I don't know if folks caught this interview but it raises the intriguing possibility that having an "open" mind may be more about doing the hard work of developing carefully/intimately informed positions than about one's place in the political spectrum:
"you know, there's this sense, and I say this in the book, that the wonderful voluptuous thing about reporting, the great voluptuous pleasure of it, is that you will look at a place from afar and it will seem-- will think you understand it. You will look at Iraq and you'll say, "My God, look at what's going on. I understand it. Well, I can say to you this and this and this?"
And as you get closer, as you set foot on the ground, as you talk to people, tens of people, you know, scores of people, as you travel around, as you see what's going on the ground, bit by bit, your certainty is stripped away, and you know less and less. Until you reach a moment, a couple weeks in, usually in my case, where you've been bombarded with sense impressions.
You've been bombarded with opinions. You've been bombarded with descriptions. And you suddenly think, I know nothing. I know nothing about this place. And that is a wonderful place to reach because you've achieved a kind of tabula rasa. You know, now I can try to understand it on my own terms." http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/10162009/profile.html
For you dmf, from whence does conviction arise? On one hand, no doubt most of us, most of the time, in order simply to have a coherent view of the world must engage in some reductive thinking, often reinforcing tunnel vision. On the other, certainly we don't simply live in a world in which all things have equal value; perspective implies foregrounding and backgrounding. So then the question is for you: what do you go by? Not only is it difficult, however salutary, to keep a beginner's mind, but after a while isn't also dishonest to pretend that one has one?
What has been your experience?
Hi E, you raise many different points and I'm not very good at responding in this little box but let me try. First I don't think that we have (nor should desire) a "coherent" view of the world (see my response to PontG below), most of our orientations/styles/ways-of-being-in-the world, are non-conceptual and multivalent/multilayered. So I don't think we can know from 'where' convictions rise , but we have learned (?), and here we get more to the interview's implications that our feelings of conviction/certainty may have little to do with how things are and more to do with how we want some immediate social interaction/exchange to go. So for me here less about literal "beginner's mind" and more about following something akin to TNC's principle of ignorance or being careful about speaking with certainty/author-ity about matters which one knows relatively little about. But also as the author suggests about the embodied/pragmatist's pleasure of immersing oneself in the richness/complexity of things and then trying to express, live out/in, this fuller life, is this not the pleasure(s) of poetry? Perhaps as ee suggests below we are working out a style/mode here of the art of living. So yes one is grasped by calls of conscience and consciousness, as we talked about long ago in terms of experiencing paintings, but this is not 'simple' in the usual sense of being "reductive" but rather in the alchemical sense of sublimation. Hope there is more sense than ramble here, thanks for the provocative questions, d.
Have any of you seen this article yet, The White City? Excerpt:
Why is it that progressivism in smaller metros is so often associated with low numbers of African Americans? Can you have a progressive city properly so-called with only a disproportionate handful of African Americans in it? In addition, why has no one called these cities on it?
As the college educated flock to these progressive El Dorados, many factors are cited as reasons: transit systems, density, bike lanes, walkable communities, robust art and cultural scenes. But another way to look at it is simply as White Flight writ large. Why move to the suburbs of your stodgy Midwest city to escape African Americans and get criticized for it when you can move to Portland and actually be praised as progressive, urban and hip?
Leaving aside the fact that a lot of Latinos and Asians would probably have a problem with him declaring, say, Seattle or Denver, as "white," his argument is deeply flawed.
But look closely at these exemplars and a curious fact emerges. If you take away the dominant Tier One cities like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles you will find that the “progressive” cities aren’t red or blue, but another color entirely: white.
Really subtract the three of the biggest cities in the country? Denver and Minneapolis are both at 10 percent. Austin is at about 9. Moreover as the author notes, the national average is 12.8. At some point, you simply run out of black people.
To the extent that the argument is serious you end up with something like "Why aren't black people evenly distributed throughout the country's cities in perfect proportions?" To which I'd ask, "Why is that important?" It's not true of any demographic group in the country. Why should it be true of blacks?
Re your first point, it's a good one, and one that was made in the comments there. He's not really talking about "white" cities; he's really talking about cities that don't have many blacks. Re your second point about the three biggest cities, you could argue (as I did in the comment thread there) that there has been a sort of white flight within New York City, at least, considering the ethnic composition of the neighborhoods that are popular with young whites.
Do young whites who live in trendy neighborhoods in NYC and Chitown engage in actions to make young non-whites feel unwelcome. or are trendy young nonwhites simply not interested in the same neighborhoods as trendy young whites?
In addition, in the case of Chicago the neighborhoods that skew the most toward supporting progressive political causes, such as Lincoln Park, Lake View, and Hyde Park) tend to be more racially diverse than the other neighborhoods in the city. Moreover, the most politically conservative neighborhoods tend to be predominantly white.
I don't know about Chicago, but regarding New York, in answer to your first question, no. But the non-whites (or, more accurately, the non-whites and non-Asians) are less likely to be able to afford to live in the trendy white neighborhoods.
In answer to your second question, re New York, no. The Upper West Side is arguably the most liberal neighborhood in the city. Sit outside at a cafe there on Broadway on a warm Saturday and you'll see plenty of whites, along with a smattering of Asians. You might see the occasional black delivery guy, or black nannie pushing white babies in a stroller. But you don't see that many blacks there otherwise. That's been my experience, at least.
It took me a minute to even think of white people I knew in Seattle-- granted I don't know that many people in Seattle, period-- but most of them are Asian.
I think the author is begging the question. He posits that "progressive" cities are lacking in diversity, then defines cities that lack diversity as progressive to prove his point. Why is Denver on his list of "progressive" cities but Atlanta isn't? "Transit systems, density, bike lanes, walkable communities, robust art and cultural scenes"- Atlanta's got all that. Also, right off the bat, he removes New York, LA, and Chicago, because they don't make his point (because they're "tier one" cities?).
Progressive cities aren't really progressive- meh. Just another example of contrarianism. How appropriate for today's discussion.
It strikes me as being on the same thought-train as Glenn Beck's "they used to be called slave owners" comment. Not to say that progressives can't be racist but this is not the way to go about proving it.
The article makes ridiculous leaps. I know a lot of people moving to Austin, for example, simply because they hear its a good artistic community and their friends from college move there. Same with Portland. They aren't doing it as an excuse to escape black people, they are doing it because cars are expensive, cities are more fun, and there's people they know there.
According to Wiki, Hispanics and Latinos made up 34.2% of Austin's population. Austin has both a Hispanic and Asian population that's greater than the national average. Now, don't get me wrong, white people can certainly be anti-black but accepting of other ethnicities, but that's not the argument the article's making-- it's that these cities are white.
It pains me to say this as a 30-year resident, but Austin has a reputation as not being a particularly friendly place for African Americans.
There's an annual, big deal track meet called the Texas Relays that draws thousands of AA visitors every year, and for the last several years, they've not felt especially welcome among a segment of the business population. One of the largest malls in town (the one closest to UT, where the meet is held) closed down in the middle of the day this year during the relays rather than remain open to serve people they termed as "disruptive."
There have also been several police shootings of young, unarmed African American and Hispanic men that have fed into this perception. If I recall correctly, only one officer lost her job behind one of the shootings and some of the officers barely got a slap on the wrist.
Politically, this is a very liberal city. Obama got some 65-70 percent of the vote here. But after all, Texas was a Confederate state, and we've certainly still got our share of unreconstructed racists.
I completely agree with you. There was a really interesting article in the New York Times last week about the Mexican immigrant population in various metropolitan areas around the country. The article made the point that the Mexican population in any given area is usually composed of an extremely high percentage of immigrants from one particular state in Mexico. For example 85% of the Mexican immigrants in the Raleigh-Durham area, for example, are from one Mexican state, whereas 85% of the Mexican immigrants in Cincinnati are from another. Apparently, word gets around back home that x city is the place to be.
Anyway, exactly the same thing happens among the young and highly educated in this country. Back when I was graduating from college, word on the street was that Austin was the place to be, so that's where a ton of my classmates went. Same thing in law school: the rumor was that Minneapolis had great firms and low billable hour requirements. It had nothing to do with race, and everything to do with demographic gossip, if that makes any sense.
I grew up north of Boston and Burlington, MA has a very high Indian population largely because of word of mouth between Indian persons living in the town and their relatives in India. There's also a large hospital and mall, plus its close to high-tech jobs, lots of appeal there. My town is right next to Burlington but the only two Indian families I ever met in town lived in my neighborhood, apparently they weren't hyping it as much as Burlington.
This story is really bizarre. So what happened? The supposed victim is recanting her story, but the article ends with one of the accused sorta verifying her story.
In a letter in March 2008, that person, Alisha Burton, wrote that Ms. Williams had been held captive but only after a romantic relationship with Mr. Brewster took a turn for the worse.
OH, THAT MAKES IT SO MUCH BETTER, THEN. What the hell?
All I can say to all of this is when it comes to progressive cities, large and small--let's go to northern CA, the Bay Area in particular, okay--the butt of everyone's conservative joke for decades, the stereotype, the extreme of progressivism. Now, give me a break, Dave, but maybe you've never been there.
The more I think on it, the more dishonest I think the article actually is. If you compare the population African-Americans to the state, as whole, the cities actually have an equal or higher percentage. (Austin being the exception.)
It is amazing that the Oakland/San Fran area somehow isn't "progressive." I'm also not clear, as someone mentioned, why Atlanta isn't progressive.
SF, Berkeley, Oakland all are multicultural urban environments. The relative numbers of particular populations may vary, but one thing does not: their populations are enormously diverse.
Yes, as a San Francisco resident I've noticed that. Has anyone else noticed that to live within the city limits of San Francisco you practically have to be a millionaire?? Hello? This isn't race, this is MONEY.
The relative lack of diversity in places like Portland raises some tough questions the perennially PC urban boosters might not want to answer. For example, how can a city define itself as diverse or progressive while lacking in African Americans, the traditional sine qua non of diversity, and often in immigrants as well?
Two things: 1.) You can be non-white, non-black and not an "immigrant." Hello? and 2.) This is like blacks are some kind of liberal decoration in the city.
Most of what this author is pointing to is simply the differences between East Coast and West Coast cities anyway.
Maybe black people don't like the weather in Portland. After all, not everyone loves fog and rain. I feel that way myself, actually. I mean, there's a reason Portland isn't as big as Los Angeles.
Don't Americans of all colors have the right to live wherever in this country that they choose, assuming they can find work and housing and all that? After all, and just for example, there are areas in the far northern plains which are largely inhabited by the descendants of Scandinavians. They actually like the weather there. Most of the rest of us don't. Does the (relative) lack of Swedes in Oakland mean Oakland suffers from a "relative lack of diversity"?
The whole argument is ridiculous. Americans should and do live where they want to live assuming they can make the economics work out.
Hey, there are plenty of us Swedes in Oakland. The best place to buy Swedish food in the Bay Area is the Nordic House on Telegraph Ave. -- right by the (African-American owned) Everett & Jones Barbecue.
Maybe personal relationships, dating and friendships are a driving factor for non-white people in this country when deciding where they want to live? I bring this up also to discuss the findings from OKCupid about the racial dynamics of dating online, http://www.feministing.com/archives/018508.html#more
"White women prefer white men to the exclusion of everyone else--and Asian and Hispanic women prefer them even more exclusively. These three types of women only respond well to white men. More significantly, these groups' reply rates to non-whites is terrible. Asian women write back non-white males at 21.9%, Hispanic women at 22.9%, and white women at 23.0%." So maybe you're an AA dude who wants better responses when dating online, you may not be as apt to live in Seattle as Oakland?
Marc Lamont Hill got canned by FOX news for being too liberal. This, from a network that still features Michelle "Concentration camps for Muslims" Malkin?
I gotta wonder who FOX will trot out as a liberal voice in the future, or if they'll even bother.
Maybe Fox figured that if the White House is going to blackball them for being too conservative, why bother trying to reach out?
I happened to like Marc Lamont Hill on Red Eye though, when I used to watch it. Seemed like he had a good sense of humor. Coincidentally, the same developers who built his website built a site I'm about to launch.
But doesn't this doesn't wind up verifying Obama's characterization of Fox News as being a mere propaganda organ for the coservative movement? Wouldn't IT be a better tactic for Fox News to hire more commentators/pundits who represent leftist views, and who are eager to criticize Obama FROM THE LEFT?
That would allow Fox to argue that their coverage is not ideologically biased, and to credibly argue that the Obama administration is simply expressing sour grapes about being criticized.
I thought Lindsey Graham missed this as well (very reminiscent of Rahm's little Rush push last spring). If Republicans stand up to say that the president should really talk to the GOP network in the spirit of bipartisanship, it kind of ruins the whole point about Fox being a regular old news organization like any other.
I don't think the WH is calling out Fox News for being "too conservative" and the WH isn't "blackballing" Fox News either. They are, however, calling out the lies, name calling (remember "terrorist fist bump" was on one of their "hard news" programs) misrepresentations and one sided presentation of the "news." And I think it was Axelrod who said WH officials would continue to appear on Fox News, but with the very clear eyed judgement that, at least when the subject was the Obama Administration and its policies, they would be on an advocacy program with "a point of view" not a real news channel. There are certainly oasis' of fair and balanced news reporting in the Fox News advocacy desert, but you could get mighty thirsty looking for them.
As someone who was once charged with providing Fox News (as well as other news organizations) with Bush Administration talking points, believe me, it was a lot easier to see them reported as I wrote them on Fox News.
There seems to be a lot out there lately about offensive Halloween costumes. I was a gypsy one year and am now a bit embarrassed about it.
Kids want to be a part of something they think is cool, and I think some adults do that, too. But some of these costumes are just disgusting, and I cannot figure out what the impulse is to make, much less buy, something like that.
Can you imagine the reaction if someone walked into a party dressed like a vagina? I'd hope they weren't single. Kind of reminds me of those lame Captain Morgan's commercials.
Shit sorry-didnt mean to submit two of those, its sort of a joke because when I did a semester in Europe this kid was ultra sensitive about people calling roma gypsies.
No, it's okay, I should have put quotation marks around 'gypsy,' because that's what I thought of the costume then. I don't think I'd even heard the word Roma until I was a teenager or so.
It's now thought to be cute to dress up as a "pirate," by which is meant, a pirate a few hundred years ago. Eye patch, all that.
Modern real pirates, like their historical ancestors, board ships and immediately murder the entire crew to get at the cargo, and why is that cute?
It's like dressing up as a serial killer. No, it IS dressing up as a serial killer.
But OK. We don't need to go all PC on Halloween costumes. Let up on the gypsies, the witches, the ghosts and the pirates already, OK? These are children. Get over yourselves.
Circus peanuts (since airline peanuts are already taken)? If I went to a circus, bought peanuts, and they gave me a bag of pure sugar that tastes good until you eat three and want to puke? I'd be pissed.
Cupcakes-Life isnt a 5 year olds birthday party (your 5 year olds should be eating Hoodsies if they live in New England anyway but whats wrong with a slice of cake?
I don't understand the sudden interest in those either. I always thought I was getting the shaft when the dessert was cupcakes instead of cake and ice cream.
Would-be terrorists who can't carry out their plot because they can't figure out a way to get guns in America?
(I think the guy belongs in jail, but there's a real humor aspect to the fact that all their attempts to recruit real terrorists were rebuffed. Evidently they didn't come across as competent co-conspirators.)
I'm a bit behind in my NYer reading, but just found Adam Gopnik's review of the Dreyfus Affair from last month. In the excerpt below, he responds to critics who question why, after all of the humiliation and violence, did Dreyfus still love France--and feel French. For me, his answer connects with a lot of the musing on this blog, the sussing out of what's black or white or all tangled up.
It is a condition of being modern that our double and triple identities look weird from the outside but are the only kinds that feel authentic from the inside. The passionately nationalist Quebecois who listens exclusively to Metallica and AC/DC; the Muslim fundamentalist with the satellite dish--from outside, we wonder how they reconcile the contradictions. But they don't have to reconcile the contradictions in order to cope with reality. The contradictions are themselves the form that reconciliation with reality takes.
PG, Gopnik is always a thoughtful read and not the kind of writer whose insights are time limited. I have tried to raise this issue/insight here but this kind of reflection of complexity doesn't seem to mesh with the dominant mode of intercourse of the comments (though one often sees it practiced in TNC's initial posts which is what keeps me a reader,) which is to insist on a kind of limited rationality that priveledges logical/computer-like consistency over actual/lived complexity. Thanks for pointing out this illuminating example of the limits of thinking in terms of the usual hackneyed phrasing of black and white and shades of grey.
Did anyone see this story, featured on Good Morning America, about the check cashier who was able to talk an armed robber down?
What had me in tears during Robin Roberts' interview (aside from the fact I'd been sleepless half the night, watching "The Locator" reruns on WeTV, another story) was how this woman was able to see past the trigger of that gun and reach out to the young man behind it, a man who was hurting and alone and scared and ended up being grateful to her for caring about him and talking to him. People like her give me hope for us all.
I didn't see the story, but it sounds like GMA. My boyfriend likes the Today show, and a while back we couldn't get that channel and watched GMA for a while. I was amazed by the difference in tone between the two shows; Today is all about conflict, drama and tragedy, while GMA is more hopeful, upbeat and affirming. Very different ways to start the day!
I've been thinking, with some amusement and delight, about the various languages that you, TNC, use, but hesitating to write about it, because I know that you sometimes take flack for not always using the single most normative vocabulary/syntax. So, I will preface this by saying:
You are a beautiful, gorgeous writer, and I love the risks you take with shaping the language, and the music that you hear as you type, and the fact that you trust your readers to be able to follow you down whatever path you take.
That being said, there are some things that you write about that I don't.understand.at.all. And it totally cracks me up!
NFL posts? No idea what you're talking about. Gaming posts? No idea what you're talking about. Amusing musings on your youth/women you used to like/music that comes from that time in your life? Often very little idea what you're talking about.
It took me the longest time to understand that "old girl" did not, necessarily, refer to anyone old, and might, indeed, be a statement of affection. Or not. Could just be like "that gal over there." Whatev.
And: "I fired up my tauren druid and got started on Hellfire" -- ?? Srsly, that's really all I got. "??"
Oh the worlds we inhabit and that inhabit us! "Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself,(I am large, I contain multitudes.)"
And here I thought knowbale was some sort of ensorcelled condition of ennui that occurs when tauren druids get fired up. Those gamers, a foreign language entirely. So many possibilties--certainly as a band name, Knowbale, has great potential--it could go goth, metal, hiphop. I could see David Bowie's return to Ziggy with a band called Knowbale. Perhaps a minor character representing glum regressive farmer attitudes in a rustic fantasy taking place south of Portland serving as comic relief in between scenes of mayhem and sorcery.
A typo? Ah little elfin tadpoles that they ere.
mm preserved lemons and limes. If you're in the tristate area, Paterson NJ. If not, look for your nearest Arabic grocery store. If for whatever reason, they happen to be an Omani grocery, you'll be tripping over them.
I bring this up because the Chipotle's in MD always had limes, which was awesome. The ones in Boston have lemons, which is not as cool. I wonder if this has to do with their sustainability
Interesting article on Jamarcus Russell. It's pretty damning on his work-ethic. I'm on the record believing that Russell will be a bust, but this paragraph here seemed pretty damning of the Raider's organization:
Two weeks ago in the Meadowlands, on a sunny day achingly perfect for football, New York Giants quarterbacks Eli Manning and David Carr progressed methodically through their pregame passing route tree. They threw to their receivers, who ran all the various routes in the game plan, more than 50 very specific throws each. JaMarcus Russell, their Oakland Raiders counterpart on the other side of the field, had a short soft toss with members of the team's staff.
I don't doubt that Russell has a poor work ethic, but wouldn't a professional coaching staff set up a real pregame passing drill?
I clicked on the link to the "Rice, Rice, Baby" post and was stunned to find that someone other than myself (TNC of all people!), had the same kind of feelings I had for Satan's Handmaiden. For YEARS, I have wanted to spirit her off and "do things" to her until she repents her unholy allegiance to the dark side. I understand how she got that way and I know I can show her the way back to humanity. Like Annakin, she had the force in excess. And just like Darth, she allowed herself to be seduced by the sweet murmurings of unchecked power only to find it a hollow promise.
And yet, why do I find the prospect of speaking to her through clenched teeth, and a fist full of her out of style hairdo, so appealing? Must be the aphrodisiac of power. I swear I hate her politics and everything she has stood for. And yet ....I don't know what it is about being the barbarian at the gates of the jade palace. Seriously, I would run off her cattle and sell everyone else into slavery. Just glad to see it's not just ME...
Here's a piece no one cared about. Meh, whatever, probably the most enjoyable article I did during my stint at TIME. Premiered a month before I got laid-off. The nail in the coffin? Ya think?
Here's me going after Al. I didn't so much have a problem with him, as I had a problem with media acting like this dude was the go-to guy for everything black.
This was my first real story at time. I was writing for the Business section, a real change of direction for me. At any rate, it's about Wal-Mart's attempts to colonize the inner-city. As much as I enjoyed this piece, I mostly enjoyed going out to Chicago, which is a beautiful, beautiful city.
This a piece I did about the cops just outside our nation capitol, in Prince George's County, a few years back. I wanted to offer a counter to the dumb, conventional wisdom that if you paint your police force black, you could eradicate police brutality. In fact, Prince George's--one of the richest, blackest counties in the country--also had one of the most brutal police force's in the country.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
I don't know if folks caught this interview but it raises the intriguing possibility that having an "open" mind may be more about doing the hard work of developing carefully/intimately informed positions than about one's place in the political spectrum:
"you know, there's this sense, and I say this in the book, that the wonderful voluptuous thing about reporting, the great voluptuous pleasure of it, is that you will look at a place from afar and it will seem-- will think you understand it. You will look at Iraq and you'll say, "My God, look at what's going on. I understand it. Well, I can say to you this and this and this?"
And as you get closer, as you set foot on the ground, as you talk to people, tens of people, you know, scores of people, as you travel around, as you see what's going on the ground, bit by bit, your certainty is stripped away, and you know less and less. Until you reach a moment, a couple weeks in, usually in my case, where you've been bombarded with sense impressions.
You've been bombarded with opinions. You've been bombarded with descriptions. And you suddenly think, I know nothing. I know nothing about this place. And that is a wonderful place to reach because you've achieved a kind of tabula rasa. You know, now I can try to understand it on my own terms."
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/10162009/profile.html
For you dmf, from whence does conviction arise? On one hand, no doubt most of us, most of the time, in order simply to have a coherent view of the world must engage in some reductive thinking, often reinforcing tunnel vision. On the other, certainly we don't simply live in a world in which all things have equal value; perspective implies foregrounding and backgrounding. So then the question is for you: what do you go by? Not only is it difficult, however salutary, to keep a beginner's mind, but after a while isn't also dishonest to pretend that one has one?
What has been your experience?
Hi E, you raise many different points and I'm not very good at responding in this little box but let me try. First I don't think that we have (nor should desire) a "coherent" view of the world (see my response to PontG below), most of our orientations/styles/ways-of-being-in-the world, are non-conceptual and multivalent/multilayered. So I don't think we can know from 'where' convictions rise , but we have learned (?), and here we get more to the interview's implications that our feelings of conviction/certainty may have little to do with how things are and more to do with how we want some immediate social interaction/exchange to go. So for me here less about literal "beginner's mind" and more about following something akin to TNC's principle of ignorance or being careful about speaking with certainty/author-ity about matters which one knows relatively little about. But also as the author suggests about the embodied/pragmatist's pleasure of immersing oneself in the richness/complexity of things and then trying to express, live out/in, this fuller life, is this not the pleasure(s) of poetry? Perhaps as ee suggests below we are working out a style/mode here of the art of living. So yes one is grasped by calls of conscience and consciousness, as we talked about long ago in terms of experiencing paintings, but this is not 'simple' in the usual sense of being "reductive" but rather in the alchemical sense of sublimation. Hope there is more sense than ramble here, thanks for the provocative questions, d.
for a more academic but still poetic take on making Contact with the world see:
http://www.janushead.org/8-2/Lingis.pdf
Have any of you seen this article yet, The White City? Excerpt:
Leaving aside the fact that a lot of Latinos and Asians would probably have a problem with him declaring, say, Seattle or Denver, as "white," his argument is deeply flawed.
Really subtract the three of the biggest cities in the country? Denver and Minneapolis are both at 10 percent. Austin is at about 9. Moreover as the author notes, the national average is 12.8. At some point, you simply run out of black people.
To the extent that the argument is serious you end up with something like "Why aren't black people evenly distributed throughout the country's cities in perfect proportions?" To which I'd ask, "Why is that important?" It's not true of any demographic group in the country. Why should it be true of blacks?
Re your first point, it's a good one, and one that was made in the comments there. He's not really talking about "white" cities; he's really talking about cities that don't have many blacks. Re your second point about the three biggest cities, you could argue (as I did in the comment thread there) that there has been a sort of white flight within New York City, at least, considering the ethnic composition of the neighborhoods that are popular with young whites.
Dave,
Do young whites who live in trendy neighborhoods in NYC and Chitown engage in actions to make young non-whites feel unwelcome. or are trendy young nonwhites simply not interested in the same neighborhoods as trendy young whites?
Dave,
In addition, in the case of Chicago the neighborhoods that skew the most toward supporting progressive political causes, such as Lincoln Park, Lake View, and Hyde Park) tend to be more racially diverse than the other neighborhoods in the city. Moreover, the most politically conservative neighborhoods tend to be predominantly white.
Does this pattern not hold true in New York City?
Eltoro,
I don't know about Chicago, but regarding New York, in answer to your first question, no. But the non-whites (or, more accurately, the non-whites and non-Asians) are less likely to be able to afford to live in the trendy white neighborhoods.
In answer to your second question, re New York, no. The Upper West Side is arguably the most liberal neighborhood in the city. Sit outside at a cafe there on Broadway on a warm Saturday and you'll see plenty of whites, along with a smattering of Asians. You might see the occasional black delivery guy, or black nannie pushing white babies in a stroller. But you don't see that many blacks there otherwise. That's been my experience, at least.
It took me a minute to even think of white people I knew in Seattle-- granted I don't know that many people in Seattle, period-- but most of them are Asian.
Everyone I know there is an immigrant-- Asian and otherwise.
I think the author is begging the question. He posits that "progressive" cities are lacking in diversity, then defines cities that lack diversity as progressive to prove his point. Why is Denver on his list of "progressive" cities but Atlanta isn't? "Transit systems, density, bike lanes, walkable communities, robust art and cultural scenes"- Atlanta's got all that. Also, right off the bat, he removes New York, LA, and Chicago, because they don't make his point (because they're "tier one" cities?).
Progressive cities aren't really progressive- meh. Just another example of contrarianism. How appropriate for today's discussion.
(Interesting article though, DIH)
It strikes me as being on the same thought-train as Glenn Beck's "they used to be called slave owners" comment. Not to say that progressives can't be racist but this is not the way to go about proving it.
The article makes ridiculous leaps. I know a lot of people moving to Austin, for example, simply because they hear its a good artistic community and their friends from college move there. Same with Portland. They aren't doing it as an excuse to escape black people, they are doing it because cars are expensive, cities are more fun, and there's people they know there.
According to Wiki, Hispanics and Latinos made up 34.2% of Austin's population. Austin has both a Hispanic and Asian population that's greater than the national average. Now, don't get me wrong, white people can certainly be anti-black but accepting of other ethnicities, but that's not the argument the article's making-- it's that these cities are white.
And I see that's addressed in comments, but it still strikes me as really odd.
It pains me to say this as a 30-year resident, but Austin has a reputation as not being a particularly friendly place for African Americans.
There's an annual, big deal track meet called the Texas Relays that draws thousands of AA visitors every year, and for the last several years, they've not felt especially welcome among a segment of the business population. One of the largest malls in town (the one closest to UT, where the meet is held) closed down in the middle of the day this year during the relays rather than remain open to serve people they termed as "disruptive."
There have also been several police shootings of young, unarmed African American and Hispanic men that have fed into this perception. If I recall correctly, only one officer lost her job behind one of the shootings and some of the officers barely got a slap on the wrist.
Politically, this is a very liberal city. Obama got some 65-70 percent of the vote here. But after all, Texas was a Confederate state, and we've certainly still got our share of unreconstructed racists.
I completely agree with you. There was a really interesting article in the New York Times last week about the Mexican immigrant population in various metropolitan areas around the country. The article made the point that the Mexican population in any given area is usually composed of an extremely high percentage of immigrants from one particular state in Mexico. For example 85% of the Mexican immigrants in the Raleigh-Durham area, for example, are from one Mexican state, whereas 85% of the Mexican immigrants in Cincinnati are from another. Apparently, word gets around back home that x city is the place to be.
Anyway, exactly the same thing happens among the young and highly educated in this country. Back when I was graduating from college, word on the street was that Austin was the place to be, so that's where a ton of my classmates went. Same thing in law school: the rumor was that Minneapolis had great firms and low billable hour requirements. It had nothing to do with race, and everything to do with demographic gossip, if that makes any sense.
Sorry, I meant to say that there was an article in the NYT last YEAR, not last week. Will try to find a link...
I grew up north of Boston and Burlington, MA has a very high Indian population largely because of word of mouth between Indian persons living in the town and their relatives in India. There's also a large hospital and mall, plus its close to high-tech jobs, lots of appeal there. My town is right next to Burlington but the only two Indian families I ever met in town lived in my neighborhood, apparently they weren't hyping it as much as Burlington.
Yeah, why so many middle-easterners in Dearborn, MI? It isn't because the weather reminds them of home, that's for sure.
This story is really bizarre. So what happened? The supposed victim is recanting her story, but the article ends with one of the accused sorta verifying her story.
Whoops, this wasn't supposed to be a reply to this thread. Sorry about that.
I assume you're referring to this:
In a letter in March 2008, that person, Alisha Burton, wrote that Ms. Williams had been held captive but only after a romantic relationship with Mr. Brewster took a turn for the worse.
OH, THAT MAKES IT SO MUCH BETTER, THEN. What the hell?
All I can say to all of this is when it comes to progressive cities, large and small--let's go to northern CA, the Bay Area in particular, okay--the butt of everyone's conservative joke for decades, the stereotype, the extreme of progressivism. Now, give me a break, Dave, but maybe you've never been there.
The more I think on it, the more dishonest I think the article actually is. If you compare the population African-Americans to the state, as whole, the cities actually have an equal or higher percentage. (Austin being the exception.)
It is amazing that the Oakland/San Fran area somehow isn't "progressive." I'm also not clear, as someone mentioned, why Atlanta isn't progressive.
I've been to San Francisco a number of times. I'm sure you've noticed a demographic difference there between San Francisco and Oakland though.
SF, Berkeley, Oakland all are multicultural urban environments. The relative numbers of particular populations may vary, but one thing does not: their populations are enormously diverse.
Yes, as a San Francisco resident I've noticed that. Has anyone else noticed that to live within the city limits of San Francisco you practically have to be a millionaire?? Hello? This isn't race, this is MONEY.
I thought this part was particularly insulting:
Two things: 1.) You can be non-white, non-black and not an "immigrant." Hello? and 2.) This is like blacks are some kind of liberal decoration in the city.
Most of what this author is pointing to is simply the differences between East Coast and West Coast cities anyway.
Maybe black people don't like the weather in Portland. After all, not everyone loves fog and rain. I feel that way myself, actually. I mean, there's a reason Portland isn't as big as Los Angeles.
Don't Americans of all colors have the right to live wherever in this country that they choose, assuming they can find work and housing and all that? After all, and just for example, there are areas in the far northern plains which are largely inhabited by the descendants of Scandinavians. They actually like the weather there. Most of the rest of us don't. Does the (relative) lack of Swedes in Oakland mean Oakland suffers from a "relative lack of diversity"?
The whole argument is ridiculous. Americans should and do live where they want to live assuming they can make the economics work out.
Hey, there are plenty of us Swedes in Oakland. The best place to buy Swedish food in the Bay Area is the Nordic House on Telegraph Ave. -- right by the (African-American owned) Everett & Jones Barbecue.
@TROW,
Oakland is sure representing on this blog. What, are there about 6 of us?
Neldams!
Maybe personal relationships, dating and friendships are a driving factor for non-white people in this country when deciding where they want to live? I bring this up also to discuss the findings from OKCupid about the racial dynamics of dating online,
http://www.feministing.com/archives/018508.html#more
"White women prefer white men to the exclusion of everyone else--and Asian and Hispanic women prefer them even more exclusively. These three types of women only respond well to white men. More significantly, these groups' reply rates to non-whites is terrible. Asian women write back non-white males at 21.9%, Hispanic women at 22.9%, and white women at 23.0%." So maybe you're an AA dude who wants better responses when dating online, you may not be as apt to live in Seattle as Oakland?
By "AA" do you mean Asian American or African American?
Has anyone read: "Searching for Whitopia: An Improbable Journey to the Heart of White America." by Rich Benjamin?
Should I wait for the paperback?
I think TAP published an excerpt from it.
Just picked up on this story
Marc Lamont Hill got canned by FOX news for being too liberal. This, from a network that still features Michelle "Concentration camps for Muslims" Malkin?
I gotta wonder who FOX will trot out as a liberal voice in the future, or if they'll even bother.
Maybe Fox figured that if the White House is going to blackball them for being too conservative, why bother trying to reach out?
I happened to like Marc Lamont Hill on Red Eye though, when I used to watch it. Seemed like he had a good sense of humor. Coincidentally, the same developers who built his website built a site I'm about to launch.
Dave,
But doesn't this doesn't wind up verifying Obama's characterization of Fox News as being a mere propaganda organ for the coservative movement? Wouldn't IT be a better tactic for Fox News to hire more commentators/pundits who represent leftist views, and who are eager to criticize Obama FROM THE LEFT?
That would allow Fox to argue that their coverage is not ideologically biased, and to credibly argue that the Obama administration is simply expressing sour grapes about being criticized.
I thought Lindsey Graham missed this as well (very reminiscent of Rahm's little Rush push last spring). If Republicans stand up to say that the president should really talk to the GOP network in the spirit of bipartisanship, it kind of ruins the whole point about Fox being a regular old news organization like any other.
I don't think the WH is calling out Fox News for being "too conservative" and the WH isn't "blackballing" Fox News either. They are, however, calling out the lies, name calling (remember "terrorist fist bump" was on one of their "hard news" programs) misrepresentations and one sided presentation of the "news." And I think it was Axelrod who said WH officials would continue to appear on Fox News, but with the very clear eyed judgement that, at least when the subject was the Obama Administration and its policies, they would be on an advocacy program with "a point of view" not a real news channel. There are certainly oasis' of fair and balanced news reporting in the Fox News advocacy desert, but you could get mighty thirsty looking for them.
As someone who was once charged with providing Fox News (as well as other news organizations) with Bush Administration talking points, believe me, it was a lot easier to see them reported as I wrote them on Fox News.
Whatever you want to tell yourself these days, Anna.
Dave@ 1:02. That's kind of a "Real Housewives of Atlanta" response, Dave. NeNe to be specific. Up your game, buddy.
Is "wait for the book" a 'NeNe' response to, Anna? Back at ya.
Probably for the best. I hate to say this, but the man hasn't been the same since he left the Root. Neither has the Root
There seems to be a lot out there lately about offensive Halloween costumes. I was a gypsy one year and am now a bit embarrassed about it.
Kids want to be a part of something they think is cool, and I think some adults do that, too. But some of these costumes are just disgusting, and I cannot figure out what the impulse is to make, much less buy, something like that.
Can you imagine the reaction if someone walked into a party dressed like a vagina? I'd hope they weren't single. Kind of reminds me of those lame Captain Morgan's commercials.
I hear gypsy is highly offensive, they prefer to be called Roma.
Gypsy is supposed to be the equivalent of saying eskimo now, they prefer to be called Roma.
Shit sorry-didnt mean to submit two of those, its sort of a joke because when I did a semester in Europe this kid was ultra sensitive about people calling roma gypsies.
No, it's okay, I should have put quotation marks around 'gypsy,' because that's what I thought of the costume then. I don't think I'd even heard the word Roma until I was a teenager or so.
Consider pirates.
It's now thought to be cute to dress up as a "pirate," by which is meant, a pirate a few hundred years ago. Eye patch, all that.
Modern real pirates, like their historical ancestors, board ships and immediately murder the entire crew to get at the cargo, and why is that cute?
It's like dressing up as a serial killer. No, it IS dressing up as a serial killer.
But OK. We don't need to go all PC on Halloween costumes. Let up on the gypsies, the witches, the ghosts and the pirates already, OK? These are children. Get over yourselves.
In honor of it being Thursday, still Seinfeld day in my mind, please complete the following
Whats the deal with.....
Circus peanuts (since airline peanuts are already taken)? If I went to a circus, bought peanuts, and they gave me a bag of pure sugar that tastes good until you eat three and want to puke? I'd be pissed.
Cupcakes-Life isnt a 5 year olds birthday party (your 5 year olds should be eating Hoodsies if they live in New England anyway but whats wrong with a slice of cake?
I don't understand the sudden interest in those either. I always thought I was getting the shaft when the dessert was cupcakes instead of cake and ice cream.
LCrawfty, As far as I'm concerned, anything with frosting is a good thing.
you could just buy the Cold Stone ice cream cupcakes which are super tasty (but also super expensive)
Would-be terrorists who can't carry out their plot because they can't figure out a way to get guns in America?
(I think the guy belongs in jail, but there's a real humor aspect to the fact that all their attempts to recruit real terrorists were rebuffed. Evidently they didn't come across as competent co-conspirators.)
I'm a bit behind in my NYer reading, but just found Adam Gopnik's review of the Dreyfus Affair from last month. In the excerpt below, he responds to critics who question why, after all of the humiliation and violence, did Dreyfus still love France--and feel French. For me, his answer connects with a lot of the musing on this blog, the sussing out of what's black or white or all tangled up.
PG, Gopnik is always a thoughtful read and not the kind of writer whose insights are time limited. I have tried to raise this issue/insight here but this kind of reflection of complexity doesn't seem to mesh with the dominant mode of intercourse of the comments (though one often sees it practiced in TNC's initial posts which is what keeps me a reader,) which is to insist on a kind of limited rationality that priveledges logical/computer-like consistency over actual/lived complexity. Thanks for pointing out this illuminating example of the limits of thinking in terms of the usual hackneyed phrasing of black and white and shades of grey.
ee gets to some of this in TNC's writing style in her comment below, along these lines you might enjoy:
http://www.wpr.org/book/050522a.html
Did anyone see this story, featured on Good Morning America, about the check cashier who was able to talk an armed robber down?
What had me in tears during Robin Roberts' interview (aside from the fact I'd been sleepless half the night, watching "The Locator" reruns on WeTV, another story) was how this woman was able to see past the trigger of that gun and reach out to the young man behind it, a man who was hurting and alone and scared and ended up being grateful to her for caring about him and talking to him. People like her give me hope for us all.
I didn't see the story, but it sounds like GMA. My boyfriend likes the Today show, and a while back we couldn't get that channel and watched GMA for a while. I was amazed by the difference in tone between the two shows; Today is all about conflict, drama and tragedy, while GMA is more hopeful, upbeat and affirming. Very different ways to start the day!
Heard about it on the radio. From what I remember, he prays with her but still steals the money and her cell phone.
I've been thinking, with some amusement and delight, about the various languages that you, TNC, use, but hesitating to write about it, because I know that you sometimes take flack for not always using the single most normative vocabulary/syntax. So, I will preface this by saying:
You are a beautiful, gorgeous writer, and I love the risks you take with shaping the language, and the music that you hear as you type, and the fact that you trust your readers to be able to follow you down whatever path you take.
That being said, there are some things that you write about that I don't.understand.at.all. And it totally cracks me up!
NFL posts? No idea what you're talking about. Gaming posts? No idea what you're talking about. Amusing musings on your youth/women you used to like/music that comes from that time in your life? Often very little idea what you're talking about.
It took me the longest time to understand that "old girl" did not, necessarily, refer to anyone old, and might, indeed, be a statement of affection. Or not. Could just be like "that gal over there." Whatev.
And: "I fired up my tauren druid and got started on Hellfire" -- ?? Srsly, that's really all I got. "??"
Oh the worlds we inhabit and that inhabit us! "Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself,(I am large, I contain multitudes.)"
LOL @ "old girl."
I came up a poetry and hip-hop fan. Often I didn't get every detail of the narrative. But I got the broader point.
This was before the age of google. In these times, "I fired up my tauren druid and got things started in Hellfire" is knowbale.
Thanks much for the props.
A) To quote a friend: I am acquainted with Google, but I like you better!
and B)"knowbale"? Typos may still be mocked.
And here I thought knowbale was some sort of ensorcelled condition of ennui that occurs when tauren druids get fired up. Those gamers, a foreign language entirely. So many possibilties--certainly as a band name, Knowbale, has great potential--it could go goth, metal, hiphop. I could see David Bowie's return to Ziggy with a band called Knowbale. Perhaps a minor character representing glum regressive farmer attitudes in a rustic fantasy taking place south of Portland serving as comic relief in between scenes of mayhem and sorcery.
A typo? Ah little elfin tadpoles that they ere.
Lemons or Limes?
If you say both, I'll think you're just pushing Sprite
Limes. Lemons have jumped teh shark.
Does anyone know where you get preserved lemons?
mm preserved lemons and limes. If you're in the tristate area, Paterson NJ. If not, look for your nearest Arabic grocery store. If for whatever reason, they happen to be an Omani grocery, you'll be tripping over them.
I bring this up because the Chipotle's in MD always had limes, which was awesome. The ones in Boston have lemons, which is not as cool. I wonder if this has to do with their sustainability
Well, limes are certainly more authentic, but only key limes, not persian limes. Not that Chipotle is striving for authenticity or anything.
Maybe that's how a "progressive" city is defined- by the number of Chipotles. That would explain how Denver makes the cut and Atlanta doesn't.
(Thread-link WIN!)
Well-done
I don't know, Baltimore and DC have a lot...
On the other hand, Baltimore had Animal Collective, which means a lot.
Interesting article on Jamarcus Russell. It's pretty damning on his work-ethic. I'm on the record believing that Russell will be a bust, but this paragraph here seemed pretty damning of the Raider's organization:
I don't doubt that Russell has a poor work ethic, but wouldn't a professional coaching staff set up a real pregame passing drill?
One would think so. I always bring this up, but look at Moss. Suddenly all those work ethic and character problems go away in a good organization.
I clicked on the link to the "Rice, Rice, Baby" post and was stunned to find that someone other than myself (TNC of all people!), had the same kind of feelings I had for Satan's Handmaiden. For YEARS, I have wanted to spirit her off and "do things" to her until she repents her unholy allegiance to the dark side. I understand how she got that way and I know I can show her the way back to humanity. Like Annakin, she had the force in excess. And just like Darth, she allowed herself to be seduced by the sweet murmurings of unchecked power only to find it a hollow promise.
And yet, why do I find the prospect of speaking to her through clenched teeth, and a fist full of her out of style hairdo, so appealing? Must be the aphrodisiac of power. I swear I hate her politics and everything she has stood for. And yet ....I don't know what it is about being the barbarian at the gates of the jade palace. Seriously, I would run off her cattle and sell everyone else into slavery. Just glad to see it's not just ME...
Aaron McGruder seemed to see the appeal, judging by his cartoons. Is 3 a trend?
You guys are hilarious. Personally, I would like to be Condie's BFF.
I've known Condi for almost 20 years. Yeah, you'd like her a lot. And she is SERIOUS about her football.