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Comment by tks2103 | Hacker News Reader

"Far be it from me to judge other peoples' choices."

"...you seriously need to get some perspective."

you are definitely judging other peoples' choices. that's not a bad thing, but own up to it.

i have a good reason for not living in 'flyover country'. when i was growing up there, i had direct encounters with racist individuals on a regular basis. i have not had those encounters in nyc (i also lived in san francisco and had racist interactions there).

i like walking around people that don't look at me funny. rent in nyc is the best $2000/month i spend.

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Hm. Visiting NYC and riding on the subway in Manhattan my friend and I were the only whites on the car and were called every name in the book by a group of blacks who were having fun seeing what kind of reaction they'd get. Racism is everywhere because it's part of human nature to fear people who look different from you. Goes back to tribal, pre-civilization times. If you think there are no racists in NYC you are in denial.

Yes, racism is everywhere, but your story sounds a little fishy. I don't think you can ever be more than 20 feet away from a white person in Manhattan, 24 hours a day, and that's including Harlem.

More to the point, in a city where there's tons of diversity on every street corner, there might still be some racists out there but you can guarantee their racism is just making them miserable every day -- most of us enjoy the diversity.

I assure you the incident I described did happen.

my reasoning is this: i lived in [texas, kansas, tennessee, california, d.c.] -> i directly experienced racism -> i do not live there anymore

i lived in new york city -> i did not directly experience racism -> i live here now

im not making any more general claims about the existence of racism in nyc. i dont have enough data for that.

for whatever reason, i do not have to worry about my skin color here. that is a valid reason for spending extra money to live in a smaller space, in my opinion. i believe that i have 'perspective'; the op was claiming that someone like me would not.

your reasoning seems to be: i experienced racism in nyc -> racism is part of human nature from tribal times -> there are definitely racist people in nyc. you should fill in the arrows with more evidence. i do not see how one conclusion follows from the other.

i will also make the point that racism against a majority race is different than racism against minority races. minority races in america have less available resources to prevail against racism, when averaged across the population. i sympathize with your incident, but my priority is ensuring that, as a minority, i minimize the time i spend dealing with racist acts towards minorities.

the above paragraph can be summarized as 'for an individual of a particular race, all racist acts are not equal'

Funny you should mention this. My first thought was, is it an OK place for a latino?

are you asking if latinos experience more racism in nyc on average when compared to other parts of the country?

i'm not sure.

i can say that you will likely experience racism directly when hailing a cab. i am guessing that cab drivers assume black and latino folks live far away from the bar scene, in neighborhoods where not many people are looking to take cabs. these cab drivers reason that picking up a black or latino person will result in a long drive to drop off the passenger, and a long drive back to a neighborhood that will have enough bar traffic to find another passenger. if you try to hail them, they will simply drive by and look for another passenger. i am basing this off several encounters i've had with friends who are black and latino, but no hard evidence otherwise.

there is likely some racism you will experience in predominantly rich, white neighborhoods as well, but mostly things on the level of being mistaken for a waiter or something.

i can't really say for sure though, don't have a lot of data for latinos.

they'll deny it all day long but LOTS of areas in the midwest and south are racist as shit. there's HUGE value to just being able to blend in and go about your god damn day without harassment, except you won't know it until you live in a place where you stick out.

people who are from these areas will say "i encountered more racist people in the north/west/whatever" but they're usually just referring to people who shared their racist opinion with them, not actually being on the RECEIVING END of a racist interaction.

which MAKES SENSE if you think about it - white people in manhattan or SF or LA are basically going to feel like a minority, and may seek a little bit of empathetic camraderie by complaining about race X Y or Z. if a white person does this in vastly majority white area they're just going to seem like an asshole with a chip on their shoulder.

the coastal areas make it easy to blend in no matter who you are. nobody is going to hassle you or ask you stupid ass questions.

I think some areas depend on city size. Moving from New Mexico to (southwest) Virginia I realized that small-town southern cities are extremely backward, especially with racism. However, head North to the northern 1/3 of VA and it's as diverse and accepting as any decent city.

The northern third of VA is basically the DC metro area.

northern virginia is a coastal 'elite' area DC metro.

definitely not 'flyover country' as the original post described.

Experience has been that folks are more openly racist, but at the same time less serious about it. I can speak to Texas: there are a lot of good ol' boys (especially in energy, oil, and gas), but people are friendly and fast to warm up.

The way it's been presented to me has been that Southerners "hate the race and love the people" while in the rest of the country it's "hate the people and love the race".

My (admittedly limited) sampling has been that the Texans I know are less seriously racist than the folks I've worked with from New York or other big coastal cities.

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