The Money Mustache Community
Other => Off Topic => Topic started by: LizzyBee on March 31, 2017, 09:25:50 PM
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If you are white or non-white, have you ever thought about how the color of your skin affects your frugality? For example, I'm white, but am married to someone who is not and we have kids together. It's really important to us that we live in the city in a diverse neighborhood. The city that we live in happens to be pretty expensive. Almost all of our friends have chosen to live in the suburbs where they can get bigger houses for less money and the schools are better. We didn't want our kids to be the only non-white kids at their school or their neighborhood so we chose to stay in the city with a more expensive house with less space (the space part doesn't matter to us, we have plenty of house for our needs).
We bought our house in our current neighborhood about 2 years ago. Our house has increased by 100,000-150,000 since we bought it. Sometimes I dream of selling and living in a LCOL area so that we can FIRE earlier, but many LCOL areas are small cities with less diversity and are less liberal (which is really important to us) so our FIRE plans include staying in our HCOL area. Yes, this is an over-generality, but I have yet to find a LCOL city that is socially progressive and diverse (suggestions welcome). Also, where we live is right in the middle of where my spouse's family lives and my family lives so there's also that factor.
I may be a bit traumatized by growing up in small mid-western town. My town was mostly pretty white, but we also had migrant workers and,later, Somali refugees. I could not believe how poorly the migrant workers and Somali refugees were treated, even by my own family members. Some people were just ignorant, many others were/are just blatantly racist. I know not all small towns are like this, but I cannot imagine voluntarily putting my husband and children in an environment like my hometown where I know they would largely be seen as a stereotype.
As a side note, I'm not intending on starting a debate about racism or whether or not small towns are welcoming places for people of color. I'm more interested in how you think your skin color has played into your ability (or not) to be frugal.
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I used to live in a low-cost rented room in an urban area composed almost entirely of African Americans. I am white. I got a lot of nasty comments that made me feel pretty uncomfortable. That's one of the reasons I moved to a more racially diverse suburban community. It's a little more expensive, but I feel more welcome here. It's unfortunate that people have to be that way. You'd think people of all races would be a little more tolerant of one another in the 21st century.
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I don't know... Interesting question!
Re: Feeling limited in options for progressive areas, I think a lot of HCOL areas can be low-cost, depending on how we live within it. I also think there's sometimes more diversity in small towns (my personal preference) than folks might notice at first glance. I.e., At a community meeting recently, we were asked to declare what we love about the area. I said the diversity. Someone automatically interpreted it as "lack of diversity" and wrote that down, while people nodded. I was all, WTF? We have a few hundred people here, and among them are lots of gay people, lots of straight people, at least 12 heritages visible in the tiny school, mixed-race families, folks with disabilities, a wide range of political leanings... Then I realized the people at the meeting don't hang out outside of a sort of WASPy circle. So, they see only white, upper middle class, straight, and I see this whole other dimension goin' on. This blew me away. Anyway, just saying I think there may be more wonderful places out there, that are also affordable... Though the family support piece I would hang on to for dear life :)
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My analysis of where to live is more driven by data about hate groups and their membership numbers than %race x or %ethnicity y in a given area. I find diversity of life experience more important than diversity of race/ethnicity. Being non-white and growing up in a small town, I feel that the majority of people are either not bigots or are able to keep it together enough in public for that not to be a problem. This is especially true if you're rich and thus not economically influenced by them (i.e. need a job). The dangerous people are the hate groups that feel emboldened enough by their membership numbers to be active bigots (KKK, Aryan Nation, etc). Again, they are a tiny minority but their influence in a given area is a barometer of the area's overall tolerance of other ethnicities. As other point out, there are many low-cost areas that are worth considering. It's more complicated with children since it is harder to protect them from the casual bigotry that children can learn at home. With that in mind, I would be unwilling to live in a non-diverse area while they are young.
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Skin colour doesn't matter. What I look at when choosing a place to live is crime stats, average income, quality of schools, and transit. As a white dude, I'm in a minority in my neighbourhood (80% of which is made up of new/recent immigrants from India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Thailand, China, and Jamaica) but this has never really been a concern, or caused any problems. We do have kick ass access to small grocery stores that keep ingredients I'd never heard of before, but now regularly cook with so I'd be unhappy to have to leave.
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It's never even crossed my mind to look up the racial stats of an area before moving there. My top few concerns would be proximity to work and amenities, transit access, and being in a walkable place that I enjoy spending time in. It's also never crossed my mind to look up political breakdowns of areas before moving there, because again, 100% do not care.
As far as our own skin colour and political affiliations, we're a mixed asian/white couple who are centrist/slightly right wing.
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Look for a university town... Avoid the small minded folks if you find any wherever you live. I'm sure we have them here (small town) but I never rub shoulders with them b/c I choose "my people" carefully. "Our people" is everyone of any background with a brain that actively makes use of it. ;)
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Interesting topic. I hadn't thought of it this way before. We are a mixed couple and I credit the fact that my husband is an immigrant to part of the reason he is so frugal.
To the other point of the OP, we too choose to stay in a HCOL area in large part due to the diversity. I want my mixed-race, multi-lingual kid growing up thinking that she and our family situation is normal. Indeed in our neighborhood it is almost more common to have parents who speak multiple languages to their kids than to be growing up in a monolingual house. This also means that her daycare is in language A while later she will go to a public immersion program in language B.
Related to that, I turned down a relocation offer to FL recently and HR emailed me today asking why. I gave them e two primary reasons: one was the lack of diversity with the other being the opportunity cost of my husband giving up his career to follow me on a move. I wonder how that will go down with the person reading the email?
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I can't understand the thinking that LCOL Midwest cities=no diversity and conservative politics.
I live in St. Louis where the Republican Party is pretty much a joke, it barely hangs in there. All but one Aldermen and mayors of the past decades have been Democrats.
For new immigrant populations we have many Bosnians, , second in number only to the mother county. We have significant Somali, Vietnamese, Chinese, in the city and fabulous ethnic restaurants of many countries.
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We expect to stay in our current HCOLA for similar reasons, OP. I don't think it's diversity so much as "critical mass" of the subset I identify with (non-white but integrated with the dominant culture). There are enough of us that I'm a visible minority but mostly seen as just a regular person (people in my subset are so commonplace that we're accepted and considered pretty normal).
If we move towns I don't want to just move someplace with other mixed-race families and mixed-race children. I want to move somewhere that mixed-race families and children are so commonplace that we're just another regular family and our kids will be seen as just a couple of normal kids. I feel excluded and a bit unwelcome when it seems my skin colour or ethnicity are viewed as my defining characteristic. I'm a regular person and want to live someplace where I feel I'm viewed that way.
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I live in the lowest COL area, adjusted for income, in all of Canada. I find OP assumption that LCOL means white and white means non-diverse very offensive. It white washes significant differences of groups. Pun intended. Where I live a significant percent of the population are Arcadians with a distinct culture; just because they are white doesn't mean they aren't different. We also have Italians and Greeks. Again, very cultural different. And Slavs. And Indians. And Asians.
Just because a population may be low on one type of skin complexion, it doesn't mean they are bigoted and culturally monotone. Take the super progressive Nordic countries in Europe for example. They have the reputation of being bastions of progressivism yet have populations writers than lined loose leaf paper. They're not even very culturally diverse.
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I live in the lowest COL area, adjusted for income, in all of Canada. I find OP assumption that LCOL means white and white means non-diverse very offensive. It white washes significant differences of groups. Pun intended. Where I live a significant percent of the population are Arcadians with a distinct culture; just because they are white doesn't mean they aren't different. We also have Italians and Greeks. Again, very cultural different. And Slavs. And Indians. And Asians.
Just because a population may be low on one type of skin complexion, it doesn't mean they are bigoted and culturally monotone. Take the super progressive Nordic countries in Europe for example. They have the reputation of being bastions of progressivism yet have populations writers than lined loose leaf paper. They're not even very culturally diverse.
+++!!!
Ed Shreyer and Ray Hnatyshyn were certainly white men, but probably not the cultural monotone OP was thinking about (and I doubt the US has had less diverse immigration than Canada has). Both from the prairies, both of Ukrainian descent - not a big surprise there. Come to think of it, Roland Michener was from Alberta, so we certainly got geographic diversity going early.*
Growing up in Quebec, I looked like the majority until I opened my mouth, and out came the English.
*For non-Canadians, these are all former Governors-General. So very well-known and respected people in public life. I say people, not men, because being male is not a requirement for being appointed GG, as Jean Sauve et al. have demonstrated.
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I live in Indianapolis, and my family and my nearby neighbors are well mixed. Also, Indianapolis is super LCOL. I love it!
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I live in Indianapolis, and my family and my nearby neighbors are well mixed. Also, Indianapolis is super LCOL. I love it!
I was thinking of Indy as well in this discussion.
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I live in Indianapolis, and my family and my nearby neighbors are well mixed. Also, Indianapolis is super LCOL. I love it!
I was thinking of Indy as well in this discussion.
Yes! All Mustachians should move to Indianapolis.
There are plenty of jobs in every sector, LCOL, and lots of great features. #1 Childrens Museum in the world, Indianapolis Art Museum is gorgeous, downtown is safe and accessible, decent Zoo, etc.
The only thing I wish we could have is more suburbs with bike-ability.
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I want to move somewhere that mixed-race families and children are so commonplace that we're just another regular family and our kids will be seen as just a couple of normal kids. I feel excluded and a bit unwelcome when it seems my skin colour or ethnicity are viewed as my defining characteristic. I'm a regular person and want to live someplace where I feel I'm viewed that way.
This is exactly my sentiment but much better stated. As a white woman who has mostly always fit in (well, except the part of being a woman in engineering, hah), so I'm trying to be sensitive to the experience of my family that I myself mostly don't live personally. Ultimately I want my daughter to grow up being seen as a normal kid and judged by her character and talents and personality, not by the way she looks or what her parents look like.
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I live in the lowest COL area, adjusted for income, in all of Canada. I find OP assumption that LCOL means white and white means non-diverse very offensive. It white washes significant differences of groups. Pun intended. Where I live a significant percent of the population are Arcadians with a distinct culture; just because they are white doesn't mean they aren't different. We also have Italians and Greeks. Again, very cultural different. And Slavs. And Indians. And Asians.
Just because a population may be low on one type of skin complexion, it doesn't mean they are bigoted and culturally monotone. Take the super progressive Nordic countries in Europe for example. They have the reputation of being bastions of progressivism yet have populations writers than lined loose leaf paper. They're not even very culturally diverse.
I have been thinking that another reason the OP would greatly enjoy St. Louis is that everything here is about race. Since that is her predominant point of view in making decisions, she would fit right in here.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/11/top-20-states-interracial-dating-infographic_n_1959131.html (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/11/top-20-states-interracial-dating-infographic_n_1959131.html)
Indiana made this list at #19. Not sure if this really means anything, but thought I'd share.
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color of skin, no. But I'm single and childfree. I do not have much in common with suburban families and it is painfully uncomfortable for me to live in the burbs.
I moved to a much higher COLA and into much more expensive house but it's completely worth it to me because there are others like me here. We relate on a much deeper level than even my family members.
I also live in a mixed-income community (million dollar homes share walls with subsidized public housing). I don't think it's skin color so much as finding a like-minded community. Although, living where I do, I have been exposed much more to the "why do white/black people do this"? type of question. It's pretty funny. Yes, white people lower their voices when they're angry and the windows are open. Yes, black people seem to really like their bass. Being able to laugh about these stereotypes gives us a way to look at each other and understand more without harmful judgment.
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I live in a LCOL city in the northeast and it is much less expensive to live in the (very diverse) city than it is in the (much less diverse) suburbs. I am kind of baffled by this post.
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color of skin, no. But I'm single and childfree. I do not have much in common with suburban families and it is painfully uncomfortable for me to live in the burbs.
I moved to a much higher COLA and into much more expensive house but it's completely worth it to me because there are others like me here. We relate on a much deeper level than even my family members.
I also live in a mixed-income community (million dollar homes share walls with subsidized public housing). I don't think it's skin color so much as finding a like-minded community. Although, living where I do, I have been exposed much more to the "why do white/black people do this"? type of question. It's pretty funny. Yes, white people lower their voices when they're angry and the windows are open. Yes, black people seem to really like their bass. Being able to laugh about these stereotypes gives us a way to look at each other and understand more without harmful judgment.
So you choose to live in a like-minded community........to be in a more diverse environment.......have you considered diversity of thought?
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I live in a city in the Northeast that is slightly higher than average COL. In my area, houses in the city are cheaper than houses in the suburbs, but generally have higher property taxes and much worse schools. Dh and I are white, our kids are Asian.
The suburb we live in has a range of housing prices, from the low 100,000s to the multi-million. It has an excellent school system and low taxes. The school district is pretty diverse, not quite as many African-Americans as the US as a whole, but a lot of Asian-Americans and a lot of immigrants from all over. We have some surrounding suburbs that have much higher taxes, slightly better schools and much less diversity.
The diversity is important for us. We have relatives in rural VT. When we go out in public with our kids, we get noticeable stares, something that never happens at home. I wouldn't choose to raise our kids in a place like that.
The political climate is also very important to us. I couldn't live in a conservative state.
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We bought our house in our current neighborhood about 2 years ago. Our house has increased by 100,000-150,000 since we bought it. Sometimes I dream of selling and living in a LCOL area so that we can FIRE earlier, but many LCOL areas are small cities with less diversity and are less liberal (which is really important to us) so our FIRE plans include staying in our HCOL area. Yes, this is an over-generality, but I have yet to find a LCOL city that is socially progressive and diverse (suggestions welcome). Also, where we live is right in the middle of where my spouse's family lives and my family lives so there's also that factor.
http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2017-03-26/c-us-message-youre-welcome-here.html -- Champaign/Urbana/Savoy. Housing is inexpensive for what you get, the bus system is top notch thanks to the university, and if you're still working the average commute is well under the national average, even considering people tooling in from the all-white small towns ~30 minutes away. Champaign/Urbana/UofI are fairly bike friendly (but watch out for the drivers who are sick of college kids behaving badly on bikes and take it out on you). Good and authentic Chinese/Thai/Mexican cuisine. We used to have a good Greek place, but they've since closed. Indian cuisine is a weak spot compared to Bloomington-Normal according to the Indian folks I've worked with previously, but it seems pretty on-par to me vs the Indian places near my folks in the Chicago suburbs. YMMV. The university is a great moderator on the housing market -- we didn't have a crash in 2008 -- sure the market cooled, but nobody lost half their house's value. The flip side of that is houses also don't appreciate much either. We've been in ours for 12 years now and we'd make substantially less than S&P500 returns on it if we were to sell.
Side benefits: Indy, St Louis, and Chicago are within day-trip distance if you want the cultural attractions occasionally.
It isn't all rainbows and unicorns. There are certainly the racist/nationalist types, even at the university. There's been anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, etc -- graffiti since Trump demarginalized that sort of behavior, but by and large its a minority that tends to get put in their place by the rest of the community.
The biggest downside I'd give is that winter is not bike weather. We're on the thaw/freeze line, so we get a lot of AM ice slicks and the snowplows tend to dump snow into the bike lane, so you're forced to resort to sidewalks (often not shoveled and/or iced over) or ride fully in the road. Oh, and property taxes are pretty high, and it means you're living under the disaster that is the State of Illinois Government.
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So you choose to live in a like-minded community........to be in a more diverse environment.......have you considered diversity of thought?
Although this wasn't asked of me, specifically, I'll note that personally, I need both to thrive. I spend a whole bunch of hours every week intentionally exposed to diversity of thought (etc), and rely on home to be a space where I'm almost automatically "gotten" and where for a few hours everything I do and say easily makes sense to others (not a common experience in my bigger world, lol).
About folks staring...When I travelled in places where my colouring was uncommon, people stared, tried to touch me, gasped, etc. I wouldn't wish that on children or others in their home area :) On the other hand, when I was a visible minority in my Vancouver BC neighbourhood, no one blinked an eye because while a minority, people were also "used to" my minority, thus no gasping.
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color of skin, no. But I'm single and childfree. I do not have much in common with suburban families and it is painfully uncomfortable for me to live in the burbs.
I moved to a much higher COLA and into much more expensive house but it's completely worth it to me because there are others like me here. We relate on a much deeper level than even my family members.
I also live in a mixed-income community (million dollar homes share walls with subsidized public housing). I don't think it's skin color so much as finding a like-minded community. Although, living where I do, I have been exposed much more to the "why do white/black people do this"? type of question. It's pretty funny. Yes, white people lower their voices when they're angry and the windows are open. Yes, black people seem to really like their bass. Being able to laugh about these stereotypes gives us a way to look at each other and understand more without harmful judgment.
So you choose to live in a like-minded community........to be in a more diverse environment.......have you considered diversity of thought?
Why yes, I have and I think about it quite often, but to which of my statements are you referring? The comment that I felt like dying out in suburbia, or the comment that I literally hear such stereotypes in my mixed income community and that we have used those stereotypes in helping to open the dialogues between the two communities so that we can also see commonality? (I say two communities for a reason, and it's based on something unique to my community, not really skin color.
Kayvent, I am aware that I lived most of my life in a white cocoon. Sometimes it's hard to even notice that I take certain things for granted until I'm smacked in the face with them. So if I'm missing something that more enlightened people would or should see, then feel free to point it out to me fully rather than with a short snark-snipe.
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For 2 years, I lived in a suburb outside of San Francisco, that was primarily white. It was creepy and weird, coming from a large city suburb in Canada, including those in Manitoba, Alberta, and Vancouver. We also stuck out a lot, with a car the wrong colour and the wrong age (7 years old), hanging laundry in the rear yard, mowing our own lawn, driving "gasp" through the "bad" area of town (on a freaking main road/highway) to get to the city's airport, zoo, etc.
I think some of it was the greater populations in the US. When I grew up, you maybe had 5 blocks of "like" people living with "like", but the schools and grocery stores and workplaces were all mixed with several different ethnicities. In California, it was whole towns of 50 blocks of "like to like". Perhaps because the population is 10x larger.
The strangest day was when we drove to the nearby lake / beach park on a hot summer day. Typical cheap family day we would do at our previous locations. It was a maybe 15 minute drive from our heavily white population city/suburb, with mostly other white suburbs around. Out of hundreds of people, we were one of 4 white families, and there was only 2-3 black families and one asian family. WTF? It was like a sci-fi movie where we entered another dimension. It was a beautiful location with great friendly people, too. I still don't get it. At all. Why would people miss out on this fabulousness so close to them?
I have no idea why this happens, that people self-group en masse, other than perhaps due to the larger populations that exaggerate underlying collections.
I do believe that there are a lot of LCOL neighborhoods with like visible minorities in the USA, just as there are white LCOL towns.... So, maybe you just need to find them, and find one that feels right to you?
But IMO, you are correct to think that diverse (multi-racial) blended areas in LCOL can be hard to find, and worth paying a little more for to live in.
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I have no idea why this happens, that people self-group en masse, other than perhaps due to the larger populations that exaggerate underlying collections.
This is a good resource to understand how even very small biases towards not standing out from all their neighbors when people choose where to live can produce very homogenous blocks over time.
http://ncase.me/polygons/
(If you're in a hurry scroll down to "run this simulation a few times. what happens?" and run that).
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That was so groovy!!!!
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My neighborhood is very diverse, which is something I need to feel comfortable. The people in my house and extended family represent diverse cultures and socioeconomic statuses, so that's what I'm most comfortable with.
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We live in a college town. It's not big but there's a lot of culture and it's much cheaper then living in the neighboring city. We're white but we tend to live in places that provide a diverse culture, college towns generally guarantee that thank goodness. I don't want to live in an mostly white area. Opinions tend to be narrow.
Side note though... i read this originally and thought, yeah, as a pale white person, i do spend a good amount of money on sunblock and UV filtering clothes for outside.
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It doesn't.
I select my environment for characteristics that are desirable to me. More often than not it is tied to some diversity of backgrounds, but if something offers what I am looking for and there is no egregious case of discrimination, I waste no sleep over what that means for social justice.
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While the people I know are kind and accepting, rural Maine isn't exactly known for its racial diversity. That doesn't really factor into my choice of locales, though. I love western Maine for the natural beauty of the area - the lakes and the mountains - all other factors be damned. Most of my neighbors are 30 years older than I am, and we live in different worlds economically. When it comes down to it I have basically nothing in common with them except a shared love of where we are, and I couldn't care less.
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Ethnicity wise, I'm Han Chinese, so there's sometimes there's this interesting, conflicting assumption that I'm A) super cheap because Chinese people are just super cheap, and B) super rich and about to drop big bank on brand name things because a lot of Chinese ex-pats are million frillionaires and love spending money. I'm neither (well, moderately cheap), so it's sometimes a disappointment to people who know me well when I don't fulfill the expected stereotypes.
In terms of how it impacts my life, it absolutely shapes where I would go, live, and work, and any place I'd consider moving to. I grew up in an area with a very diverse population and also a large Taiwanese community, so I never thought of myself as 'different' or 'strange' compared to the other kids I would see at school.
Going to college, I met other people who had the opposite experience-- their skin color always set them apart in their community, and they had a difficult time relating to their culture of origin and wanting/not wanting to be like the (usually white) children they grew up with. I identify very strongly with my own culture, and wouldn't feel at home in a place where I couldn't find my community, Chinese/east asian grocery stories, or see people who look 'like me' on the regular.
I've been places where people gawped at me or made comments because of how I look and the color of my skin, and it was.... well, just as alienating as one could expect. Or even when people weren't outright rude or staring, you can always tell that they're not really sure what to make of you, like you aren't just another person in the long line of random people they see each and every day. Personally, I'd never choose to put myself in a position where I'm dealing with that every day.
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I have to buy sunscreen
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I have no idea why this happens, that people self-group en masse, other than perhaps due to the larger populations that exaggerate underlying collections.
This is a good resource to understand how even very small biases towards not standing out from all their neighbors when people choose where to live can produce very homogenous blocks over time.
http://ncase.me/polygons/
(If you're in a hurry scroll down to "run this simulation a few times. what happens?" and run that).
Very cool
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Wow. What an odd discussion. I currently live in a 97% white, small-town, LCOL, midwest, conservative area. With my spouse who is not white, and my kids who are mixed race. Never once had to worry that they were being mistreated because of their race. People are sometimes curious, but generally polite about it.
Moving my family to a nice, quiet, crime-free midwestern small town was no problem. Seriously. Where do people get these bigoted ideas from?
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Two discussions here:
1. Would you pay more to live in a racially diverse area?
Nope. I've said on another thread that I wouldn't mind living in an area full of white conservatives as long as they were decent people. I grew up in an upper middle class white area and am about to move to a working class white & black one. The one thing that bugs me about the area is the amount of litter, so I guess my ideal area would be ever so slightly aspirational lower middle class. :)
2. Does your skin colour affect your frugality?
YES. I am white, well-educated and have a posh accent. This means that when I do "poor people" things like not own a car, cut my own hair, walk around the house and garden in bare feet, buy second-hand clothes and furniture, hang-dry my laundry...(the list goes on!) I am regarded as charmingly eccentric and slightly bohemian rather than scummy. My sofa cost half what the cheapest DFS one would have cost but people think I must have paid a bomb for it because I must be a rich white girl. (And because it's really nice and just needed the trim fixing up a little :)) Basically, I can do pretty much whatever the hell I like and people won't think I'm scummy, even though they would despise someone black with a Jamaican accent who lived the exact same way.
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Wow. What an odd discussion. I currently live in a 97% white, small-town, LCOL, midwest, conservative area. With my spouse who is not white, and my kids who are mixed race. Never once had to worry that they were being mistreated because of their race. People are sometimes curious, but generally polite about it.
Moving my family to a nice, quiet, crime-free midwestern small town was no problem. Seriously. Where do people get these bigoted ideas from?
You are one data point. The plural of anecdote is not data.
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I'm not white. Not quite.
But my mix makes me look like I'm white. Especially for people or areas where white is normal. I've lived in areas where white was normal and I was okay because I was white, and it was absolutely beyond belief terrifying. As an adult, I definitely take an areas diversity into account when deciding where to live, and I'm happy that so many parents do that for their kids.
In my experience, English is a foreign anguish if you're in an area with one English, and one culture, but when you're in a multicultural environment then everyone's language is shared and borrowed and loved.
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I don't care if people are white, black, purple or green. Behavior and character are what influence my decisions, not skin color. I believe it is racist to treat people differently based on race (here's looking at you, affirmative action).
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I'm white, grew up in University towns in the Midwest.
We live in a very white area and I hate that aspect of it. It doesn't bother my H. I want my kids to not grow up as the super majority. In our case our whole county is white. And other areas we've looked to relocate are very segregated- and of course the schools are horrible in the more black areas (that is a whole seperate thread!). So I think we would end up in the same situation. Because my kid has ASD and even though I think greatschools et al is shit, and that "bad" schools can provide a great education, I need him to be in the school that has the most money to hire speech therapist etc. A D that is the all white school.
With the exception of University towns, which so far we haven't found jobs in. If anyone wants to hire 2 chemical engineers in a lcol University town, let me know!
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University towns are definitely my own preferred solution.
Outside of university towns I've lived in multiple places that were ~50% white and places that are >90% white or >95% han chinese. Sometimes no-single-majority communities are awesome, sometimes there is still incredibly strong social segregation with unwritten rules about who goes to which stores or which restaurants. I've lived in both types of places. Sometimes largely homogeneous communities are that way because they are unwelcoming to outsiders. Sometimes largely homogeneous communities can be incredibly friendly and welcoming. I've been fortunate that, as far as I've seen, I have only lived in the latter -- either a person who could blend into the crowd or one who stuck out like a sore thumb -- but wouldn't argue the the former don't exist.
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I'm white and I have never lived in a majority white neighborhood. It's either been approximately 50/50, or whites in the neighborhood are actually the minority. Excluding my neighborhood in Japan (which I'm 99% certain was all Japanese except for me and my DH...), the previous place I lived had the least number of white people. I lived in an apartment complex in a suburb of Atlanta. There was more African American and Hispanic people than white people there. I didn't pick the cheapest of the cheap place to live, but it was certainly on the cheaper side.
Being childfree makes me able to be more frugal in the housing department than anything racial related. I don't have to pay the price premium on housing that is in the district of a good school.
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Wow. What an odd discussion. I currently live in a 97% white, small-town, LCOL, midwest, conservative area. With my spouse who is not white, and my kids who are mixed race. Never once had to worry that they were being mistreated because of their race. People are sometimes curious, but generally polite about it.
Moving my family to a nice, quiet, crime-free midwestern small town was no problem. Seriously. Where do people get these bigoted ideas from?
You are one data point. The plural of anecdote is not data.
I knew someone would be along to marginalized his experience. Only two posts below his. Excellent reactive time!
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Wow. What an odd discussion. I currently live in a 97% white, small-town, LCOL, midwest, conservative area. With my spouse who is not white, and my kids who are mixed race. Never once had to worry that they were being mistreated because of their race. People are sometimes curious, but generally polite about it.
Moving my family to a nice, quiet, crime-free midwestern small town was no problem. Seriously. Where do people get these bigoted ideas from?
You are one data point. The plural of anecdote is not data.
I knew someone would be along to marginalized his experience. Only two posts below his. Excellent reactive time!
I appreciated Kris's comment. Other people's experiences should not summarily dismissed as "bigoted ideas" simply because they don't align with Tom Bri's experience.
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Something I didn't mention in my first post, because it is hard to write out politely, is that my white parent does not think that I was exposed to racism or dealt with racism, exoticism or othering at any of many points in my life, including childhood. He doesn't know that I've dealt with it from his own family, from his friends, from neighbours, because his world is very different.
A very common example in my multicultural world stems around food, and which food is acceptable in the workplace. [a whole bunch of examples edited out because I can't write about this with politeness and clarity].
Another, is for children happily bringing home food in their lunches. How is that received by classmates and teachers? Again, I've seen different schools' reactions. My father hasn't, because in our culture, his home food is just food.
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A weird thing I've witnessed two recent experiences of:
If a person has a specific heritage reflected in their last name or other "heritage giveaways", and we steward our finances, we're told it's because we're x culture. It makes no sense, because gauging by the MMM forum alone, heaps of different people from all sorts of backgrounds are stewarding their finances. But some people have their heritage pointed to -in a derisive way- as the reason.
It sucks that some people are bigoted like that, yes, but I do think it's totally okay to acknowledge where we're affected by that -or by others' fully expressed daily curiousity, questions, etc. Sometimes we get tired and feel the need to be free of all that. That's okay, of course. We're allowed respite. Not everyone has been on the receiving end of frequent curiousity, assessments based on colour or name, etc, so they might not know how affected one can ultimately feel.
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A weird thing I've witnessed two recent experiences of:
If a person has a specific heritage reflected in their last name or other "heritage giveaways", and we steward our finances, we're told it's because we're x culture. It makes no sense, because gauging by the MMM forum alone, heaps of different people from all sorts of backgrounds are stewarding their finances. But some people have their heritage pointed to -in a derisive way- as the reason.
It sucks that some people are bigoted like that, yes, but I do think it's totally okay to acknowledge where we're affected by that -or by others' fully expressed daily curiousity, questions, etc. Sometimes we get tired and feel the need to be free of all that. That's okay, of course. We're allowed respite. Not everyone has been on the receiving end of frequent curiousity, assessments based on colour or name, etc, so they might not know how affected one can ultimately feel.
Related to this, I notice people from many ethnicities grab the mantle of "frugality" as their own, taking proud ownership of finding good value. But really, there are MANY ethnicities that have a reputation for being frugal. As a thrifty Scotswoman, I claim frugality as our national identity. I wont give more examples because I would probably insult someone unintentionally. Suffice to say many are proud of their frugal heritage even if it stems from poverty, as most do.
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Wow. What an odd discussion. I currently live in a 97% white, small-town, LCOL, midwest, conservative area. With my spouse who is not white, and my kids who are mixed race. Never once had to worry that they were being mistreated because of their race. People are sometimes curious, but generally polite about it.
Moving my family to a nice, quiet, crime-free midwestern small town was no problem. Seriously. Where do people get these bigoted ideas from?
You are one data point. The plural of anecdote is not data.
I knew someone would be along to marginalized his experience. Only two posts below his. Excellent reactive time!
Not at all. It is awesome that he lives in an area where he doesn't experience racism. Tom Bris was doing the marginalizing.
"Seriously," he said. "Where do people get these bigoted (sic) ideas from?"
So, he uses his one experience to negate all other experiences. And yet *I* am the one doing the marginalizing
Uh-huh.
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Something I didn't mention in my first post, because it is hard to write out politely, is that my white parent does not think that I was exposed to racism or dealt with racism, exoticism or othering at any of many points in my life, including childhood. He doesn't know that I've dealt with it from his own family, from his friends, from neighbours, because his world is very different.
A very common example in my multicultural world stems around food, and which food is acceptable in the workplace. [a whole bunch of examples edited out because I can't write about this with politeness and clarity].
Another, is for children happily bringing home food in their lunches. How is that received by classmates and teachers? Again, I've seen different schools' reactions. My father hasn't, because in our culture, his home food is just food.
Please tell us more!
This is the stuff that as a white person, I'm sure I've done. But I reeeeeeeally am trying to learn and do better and virtually all my learning is online.
Stuff like the food thing is so duh! But I never thought of it before. Because I'm majority culture and apparently have my head up my ass.
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Something I didn't mention in my first post, because it is hard to write out politely, is that my white parent does not think that I was exposed to racism or dealt with racism, exoticism or othering at any of many points in my life, including childhood. He doesn't know that I've dealt with it from his own family, from his friends, from neighbours, because his world is very different.
A very common example in my multicultural world stems around food, and which food is acceptable in the workplace. [a whole bunch of examples edited out because I can't write about this with politeness and clarity].
Another, is for children happily bringing home food in their lunches. How is that received by classmates and teachers? Again, I've seen different schools' reactions. My father hasn't, because in our culture, his home food is just food.
Please tell us more!
This is the stuff that as a white person, I'm sure I've done. But I reeeeeeeally am trying to learn and do better and virtually all my learning is online.
Stuff like the food thing is so duh! But I never thought of it before. Because I'm majority culture and apparently have my head up my ass.
+1.
But I will cop to feeling like fish should not ever be reheated in the work microwave. No matter what.
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Me too, but if everyone around us always ate fish for every meal, we probably wouldn't feel that way.
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This means that when I do "poor people" things like not own a car, cut my own hair, walk around the house and garden in bare feet, buy second-hand clothes and furniture, hang-dry my laundry...(the list goes on!) I am regarded as charmingly eccentric and slightly bohemian rather than scummy. My sofa cost half what the cheapest DFS one would have cost but people think I must have paid a bomb for it because I must be a rich white girl.
I think this is such a great observation. I have only experienced life in the body of a white woman, but I have found myself vaguely aware of and grateful for the fact that society generally treats me as respectable and non-threatening unless I do something to indicate otherwise. I don't worry about going to a car dealership wearing jeans and a t-shirt and having them doubt my financial well-being. I don't think twice about hanging around a public park with little kids or approaching someone else's little kid and have people suspect I am a creeper.
I had an interesting experience a few months back where I was sitting in our neighborhood little park after dark wearing a big hoodie. I was playing Pokemon Go outside where it was cold so I was dressed for warmth, which upon later reflection made me look like a hoodlum. Some cops were checking out something outside the park (maybe a car had been broken into?) with their flashlights but I was totally absorbed with my game, so I was only vaguely aware of some lights. I got up to walk home and head a voice shout behind me "stop, come back here!", with a light trained in my direction. As a small woman alone at night my instinct was to run home, not stop. I said something like "no, thank you" and walked very quickly the block back to my house. It was only safely inside when I saw the cop car slowly cruise my street that I realized that had just happened. How easy would it have been for me to be chased down, or god forbid, shot in the back had I been playing Pokemon Go in a different neighborhood?
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This discussion is interesting. It's something DW and I have talked about many times in the past while daydreaming of where we might live post ER.
My wife and daughter are Asian and I'm white. For the past 20+ years and all of our daughter's childhood we lived in Hawaii where white people are a minority. Our daughter's elementary school class was about 50/50 white/non white kids. In 2016 we lived for a semester in a neighborhood where I was one of only a small handful of whites.
Before we married, my wife lived for about a decade on the U.S. Mainland, first in Boston and then in Texas, where she says she experienced occasional nasty comments but generally people were, at least superficially, nice to her. She refers to people in TX as being "southern nice."
Right now, post FIRE, we're slow traveling around Asia, where I am again in the minority. Some day, we'll probably go back to the US, but we haven't yet decided where we'll live. I liked Hawaii and really don't mind being outnumbered by non-whites. Mostly people are nice to me even though I'm white. Interestingly, my wife expressed last night when we talked about it, that at some point it might be good for our daughter to be exposed to a little more "diversity" by living in a majority white small town somewhere in the U.S. DW said she thought that experience had been good for her as a young adult and might be a good learning experience for our daughter as well. I'm still a little skeptical. Somehow, I'd rather be the one getting discriminated against rather than my little girl...
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That's an interesting idea. I am Asian and grew up in a small town, while my wife grew up in the San Francisco area. I have zero interest in returning to my "home" town. That became negative interest after my son was born. I realized that there's nothing anyone back home could say that would let me think raising him in a discriminatory environment was a good idea. Yeah, it made me grow up faster than my peers, but the toxic thinking that permeates my hometown isn't worth a damn second of anyone's time. Maybe that's why almost everyone who was successful in that town left as soon as possible, regardless of skin color. Maybe, also, other small towns are more welcoming...
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I agree with you, Abe. There's no way I would agree to living in a town where we didn't feel comfortable that our daughter and we were accepted.
Maybe we could move to @Tom Bri's town. Sounds like it may be nice there. Where do you live Tom?
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^ Come to my town!!!! It is the bestest, most inclusive small town! And pretty! And lovely! And diverse!
More inclusive if you're lesbian... And we lost our rockin' home here, so are actually moving on to a different small town... But if you have $500k for a house, come here!
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Where Juniflorisploo?
We're not planning on ever buying a house again, just renting. What are rents like?
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Bazillions of dollars! lol. ($1700 and up for a decently nice two-bedroom. I scored a skookum work-exchange deal for these years of paradise, but it ended.) Hence my wandering off...
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This means that when I do "poor people" things like not own a car, cut my own hair, walk around the house and garden in bare feet, buy second-hand clothes and furniture, hang-dry my laundry...(the list goes on!) I am regarded as charmingly eccentric and slightly bohemian rather than scummy. My sofa cost half what the cheapest DFS one would have cost but people think I must have paid a bomb for it because I must be a rich white girl.
I think this is such a great observation. I have only experienced life in the body of a white woman, but I have found myself vaguely aware of and grateful for the fact that society generally treats me as respectable and non-threatening unless I do something to indicate otherwise. I don't worry about going to a car dealership wearing jeans and a t-shirt and having them doubt my financial well-being. I don't think twice about hanging around a public park with little kids or approaching someone else's little kid and have people suspect I am a creeper.
I had an interesting experience a few months back where I was sitting in our neighborhood little park after dark wearing a big hoodie. I was playing Pokemon Go outside where it was cold so I was dressed for warmth, which upon later reflection made me look like a hoodlum. Some cops were checking out something outside the park (maybe a car had been broken into?) with their flashlights but I was totally absorbed with my game, so I was only vaguely aware of some lights. I got up to walk home and head a voice shout behind me "stop, come back here!", with a light trained in my direction. As a small woman alone at night my instinct was to run home, not stop. I said something like "no, thank you" and walked very quickly the block back to my house. It was only safely inside when I saw the cop car slowly cruise my street that I realized that had just happened. How easy would it have been for me to be chased down, or god forbid, shot in the back had I been playing Pokemon Go in a different neighborhood?
Exactly! If I'm sat alone on a park bench in the middle of the day watching the world go by, I'm just there. If a black boy in a tracksuit is watching the world go by, he's an unemployed loser who's probably meeting his drug dealer. It's my accent too - people hear me speak and say "Wow, you must be really clever." Honestly, I would say that I probably am above average, but that has nothing to do with my accent and I have met some real dopes who speak just like me.
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Something I didn't mention in my first post, because it is hard to write out politely, is that my white parent does not think that I was exposed to racism or dealt with racism, exoticism or othering at any of many points in my life, including childhood. He doesn't know that I've dealt with it from his own family, from his friends, from neighbours, because his world is very different.
A very common example in my multicultural world stems around food, and which food is acceptable in the workplace. [a whole bunch of examples edited out because I can't write about this with politeness and clarity].
Another, is for children happily bringing home food in their lunches. How is that received by classmates and teachers? Again, I've seen different schools' reactions. My father hasn't, because in our culture, his home food is just food.
Please tell us more!
This is the stuff that as a white person, I'm sure I've done. But I reeeeeeeally am trying to learn and do better and virtually all my learning is online.
Stuff like the food thing is so duh! But I never thought of it before. Because I'm majority culture and apparently have my head up my ass.
+1.
But I will cop to feeling like fish should not ever be reheated in the work microwave. No matter what.
My examples included cases where ALL fragrant foods were excluded vs. cases where 'white people' fragrant foods were accepted, but not anyone elses.
Mayday, I'm sorry, but I can't be the one to teach you :). I included a few stories because I do think that this is a very real issue and that parents don't always know what their children's experience are - sometimes I don't even know I've been discriminated against until months or years later, when I finally comprehend someone meant to insult me, or accidentally infringed on my rights. But entering into these discussions online opens me up to people discrediting my experience, or arguing, or my accidentally hurting someone's feelings. None of these are things I have energy for right now. But I'm really happy that you like learning, and I hope you find some great sources.
I referenced a few pieces of literature that help me process my experience in my first post. I'm posting links to people and theories you might find interesting:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homi_K._Bhabha
http://www.nourbese.com/poetry/she-tries-her-tongue/ (look for the poem Discourse on Language online)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postcolonial_literature
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I may be outing myself as a bigot according to some of the above standards, but a large motivation for living in the particular area I do is the racial and cultural diversity of the school district. Yeah- we look at crime stats and standardized tests and such, but we're in the suburbs, so they don't vary wildly. There's a twin suburb right next door with somewhat lower taxes and similar home prices- but it's 90-something% white and I do not want my child to grow up in that kind of neighborhood. Obviously he chooses his own friends, but I think it's valuable to grow up alongside children who look, sound, worship, and eat differently than we do in our family.
So, yeah. I do understand wanting to choose a home based on the other people living there. Sometimes that does include skin color.
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Something I didn't mention in my first post, because it is hard to write out politely, is that my white parent does not think that I was exposed to racism or dealt with racism, exoticism or othering at any of many points in my life, including childhood. He doesn't know that I've dealt with it from his own family, from his friends, from neighbours, because his world is very different.
A very common example in my multicultural world stems around food, and which food is acceptable in the workplace. [a whole bunch of examples edited out because I can't write about this with politeness and clarity].
Another, is for children happily bringing home food in their lunches. How is that received by classmates and teachers? Again, I've seen different schools' reactions. My father hasn't, because in our culture, his home food is just food.
Please tell us more!
This is the stuff that as a white person, I'm sure I've done. But I reeeeeeeally am trying to learn and do better and virtually all my learning is online.
Stuff like the food thing is so duh! But I never thought of it before. Because I'm majority culture and apparently have my head up my ass.
A non-personal example that comes to mind is in the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding. As a girl the main character brings home food to school for lunch. The other kids ask (not in a friendly, curious way) what it is (moussaka) then laugh at her for eating "moose caca". When the main character is an adult in college she brings a sandwich for lunch and is happy that she now fits in.
In the workplace this might look like complaints that someone has smelled up the whole office by bringing X for lunch. Not commonly made against anyone bringing a burger and fries back to the office, because fries may be fragrant but are majority-culture food.
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A weird thing I've witnessed two recent experiences of:
If a person has a specific heritage reflected in their last name or other "heritage giveaways", and we steward our finances, we're told it's because we're x culture. It makes no sense, because gauging by the MMM forum alone, heaps of different people from all sorts of backgrounds are stewarding their finances. But some people have their heritage pointed to -in a derisive way- as the reason.
Are you referring to people with Scottish last names?
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In Hawaiian pidgin English the word pake (pronounced pah-kay) means Chinese but is also a synonym for frugal, cheap, tight, miserly...
Growing up in a blue collar, mostly Catholic neighborhood, I remember hearing the word Jew used both as a noun and a verb, i.e. "to jew somebody down," on the price of something he was selling...
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The only reason I'm financially well off is because of the white privilege I (and my family) have experienced my entire life. I haven't worked harder than everybody, I haven't worked smarter than everybody, I haven't been more or less lucky than everybody. I simply have been raised in a culture where white bodies are valued more than POC bodies. I used to not think this, but luckily I have had help from other white people to educate myself on what non-white people experience in our country.
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The only reason I'm financially well off is because of the white privilege I (and my family) have experienced my entire life. I haven't worked harder than everybody, I haven't worked smarter than everybody, I haven't been more or less lucky than everybody. I simply have been raised in a culture where white bodies are valued more than POC bodies. I used to not think this, but luckily I have had help from other white people to educate myself on what non-white people experience in our country.
How do you reconcile that belief with the fact that Indian and Asian people out-earn whites by a considerable margin in the US? Are they more privileged, smarter, or harder working?
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The only reason I'm financially well off is because of the white privilege I (and my family) have experienced my entire life. I haven't worked harder than everybody, I haven't worked smarter than everybody, I haven't been more or less lucky than everybody. I simply have been raised in a culture where white bodies are valued more than POC bodies. I used to not think this, but luckily I have had help from other white people to educate myself on what non-white people experience in our country.
How do you reconcile that belief with the fact that Indian and Asian people out-earn whites by a considerable margin in the US? Are they more privileged, smarter, or harder working?
Here, I always thought my financial success was at least partially related to the fact that I had worked my ass off at multiple jobs and side hustles, and saved and invested 50% or more of my income for 25 years. If I hadn't read this thread, I never would've known that the *only* reason I was able to FIRE at age 49 was actually the color of my skin.
It's funny, though, the vast majority of white people I grew up with and even siblings who literally grew up in the exact same house, with the exact same white parents, as I did live paycheck to paycheck. Even white people I know who always earned much more money than I ever did when I was working are, according to them, "just barely making ends meet," every month. Wonder why that is? If "white privilege" were really so powerful, seems like way more white people would be kicking ass financially than actually are...
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I'm a (white) minority in the city where I live, an immigrant to Hong Kong, where ~95%+ of residents have Asian heritage. Most people who look like me tend to live in various expensive neighborhoods on Hong Kong Island. I choose to live more cheaply (nearly US$900/month for a 150sqf tiny one bedroom subdivided flat, haha but cheap for HK), and in a more diverse neighborhood, in a part of the city famous for its art/design/fashion supplies. It's also only 2 subway stops away from my work. The 'hood is gentrifying however, and I'm part of that process: though my rent is market rate or below, my presence and that of other westerners attracts attention and changes perceptions.
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The only reason I'm financially well off is because of the white privilege I (and my family) have experienced my entire life. I haven't worked harder than everybody, I haven't worked smarter than everybody, I haven't been more or less lucky than everybody. I simply have been raised in a culture where white bodies are valued more than POC bodies. I used to not think this, but luckily I have had help from other white people to educate myself on what non-white people experience in our country.
How do you reconcile that belief with the fact that Indian and Asian people out-earn whites by a considerable margin in the US? Are they more privileged, smarter, or harder working?
Here, I always thought my financial success was at least partially related to the fact that I had worked my ass off at multiple jobs and side hustles, and saved and invested 50% or more of my income for 25 years. If I hadn't read this thread, I never would've known that the *only* reason I was able to FIRE at age 49 was actually the color of my skin.
It's funny, though, the vast majority of white people I grew up with and even siblings who literally grew up in the exact same house, with the exact same white parents, as I did live paycheck to paycheck. Even white people I know who always earned much more money than I ever did when I was working are, according to them, "just barely making ends meet," every month. Wonder why that is? If "white privilege" were really so powerful, seems like way more white people would be kicking ass financially than actually are...
Claire was clearly just using herself as an example. She wasn't saying that all white folks do well financially, or that all POC don't.
There are some societal benefits that come from being white, but it's obvious that a lot of other factors that also contribute to how successful a person is financially.
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I'm a minority in the city where I live, an immigrant to Hong Kong, where ~95%+ of residents have Asian heritage. Most people who look like me tend to live in various expensive neighborhoods on Hong Kong Island. I choose to live more cheaply (nearly US$900/month for a 150sqf tiny one bedroom subdivided flat, haha but cheap for HK), and in a more diverse neighborhood, in a part of the city famous for its art/design/fashion supplies. It's also only 2 subway stops away from my work. The 'hood is gentrifying however, and I'm part of that process: though my rent is market rate or below, my presence and that of other westerners attracts attention and changes perceptions.
Your white privilege is showing.
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I'm just going to post this anyways, from the title of this thread I interpreted this question very differently.
Being white of the red-headed variety, this impacts my frugality specifically on sun-care. I will not scrimp on sun-blocking clothing or sun-screens. Those can get fairly pricey, but getting off-season deals from places like UV-skins helps.
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This means that when I do "poor people" things like not own a car, cut my own hair, walk around the house and garden in bare feet, buy second-hand clothes and furniture, hang-dry my laundry...(the list goes on!) I am regarded as charmingly eccentric and slightly bohemian rather than scummy. My sofa cost half what the cheapest DFS one would have cost but people think I must have paid a bomb for it because I must be a rich white girl.
I think this is such a great observation. I have only experienced life in the body of a white woman, but I have found myself vaguely aware of and grateful for the fact that society generally treats me as respectable and non-threatening unless I do something to indicate otherwise. I don't worry about going to a car dealership wearing jeans and a t-shirt and having them doubt my financial well-being. I don't think twice about hanging around a public park with little kids or approaching someone else's little kid and have people suspect I am a creeper.
I had an interesting experience a few months back where I was sitting in our neighborhood little park after dark wearing a big hoodie. I was playing Pokemon Go outside where it was cold so I was dressed for warmth, which upon later reflection made me look like a hoodlum. Some cops were checking out something outside the park (maybe a car had been broken into?) with their flashlights but I was totally absorbed with my game, so I was only vaguely aware of some lights. I got up to walk home and head a voice shout behind me "stop, come back here!", with a light trained in my direction. As a small woman alone at night my instinct was to run home, not stop. I said something like "no, thank you" and walked very quickly the block back to my house. It was only safely inside when I saw the cop car slowly cruise my street that I realized that had just happened. How easy would it have been for me to be chased down, or god forbid, shot in the back had I been playing Pokemon Go in a different neighborhood?
Exactly! If I'm sat alone on a park bench in the middle of the day watching the world go by, I'm just there. If a black boy in a tracksuit is watching the world go by, he's an unemployed loser who's probably meeting his drug dealer. It's my accent too - people hear me speak and say "Wow, you must be really clever." Honestly, I would say that I probably am above average, but that has nothing to do with my accent and I have met some real dopes who speak just like me.
+1
Getting ahead in life is all about trust. Getting a job, or even a "good" job, getting the good apartment with affordable rent, getting the seller of a car on craigslist to take a few hundred of the sale price, hiring an affordable babysitter, getting the teller at the bank to take some extra time to explain something about your account you didn't understand, getting your employer to let you take time off when your kid is sick, getting the daycare down the road to give you a discount, ETC ETC ETC
All of these interactions are based on TRUST. Therefore, since my skin color matches the majority, the majority of the people I interact with are going to trust me just a smidgin (or maybe a fuckton) more than a person of color.
When people trust you AND you are nice and polite, you can get good deals in life. Add up a million of these little good deals over a lifetime and you get a ton of extra money, all due to the color of my skin.
smh at the people (not on this thread, just in general) who think this is not a real and substantial benefit. Drives me nuts when people think white privilege is not a thing, and that everything they have is ONLY due to their hard work.
When I moved to Mexico, I experienced being a minority, being the odd one out, etc, and it felt bad being judged. I thought, oh good, I'll finally get some perspective. Sad truth is that my white skin still gives me privilege here. I must be rich, responsible, a good business person, good with money, etc. This is a good reputation to have. Americans are seen as having their shit together. Yeah it's annoying when people think you have tons of money and you don't (compared to MY benchmark I don't, compared to theirs, I DO), but in the end, it's advantageous to be seen as someone who's responsible.
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"White privilege" may be the *only* reason for some people's success, but that doesn't make it true for everyone. In my last job I was the only white person in the department where I worked. My boss was not white. My boss's boss was not white. My boss's boss's boss was not white. For sure, being white was not an asset in that work environment. The last neighborhood where my family and I lived in the U.S. was >99% non white. My family and I were the only people in our neighborhood who walked, anywhere. Every morning, my wife and I walked our daughter 1/2 mile to her elementary school. My impression was that my neighbors did not think our behavior was "quaint" or "bohemian." They assumed we were too poor to afford a car. Our daughter and I were repeatedly asked by her classmates, "Why do you walk everywhere? Why don't you buy a car?" Our daughter's classmates and their parents didn't seem to think our behavior was "eccentric." They thought we were fucking weirdos, and they assumed we were poor. One of my daughter's classmates' mothers told me proudly, in front of my daughter, "Our family doesn't walk ANYWHERE. If we have to go more than 5 doors down the street, we drive!"
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I'm a minority in the city where I live, an immigrant to Hong Kong, where ~95%+ of residents have Asian heritage. Most people who look like me tend to live in various expensive neighborhoods on Hong Kong Island. I choose to live more cheaply (nearly US$900/month for a 150sqf tiny one bedroom subdivided flat, haha but cheap for HK), and in a more diverse neighborhood, in a part of the city famous for its art/design/fashion supplies. It's also only 2 subway stops away from my work. The 'hood is gentrifying however, and I'm part of that process: though my rent is market rate or below, my presence and that of other westerners attracts attention and changes perceptions.
Your white privilege is showing.
Totally ;)
Fixed.
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I'm just going to post this anyways, from the title of this thread I interpreted this question very differently.
Being white of the red-headed variety, this impacts my frugality specifically on sun-care. I will not scrimp on sun-blocking clothing or sun-screens. Those can get fairly pricey, but getting off-season deals from places like UV-skins helps.
I like your contribution.
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For 2 years, I lived in a suburb outside of San Francisco, that was primarily white. It was creepy and weird, coming from a large city suburb in Canada, including those in Manitoba, Alberta, and Vancouver. We also stuck out a lot, with a car the wrong colour and the wrong age (7 years old), hanging laundry in the rear yard, mowing our own lawn, driving "gasp" through the "bad" area of town (on a freaking main road/highway) to get to the city's airport, zoo, etc.
I think some of it was the greater populations in the US. When I grew up, you maybe had 5 blocks of "like" people living with "like", but the schools and grocery stores and workplaces were all mixed with several different ethnicities. In California, it was whole towns of 50 blocks of "like to like". Perhaps because the population is 10x larger.
The strangest day was when we drove to the nearby lake / beach park on a hot summer day. Typical cheap family day we would do at our previous locations. It was a maybe 15 minute drive from our heavily white population city/suburb, with mostly other white suburbs around. Out of hundreds of people, we were one of 4 white families, and there was only 2-3 black families and one asian family. WTF? It was like a sci-fi movie where we entered another dimension. It was a beautiful location with great friendly people, too. I still don't get it. At all. Why would people miss out on this fabulousness so close to them?
I have no idea why this happens, that people self-group en masse, other than perhaps due to the larger populations that exaggerate underlying collections.
I do believe that there are a lot of LCOL neighborhoods with like visible minorities in the USA, just as there are white LCOL towns.... So, maybe you just need to find them, and find one that feels right to you?
But IMO, you are correct to think that diverse (multi-racial) blended areas in LCOL can be hard to find, and worth paying a little more for to live in.
I'm trying so so hard to figure out what place you are talking about. Can you please help me out?
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I lived in a new area of Dublin, but Pleasanton, Walnut grove, and even Livermore had this problem. The fantastic natural parks (2) I refer to were close to Livermore, but there was another in Castro Valley with the same impact of being in a vast minority of white people, but at least there, the nearest neighborhoods were mixed so it kind of made sense and everyone was quite friendly so easy to fit in.
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Honestly I don't think about it. I don't think their is anywhere in Taiwan I would not be a minority. Granted I would probably get less stares if I was in Taipei or one of the big cities, but I like the east coast better. Then again I like attention, I let the little kids touch my hair or beard. Their is the perception that WhyGoRen spend all their money and are not frugal but I don't let that affect my spending habits.
I guess it also comes down to what you call diversity. I would say I live in a diverse city. It has a lot of aboriginals, Hakka, SE Asians and a smattering of others. Yet most people are Asian, and looking at the voteing pattern only starting to have political diversity.
Would it be different if I had kids? Lots of "fourginers/WhyGoRen" seem to move here to raise a family so I don't think it's a problem for most people.
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Honestly I don't think about it. I don't think their is anywhere in Taiwan I would not be a minority. Granted I would probably get less stares if I was in Taipei or one of the big cities, but I like the east coast better. Then again I like attention, I let the little kids touch my hair or beard. Their is the perception that WhyGoRen spend all their money and are not frugal but I don't let that affect my spending habits.
I guess it also comes down to what you call diversity. I would say I live in a diverse city. It has a lot of aboriginals, Hakka, SE Asians and a smattering of others. Yet most people are Asian, and looking at the voteing pattern only starting to have political diversity.
Would it be different if I had kids? Lots of "fourginers/WhyGoRen" seem to move here to raise a family so I don't think it's a problem for most people.
宜蘭人生好嗎? 你在宜蘭做什麼？我想去宜蘭.
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"In 2010, the median wealth, or net worth, for black families was $4,900, compared to median wealth for whites of $97,000.
33.9% Blacks are nearly twice as likely as whites to have zero or negative net worth—33.9 percent compared to 18.6 percent."
Institutional racism is very real in the US.
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^^ Those are some crazy stats. Yes it's real. We need to take it seriously.
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"In 2010, the median wealth, or net worth, for black families was $4,900, compared to median wealth for whites of $97,000.
33.9% Blacks are nearly twice as likely as whites to have zero or negative net worth—33.9 percent compared to 18.6 percent."
Institutional racism is very real in the US.
I'm surprised the gap isn't bigger, considering the middle class consists almost exclusively of real estate, something blacks didn't have wide access to (and therefore couldn't inherit) until fairly recently.
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Honestly I don't think about it. I don't think their is anywhere in Taiwan I would not be a minority. Granted I would probably get less stares if I was in Taipei or one of the big cities, but I like the east coast better. Then again I like attention, I let the little kids touch my hair or beard. Their is the perception that WhyGoRen spend all their money and are not frugal but I don't let that affect my spending habits.
I guess it also comes down to what you call diversity. I would say I live in a diverse city. It has a lot of aboriginals, Hakka, SE Asians and a smattering of others. Yet most people are Asian, and looking at the voteing pattern only starting to have political diversity.
Would it be different if I had kids? Lots of "fourginers/WhyGoRen" seem to move here to raise a family so I don't think it's a problem for most people.
宜蘭人生好嗎? 你在宜蘭做什麼？我想去宜蘭.
Yilan is great. Probably one of my favorite places I have ever lived. If you want to go to Taipei it's a nice short bus ride. It's also pretty clean and a nice place to bike ride. I also found that there was more of an ex-pat community that knew each other in Yilan then in Hualien.
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Honestly I don't think about it. I don't think their is anywhere in Taiwan I would not be a minority. Granted I would probably get less stares if I was in Taipei or one of the big cities, but I like the east coast better. Then again I like attention, I let the little kids touch my hair or beard. Their is the perception that WhyGoRen spend all their money and are not frugal but I don't let that affect my spending habits.
I guess it also comes down to what you call diversity. I would say I live in a diverse city. It has a lot of aboriginals, Hakka, SE Asians and a smattering of others. Yet most people are Asian, and looking at the voteing pattern only starting to have political diversity.
Would it be different if I had kids? Lots of "fourginers/WhyGoRen" seem to move here to raise a family so I don't think it's a problem for most people.
宜蘭人生好嗎? 你在宜蘭做什麼？我想去宜蘭.
Yilan is great. Probably one of my favorite places I have ever lived. If you want to go to Taipei it's a nice short bus ride. It's also pretty clean and a nice place to bike ride. I also found that there was more of an ex-pat community that knew each other in Yilan then in Hualien.
Sounds good Debonair. A Canadian friend who used to live there also highly recommended Yilan. We're slow traveling through Asia now and planning to go to Taiwan sometime soon. Hopefully we'll get to spend some time in Yilan while we're there.
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"In 2010, the median wealth, or net worth, for black families was $4,900, compared to median wealth for whites of $97,000.
33.9% Blacks are nearly twice as likely as whites to have zero or negative net worth—33.9 percent compared to 18.6 percent."
Institutional racism is very real in the US.
While not disputing your point, one confounding variable to keep in mind is that as a result of the demographic shifts going on in our country right now the median white american is 42, and the median black american is 33,* so the median while household has almost an extra decade of wealth accumulation under their belt.
The median net worth for all american households under 35 is only $6,682 regardless of race.**
*Source: http://www.pewhispanic.org/2016/04/19/statistical-portrait-of-hispanics-in-the-united-states/ph_2015-03_statistical-portrait-of-hispanics-in-the-united-states-2013_current-09/
**Source: https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/01/26/the-average-americans-net-worth-by-age-heres-where.aspx
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I read the most interesting article this weekend that has made me understand the issue a little differently:
http://wapo.st/2qzf8Jn (http://wapo.st/2qzf8Jn). The author is talking about the difference between "diversity," where people of different genders/races/ethnicities/disabilities are present and "inclusion," where a very wide variety of people feel included and a normal part of every day life. Which I think is what a lot of the posters in this thread are trying to say--that there are a lot of places that people of different kinds are present, but many fewer that feel inclusive--the lack of a racial majority however can be a signal about something that is difficult to suss out unless you live there awhile. One of the big challenges is that in settings that are diverse but not inclusive, often almost everyone has good intentions and wants their neighbors/colleagues feel welcome, and both sides are frustrated because it isn't working.
Framing the issue in this way was really helpful to me because I have a responsibility for encouraging a wide range of participants at my employer's events, and while I might not know exactly how to make every different kind of visitor feel welcome, I can definitely think about the most inclusive way to handle the various event components.
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Wow, that's really helpful, Noodle! Thanks for that.
I would say my town is diverse but not inclusive. It squicks me out that at a meeting, people expressed a desire for more diversity. It completely disregarded the diversity that is very much present already, and also seemed to be a goal of "appearances". Because for all the wonderful things it is, inclusive isn't one of them. Togetherness is determined by sexual orientation, marital status, age, faith, language, drinking capacity, outward wealth, parenting status, etc. But, I do appreciate that no one is staring at me or poking my skin colour!
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I feel that there is a lot of pressure for people of color, especially new arrivals and those who have worked themselves out of poverty, to dress and buy rich, in order to not be mistaken for the servant or criminal class. I saw this in my mother, who has an almost slavish worship of name brands.
This is a great point, and I have witnessed this as well, but not limited to skin color. People of any race and social standing want to appear significant, and often it is the poorest members of our society that engage in this image-chasing consumerist mindset in the most detrimental manner since it takes up a greater percentage of their paycheck.
Wife and I are both white but we often have black foster children so we purposely picked a lower-income, relatively diverse suburban neighborhood. That works in our favor budget-wise, but we would not have made the choice to live below our means unless that precedent had been set for us by parents and grandparents. My slim experience thus far says its the perspective you were raised with rather than your skin color that has the greater effect on the realm you can control, and vice versa for the part you can't control. Generally I'd say a white male like myself has a larger set of intangible resources to pull from if things started to go south, and from ages 0-college I benefited from my skin color probably more than I will ever realize which put me in the position where I can make better choices than my poorer neighbors.
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1. White privilege - benefited many years without knowing. Got some jobs with little effort, for example, and was cut slack at work for errors. Hard to quantify, but surely there.
2. As others have posted, can do "cheap" things without any serious penalty. Allows me to save thousands of dollars per year from small old cars (20 years of savings, arguably 50k or more now accumulated), for example. Some thousands more from not feeling as much need to wear nice clothes to feel safe. I use these examples because Black Best Friend, by contrast, buys midrange cars (above typical Mustachian) to avoid being pulled over by cops, and spends on clothes because his penalties for "scummy" clothes are steeper than mine. Yes, clothes can be found cheaply, but his motives are real; without the motivation, which is related to skin color, we wouldn't have a cost difference.
3. Can relax in ways that BBF cannot. He has hypertension and therefore health expenses that I do not.
4. Half my stash is arguably a benefit from other people's racism, and the ignorant confidence enabled by my skin tone...story below.
When I moved into my house decades ago, I could tell from white realtors' and associates' remarks that some of them thought I was moving into a "dangerous" black neighborhood. As a white liberal who never lived in a "bad" neighborhood, I figured they were full of crap, but their stereotypes were giving me cheaper rent. Later, I bought the house from the landlord for the market rate. The price was 45k for a structure with 61k replacement value; I was being paid $16k to accept land with black neighbors.
My skin color influenced the decision because I felt safe. Also, it may have carried actual protection without me thinking about it. The neighborhood was racially mixed; my white neighbor called cops when someone snooped around my house. Was that because of skin color?
In fairness, it wasn't completely safe. The crack wars were on, and I eventually realized that the many backfires in my neighborhood during the early years were gunshots from gangs fighting over a key drug dealing corner half a mile away. From that I learned to distinguish between danger that exists and danger that affects me.
Eventually, the crack wars faded, and so did the gunshots. Hispanics replaced half the blacks and half the whites; we became a place with very good taco stands. The city as a whole became increasingly popular, raising real estate prices in all neighborhoods until my lot developed a positive property value.
In recent years, gentrification has gathered steam, in addition to the city continuing its relentless rise in popularity. At this point, my 45k house is worth 300k per tax appraisal, maybe more per market, with land close to 100k. After inflation, roughly a 200k appreciation - close to half my stash.
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I'm pretty pale, so I guess I have to buy more sunscreen than the average person =D