Hacker News Reader

Comment by rangersanger | Hacker News Reader

I had never heard of sundown towns before this article and plan to read the book they link to in the article [1]. One silver lining of the last year or so for me, personally, has been a sort of awakening to the real issues that have persisted in the shadows of the US for marginalized populations. There has always been some level of awareness, but the very concrete and contemporary stories that seem to be pouring out currently have forced me to reconcile that much of the US population doesn't live within my progressive, city living bubble, and just how much worse things are in some places. I don't think I'm alone here.

Some other things I've heard that have reinforced this:

Democracy in Chains: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30011020-democracy-in-ch...

When the Welfare People Come: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29633687-when-the-welfar...

[1]https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52444.Sundown_Towns?ac=1...

View on HN

The progressive bubbles are still rife with racism, it's just not as obvious. Think of stop and frisk, school district segregation, gentrification, modern day redlining, etc. "Progressive" people often still hold subtly racist views. The kind of thing you see black people point - say like in "Get Out" and "Insecure" - is completely common place, where well-meaning liberal people perpetuate racist systems.

Poor whites don't have any more power than poor minorities. Was watching a pbs doc about the rise of the klan in North Carolina. One of the big attractions was that the wealthy whites looked down on the poor whites, and by joining the klan they could at least be above someone else.

The wealthy whites condoned and fought the Civil War. The poor didn't own slaves. They were probably racist and bigoted, but it was the kind of behavior learned form their masters.

It's incredibly frustrating to see people with the "correct" views gloat in their correctness and do nothing to actually fix racism or inequality (they are the benefactors of this inequality). I used to attend a small baptist church. One of my dad's friends loved to make off color jokes. That same man is friends with and has done more for illegal immigrants and minorities than some of the most progressive rich folk ever have. They'd probably tar and feather him and make a big show about how good they were for doing it.

School districts are a great example. Rich kids go to nice private cools and their parents often live in communities that don't pay taxes that support public schools. I've met good upstanding Republicans and rabid Obama supporters who do this, and somehow don't see the contradiction.

> parents often live in communities that don't pay taxes that support public schools

how? pretty sure in the US everyone pays property tax (directly or indirectly), some of which is used to fund the school system. you can't just opt out of paying into that system at all.

Highland Park is a city within a city that pays no taxes to DISD.

Zuckerberg grew up in Dobb's Ferry, which is just outside of New York City's limits. He ended up at a private high school with an endowment of 1.15 billion. Now he's worth 70 billion. Not to pick on him (just an example), but there are many ways the elites segregate themselves.

Highland Park and Dobb's Ferry have public schools though:

https://www.dfsd.org/

http://www.hipark.org/

Median incomes in Highland Park are lower than Detroit and the school system there basically failed a few years ago.

I think there's probably a pretty good argument to be made about how schools are funded. Just pointing out that not all properties are inside of large cities isn't it.

That's not the same place.

Yes, they do have their own public schools, but that's ignoring how isolated and segregated those schools are that tax base is from the rest of the community.

In the 2015-2016 school year, HPISD had a student population of 7,171 people, of whom 2,114 were at Highland Park High School. The areas from which HPISD draws, Highland Park and University Park, have a reputation for being affluent, predominantly white areas. The numbers show that although the student body used to be almost 99% white, by 2015 a lower 86.5% of the District was white. The next biggest sections are a 6% Asian population and a 5% Hispanic population. In terms of affluence, it is true that 0.0% of the District's students are economically disadvantaged. The rate of violent or criminal incidents at every single campus in the District in 2015-2016 was 0.0%

Dobb's isn't that bad, but its demographics and income is still well above many nearby areas. Go through the Dobb's high site and count dark skinned people. It's an 80% majority community with a family income well over nearby areas.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com