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Comment by alanh | Hacker News Reader

This article repeatedly expresses concerns that “blacks” may be pushed out of the City.

This struck me as kind of odd. Why the repeated mention of just blacks? Is that a racist statement? If not, would it be racist to otherwise imply that blacks (and apparently just blacks) cannot compete with skilled, high-wage workers?

At the bottom of the article, credit is given to what sounds like a black woman for being a contributing reporter. The article is written by what looks like a Japanese person to me. Now I am tempted to think that it’s not negative racism on display here so much as self-interest on behalf of the contributing reporter (and I’m puzzled as to why the lede author turned this piece in as-is).

Basically, I’m not sure what (if anything) to make of this, and am interested in people’s thoughts.

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I think it's what happens when privileged people try to write about the real world. You get "blacks" and (my favourite) "poor" people. Then there is everyone else. Shouldn't it just be that there are "people", and some of them are high income, and some are low income?

I have met lots of different types of people through my (very middle class) life and the ones who seriously use "blacks" or "poor" to describe groups of people are usually the very cushioned, over-educated types who are totally clueless about other people's lives.

Actually the article just seems to be quoting Mayor Lee's concerns about 'blacks' being pushed out of the city. Agreed that it isn't very clearly worded but I think it conveys that it was the Mayor mentioning "blacks" not the reporter so it is possible self-interest is not involved here. Or am I misreading it?

Quote :

Mayor Lee acknowledged that he was worried that some groups were being priced out of the city, mentioning black residents, whose population has declined along with those of families.

Here's what I make of it:

I have a big problem with equating blacks to poor people, mostly because it makes blacks monolithic, as if all blacks are poor. This isn't the case, even if you limit your analysis to the SF area.

Consider how ridiculous it is to equate an entire ethnic group with poverty, or wealth for that matter--there are wealthy and poor people across all demographics. Far better for the NYT to have said poorer residents, or some such like.

It does seem the mayor specifically mentioned blacks (could be a political calculus or real concern), but the reporters also referenced them separately, vaguely. Either way, the characterization of blacks in this article was done poorly.

You asked if this is racism; probably something like implicit bias - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aversive_racism.

Also: it seems you thought that the contributor's name (Malia) somehow indicates that she is black. A google search shows otherwise.

In San Francisco city itself, black and poor are highly correlated, for a variety of historical reasons. Most of the long term middle and upper middle class black residents in the Bay Area are in the East Bay. There are fairly concentrated areas of SF which are low income, low development, and primarily black (HP, Bayview) and some areas which became more developed (Fillmore). Mid market and tenderloin have gotten a bit more developed and more diverse (mainly in that poor Arabs and SE Asians moved in 10-15y ago).

Economics and race in SF is really complex.

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