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Comment by midoridensha | Hacker News Reader

>I'm in favor of retaining (both legally as well as culturally) cash as a medium of exchange, as well as maintaining and restoring a high-trust, cohesive society where most private transactions don't require showing one's papers.

America has *never* been a high-trust, cohesive society, and it never will. Just ask any black person. Maybe decades ago, in some isolated small towns with zero diversity, there was a high-trust situation since everyone knew everyone, but it's never been high-trust nationwide.

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It's still relatively high-trust, though you are right not in the same way as other high-trust societies that are also monoethnic. There actually aren't that many places in the world (monoethnic or not) where you can order takeout food online and just show up to the restaurant, claim that you are so-and-so who ordered the food, and take it, without providing any proof (whether it be ID or an order number, what have you).

> Just ask any black person.

For what it's worth, I live in a Deep South city that is majority black. I used to live in a major coastal metropolis, widely considered to be very "open-minded" on race, with a single-digit percent black population. I think blacks and whites get along better here than they did back there. It's certainly not that case here that black people are treated with suspicion on a day-to-day basis.

I live in a majority-black city in the Deep South, and I can think of three restaurants within five minutes' drive (and at least one more within ten minutes) where takeout orders are literally placed on a rack once they're ready if you paid online. You don't have to speak to anyone.

If you wanted to steal a meal, you could do it pretty easily.

One fast food, three fast casual.

Yes, that's my observation as well. In contrast, I was born and raised in a developed, monoethnic country with high social cohesion, where hardly anybody would steal a meal (and evidenced by comparing theft rates[0]), yet it's customary to provide some kind of proof that you were the person who ordered the food before being allowed to pick it up.

[0]: https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/theft/

>yet it's customary to provide some kind of proof that you were the person who ordered the food before being allowed to pick it up

I'm guessing one reason for this is to make sure the customer is picking up the correct order. People do dumb stuff all the time, and it's easy for someone who's distracted to grab the wrong bag. If this happens, then the restaurant has to make another meal for free, maybe two.

Why would anyone steal food, unless they were horribly desperate and hungry? This isn't the mark of a high-trust society, it's the mark of a somewhat wealthy society with a criminal justice system that's very harsh towards petty offenders. Stealing a bag of food at a restaurant would be dumb: there's cameras, and you don't know what's in the bag (likely something you don't like that much).

A high-trust society is one where you can go to that restaurant, and leave your wallet and smartphone on the table to reserve it while you go to the bathroom. That's something that's unthinkable in America, but perfectly normal in Japan and South Korea.

Next you'll say race relations were better before Obama in the Bush years and after Obama in the Trump years.

I wasn't in this country for most of the Bush years, so you'll have to tell me how it was. But if you ask me in general, focusing our attentions on our differences and pitting people against each other on racial boundaries isn't the way to make progress on the issue.

Is your point that I must be mistaken about race relations being better in the South than in coastal metropolises? Where I used to live, it was the kind of neighborhood with BLM signs on every other lawn, and approximately zero black people living there. Where I live now, there are approximately zero BLM signs on lawns, but plenty of people of different races living as neighbors, coworkers, friends, and lovers. Actual black people are moving back to the South[0], while champions of diversity are moving to less diverse places[1].

If that wasn't your point, please do tell.

[0]: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-new-great-migration-b...

[1]: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ssqu.13268

Why did you cite an article discussing black migration from 1965 through 2000 as proof that race relations are better in the South in 2023? (And on that note, the U.S. census data shows that California's black population in 2022 is larger than it was in 2000.)

Also, the second link you does not state that "champions of diversity" are moving to less diverse places...it in fact states that positions on diversity play little to no role in where people actually live (though it does strongly inform where people prefer to live), and the general finding is that people of all races generally prefer to live with people of the same race except that Trump-supporting minorities prefer to live in White neighborhoods.

But if you ask me in general, focusing our attentions on our differences and pitting people against each other on racial boundaries isn't the way to make progress on the issue

Bush had his faults, but race relations wasn't one of them. OTOH, inflaming racial tension was the centerpiece of Trump's campaign. Just a week ago Trump lauded a singer for a video glorifying vigilantism in front of a courthouse where falsely-accused black men were lynched by vigilante mobs.

> Why did you cite an article discussing black migration from 1965 through 2000

I'm sorry, I meant to cite this instead: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/a-new-great-migration-is-.... It shows big gains in black net migration to the South in 2000-2020. From net migration, West as a whole lost more black residents than in gained. I'd imagine there's been even more from 2020 till now, considering recent movement patterns.

> California's black population in 2022 is larger than it was in 2000.

In absolute numbers, yes (because the state grew a lot), but in proportion, it went from 6.7% black in 2000 to 6.5% in the 2022 estimates. In contrast, Mississippi, which isn't even a place people associate with the economic drivers of the New South, went from 36.3% black to 37.8% black in the same timeframe (out of a population increase of a mere 100k in the state).

> it in fact states that positions on diversity play little to no role in where people actually live

The study shows that whites regardless of their views on immigration/diversity, starting out from more diverse places, tend to move to whiter places compared to nonwhites starting from the same places. So yes, to be fair, it's not just white "champions of diversity" moving to less diverse places. But the gap in rhetoric vs. action is greater for that group, so I thought it worth notice.

> inflaming racial tension was the centerpiece of Trump's campaign

No arguments there from me.

> a video glorifying vigilantism in front of a courthouse where falsely-accused black men were lynched by vigilante mobs

Cooler heads have analyzed that the singer in question, Jason Aldean, does not in fact support lynching[0], and that the people accusing him of such are actually engaging in that very behavior of inflaming racial tension.

[0]: https://www.thefp.com/p/jason-aldean-isnt-pro-lynching-and

It seems that you're not American, so you don't appear to be aware of the history of lynchings in America.

Aldean has been accused of being in support of lynching because he literally sings that he will lynch someone in his song if they try shit in his town. Aldean is from the South, he damn well knows what lynching means and it's history.

Lynching refers to an extrajudicial murder, carried out by a mob or a posse. Literally, what Aldean sings about in his song. Over and over again.

Specifically the lyrics: "See how far ya make it down the road/Around here, we take care of our own/You cross that line, it won't take long/ For you to find out, I recommend you don't/Try that in a small town".

In the music video, he says these lines while prancing in front of a courthouse infamous for the lynching of an innocent black man by a white mob.

If Aldean doesn't want to be accused of supporting lynching he shouldn't glorify it in a song and music video in which he happily sings about lynching. Over and over again. In front of a courthouse where an innocent black men was lynched by a white mob.

people accusing him of such are actually engaging in that very behavior of inflaming racial tension.

Today I learned that when a white man sings about lynching black men, in a music video full of images of black men committing activities (not even crimes!) of the type that he sings about wanting to lynch them for, I'm the one inflaming racial tensions when I call him out for it. Not the racist guy singing the race-baiting lyrics. Me.

By the way, his name was Henry Choate. He was accused of rape (you cross that line), but even though the supposed victim said he wasn't her attacker, that night (it won't take long) a mob of about 250 white men (around here, we take care of our own), broke him out of holding, beat him with a hammer (for you to find out, I recommend you don't), tied to him a car, dragged him through the city, tied a noose to the second story balcony of the Columbia County Courthouse, threw him over the railing, and hanged him. http://john-banks.blogspot.com/2020/03/that-sends-you-to-hel...

Changes things when you know what the lyrics of the song actually refer to, doesn't it?

Just in case there's any doubt about what Aldean meant in his song, at a concert this weekend, he stated of the Boston Marathon bombers:

""And anybody, any of you guys that would’ve found those guys before the cops did, I know you guys from Boston, and you guys would’ve beat the s--- out of them, either one of ‘em.'" [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/jason-aldean-defends-tr...]

Note: for several days after the bombing, a number of innocent men were accused of being the bombers. An actual posse formed to hunt down the man Reddit thought was the bomber. If he hadn't already been dead for a month, the posse would have killed him. Several of the other accused went into hiding or were placed into protective custody due to the credible death threats against them.

Maybe the delineation should be before and after the "social media era"

America has been between 80% and 100% white and fairly homogenous for the vast majority of its history. It's only since 1970 that the demographics of the country were vastly changed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_racial_and_ethnic_d...

>America has been between 80% and 100% white and fairly homogenous for the vast majority of its history.

Wow, this is seriously stupid. America had slaves back in the 1600s and earlier, and certainly as long as America was a country. You apparently don't think black slaves count as human beings. Wow. Never thought I'd see such a blatant display of outright racism and white supremacy as this on HN in 2023, but here we are.

You're also discounting the Native Americans, who were there all along and long before the white Europeans came.

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