 at 12:10 AM..
How am I supporting The "hood"?? I dont support the yuppies b/c the want to turn EVERYTHING in to manhattan.
You talk about ghetto people on section 8 but how are they different from these yuppie wannabe "artist" who's parents are supporting them and they get drunk...throw parties and do drugs just like the trash you want to get rid of..
I concur with this notion both (yuppie, hipster, artist trandplant), and (ghetto black, thugs, native white trash and poor hispanics) seem to have one thing in common the high usage of drugs. I frown upon drug users of all races and income stratas. Its just a matter of time when neighborhoods that dealtv with crack will succemb to the effects of meth dens which is popular in the burbs.
One more thing, white people doesn't automatically equate to yuppies and hipsters... People have become so scared of white people being hipsters in NYC than they assume every white person that moves into a working class area is automatically a hipster... I still have family in Cypress Hills in East NY and that area has always had some white folks in the area even though the numbers are small... The majority of the white folks that you see there have been there for years or if they're new they are either Russian or second/third generation Italians from what I see...
The area is still 95% Black/Hispanic/Indian and it's a decent working class area of East NY that deals with some problems but isn't what most would associate with hood...
The two three family homes next to me are all white - they've been there for a while now, not to mention the neighbor who lives downstairs from me. Thou of course I don't automatically assume hipster when I see whites in such a neighborhood. The couple I saw were young, dressed in hipster fashion, one had a camera taking photos of the cemetery, and I overheard one of them talking about how she takes the L train - that's without a doubt a couple of hipsters.
The two three family homes next to me are all white - they've been there for a while now, not to mention the neighbor who lives downstairs from me. Thou of course I don't automatically assume hipster when I see whites in such a neighborhood. The couple I saw were young, dressed in hipster fashion, one had a camera taking photos of the cemetery, and I overheard one of them talking about how she takes the L train - that's without a doubt a couple of hipsters.
Where do you live at? Cause I pass through there all the time and from what I see there are less white people now than when we moved 15 years ago... Now, the only white folks I see even strolling outside are Russians and from what I see these guys love being around that ghetto culture for some reason... They don't try to imitate but they hang with the locals and support the local businesses... I've spoken to a couple of them, they're pretty cool and laid back... In terms of Hipsters I wouldn't doubt there being a handful of hipsters maybe in some isolated parts as this is NYC and not some backwards town where people are separated into different sections... But with that said, I don't see this as an area that'll become the next hippy haven... There's not much out there for them around those parts...
Yeah there are still some white families near the Brooklyn Queens border, I use to live on Lincoln between Liberty and Atlantic and had a few on my block, and I also knew a few by Forbell street.. They aren't the majority by a long shot but you still see some here & there.
That does surprise me but not as much if you were to tell me you were deeper into Brooklyn territory. You are right on the borderline of Woodhaven Queens and Cypress Hills around there. Lane is only a few blocks away which is the cut off... That area actually use to be nearly 50/50 white/(hispanic/black/asian) not too long ago but it is one of the areas along with Ozone Park, Woodhaven, Canarcie and Flatlands that lost a large part of their white population in recent years. That's why it surprises me a little to see new white folks move into that area because usually the hipsters move into hoods that are transitioning into better areas/(and in their minds whiter areas) and not vice versa...
The reason why it doesn't surprise me completely is because since that area was fairly mixed, I wouldn't be surprised if they bought it from another white family... All in all though the amount of white people in Cypress Hills was probably at its lowest point somewhere around 05' but the white population there now in Cypress Hills is still very low in comparison with anytime over 10 years ago...
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