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    FlamingFeministaMichael Harriot
    11/27/18 2:33pm

    Yet, in every conversation about race and its implications, someone will cite the “My grandfather came here with 10 cents in his pocket and with hard work, he made it!” myth!

    As if my 3x great grandfather’s blood didn’t flow into the soil and his son’s sweat didn’t build the streets her granddad walked on. As if my grandfather didn’t get up and go to work longer, harder and for less money, a worse house and less opportunity. As if my father didn’t serve TWO TOURS in Viet Nam only to have his service downgraded and disrespected. It makes me wanna holler!

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      Cardi B's Other ShoeFlamingFeminista
      11/27/18 8:28pm

      I had some white girl whining to me about her poor, dear grandmother not having privilege when she moved here in the 40s and trying to convince me that she had it so hard as a white woman in the 2010s.

      We were in law school at the time. She could not wrap her pea brain around the “privilege” of her grandmother coming here (willingly) in the 40s with nothing, her child being able to go to college, and her grandchild being in law school sitting in my black ass face with her struggle tears when my ancestors were dragged here at least in the late 1700s and the first of their descendents to go to college was...me. Biiiiiiiitch😒...

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      FlamingFeministaCardi B's Other Shoe
      11/28/18 4:03am

      Part of white supremacy is propagating these bullshit myths about themselves and each generation embellishes them more! Oooh, I took over sooooo many college classroom discussions and even made one white girl cry breaking down that Immigrant Story bullshit (That chick wrote me an eye-opening, apologizing letter I still have today)! Professors and other white kids would try all the typical arguments but I relished the fight and bested them point by point! From immigration quotas to Detroit factory job discrimination to ethnic loan sharks to G.I. Bill bias to a bigger piece of cake over a longer time equals greater weight gain arguments, I broke them down! Classes usually ended with stunned quiet but you could almost see the walls of the cognitive dissonance crumbling!

      Aah, good times, good times!

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    Not Enough Day DrinkingMichael Harriot
    11/27/18 2:49pm

    I bought a house a few months ago. While I was looking I got into a conversation with my real estate agent (a WOC) and she nonchalantly mentioned off-hand how one neighborhood nearby is about $20,000 more per home because the schools are less integrated.

    I did a double take and looked at her like she said something crazy and she just shrugged and said ‘yeah, a lot of white people don’t want their kids to go to school with blacks and Hispanics.’

    Naturally I went home and looked up the school districts and it turns out a neighboring district (where I eventually bought my house), which was much more integrated, is actually performing better overall than the unofficially segregated one, but that hasn’t stopped white people from paying more to send their kids to worse schools.

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      anordinarygirlNot Enough Day Drinking
      11/28/18 12:49am

      Our current place is really small so we’d like to move when we have kids, ideally in the next few years. So as we look at houses near us on Zillow, we also look at the school ratings. But I don’t trust the ratings - I suspect they are partially based on some vague idea of reputation, i.e. racist perceptions. I keep hearing about how bad the schools are in my county, and it’s true that some of high school interns I’ve worked with have had to deal with gangs and scary sexual harassment in school. Yet I’ve also met some amazing young people here, who’ve gone on to great colleges and grad programs.

      So I don’t even know where to start in figuring out school quality. At least most of our friends have babies now, so maybe in a few more years I’ll have their recommendations to go on. We have one friend with toddlers that started putting together a bunch of complicated research from different sources, trying to identify schools that are high in both diversity and quality. I joked that she could probably sell her rankings to other parents like us, who are looking for trustworthy info on both metrics.

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      Ms.Moonanordinarygirl
      11/28/18 1:52pm

      The school district matters when you’re trying to sell. It usually takes longer to sell a house in an underperforming school district. My family is looking into buying a house right now and we’re not going to look outside our school district because of this.

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    Ms.MoonMichael Harriot
    11/27/18 3:34pm

    Heaven forfend you live in a black neighborhood that white folks want. You will be out of there so fast your head would spin. My mom’s uncle is in his ‘80's. He was sick and went to the hospital, went to rehab, had a fall in the rehab center had to go back to the hospital. He was back and forth in the rehab for about nine months. He has a rent stabilized apartment in Brooklyn. They want him out because Brooklyn is gentrifying at a pace now. His daughter had to go to court several times because they were trying to evict him while he was in the hospital. They were wrong and strong about it too, his daughter had to bring every doctor’s letter, hospital letters, rehab letters to make sure this man could go back home when he recovered.  He’s been in that apartment since the ‘70's when the garbage trucks didn’t want to go by because that neighborhood was “rough.”  Now Brittany and Chad want to move in and they can’t get rid of him fast enough.  

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      CousinPamMs.Moon
      11/27/18 3:44pm

      My mom’s cousin’s BK landlord STAYS trying to evict him because his place is rent-controlled (passed down from a great aunt who lived there for like 50 years) and he could get literally ten times as much for it if my cousin left. I have another cousin whose mother died and left her the brownstone she was raised in (her mother owned it and rented the top floor, including to her once she was grown; now my cousin owns it and rents out the top floor), and white people just show up and knock on the door asking to buy it - but they lowball the SHIT out of her. She calls them out and tells them that if they’re serious, they shouldn’t start off the conversation by insulting her intelligence. (Her mother died young, in her 60s; my cousin is in her 30s and looks younger like we do, so I think white people don’t expect her to know anything. She would never sell anyway.)

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      Ms.MoonCousinPam
      11/27/18 4:12pm

      Developers keep coming around my aunt in the Bronx’s house. They really want it but she’s got it the way she wants and they’re not calling enough money for it to be worth the hassle plus we were looking and if she wants anything as nice as her current house they have to start at one million dollars and she really hates the idea of moving they can start at three million before she might even consider moving.  

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    Standing8Michael Harriot
    11/27/18 2:40pm

    More people need to know about this. I am a teacher and a lot of white and Latino kids will publicly say in class, “Slavery was so long ago!” They are implying that any current inequality is due to a difference in effort and elbow grease.

    The racist history of housing and education really hits hard.  A lot of white people love to proudly proclaim how poor their ancestors were during the Great Depression, and look at them now!  Well, their families probably got to their current positions through education and home ownership, both of which were made intentionally elusive for African Americans. 

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      T-PainInTheAssStanding8
      11/27/18 4:14pm

      ...and yet asians and Indians are coming here with FAR LESS and still outperform POCs, why is that exactly??

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      Standing8T-PainInTheAss
      11/27/18 4:58pm

      East and South Asians in the US are voluntary immigrants who tend to have more resources than people in their home countries. And immigrants tend to have more motivation and gumption than non-immigrants. Don’t we Americans constantly brag about our can-do immigrant mentalities? Same deal.

      Also, yeah, Asian culture emphasizes education.  For centuries, the US tried to forcibly deny education to African Americans.  For centuries it was illegal for black people to attend universities and even to fucking read.  It is not that hard to see why they don’t have the highest test scores. 

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    The Ghost of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ AKA BabyStepsMichael Harriot
    11/27/18 2:58pm

    The transmission of wealth is one extremely important axis in understanding structural racism and how it has historically shaped black communities and black individuals.

    An oldie but goodie on the subject:

    Black Wealth/ White Wealth: A New Perspective on Racial Inequality

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    syzygyMichael Harriot
    11/27/18 6:43pm

    Love it when a well-written article with tons of references to back up its central tenets is criticized by some racist jackhole with a burner account and a hot take. And nothing else.

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      MisterPigginssyzygy
      11/27/18 11:00pm

      And especially when it’s promoted out of the grey...

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      syzygyMisterPiggins
      11/28/18 12:32pm

      It wasn’t in the grey when I responded. And the rest can stay there.

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    youralizardharryMichael Harriot
    11/29/18 9:14pm

    White person question: Is this white privilege or are white people living in a working system while black people are getting the shaft? Isn’t having a level playing field a right, not a privilege, that black people are denied?

    This matters because, from a white perspective that wants equality, everyone has a right to such opportunities. I know “privilege” calls on people like myself to be aware of our position in an unequal society, but it also sets up a dynamic where having decent things, equal access to the legal system and economic opportunities is an us/them thing.  It’s not.  I want my nice house and the police to protect and serve, but not at the expense of others.  Can’t we all have this, or is it really a privilege?

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    Volante3192Michael Harriot
    11/27/18 3:29pm

    And weren’t more black homeowners screwed by the Great Recession and subprime mortgages and haven’t recovered?

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    KdiddyMichael Harriot
    11/27/18 10:48pm

    This article describes the most affluent (richest) African-American County in the nation, Prince George’s County. Our town-homes can cost $400k+ and single family costs $550k+, which may sound like a lot for a suburb, but in the DC area they are lowest valued. The home values are doubled in any other county in the area. My parents bought their 2-story, split foyer, 1300 sq ft (grand ma’s looking house) home in Ft Washington, back in 1979 is worth about $300k+ now; the EXACT same style home in Rockville, Silver Spring etc; is worth $800k+, in the next county over just about 25 mins away.

    (side note: it’s also worth considerably more than my 2016 built, 5 bd 3 bath, 4000 sq ft home, in an “exclusive” neighborhood)

    We cant even get a Panera Bread in our shopping center, but you know what we do get, THREE different fried chicken spots and a NEW POPEYES on the way!

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