Is it just me, or does the black community in SF seem marginalized? (San Francisco: upper-class, homes)

[slumcat]

About two years ago we went to SF to visit my daughter, who was working in East Palo Alto on an internship. We spent about one week in SF, which isn't too long, but my impression was that it was very expensive and geared to wealthy white and Asian yuppies. People did not seem very friendly there, either. I am not the camera-toting "touristy" type that people love to hate, when I go to a city I try to be respectful and polite. I asked someone for directions, and he said "I don't know and I don't care." Wow! Thats NYC level rudeness.

Anyway, I understand that the black community used to be about 14 percent, but now is about six percent. Many moved out because the city is so expensive It seems that the black people there are poor and live in crime-infested neighborhoods. I didn't like SF at all for various reasons, one of them being that black people seem like second class citizens. I saw very few walking around the more expensive parts of the city, like Pacific Heights. In fact, in the business district, I saw none at all. For a city that prides itself on liberalism, I thought this was kind of strange. Philly isnt the greatest city, but here you see black folks all over; there's only a few zip code areas that are predominantly white.

Is my perception correct?

[04kL4nD]

Parts of it are true. The mostly black neighborhoods in SF tend to be socioeconomically depressed and isolated from the nicer, richer areas of SF.

With that said, there are plenty of visible, middle to upper-class neighborhoods that are predominantly black in Oakland and other parts of the Bay Area. However, in places like Oakland, there's much more diversity and a mixture of cultures that you tend to see people of all different races hanging out at the same time than you would in SF

While SF is the focal point of the Bay Area, it's really not the best representation of how an area of roughly 7 million people live and act.

[dragontales]

If you are talking about SF then your observations are correct. Blacks are mostly concentrated in the southern part of the city or in housing projects. You won't find many in the nicer parts of town but that's due to affordability (income) and the lack of education. But you can't really form an opinion of SF based on just one race. How about Latinos? You won't find too many of them in the nicer part of town either. Are they being marginalized as well? Or is it due to income and education level also? Race topics are going to turn ugly here. There are stereotypes out there but there are definitely some truth to these stereotypes.

[BayDude]

He's not referring to Oakland, but SF. This has nothing to do with Oakland. Oakland people love to mention Oakland whenever they can for some reason.

[beb0p]

We call Pacific Heights - Specific Whites. It is not a representation of SF because there are billionaires who don't live in SF who own homes there just for the bragging rights. It's its own universe that happens to be located in SF.

If your barometer is how many blacks are found in rizzy neighborhoods, I urge you to be more open minded. There are all races from all backgrounds in most of the SF neighborhoods. I grant you it's not as diversified as Oakland but it's still pretty diversified compared to most places.

Lastly, there are rude people in every city. Sometimes you just happen to run into them.

[Nineties Flava]

Originally Posted by beb0p

We call Pacific Heights - Specific Whites. It is not a representation of SF because there are billionaires who don't live in SF who own homes there just for the bragging rights. It's its own universe that happens to be located in SF.

If your barometer is how many blacks are found in rizzy neighborhoods, I urge you to be more open minded. There are all races from all backgrounds in most of the SF neighborhoods. I grant you it's not as diversified as Oakland but it's still pretty diversified compared to most places.

Lastly, there are rude people in every city. Sometimes you just happen to run into them.

^I agree with this.

While the black population in SF is largely marginalized - almost half live in public housing - San Francisco is cosmopolitan enough that people understand that not every black person in the city lives in Oakdale. It's also worth mentioning that the black population in the northern half of the city (where you likely spent most or all of your time in) is typically more marginalized... while the worst projects are in the southern half of the city, there's greater income diversity in the black population in Lakeview/Excelsior/Bayview/Bernal Heights/Portola at this point than there is in the Western Addition/Tenderloin/Mission. The last remnants of SF's black middle class are in the southern half.

The only true negative about being wealthy and black in San Francisco is the lack of other wealthy blacks in the city... if you're looking for that then Oakland has a much, much larger community.

[sport69]

Marginalization of black communities is typical in most blue states. Ignorance, neglect and racism is partly to blame. Other factors include low self esteem self hate jealousy and disunity in the community which is killing the young, black business, and their dreams. Most blacks who live in red states thrive and do well with a higher proportion of them owning homes, business, college degrees good jobs etc.

[Conserves]

Liberals like to pretend they are tolerant but are the real racists, lets not forget Democrats are the ones who were in favor of slavery, it was the Republicans who freed the Blacks. Libs want to fool everybody with their fake tolerance, but really hate blacks and want them in their place. Us conservatives are the ones who treat them equal and have no issues where they live as long as they aren't the typical welfare leaches.

[CyanideThistles]

I guess so. however, when I was in downtown SF once I remember seeing a lot of all different types of people, of course many Asians, but also plenty of blacks. I guess most of them were visiting from the East Bay, but it is true most of the African American people live in the housing projects in Sunnydale and Hunters Point and whatnot.

I think think the Bay Area has a fairly large black population. When I was on BART in the East Bay to SF it was mostly black people on the train. The housing projects and low income parts of SF probably will receive more Latino immigrants. When I was in downtown Richmond two weeks ago, it had a large African American population but it was definitely more dominated by Latino culture as of now. There are even some white people living in downtown Richmond, but I did not see any Asian people. The thing I like about the East Bay is that it is not totally segregated unlike SF to some extent, and other major cities across the US.

[sport69]

Originally Posted by Conserves

Libs like to pretend they are tolerant but are the real racists, lets not forget Democrats are the ones who were in favor of slavery, it was the Republicans who freed the Blacks. Libs want to fool everybody with their fake tolerance. Us conservatives are the ones who treat these people equal and have no issues where they live as long as they aren't the typical welfare leaches. San Francisco is a Liberal cesspool full of fake tolerance. Down south the Blacks work, libs like to give these people hand outs.

Time and time again, liberals continuously fuel the fire of poverty by raising high taxes. As a result creates divisions and discouragement. With less money to spend in very expensive blue states, one has little chance of progressing in self improvement through education, wealth an involvement in political decision making in education, business and clean out the street criminals. As a result the community will have value.