Black people, just by virtue of being a minority in America, are exposed to white people and culture at way higher rates than the reverse. In fact, a major point of going to a historically black college is to get a bit of a "break" from the dominant culture.
From what you say, it sounds as if many Howard students are less willing to adapt. That's fine. But it's pretty clear that for folks who are willing to adapt themselves (e.g., Chinese, Indian and other immigrants to the valley), the valley is quite welcoming.
I say this as a black carribean man married to a chinese woman. It's truly a shame as some of the behavior I've seen meted out shouldn't be coming from these groups.
A flawed but interesting test: do black CS graduates from Stanford and MIT fit better into SV than black CS graduates from Howard?
1) From the moment I stepped onto MIT's campus I was actively recruited by Silicon Valley companies. My freshman year was tough getting much attention, but recruiters would talk to me and generally gave off the vibe that I was wanted. Contrast this with going to a HBCU where these companies are not present on campus, or if they do show up its only for a day or two for a career fair. You wouldn't feel as welcome coming there.
2) I had black friends who were upperclassman who had "made it" in SV. They could offer advice and guidance. When I moved out to SV I also had them as part of social circle so I had social ties outside of work. Coming from a HBCU its likely you do not know anyone who works at these companies. You also do not know anyone who lives in the area to socialize this. If you do not relate to the people from work then you have trouble making friends.
This wouldn't surprise me. I graduated college 18 years ago, and even back then there was a huge amount of diversity in my graduating class. I had friends from India, Taiwan, Indonesia, Turkey, Ghana, etc. However, there were very, very few African-Americans (the guy from Ghana doesn't count). Nor were there any Hispanics that I recall. So someone from my university would have fit in pretty well in SV in a diverse work team (and they did, lots of my classmates went there).
So I think your test isn't flawed at all, but a very worthwhile question.
Living with people of all races, genders, backgrounds, and sexualities helped me become the man I am today (I've lived with whites, blacks, asians, latinos, men, women, hetero and homosexual people, Americans, and French citizens).
Currently I spend a lot of time with my neighbors in Brooklyn. I'm probably one of the only people in the neighborhood who could be considered both a part of the local community (I know nearly every regular face on my side of the street) and a part of gentrification (I'm a white man who makes good money and is a part of the forces driving rent prices up).
Things get hairy sometimes. I'm offered a lot of things I don't particularly want, and had a few people conspire to potentially remove a few select items from my house. So I started going out in the city more, and now everything's back to the nice vibe it once was. I'm just as comfortable as I was before and that process of potential betrayal and silent forgiveness (I'm not sure my friend even knows I knew he was planning to pull the jux (as my friends from my hometown might say)) is just a part of who I am.
Facing adversities, interacting with new cultures, experiencing new experiences. That's what makes you a rich human being.
Not staying cooped up in your own home, where you bring your friends in from other neighborhoods, like the vast majority of young people here do. I'm convinced, while it may make the neighborhood a bit safer, it destroys the vibrancy of the same simultaneously.
And besides, can you really tell me who wouldn't want to be OG Cody Loco? At least for a little bit? ;-)
Not to mention the "OG Cody" at the end, once again showing that these must be stereotypical (highly presumably) black minorities, again to hammer home this sort of bizarre feigned legitimacy he presumes. The whole passage is essentially saying "I get these things that you people don't get it, here's why".
Edit: Another way to put it, he's giving the expanded version of "I have black friends, so that racist thing I said can't possibly be racist."
It's much more an issue of socioeconomic status than race. And I'm sorry you perceived my post in that matter.
They're predominantly Spanish speaking Puerto Ricans. You're the only one who mentioned anything about race when it comes to that instance and your own presumptions don't hold true.
And I never said I was "the only rich white guy in a gentrified neighborhood". That wouldn't make any sense, one person doesn't gentrify a neighborhood. I said I was one of the only gentrifying members who has made an attempt to become a part of the existing community. This is consistent with every place I live, work, and play whether said place is predominantly minority, or predominantly white.
Every person has decades (except children) of experiences that I don't have. Every person is an extremely rich fabric comprised of characteristics inherited from an extremely complex ecosystem of factors. As such, I try to treat everyone with respect, and it ends up enriching my own world.
That being said, sometimes I still don't know exactly what to say. I come from a world of privilege even if my parents were lower to middle middle class, and they certainly don't.
Crime is more predominant in lower socioeconomic groups, it's just a reality. Did I blame every latino in my neighborhood? Did I scorn, run to the police, move away? No. I just backed off for a little and then came back after the holidays and kept going about my business.
You can perceive that however you like.
Edit: And what exactly was this racist thing I said? Was it when I heard that a couple of people were going to take things from my house and so backed off for a little? To mention a legitimate event that happened to me is now considered racist?
Edit 2: And in this world - [0] - You're damn straight I'm proud to have such a multicultural group of friends, and experiences. And even though this post indicates otherwise, I don't particularly give two shits how anyone misconstrues my post which essentially was trying to say "We should come together, hang out with eachother, and understand and forgive". Because, apparently I'm assuming superiority by continuing to hang out with people after I heard they where going to take shit from my house. All I can say is, fuck that.
[0] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/08/25/three...
Not entirely from his head.
Maybe the wording was a bit over the top for what the situation actually was: I enjoy hanging out with my neighbors, and wasn't going to let some stupid shit like this mess that up.
Sorry that I explained where the word jux comes from in my vocabulary.
Edit: And in this world - [0] - You're damn straight I'm proud to have such a multicultural group of friends, and experiences. And even though this post indicates otherwise, I don't particularly give two shits how anyone misconstrues my post which essentially was trying to say "We should come together, hang out with eachother, and understand and forgive". Because, apparently I'm assuming superiority by continuing to hang out with people after I heard they where going to take shit from my house. All I can say is, fuck that. And then I made a joke at the end about this stupid nickname they gave me once. Good lord.
[0] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/08/25/three...
> I often used to only sit and talk with the sales people, but then I took an introductory Ruby on Rails course. Now I feel very aligned with my fellow programmers, having worked on projects such as websites written in CSS, and frontend UIs written with the Java scripting language. Sometimes, my pull requests are rejected by certain fringe elements of the engineering team, but I can understand why, since I do not have a traditional background in CS yet am contributing just as much to their code base. But, in those cases I will usually go around, show my face, do some SQL queries and everything is back to normal.
It's about the equivalent.
The idea that I only talked with "sales people" prior to this is invalid though. I was actually the minority in my public school when I was growing up.
And yes, I do feel as if through sharing experiences with people I've learned how to "be aligned" with people as you say, although I wouldn't say that's a fair characteristic of how I perceive it.
I don't particularly feel aligned with any group of people, majority, or minority.
But I do recognize the value of shared experiences which give me a stronger cultural background, empathy, a grander perspective and worldview.
Of course, imagine if someone judged your entire life from 2 or 3 paragraphs on the internet without knowing said person, their background, experiences, personality, or anything about them?
Edit: And in this world - [0] - You're damn straight I'm proud to have such a multicultural group of friends, and experiences. And even though this post indicates otherwise, I don't particularly give two shits how anyone misconstrues my post which essentially was trying to say "We should come together, hang out with eachother, and understand and forgive". Because, apparently I'm assuming superiority by continuing to hang out with people after I heard they where going to take shit from my house. All I can say is, fuck that.
[0] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/08/25/three...