Hacker News Reader

Comment by abhinav | Hacker News Reader

I intuitively like the idea of the "supposed" but atleast in the west there seems to be a way of counteracting these pressures. It seems to me that "white" children can choose from a variety of roles: nerdy, athletic, artistic etc and although there are penalties associated with each role there are rewards as well and each role is deemed valid by society. However, the article seems to suggest a homogeneous "black" identity, which leaves no room for accepted rebellion. Perhaps, some folks living in USA can confirm if my hypothesis is connected to reality.

View on HN

When I moved from Canada to the U.S., I was surprised how segregated the country still is. It's not legally enforced, of course. It's just that there are black parts of town and white parts of town.

So although I've lived in both Pittsburgh and Boston for a total of 16 years now, including grad school where I was very social, I haven't had much of a chance to have African American friends because I've met almost no African Americans.

I would note that I think Pittsburgh and Boston are both more segregated than the average American city -- Boston famously so.

For some reason, I've heard the exact same thing from residents of Chicago, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, etc.

So does "average" exclude major (maybe East Coast) U.S. cities? Should I look at cities of smaller scale... say Oxnard, CA? Which criteria should one consider when deciding a city is "normally" segregated? Just want to know how things are different in the average American city with a significant number of ethnic minorities.

I would say that's pretty accurate. The spectrum of acceptable black "social personalities" seems to be smaller than for whites, at least in the high school years.

It is in part do to the fact that whites comprise a much larger portion of the population (70+%) in most areas, but also they don't necessarily (need to) express themselves as "white" as their defining social trait, so they may choose something else as the major one.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com