What a gorgeous city. It's weird. I've been so sheltered and unexposed for much of my life. I stayed in Baltimore as a kid, went to school in D.C., had a kid and that was it. I was all East Coast. One thing about rising up in the writing game (just a little folks, it's still gully over here!) is that I've seen so much more. I think I've traveled more in the past two years, than I had in my entire life.Kind of sad, huh?
A lot of times I feel like Malcolm off to Mecca--race exists in a really specific way on the East Coast and in the South. But out West, it just feels different. I can't even describe it. I was in Colorado last summer, in an area where you probably could have counted the black folks on one hand. (including me and Kenyatta) Normally, in those situations out east, I get my guard up--half expecting the Skinheads (or worse the cops) to materialize out of nothing. But out there, I never thought twice about our diminished numbers. It just felt different.
Sometimes, I wonder how long I can exist like this. I'm not saying it's gravy everywhere else. But it'd be nice to take a load off. To not constantly think about this shit, to not have it weighing down on you. It'd be nice to just exist. I love being black. I love the food. I love the culture. I love the dancing. I love the music (most of it). I love the basketball (watching it). I love humor. And I think the language, in all its dialects, is just beautiful.
But (quiet as it's kept) I hate talking about it. I hate justifying the humanity of it. I hate explaining to people that we are not interchangeable, and yet that doesn't mean that one of us is more, or less, black than the other. I hate, as Du Bois would say, being a problem. It'd be nice to just live a little. Kiss my woman. Take the boy for a hike. Breath some air.
Peace to commenter Breadandroses for coming out--and Glenn for buying a book. For the horde, indeed.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
Seattle IS a great city, as a lifelong WA state resident I can agree with you there. However, you need to know that on the other side of the Cascades is a different state altogether. Rural poor, farmers and apple growers... red staters. Come over and take a gander at our sage deserts, pine forests, and the best local produce and fruit you'll ever find. It's like two states in one!
Next thing you know you'll start rooting for the Seahawks and then your life will really begin to suck.
My brother went to four years of Georgetown and then three years of law school at Tulane and was counting the days until he made it back to the west side. He's a Portland fanatic. If you liked Sea-town, you'll love P-town; it's a city with the attitude of a small town (I mean that in the positive sense). Come on out and see us MOAR!
Wish I could have made it out to see you man. Maybe next time you'll give more than five minutes of warning, eh?
I moved to California in the late 70's after having grown up in the Deep South and working for a couple of years in Houston, Texas. There were a lot of issues with gender discrimination in Houston because I worked in what was at that time a male dominated profession.
Well, moving out west was like going from Kansas to Oz in many ways, very similar to what you describe, TNC. My first office mate in California was a black man, also a displaced southerner who became my first black friend. And the gender issues were over, at least at the level where I was working.
I never went back to the south except for an occasional trip to visit my family.
I am a westerner.
I've still never been to Seattle and I lived in SF for 8 1/2 wonderful years. Like Mr. Coates, I was entirely an east coast product (born in NC, raised in VA, went to college at UVa) before heading out west post graduation and I love the west side. It's cliche, but it's so chill. It really is. I think there's a more healthy appreciation of all aspects of life, especially in cities like SF. Part of that I think has to do with the simple fact that SF, Seattle, San Diego, Portland and, to a much lesser extent, LA, are in beautiful natural settings. That alone helps cool people out. People are serious about their jobs but they're just as serious about their fun out west, which is why it's so cool to be able to drive to Napa in an hour, or hit Tahoe in 3 hours or go to Big Sur down the PCH on a Friday after work.
It's been a culture shock for me as I'm living in NYC now for grad school and man, this shit is a grind. I like that NYC is always on the move, but it gets tiring after awhile. Give me my Farmers Market down on the Embarcadero on a Saturday afternoon and a good meal down in the Mission in SF and I'll be ok with a 2 a.m. last call.
^^^^This!
On the race tip, the Bay Area is a bit different than Seattle or San Diego because there is a sizable black population in Oakland and other parts of the East Bay whereas those other cities are very white. S.F. is too, don't get me wrong, but it is offset a bit.
I remember being in San Diego one time and really noticing that I, as a black man, stood out a bit. However, I don't think anyone else gave a damn and after awhile, I didn't either.
San Diego also stands out from west coast cities by virtue of its strong military presence and attendant conservatism (it should be noted that this is much different from the strain conservatism that's ruling the national airwaves right now).
I've been to, or lived in, every major west coast city and they all have their attendant charms. Driving out to Seattle from the east, I was stunned by the beauty of the sunlight pouring through the cascades.
TNC had the benefit of no rain this weekend. An absolutely amazing weekend it was.
If you'd had occasion to be on 54th in Mid-City, you'd have found the San Diego black population: refugees from Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and a handful of others. I grew up in Orange County and then San Diego and barely saw black people outside TV before I got involved in those communities. Hispanics and Asians were so common as to be unremarkable (I think Asians became the most numerous ethnic group at UCSD while I was attending).
I had to leave the West Coast for career reasons, but damn if I don't miss it every day.
Good to meet you, even briefly. Seattle after the Midwest for 9 years is amazing.
How did the Saturday gig go? I would have loved more Q+A with you and Attica on Friday.
Glad you found Seattle to be a beautiful city. You caught a great weekend to be here for certain.
I'm a blackman, born and raised here and can't imagine living anywhere but on the W Coast.
Race if different here than back east or down south for certain.
Racism is here, trust me..its just much more subtle than what you'd see in other places. As this city gentrifies (like most others) those underlying issues are bubbling to the surface. From simple stuff to what kind of booze and food a corner store carries to bigger issues such as PTA meetings, folks do trip.
I tell you, its a hell of a thing to be looked at with suspicion (by newcomers) as you walk the streets you grew up on.
That being said, there's a reason I've decided to remain here after traveling all around the US.
Seattle? Hey that's right near my neck of the woods... just with even more rain!
You wouldn't happen to be swinging through Portland would you? It's got one of the best independent bookstores in the country:
http://www.powells.com/
I grew up in Seattle and live in Colorado now. I'm white, but my brother is black (adopted) and has also lived in Seattle and Colorado and traveled around the country a good deal more than I have. He says he prefers the South, where racial attitudes are more out in the open. His perspective is that he'd rather know where people are coming from.
Not being in the minority any place I've lived, I can't fully comment, but I think there's a lot to be said for communities that have the good sense to hide their racism - it strikes me as an important step toward burying it altogether.
You've capture the east-west contrast perfectly.
As a west coaster, it's hard for me not to think of east coasters as neurotic. All mired in your father's father's father's histories and traditions. But I'm sure there are benefits to having a clan, of sorts. I just don't know that the benefits outweigh the costs. Especially as I watch east coast neuroses hinder our country's progress time and again.
"Normally, in those situations out east, I get my guard up--half expecting the Skinheads (or worse the cops) to materialize out of nothing. But out there, I never thought twice about our diminished numbers. It just felt different."
You ought to do some more thinking on why things "feel different" out west; I think it could be a profitable vein for you to tap. I'll throw out a few ideas of my own for starters.
1) With fewer blacks and Latinos, class is less aligned with race in cities like Seattle. The last time I was in Seattle was my girlfriend's first time there. She liked it a lot, but one of the little things that surprised her was seeing a white woman driving a municipal bus. Where we live, there aren't too many white people doing that.
2) White people tend to be more liberal and have warmer feelings about racial diversity in places where there isn't much racial diversity. Consider how well Obama polled in mostly-white states such as Iowa, etc.
3) Out west, a greater percentage of the population is new arrivals -- people who moved there as adults. So more people have some distance from their ancestral baggage.
I am from the Midwest and moved to Seattle over 20 years ago and I always forget about this. As my Dad said about the TV show Cops, it is always white cops chasing after blacks except when Cops is in the PacNW. Then it is white cops chasing whites. I have also heard a black author (I cant remember who) being interviewed on the local NPR station years ago and mentioned how surprised he was that the Seattle hood, the CD, was multi-racial. And not just multi-racial as in black and brown but black, brown, and white. He said it was the only city he knows where you see white people hanging out on the streets in the inner city.
Your comment reminds me of a minor culture shock I experienced in Denver and Seattle: getting hit up for money by young white beggars (homeless drug addicts and runaways). One time in Denver I was accosted by two girls (one of whom had a big black eye) and a guy. I was walking out of a Subway so I gave them my Sun Chips.
MR DAVE
If you want to see white drug addicts begging for money, you did not have to go all the way to denver. You could have come to Baltimore.Especially the Pigtown neighborhood ,and my neighborhood ,Highlandtown .
I think it is wierd when the media talk about all of the problems in the black neighborhoods. They don't seem to realise that crack and heroin destroyed a lot of white blue collar communities as well. And meth has destroyed a lot more white lives than black ones.
It was nice of you to give them your bag of chips.
Pete,
I take your word for it (I've been to Baltimore before, but just the nice parts), but just one clarification: I'd seen white beggars before (e.g., in San Francisco). What was different about the ones I saw in Denver and Seattle was that they were so young and almost normal looking, like they had run away from home yesterday. Put it this way: if it were a TV show or a movie, and these kids were cast in it as beggars, I would have thought it a phony casting choice. The white beggars I saw in San Fran were older and dirtier -- more like career homeless.
I spent my tween and teen years in Seattle, but have been an East Coast resident now for many years. My extended family has been in Seattle since the 1920s. I find that Seattle and some of the other Western cities differ from the East/South because the racial dynamics have never been just a black vs. white thing.
The Asian-American populations have always been quite influential and there is a noticeable Native American presence in the area. And the Latino population is also growing.
When I came East for college, I was surprised to find the racial attitudes (among Blacks and Whites) to be much less cosmopolitan than what I had grown up with in Seattle. And visits to relatives in the South were truly freaky.
It's also interesting that the West Coast has gotten over a large portion of the virulent anti-Asian bigotry that existed in the late 19th and early (to mid) 20th centuries to the point where you can make those kinds of statements. A lot of the hatred began during the railroad expansion and kept up in fits and spurts through WWII, with the forced round-up of Japanese-Americans. The latest flux of immigrants, largely from SE Asia, seems to have integrated much more smoothly.
As a black woman, born in the south who was a minority in most every circumstance growing up, the west coast is added pressure for me. However, i think i was most relaxed at Howard U. Race wasn't an issue for me in D. C. it seems that folks know that I'm black and have come to terms with it, now if they are interested in me, they want to know who I am.
In the south, I feel like just another black face and am treated as such. While visiting places like Oregon or even downtown SF, I've felt more like an oddity. Admittedly, I also like the sense of history and tradition on the East Coast. How do you know where you're going, if you're don't know where you're from?
I've lived in California all my life. I think one thing that can not be discounted about the left coast is the weather. We have wet winters north of San Francisco, but up and down, we don't have the vaguest idea of prolonged cold winters (heck spring time starts in January here) and along the coast, summers are pretty darn mild. It affects the psyche.
Secondly, one cannot overestimate what happened on the west coast in the 60s and 70s--a lot of issues that are apparently new to the rest of the nation were part of our everyday worldview 4 decades ago.
Finally, issues of race are a bit more complicated here than in other parts of the US as it really has been a multicultural society for over a century here, and the black migration to the west coast did not occur until after World War 2. However, if one wants to look at racism on the west coast, one should read America is in the Heart by Carlos Bulosan, a blistering indictment of the treatment of Filipinos during the first half of the twentieth century, and a generational autobiography that was only equalled by Malcolm X's autobiography in revealing the nature of racism in the US.
That said, let's not idealize things. California has an incredible incarceration rate. Gangs remain a problem even in smaller cities and towns. Our educational system has fallen to the bottom ten in the US, with minority populations being hit the hardest. After being the biggest boom state in national history for decades, California is in deep trouble and the people who will suffer most from the budget madness here (which owes its origins to the property tax revolt and rising Reaganism) will hit those who can afford it least, and if human nature is any guide, gang economy is bound to rise with all its attendant ethnophobia.
"After being the biggest boom state in national history for decades, California is in deep trouble..."
How much of this has to do with higher earning (and, consequently, higher tax paying) Californians leaving the state and being replaced by unskilled immigrants from Mexico and points further south? Might this migration pattern also have something to do with the decline in California's schools?
Dave--conservative that you are; this has to do with the conservative bromide that no one has to pay taxes. Taxevasion nation. Period. End of story. California has always had huge migrant and immigrant populations--the magnet for the US since the 30s, and they've always been poor. Look at per capita school spending. I believe its 43rd in the US, maybe lower. It has to do with the highest health care costs per capita in the US, the highest real estate costs, the highest rentals. It has to do with a budgetary process in which a minority party can strangle a state year after year after year. It has to do with prison costs that outstrip most nations as a result of specific drug and three strikes policies. As far as unskilled labor is concerned, the wealthiest, higher earning Californians could not eat at a restaurant in California without the services of such unskilled labor in the fields first and in the kitchens later.
Setting aside your straw man about no one having to pay taxes, it's worth remembering that Californians do pay high taxes -- not high property taxes, but high income taxes and other taxes. The problem is that, as high as your taxes are, your spending is even higher.
"As far as unskilled labor is concerned, the wealthiest, higher earning Californians could not eat at a restaurant in California without the services of such unskilled labor in the fields first and in the kitchens later."
Ah, more jobs Americans won't do, right? California has double-digit unemployment rates and you think it still makes sense to import poor people from Mexico to work in restaurants? No wonder your state's budget is such a mess. Unskilled immigrants consume more in state services than they pay in taxes. So do unemployed Americans. So wouldn't it better if those restaurant jobs went to unemployed Americans instead of illegal immigrants?
The state of California has basically 4 expenditures: health and services, prisons, education, and roads. Our health and services costs are high because we have as a result of the insurance company swindle health care policies aka emergency room socialism, and the cost of rents for medical buildings, the highest per capita costs of any state in the nation. Our prisons have an ungodly incarceration rate, disproportionately made up of non whites, as a result of sentencing and drug law policies. We are 43rd in the nation in per student funding, and the automobile capital of the world, in which people regularly commute long distances to work in places their earnings would not allow them to live.
This is a particularly difficult time as the housing bubble that bought tens perhaps hundreds of thousands, perhaps more, to our state from other states in the US, to live or work in the construction boom, has left whole ghost towns of foreclosed homes--check out Stockton and San Bernadino county--in its wake and a kaput construction and real estate market. If the bubble was pernicious elsewhere, here where the cost of housing, rural, urban, suburban, is beyond the conception of Americans elsewhere except in a few eastern cities the housing bust has led to devasting losses of revenues that have nothing to do with illegal immigration. Nothing, zip, nada.
However, the idea that to pass a budget we have to have 60% approval in the state legislature and Senate means the shrink the 4th largest economy in the world into a bathtub drain has been exceedingly effective.
Very little of this has to do with illegal immigration--the king of straw men. The idea that the restaurant business too is not shaking down is a fool's apostrophe, and the day I see poor whites in the fields of California will be a strange day indeed, and that's not to point out that most of those working in the fields are here legally.
Moreover our last bubble here brought highly educated immigrants to the Silicon Valley where they out competed native born, only to fall victim to speculative practices that have marked the US since the Age of Reagonomics.
We have had huge immigration here, but when we were the number one per student spending state in the union, and the number one college going state in the union, people were complaining about the braceros.
It would be foolish to say that non English speaking populations have no effect on testing, far more foolish to think that one can get away with the kind of fiscal neglect our state gives to education and think that a small minority of people are the problem.
Might this migration pattern also have something to do with the decline in California's schools?
I'd agree with this, it's a bit unfair to compare California schools as a whole to the rest of the nation. We have high numbers of non-native (and sometimes non-speaking) English speakers in our schools which don't help test scores. I'm not saying they are stupid, but large numbers of students that don't speak English do not make for high scores.
While people here complain about taxes, we have extremely low property taxes per capita (due to Prop 13, which makes them rise at 1% per year no matter what) which makes our income taxes per capita higher. As a state, we make the 6th highest income per capita but with the 10th highest taxes per capita. Our property taxes are set-up to benefit wealth, which ends up disadvantaging income. The reason why we have Bank of America is because the corporation that bought them did not want to change the corporate name because that would cause their property taxes to be reassessed to current values.
The decline in California's schools is all about Proposition 13. Entirely.
I was a product of CA public schools (in an upper-middle class suburb) pre prop-13; 3/4 of my HS class are college graduates. There were no homeschoolers in my town, only the very religious went to Catholic school, and even the wealthy professionals and country club members wouldn't have dreamed of sending their kids to private school. We had gifted kid programs for the little ones, AP classes in half a dozen subject for the high-schoolers, well-equipped bio and chem and physics labs and school libraries (with full-time librarian and huge shipments of new books every semester), lots of field trips, etc. Doctors' kids, lawyers' kids, maids' and gardeners' kids, mechanics' kids and shopkeepers' kids, all went to school together and across the board had top-notch SAT scores. A majority of the maids' kids and gardeners' kids got college scholarships. The dropout rate was negligible; and the 5% of the kids who ended up getting moved to the district's vocational school still graduated with a salable skill. My freshman year at a top-tier college, I found I was as well-prepared as the Andover and Exeter grads.
Within two years of Prop 13, the school budget was cut by half. All enrichment programs, gone. Gifted/AP programs, gone. Class sizes almost doubled. No music or art, no field trips, no science labs, library down to half-days with no new materials and no librarian, less sports, etc. No college counselor. The school went completely to shit. My sister (six years younger) and all the wealthy kids in her age bracket shifted to private school. The dropout rate at my old high school is now 20%; and of those who graduate, only half go on to any college at all (and barely half of those get college degrees).
The higher-earning people are still there; they're just not supporting the services they used to.
If you don't mind me asking, what year did you graduate public CA high school? I had roughly the same experience in my school (nice part of Orange County, tons of AP classes, extracurriculars, college graduates) but I haven't kept in touch with people there enough to know whether things have declined since, or whether my experience came after or about the same time as yours. I do know that my HS class started with about 700 and graduated about 600.
reply to calexical:
graduated 76 just slightly north of you (san gabriel valley), with a full semester of college credits through AP tests (which also went a long way towards making college affordable).
Elementary school fields trips included JPL (twice), Scripps Oceanography, San Onofre, Griffith Observatory, La Brea tar pits, San Juan Capistrano, a bunch of downtown theater and museums and ballet, Olvera Street, an oil well, Joshua Tree, a hospital radiology lab, and a water treatment plant.
My class started with 410, graduated 396.
I guess the question is if you like traditional, close-knit communities, with their equally traditional social divisions and suspicion of outsiders, or if you prefer a more cosmopolitan environment with less groupi-ness (if I may coin that term) but more potential for social alienation. I tend towards the cosmopolitan side -- it's great to know where you're from, but I'd rather be FROM there than live in it all the time. I've never lived on the west coast, but on the whole I like places where society is fluid and there are lots of people from all over the place. Provided they don't all divide up into armed camps.
I also second that remark about race relations (which is to say relations across group lines) being better when the race division is not exactly the same as the class division. This can take the form of white people driving buses or black people running major institutions. It's important to know that both those outcomes are possible.
Seattle is nice. We rode across the country on a train to Seattle - one of the best ways to see America.
RIKYRAH
I am planning to do that myself. Just out of curiousity did you ride the Empire Builder train.And what class ticket did you ride on.
We rode the Empire Builder out there - was with family (extended family for a Family Reunion - had 2 bottom floors of cars, and pretty much the entire sleeper section.
On our way back, we took the Southern Route back.
I am Glad you enjoyed it . I hope I will too.
Good deal. My friend was intending to do that from Boston to Portland (and I intended to join her on the Empire Builder leg) this summer. The situation's changed, but I still think we'll meet up in Portland, and then take the Cascadia up to Seattle to go to PAX.
A lot of times I feel like Malcolm off to Mecca--race exists in a really specific way on the East Coast and in the South. But out West, it just feels different. I can't even describe it. I was in Colorado last summer, in an area where you probably could have counted the black folks on one hand. (including me and Kenyatta) Normally, in those situations out east, I get my guard up--half expecting the Skinheads (or worse the cops) to materialize out of nothing. But out there, I never thought twice about our diminished numbers. It just felt different.
I have to agree with you. Traveled out West with the family in my youth - it's what we did with our Summers. When we arrived in Nebraska, Wyoming, North Dakota - it was like we were chemistry experiments. I'm sure Idaho is full of nice people, but I felt as uncomfortable there as I did in the panhandle of Florida.
But, Seattle, Tacoma - they were different. Portland - different, but smalltown Oregon -that Florida Pandhandle feeling again.
Colorado - We went all over the state - it was different.
Los Angeles was more hostile; San Diego was not. San Francisco - I never understood why anyone would want to live in California until I went to San Francisco.
There are a lot of places where I would want to visit out West, but as a Black woman, I like living in the Black 'Community', and it just doesn't exist on the West Coast, IMO. Not to any serious degree.
Glad you liked my hometown TNC! I grew up there, went East for college (and boy was that a shock), and live in SF now. I think I experienced the reverse of what you felt--though I'm a white girl so less forced to think about it in either case. Still, when I arrived on the East Coast the level of worrying about not just people with different skin colors but even various European ethnicities from their ancestry, blew me away. One roommate of mine who was a 3rd or 4th generation American swore she was discriminated against in stores because she was Italian. That kind of thing just never came up in the West.
And I agree with you about the attitude too--out here, it isn't cool to be so busy you can barely handle it. The idealized thing is "sure, I've got 6 things going on and it's a little crazy but I've got it under control--do you want to go to the park with me?". At college in the East (granted a rather fancypants one) the people from around there were all about "I have 4 finals and 3 papers and I'm SO stressed out. I'm going to lock myself in the library for 2 weeks." And then they would actually do it and tell everybody about it. Very weird to me.
Got some good experience there, but I caught the first plane back after graduation.
Grew up in Boston where neighborhoods were very distinctly drawn by race and culture and class. Lived in SF past 25 years and there are still neighborhoods where one race/culture/class predominates, but they are much more fluid and it's more transient - it's not like on the East Coast where families live on the same block for generations. Also, there are just waaaay more people from different countries and different backgrounds here in our beautiful City. It is truly multi-cultural and racial frames are rarely as "black and white" as they are back East.
I was born and raised in Seattle but I left because that place is incredibly segregated. Everyone likes to compare Seattle (the [neo]liberal bastion) to its extremely right wing surroundings on the east side of the mountains, and in the comparison Seattle would naturally seem great. This leads everyone there to feeling so self-congratulatory that they don't realize how unequal and racist Seattle really is.
It seems like people here think that race isn't an issue in Seattle, and I guess that would make sense because race is a huge issue in Seattle, it's just no one talks about it.
Race is an issue here, that is for certain. Racism here is often masked behind classism and elitism whether through alcohol impact areas to the inequities of schools when you cross the ship canal.
You are indeed correct, there isn't much to be done by it other than panels and focus groups. The dreaded "Seattle Process" gets in the way of EVERYTHING.
I just moved back to metro Detroit from Seattle after a 11 year stint. It is most definitely a beautiful city but after a few years, the place started to wear me down. At first, I thought maybe I was in a funk, but everything in my life was great (friends, job, relationships, etc). I couldn't put my finger on the issue I had with the city.
About 8 years in, I took a trip to Shanghai and Beijing. The trip made me realize why I was not content in Seattle. There is a sense of detachment, sameness, and tepidness that runs through Seattle's populous. Its not everyone mind you, but rather an overall feeling of the city. No one runs too hot or too cold. Politically the dividing line isnt Liberal or Conservative, but Liberal or "Dennis Kucinich Liberal".
Local music no longer has the edge of even that in the late 90's. Neo folk/county and emo have a stranglehold on the music scene. If you want to hear Jazz or Blues, be prepared to watch 4 white guys whose musical influences are Keb Mo and Dave Brubeck.
Sports are an afterthought. Sure, the Huskies have their share of rabid fans, but the other teams are generally ignored unless they are on some epic tear. Most fans are from out of town. When the Sonics left, the city barely raised a whisper of protest. In fact there was a sentiment in the city council that we would be better off without them. Can you imagine that happening in an East Coast or Midwest city?
This is hilarious..true, but hilarious.
I read somewhere that 50% of our residents are from elsewhere so it appears we draw all the anti-social liberals from other places.
Exactly! Seattle Folks seem friendly, but try to engage past "how are you doing?" and often, you will get a "that is not part of my program" look.
What you speak of is referred to as "The Seattle Chill"
Since I'm from here, I always wondered what they meant by that. In all reality the coldest folks I've met have moved here from SF, LA, Boston and NY.
Oh, and don't get me started on the Sonics leaving. If most of the people that live here aren't from here, then why would they give a damn about the local team?
She liked it a lot, but one of the little things that surprised her was seeing a white woman driving a municipal bus. Where we live, there aren't too many white people doing that.
Coming from the west coast, it was shock to me my first time in Atlanta where I swear that 95% of the service personnel were black. We do have a lot of Mexican service personnel, but it always seems that where there is required public interaction they find a white person to do it. I don't know if this means anything, just something I've noticed from traveling.
Clarence Page, black columnist at the Chicago Tribune, has an idea that he roughly calls "the proximity of racism". He spent some time in a western state during his Army stint. Few blacks live there and he didn't feel the sting of racism often. However, there were lots of Native Americans around and they were treated badly. In a sense they were the "blacks" of that state.
The idea is that racism and prejudice is tied to the numbers of a particular group in an area and the "threat" they are perceived to pose. If I live in a city with a 1 percent black population I'm probably not going to be concerned if a black family moves next door. Now if blacks constitute a large percentage of the local population there I might feel differently.
It's like the idea of how Tom Bradley could rather easily get elected Mayor of Los Angeles because the black population was between 10-15 percent during his twenty year reign, yet Harold Washington in Chicago had a difficult battle because the black population was nearly 40 percent.
One other thing. TNC, I understand your well deserved skepticism towards the police, but you might appreciate a few cops around if some skinheads came after you. Depends on the cops I guess.
I grew up in Colorado in the 80s, and I recall the Hispanics, aka Mexicans, had that minority role. There was one black person in my high school, and she was student body president. Nice analogy to Bradley.
I do really miss the casual manners of the west--people just hold doors for people. When I went east for school I kept having doors slam in my face.
IRISHPIRATE
I remember that article and i agree with it, and your point as well. I grew up in P.G. County outside DC. It was about 70 percent black with few jewish people. I never heard any anti - semetic comments until i moved to Baltimore.
Seriously brah, you need to come to Powell's Books in PDX. I live in NE Portland which used to be the black part of town from about post WWII to until the last few years. There are still black folks here in Portland, but it seems like they've mostly to the outlying older suburban areas. Gentrification is nice in that now I can get a nice cup of coffee within a couple of blocks of my house and there is a lot to do within five to 10 blocks of my house, but it is like the reconquista up here though. I'm the only black person to move onto my block in the last three years and most of the houses have changed hands in that time. It's getting to the point where the only black presence will be the old churches that are scattered around NE PDX with most of their members driving in from the suburbs. This neighborhood used to be at least 60 % black 10 -15 years ago, now I seriously doubt if it's over 30%. I'm afraid what the 2010 census is going to show.
It so funny that NE Portland got gentrified in the first place b/c folks here are less racist than other places I've lived and much more open to live in identified black parts of town. Would not have happened in either Nashville or Miami. Liberty City (MIA) ain't never getting gentrified.
This is true in regards to Seattle also. South Seattle used to be mostly black, but now they have been pushed below the city lines to places like Kent, or the always fucked-up Tacoma (where my bloods at?).
Another vote for Powell's!
I'm relatively new to the area (~4) years, but even in that time we've noticed the gentrification process. Especially just east of the 5 a little bit - Mississipi and Alberta areas I guess. The cost of housing in that area is crazy.
Hmmm, I think your reaction to the West Coast is interesting. I liked Seattle fine, but I never felt more racially uncomfortable in my life than I did in the rural parts of the Northwest including Washington State Idaho and Oregon. And this is the perspective of a girl from the South who passed the shop a white supremacist every day on the way to high school. I don't know, outside the cities, the West Coast just made me feel like an alien. People stare at you. *Shivers*
Anyway, agreed with you about the tiresomeness of the ever-present preoccupation with blackness that can suffuse a person's life. It is a great and rare treat to feel free of that kind of thing for a little while.
The areas outside of the urban NW are entirely different. I remember not so many years ago when there would be a yearly blow-up in Coeur d'Alene Idaho when the local neo-Nazis would hold their march. Thankfully that particular issue has been dealt with, but you don't have to get too far for things to turn into an odd mix of the Appalachians and the Midwest.
I'm from Seattle & an active reader of your blog & Andrew's for awhile now & was very happy to hear you were coming to Seattle...of course, one thing or another comes up & I never got the chance to see you which btw had me feeling mad guilty! but...over the weekend, at my book club meeting, my name was drawn & I had put your book in as a suggestion & I won!...so 'negros' may not buy your book (lol) but there are about ten beautiful black women who will be buying & reading your book 'The Beautiful Struggle' as the book of the month. This makes up for me not coming to see you! Btw...where in the world were you at they were using 'gully'? wow. Also, glad u came on a great weekend, cuz it don't last much around here.
I've lived in Seattle, San Diego, New York, Baltimore, Durham, and now, Raleigh. I considered a job in Portland, but felt like such an alien that I just could not bring myself to be one of the ten black people in the area. And really, there's nothing more frustrating than being surrounded by self-congratulatory, theoretically liberal hipsters. Powells is a great bookstore, but it does not a comfortable existence for a woman of color make. It's just a great bookstore.
The west coast, in my experience, is beautiful. The gender shit is nowhere as deep there as it is in the south. And the race stuff is basically ignored. I've never felt so invisible as I did when I lived in San Diego (La Jolla, to be exact, grad school hell). On either coast, if you point out problematic issues around race, you'll get the uncomfortable face. You know, the one that says, "I was doing so well at pretending you're not black until YOU made an issue of it! Thanks for ruining my good time!"
But there is something really special about the west. On a superficial level, people are just not all up in your business. They are much more live and let live in the cities - but I think that's a generalization you can make about ANY city in the US - you leave it, and you're in the hinterlands.
Weird. I was just out in L.A. and Orange County this weekend and I kind of had that same feeling. Like, there were plenty of times when me and my mom, aunt, uncle, & cousin were the only black people on the sidewalk or in a store. And while I noticed it in passing, I didn't feel uncomfortable, not the way I've felt being on the east coast and that happens. And when we did get stared at, it was mainly because they were gawking at my cousin, who's a 6'2 former volleyball player.
It was different and yesterday on the plane back to D.C. I was trying to figure out why. So it was weird to come in to work and read this post. I must say, it was refreshing to just...be. Then again, I'm not from there. Maybe if I spent more time in L.A. or out west in general, I would eventually pick up on the nuances and peculiarities of how west coasters deal with race. But I definitely understand the larger point of not wanting to be looked at as a problem, not wanting to have justify your right to have a life as messy and fucked up and as beautiful as anyone else.
Or something like that.
I grew up in Selma, AL. Moved to Nashville for college, then hit Seattle for grad school and work.
As a white guy I wasn't tuned in to any racism. But as a guy who grew up in trailer parks and went to Vanderbilt on a scholarship, I was VERY tuned in to all of the classism.
The thing I dug right away about Seattle is that, for the most part, no one cares who your Dad was (or what boat your great, great, great . . . grandfather came over on), which sorority you Mom was in, or what kind of car you drive. To be clear, there are still people who want to send their kids to Lakeside strictly for the bragging rights, but the level of classism is nowhere near what it is in the East. The guy sitting next to you at the bar might look like he rolled out of bed ten minutes ago, and he's worth $10 mil cause he managed to manipulate some code (software or genetic) in a cool way.
In my circle, which is the high tech community, no one cares what color you are, which God you do or don't worship, or the neighborhood you grew up in. All anyone cares about is what projects have you worked on, what did you do specifically on that project, can you do it again and put money in everyone's pockets. That has its downsides. It is competitive as hell. But at least I'm given a chance to get in the game.
Nothing makes the problems with Seattle more apparent than all the white people on here saying that in Seattle it doesn't matter what color you are.
I have yet to read a single person say that. I appreciate you reading and taking the time to comment. But please, do the people you disagree with the justice of disagreeing with what they've said.
I really don't mean any disrespect. But I'm not interested in reading two people argue over strawmen. Disagree with something? Quote it and call it out. Otherwise, what's the point?
Speaking of catching your breath and discovering what it means to just be...
I read this post and recognized my white gay self in it - escaping the small town and moving out to the West Coast city. Give me The Seattle Chill aaaaanytime, any day. Y'all can complain about it as much as you want, but it's about a thousand times preferable to the conformist, suffocating demands of so much Midwestern friendliness.
Besides, the Chill melts away the moment you light up the smile and turn on the charm. People who don't let it get in their way attract the Seattle introverts like a Bug BBQ - they just can't help themselves.
It was great to see TNC in Seattle and buy his book. I would have loved the discussion at the panel I went to to go a little bit more the relation of the African-American story to the American story (I think it's the most central story, or at least one of the most interesting) but a gathering of writers, publishers and booksellers tends to talk about the problems in selling books.
I'm a white guy born and raised near Seattle, in an almost completely white suburb, who spent some time in Princeton, St. Paul and San Francisco, and the last 19 years back in Seattle. I was at Princeton the same time Michelle Obama was and it annoys me, but doesn't surprise me I don't remember seeing her. In that school, people moved in several separate worlds.
Princeton, and New Jersey, was my first exposure to the East Coast, and the experience of a self-consciously socially and racially stratified (segregated? community) The guys I hung with were very up on being Jewish and Italian and all that it entailed. It was my first exposure to Holocaust Humor. My memory is I found it all very interesting but from an almost anthropological perspective, and not much that involved me or my own attitudes.
Of course all that is part of being young. Now that I am back home, and have seen other parts of the country in comparison to Seattle, it's hard for me to figure out how racism plays in Seattle. It's obviously here because it is everywhere. Seattle has a history of racism (in various directions, e.g. Japaneses internment), and the people who come here bring their feelings with them. All I can say though, is that racism doesn't seem as central to the concerns here. And yet, after several minutes of pondering this, I am not sure what to point to to justify that feeling. It may be that white guys are just clueless to the implications of the world around them.
I grew up in NW Washington State, and went to college at the UW (Go Dogs!). Thanks for your very kind words about my home.
There were two black kids in my high school (not in my year though), and one black guy on my floor freshman year in college. Honestly, they were pretty popular, because they were cool. They were open and friendly and had a very interesting way of talking. What differentness there was was interesting, not threatening. Not to me or most that I knew.
Of course, not everyone feels that way. But I think the groups that have problems in the West are Asian Americans, Native Americans, and Mexican Americans. But the old African American ideas play out there, too. For example, a couple I know were quite surprised to find that the house they bought in the late 80's still have covenants attached against selling it to blacks or "colored". Their lawyer told them the covenants were unenforceable, so it was best to just ignore it. This was in Menlo Park, CA. Not exactly a hotbed of Neaderthals.
Of course, fear of "The Yellow Peril" has long been part of the West Coast scene. And Mexican-Americans...well, my favorite remodeling contractor was doing a bathroom for us two years ago. He called off work on Cinco de Mayo as part of a general protest by the Latino community over the direction the immigration reform debate was taking. Their simple point was, "We do work that you want to have done, we're not freeloaders."
He came by our house to make sure that we knew that it was nothing personal. We had a really fun conversation where he talked about Mexico and what it was like there. He said, "some may choose to not work, but they don't expect anybody to give them anything when they don't."
I've lived in VA for 6 years, and visited other eastern cities, and I think it is different out here. But it's hard to say how. LA is the home of the Watts riots and the Rodney King beating, as well as Tom Bradley.
Here's one thought: Port cities are generally more tolerant, because that's a functional adaptation. Ports have lots of foreigners going through them all the time, doing business. So, you have to find a way to do business and not let your biases define you. And all the major cities in the West are ports.
I will revise and extend my earlier remarks.
I would never say that racism in Seattle doesn't exist. All I'm arguing is that, having grown up in Selma, effing Alabama, there is no way Seattle compares in the South or East in terms of racial discrimination. Further, in my little circle the color of your skin is NEVER a consideration of whether or not you can get a job. If you can manipulate code, you are in.
Seattle has its own unique discrimination issues and general weirdness. Seattle's community leaders need to aim higher and expect more of themselves. From our sports teams to our politicians to the community leaders we don't push our civic institutions hard enough. What's profoundly odd about that is that we have major league philanthropy here, our schools are pretty good (check out our high school jazz programs winning the Ellington competition, again), the food here kicks ass. We just seem to lack the right leadership and "will" amongst the people who live here.
If there was one check against the people, I'd say that we don't embrace our strength enough. We got a lot of super interesting people who live here, from South Seattle up to North Seattle. We need leaders who will help us embrace being a world-class city and engaging everyone who lives here in a set of causes that are bigger than each of us individuals.
Personally, I'd like to see the local political and community leaders put a stake in the ground and say that we are going to make Seattle schools the envy of the world. Put the resources and attention into early childhood ed, parental training and guidance, teachers, and scholarships. Chicago can have the Olympics. OKC can have the Sonics. We need to have a worthy goal, like leading the nation in National Merit Scholars and Semi-Finalists, on per capita basis.
Most importantly, let's make this a Seattle-wide initiative. Doesn't do any good if the kids in Magnolia are succeeding and the kids in the CD aren't. None of this addresses racism, but it goes a long way to making sure everyone in Seattle knows they are in the same boat and striving for a cause that everyone can get behind.
Out of curiosity, where do you stand on the discontinuation of busing for kids going from north to south or south to north for public school? I'll have to admit some personal bias on the issue, since other than my first two years I went to exclusively south end schools (Madrona, Washington, Franklin) while living in a solidly north end neighborhood (Phinny Ridge). Just in terms of my own experience, I know that I wouldn't have been exposed to anywhere near the diversity that I was if I had stayed on the north end of the city for school. Better, perhaps, than a lot of suburban schools, but I still would have been missing out. While I was at Franklin (1998-2002) I found it to be a wonderfully diverse place pulling in students from both the local community and far-flung parts of the city. While it was not without its problems, I really appreciate the education I received there, which wouldn't have happened if I hadn't been able to get busing. So, even if I can understand the budgetary reasons why busing service has been cut, I still think it's a shame.
Jordan, I grew up 2 blocks from Madrona elementary and I attended Washington Middle school in addition to Madrona as part of the IPP program. We prob had a few of the same teachers even though I'm 10 yrs older than you are.
Most of the students I had classes with were bussed in from the northern points as you were. I have no issues with parents choosing to bus their kids to other areas for schooling opportunities such as IPP or Garfield's AP Program. I do think that making kids travel great distances for regular classes they could take a mile away is a bit odd.
I was an APP kid as well, so I know what you're talking about.
I think part of my attitude may come from the fact that during my public school years, SPS was pushing fairly hard to make each school have something distinct about it. Garfield was the place for AP classes. Rainier Beach had a lot of money thrown at it to build a new theater and the associated drama department. Ballard got a lot of technical programs, like the then new biotechnology class. My brother ended up going to Meany Middle School because of the magnet program (unfortunately a flop).
With the push towards standardization, maybe that will matter less. But I also know that even if I'd had the same teachers at, say, Ballard or Roosevelt, it wouldn't have been the same experience that I got at Franklin.
I'm a Midwestern born and bred woman who lived most of her adult life on the East Coast until last year, when we moved to the Pacific Northwest. I spoke with someone this weekend who grew up out here, and he was commenting about his visits to the East Coast. One major difference, he pointed out, was that there are few, if any, white enclaves out here, in contrast to back east. He was pointing this out as a bad thing, i.e., "no neighborhoods like Boston's [Italian] North End ever arose, so you never got the culture and food that comes with such neighborhoods out here."
The downside is true, but perhaps the upside is true as well; fewer white ethnic enclaves means fewer white communities such as South Boston attempting to "protect their own" with strong histories of racism.
Are there even Italian-Americans in Seattle? I assume there are a few transplants from the northeast, but in my time there I've never come across anything like the numbers you get in the region that extends from Boston to Philadelphia.
A friend of mine who moved from New England to Seattle commented that the latter has a lot of casual, completely unreflective anti-Catholicism. She's not Catholic, but it struck her because that sort of thing is unthinkable if you grow up in a place that's 70% Catholic.
One of my daughter's friend's mother is Italian, and she told me that growing up Italian in Renton, WA was just plain weird, LOL!
The same friend who mentioned the ethnic enclaves said there's a lot of Norwegians and Russians here in the Pac NW, but they don't tend to congregate in the same neighborhoods.
Ballard used to the Scandinavian neighborhood. Celebrated Norwegian independence day every year. You could actually buy lutefisk. Now they've all died out and it's being turned into another condo ghetto. Sadly it was probably inevitable after the reconstruction of Fremont back during the Dot Com bubble.
I was going to attend your talk but the weather was so fabulous that I went hiking instead. I am a white woman who grew up in the South and couldn't wait to leave it when I got out of college. I wandered up and down the east coast for years, glad to be out of the South but I still did not feel like I belonged, even in DC and NYC. Then I moved to Seattle and just felt comfortable. After living here for 15 years, I have never heard someone use a racial epithet and do not feel nervous in the same way as I do when I am back in the South talking with white people. (Who knows what THEY will say?) Here race is just not the big deal it is back east. Now, of course, I don't know what everyone is thinking but personally, I am thankful for small favors: NOT hearing idiots insult my intelligence or offend my sensibilities is an improvement. I don't really understand why it is different here but I really appreciate it.
As an easterner when I think of the west it's hard for me to associate it racial harmony.
The west is Nixon, Reagan, Goldwater, Cheney, W, Focus on Family and the LDS church. It's institutions and politicians who come out of the west fully willing to exploit the divisions that exist back east for their own gain.
I'm not saying we don't bear responsibility for our own ills but the idea that the west represents some sort of better way of life is just absolutely astounding to me.
Yeah, but the West is also a lot more than that. It's where no one gives a crap what your great grandfather did or whether you were at the right eating club in Princeton.
Pointing to a few personalities and institutions in the West isn't very enlightening--shall we start listing up the bad men of the East coast?
And you shouldn't presume it's not a better way of life until you try it--better food, better weather, less of that stultifying class and race friction, and overall friendlier people with less attitude and more open dispositions. What's not to like?
I've lived out west. I went to college in San Diego and lived there for nearly a decade.
I just don't see the west as better. Different yes but not better.
There isn't the same kind of black-white tension which I think gets mistaken as meaning racial issues aren't a problem in the same way they are back east.
As an African-American it was nice to not have my race be a constant issue but I quickly learned that just because folks weren't focused on me that didn't mean other folks weren't catching hell.
It's almost like whatever difficulties Native Americans, Asians and Latinos face aren't considered as bad or something. It's only racism if it's anti-black racism.
And for a country that is becoming more brown each year the idea that the kind of discrimination folks face every day being overlooked doesn't make me admire western culture any more than I would expect folks to admire the history of discrimination that exists in the east.
And the reason I brought up Reagan et al. is because it seems hypocritical to me that people will hold up western culture as superior even in the face of the fact that same culture can produce cretins like the people I listed.
If Nixon and Reagan were from some southern state, southerners wouldn't hear the end of it. Instead we get fed this idea that Cali and places out west are forward thinking when they have exactly the same faults as places in the east.
San Diego and Orange County aren't the rest of the West Coast, The rest of what you describe (CO, AZ and UT) are very different, the Mountain West is Goldwater Faux libertarian country. Though CO is becoming more like the West Coast.
And even with Reagan and Nixon country CA also elected both Browns.
Oregon is hardly Reagan/Nixon territory, we had Mark Hatfield and Tom McCall, the kind of progressive republicans who don't exist anymore. WA was defined for decades by Scoop Jackson and Warren Magnuson hawkish yes but also solid New Deal democrats, they also elected a woman governor long before most states. And yes there were a lot of issues with discrimination against Asians, but that is pretty much gone, for example I haven't seen any other state elect a Chinese American governor.
One telling sign is practically every athlete who ever spends any time in Seattle comes back to retire there, Bill Russell, Slick Watts, guys from the Midwest, the South, CA, even Germany (Detlef Shrempf, Christian Welp) guys who can live anywhere and they all come back to Seattle even if they only spent a couple seasons there. Portland is the same way, guys like Kermit Washington who played a season or two stay forever.
I think your misreading most of the comments here. I don't think anyone is saying there aren't any racial issues. To the contrary, if you read through thread there are some pretty elegant explanations.
You're free to disagree with them. But you should consider the arguments in their fullness, and find--specifically--what you disagree with.
I wouldn't say that race issues are nonexistent in the west, but they do seem less pervasive and important in day to day interactions. I lived in DC for several years and I could never get over the incredible segregation in the city, or the fact that virtually all the service workers downtown were black.
In SF, you see more Hispanic faces, more Asians, and race just doesn't seem to be as important.
On the East coast I find that the first question put to you is "What do you do?" There's overt scrutiny in the question, because your answer pegs you in the social order. You may as well throw in who your parents are and what famous people you rub shoulders with. Here in CA, the more pertinent question is "What do you like to do?" No one gives a crap what you do unless it's interesting. People I meet are far more interested in the music I'm listening to or the great hike that went on last week.
Finally, I feel like this is partly an outgrowth of the fact that people here, for the most part, don't judge you based on how you look or how you're dressed. I can go to some of the nicest restaurants in SF in blue jeans. That scummy looking guy in the corner of the coffee shop might be dotcom millionaire. That hipster chick might be a corporate attorney, that black skateboarder might be a Genentech scientist.
Weird. As I write this, a friend of mine is moving to Seattle to live there, a product of Chicago. She gushes about it. And I might
I myself...I'm a New Englander. Or rather, a very specific kind of New Englander: The Rhode Islander. I swear, after a certain distance, we get looked upon like we're some national artifact. And it's not without reason: You grow up, and you come to realize that anything you could possibly want is within 30 minutes driving distance. Haute couture? The shops in Newport. Livestock? West Greenwich, parts of Scituate and Foster/Gloucester. Turf? Exeter (good hell, I lived next to a turf farm my entire childhood). A high-end recording studio? Pawtucket has a few. And, of course, there's Providence, which during the so-called Renaissance era, had a nice art and music scene, including the legendary Fort Thunder. So, needless to say, it was like living in a nation within a nation.
But who's to say you belonged there, even if you live there your entire life? I certainly didn't feel that way. And after spending three years at school in Boston, I still felt out of place in New England, let alone Rhode Island. I headed out to another city.
But I didn't choose New York, like many of my college friends have. To me, that would have been like my first year of college at a state school: Seeing so many familiar faces, it would be obnoxious to a degree. So I bucked the trend and bailed to Chicago.
When I realized I was in Chicago, it felt...amazing (I'm certain randomly crossing paths with Kobe on my first day may have helped). In many ways it was this vast city like New York, but it was also many other things at once that wasn't New York. Sometimes I walk two or three blocks and neighborhoods dramatically change EACH BLOCK. It's a patchwork, but a beautiful patchwork. And it feels unique in that way. It makes me feel sad that, in order for me to make any headway in my field of work, I'm having to move elsewhere soon. Maybe I'll come back one day...
Of course, where I'm going should be just as interesting.
It'd be nice to just live a little
It's quite a release to let it all go. For me it happened gradually, until one day I realized that most of the debate is over for me. Race is not my problem. It may be problem for someone else, but I let them sort it out. I'm busy with other things. I have lived out west for 15 years, after a lifetime in NYC. I ponder race issues mainly when the number of African-America faces seem to dwindle in the workplace, communities, etc. I've never had a black neighbor since I moved here.
The real trip is when you head back east. I remember landing in BWI and thinking I've never seen so many black people. And then I wonder.
Like you I started my travel experiences relatively late in life, but it taught me I could make a home anywhere.
My multiracial family has been living in the West for 10 years now. We notice race differently here, largely because the grades of brown are so much subtler than back home in the Midwest. My kid is never the darkest or the lightest in her class, although she is often the only self-identified mixed person.
Kids have last names like Jaramillo and look like Barbie, the original white model. Or the kid has an Apache surname even HE can't pronounce--and his mom only talks to him in Mandarin so that he's able to speak to her relatives in China.
What race is, is just different. My brother in law, who lived in the area for a few years, was constantly looking for (other) black people and declared the unbearable whiteness of the West to be intolerable. He saw what he was looking for and not looking for, as we all do.
My kid's godmother was the first black girl at Seattle's historical private girls' academy back in the day. Her parents brought her and her 3 siblings up there from Alabama via Los Angeles, and they had no compunctions about sending their children to integrate whatever and wherever if that got them a scholarship. I referred her to this post and she hurt herself laughing at the very idea that Seattle doesn't focus on race.
Following this discussion has made me realize that everyone should really have three basic experiences when it comes to group differences:
1. Being with their own in-group, where everyone knows the same code and can communicate without any kind of inter-group barrier;
2. The exchange student experience of having to learn some other group's code, whether with a different group in the U.S. or by going abroad; and
3. The cosmopolitan experience, where people from different backgrounds come together to create a new way of doing things.
Most people here seem to have had one or two of those experiences and to be looking for the missing one(s). I don't rank them. If you've always been an exchange student or cosmopolitan, cultivating in-group solidarity might be really important. But I'm after the cosmopolitan thing because I've always been either way too in-group (claustrophobic) or way too out-group (alienating). And so I look for groups based on common interests rather than background or birth.
It's kind of why I hang out here.
"...your answer pegs you in the social order"
As a naive young westerner I headed off to Cornell - huge culture shock in any number of ways, but a really odd thing I noticed was that when I met people they didn't ask what I was studying, they asked what school I was in. (Cornell is part private and part state-supported; the state schools cost considerably less than the private colleges.) I couldn't figure out why people were more interested in what seemed to me to be an administrative detail than in knowing what I was there to pursue. I finally realized that the first thing people wanted to know about me was my status in the Cornell social order.
People came to Boston because their families were starving in Ireland.
People came to Seattle because it was the jumping off point for the Klondike Gold Rush.
It makes for a completely different attitude toward life and your neighbors. It's a culture of abundance, not a culture of scarcity. And much of the West has a similar history.
More recently, enormous numbers of Seattle newcomers are highly educated professionals, with backgrounds from all over the world. Being openly racist toward the people who pay your salary is generally a dumb idea.
If you think it's different out west, try coming to Australia. When Chris Rock performed his stand-up down here in Sydney, he started the show by saying "I see all 9 black people in Sydney are here tonight." He was exaggerating about the numbers but only slightly -- and I think all of us were really in the crowd that night!
It's interesting observing and even adopting the different perspectives on race here. For example, it dawned on me one day that I'm not really black to Australians, regardless of their background, because I'm American. That's how they see me, as an American. They do realise that I'm black, and that leads to stereotypes about hip hop and basketball but they have so little first-hand knowledge of black culture that when they meet me, it is my nationality on which they focus. They feel like they have a context for what an American is. They really aren't sure what an African American is.
And when they say "blacks", they mean Aboriginals.
Another East Coast product here. Grew up in Norfolk, Virginia with parents from Virginia and Delaware. Got my first taste of the west coast at the age of 21 when I interned in Oakland for a year. It is different. Totally different. And Oakland is different Seattle, too. There is a cultural newness, if you will, in those cities that allows large parts of them to feel like they have advanced beyond a simple black-white narrative on race. In fact, you are much more likely to hear the term multiculturalism, which is certainly more apt.
The only sad thing I would say about it is that when you get down to to the low rungs on the socioeconomic ladder, racial conflict gets every bit as intense of the west coast as it does back east.
I was reared in the Washington, DC, area, but spent my entire adult life in New York City. Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco are simply gorgeous and very friendly. But...
1. The smug cultural superiority, unlinked as yet to the sort of significant cultural achievement attained in New York, really does get to you a few days into any visit.
2. For a Northeastern urbanite, the glacial pace makes you want to hang yourself with your own shoelaces.
3. It has to be said: I'm not Jewish, but if you want to see some real ethnic disdain spew forth, say anything positive about Israel in any large Northwestern city, and watch the spittle fly.
I wonder if it's that in the South and East people are confined by the black/white paradigm and all the history there. Out here in the west, One, there are many different races, Two, it's the new land where everyone is just trying to improve themselves and not obsess over history or what their neighbor looks like.
Johnn999,
I think it's the latter, rather than the former. There isn't any place any more diverse than New York City, and most other eastern cities are diverse, too. Even midwest places like Cleveland are diverse, just highly segregated. But I think the newness of the land out west, and the fact that the latino influence is "in on the ground floor", so to speak, contributes to freeing the mainstream from a confining dichotomy.
This thoughtful post, another reason I keep coming back for more TNC.