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Sparked by recent conversatiobns with a few different people from down my way, it's made me think just how ethnicly diverse different areas are from each other. Where I live, racism is very present and a surprising amount of people are intollerant of ethnic groups. I've seen a lot of nice people get iscolated and teased simply because of their race, it's crazy. I feel so sorry for anyone who I see having this happening to them and I try my best to stop it occuring. It's so unjust.

But this gets me thinking, what are other places in the world like? I live in a rural community and it makes me wonder if larger cities or even different counteries have the same mindset. So how ethnic diverse is your community? Are people tollerant? Do they discriminate? Have you witnised and been affected by such and act? Share your thoughts!

Sorry about the spelling, my phone is hard to type on

it's my understanding that in more urban settings, people are more tolerant, or just don't care.

however, in more suburban areas and gated communities, people tend to distrust new comers. not much blatant racism going on here.

in my suburban area in the toronto area we were mainly a white community up until about 5-6 years ago when they start a housing development boom and alot of asians/indians moved in. At first no one would tolerate them and tease them but now no one cares.

Living in urban Melbourne it varies.
Suburbs are definitely race dominated in most parts. While most people are tolerant there are cases recently that make everything kinda turn to shit in saying Melbourne is safe for ethnics. Indian bashing were common a few months ago but are dying down now and asians were starting to **** shit up around the city. ANYWAY, in terms of your everyday shit, no gangs or whatever, if you're integrated properly into the community (can actually speak the fucking language when you're running a shop, count the currency) then you're just another Australian.

Werd

in my current suburban neighborhood I don't really know about racism cause everyone heres like 30+ and no one comes outside -_-. its mainly white though. i know two houses in the block thats not white (other than mine)

when i used to live in apartments in the more urban area, there used to be lots of latinos, blacks, asians, a few whites as well, so there wasn't any racism.

the school i go to has people from everywhere so there isnt any racism, though whites stay w/ whites, latinos w/ latinos, asians w/ asians etc.

in my current suburban neighborhood I don't really know about racism cause everyone heres like 30+ and no one comes outside -_-. its mainly white though. i know two houses in the block thats not white (other than mine)

when i used to live in apartments in the more urban area, there used to be lots of latinos, blacks, asians, a few whites as well, so there wasn't any racism.

the school i go to has people from everywhere so there isnt any racism, though whites stay w/ whites, latinos w/ latinos, asians w/ asians etc.

I don't see much out right racism, but like Unbeatable said, the different races seemed to stick together. When I lived in Houston, every night on the news were nothing but blacks killing blacks/mexicans killing mexicans/ and random white serial killer.

Ror wrote:

Fiction wrote: random white serial killer.

Haha..its just feeds the stereotypes

I was gonna add in: random azn freaks out over bad grade... but I felt that was going too far =P

Fiction wrote:

Ror wrote:

Fiction wrote: random white serial killer.

Haha..its just feeds the stereotypes

I was gonna add in: random azn freaks out over bad grade... but I felt that was going too far =P

how'd you know chem test grrr

MrTwilliger wrote:Sparked by recent conversatiobns with a few different people from down my way, it's made me think just how ethnicly diverse different areas are from each other. Where I live, racism is very present and a surprising amount of people are intollerant of ethnic groups. I've seen a lot of nice people get iscolated and teased simply because of their race, it's crazy. I feel so sorry for anyone who I see having this happening to them and I try my best to stop it occuring. It's so unjust.

But this gets me thinking, what are other places in the world like? I live in a rural community and it makes me wonder if larger cities or even different counteries have the same mindset. So how ethnic diverse is your community? Are people tollerant? Do they discriminate? Have you witnised and been affected by such and act? Share your thoughts!

Sorry about the spelling, my phone is hard to type on

May i ask where you live?

you need to travel more

Mr_Pubes wrote:May i ask where you live?

I live in a rural town, around an hour and a half south og Sydney, Australia. The town I live in is pretty small really, no more than 4000 people on it. The town I work in, though, is even smaller and you'd be mad to visit it if you weren't Caucasian. It surprises me to hear that people don't experience the level of intolerance that I have seen. With that said, my area hasn't got a large amount of ethnic diversity at all, with a very large majority of Caucasian people as opposed to any other ethnicity.

Where I live there's about a 35 km stretch in all directions of rural towns. They make up 3 different communities and past the furthest north community, the land drastically turns into a very multicultural and diverse urban city. The contrast between the start of the urban are and the outskirts of the closest rural community is amazing. The more you go north, the more you see the lands filled with a lot of Muslim, Lebanese and Indian folk. But just 10 kms away in the heart of the rural town, the land is filled with a majority of Caucasian folk who are very opposed to Ethnic people.

There was an Islamic High School which was planned to be built in this rural town (around 30 kms away from me) and it was the topic of discussion for months. Many people were outraged by the thought, a lot of people at my work said they (quite literally) burn the place down before they let "them" into "our" town.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008 ... 257402.htm
Overall, the project was rejected. They covered it up and said it was a 'planning issue' but anyone who lives around here knows it was because people want to preserve the "country Australian lifestyle". The local papers were filled with hate articles and there was a large community outrage about the plans. It would of been suicide for the council to approve it and it would of caused a lot of hatred within the community.

A bit of a rant I guess, but it really does amaze me how things differ from what I experience to what you experience. If anyone asked me if my area was, as an overall standpoint, racist I would have no doubt in my mind that the answer is yes. Hell, my parents refuse to go to the bakery simply because an Asian family runs it. They are the only Asian family in my town and they are lovely people, but many people refuse to shop there simply because of their race. Disgustin, but none the less that's simply what people think.

Keep the opinions coming, it's good food for thought atm.

Hi, I grew up in a small Texas town, *fill in the blanks*

generally, intensity of racism is inversely proportional to the level of education in the local area.

Jstar1 wrote:generally, intensity of racism is inversely proportional to the level of education in the local area.

that's not true at all. Well educated people can be just as racist as uneducated people. Rich people can be just as racist as poor people.

The thing about racism is that it permeates all social and class levels. I live in a suburb outside a large city. The city has a large minority population and even so you'll still hear reports of police doing crazy things. Like bursting into a mans house and while he's unarmed shooting him over 100 times, they had the wrong guy. The burbs closest to the cities have larger minorities than the ones farther away, only by a couple of miles but its an entirely different world. My HS must've had a 60%/40% of black/white students. The next district over had probably a 5%/95% of black/white students. This kind of atmosphere breeds a form of racism normally born from ignorance but its perpetuated by society.

typically in suburbs you see minorities moving in to get away from the city, then the white people move out to get away from the minorities and they take the infrastructure of the neighborhood with them, then the neighborhood goes downhill (starting with the school system), low education low housing value the area just because another lifeless extension of city, then minorities move out and the cycle starts again...

suburbia is an inherently racist process because had the white people not left and taken the foundations with them then the minorities could've easily integrated into the system over time, but they don't want that, they'd rather just try and get as far away from them as possible. Then when the area goes downhill they all look at it and go "thats what happens when you let minorities move in" completely ignoring the above statements. Minorities move in and everyone seems to think that's a reason to stop caring and then they wonder why the whole thing goes to shit. The minorities are not innocent either seeing as they were unable to build a successful infrastructure in the wake of the receding one and they have a tendency to bring unwanted aspects of city life with them sometimes. While that's not entirely their fault thanks to the social, educational, and political climate they're escaping it certainly didn't help the problem.

The cycle is disgusting and the only real way to end it is at its source which would mean fixing city poverty. And i don't mean gentrifying the whole thing so they can just replace all the poor with rich but i mean putting city life educationally, socially, and politically on par with what the average suburbia has to offer so people aren't rushing to get out because if they don't they'll be trapped in it for generations.

You get to a certain age and gain enough knowledge and you just start looking at everyone as children who don't know any better. And even if they're racist and you want to hate you know that they are simply products of a cycle and cannot be blamed entirely (but partially because there is a choice) for their actions and your hatred will only perpetuate that cycle. You are left in the very painful place of knowing there is no solution and to react is to become the thing you despise. No moving forward, no moving backward, you just hang your head...

XemnasXD wrote:typically in suburbs you see minorities moving in to get away from the city, then the white people move out to get away from the minorities and they take the infrastructure of the neighborhood with them, then the neighborhood goes downhill (starting with the school system), low education low housing value the area just because another lifeless extension of city, then minorities move out and the cycle starts again...

I don't understand this statement. I don't think most white people who move out to the suburbs are leaving because of minorities. They are leaving because the houses in the suburbs are bigger, cheaper and newer.

How do the white people take the infrastructure/foundations with them? It's ridiculous to assume that only white people have the ability to maintain a infrastructure/foundation and if only the white people let the minorities assimilate into their culture it would all be well. Minorities can maintain a stable infrastructure and a successful foundation as well.

Fiction wrote:

Ror wrote:

Fiction wrote: random white serial killer.

Haha..its just feeds the stereotypes

I was gonna add in: random azn freaks out over bad grade... but I felt that was going too far =P

Black guy stole my bike

chickenfeather wrote:

XemnasXD wrote:typically in suburbs you see minorities moving in to get away from the city, then the white people move out to get away from the minorities and they take the infrastructure of the neighborhood with them, then the neighborhood goes downhill (starting with the school system), low education low housing value the area just because another lifeless extension of city, then minorities move out and the cycle starts again...

I don't understand this statement. I don't think most white people who move out to the suburbs are leaving because of minorities. They are leaving because the houses in the suburbs are bigger, cheaper and newer.

they also leave for surburbia in order live a comfortable lifestyle while being near a major city where they would work. Thats the original concept of a suburb in the first place - enjoy a suburban lifestyle while being near a major entertainment and employment center.

South Florida. Learn Spanish. (melting pot)

Draquish wrote:South Florida. Learn Spanish. (melting pot)

actually Florida is 90% mexican/hispanic and 10% white (age 60+) lol

MrTwilliger wrote:

so basically you are from a redneck town (can you call australians "rednecks" )

Squirt wrote:Black guy stole my bike

that actually happened to me once, when i was at a heavily black/muslim apartment neighborhood...true story.

UnbeatableDevil wrote:

MrTwilliger wrote:

so basically you are from a redneck town (can you call australians "rednecks" )

Well down here our equivalent of Rednecks is known simply as "bogans". But I guess if you want to put it that way, yes I live in a little bogan community. It's pretty scarce: a pub, maybe 10 or so shops and a train station. The entire place is surrounded by bushland, houses and farm properties. It's big geographically considering the number of people on it, mainly because a lot of people have large properties.

chickenfeather wrote:

XemnasXD wrote:

I don't understand this statement. I don't think most white people who move out to the suburbs are leaving because of minorities. They are leaving because the houses in the suburbs are bigger, cheaper and newer.

Well to be honest I've seen this kind of behaviour myself over the years. There's a town near I live that, when I was growing up, was quite scare and small. It was a gap town, a tiny place filled with the more classical Caucasian families with a scarce umber of ethnic people around. Over the last 10 or so year though, it has undergone an insane amount of development and now days would be considered an urban community. All the bushland and open paddocks where destroyed and houses estates flooded the area until it was as overcrowded and packed as all the other places.
What did this attract? A lot of the people in the Eastern Suburbs are ethnically diverse, it's a suburban sprawl with a dominance of ethnic communities in it. A lot of the people who lived in these Eastern Suburbs populated this town and there was quite a large range of ethnic diversity in the town (in particular, Lebanese families). A lot of the older Caucasian families in this town thought the town lost it's rural town feel and moved over to the next town, a smallish rural community with a low level of ethnic diversity in it.
Some people simply didn't care though and the place isn't entirely filled with ethnic cultures. But it's a bit of a life case example of what XemnasXD detailed. The community still functions fine, though, and has prospered from it's mass development.

chickenfeather wrote:

XemnasXD wrote:typically in suburbs you see minorities moving in to get away from the city, then the white people move out to get away from the minorities and they take the infrastructure of the neighborhood with them, then the neighborhood goes downhill (starting with the school system), low education low housing value the area just because another lifeless extension of city, then minorities move out and the cycle starts again...

I don't understand this statement. I don't think most white people who move out to the suburbs are leaving because of minorities. They are leaving because the houses in the suburbs are bigger, cheaper and newer.

How do the white people take the infrastructure/foundations with them? It's ridiculous to assume that only white people have the ability to maintain a infrastructure/foundation and if only the white people let the minorities assimilate into their culture it would all be well. Minorities can maintain a stable infrastructure and a successful foundation as well.

Suburbia life is expensive. In fact the further you go away from the city where goods are made, jobs are had, resources are shipped it becomes more and more expensive. In reality its an unsustainable style of living in the modern world but that's another topic. If the homes were bigger and also cheaper and newer further in suburbia then they would attract the minorities from the city more than the suburbia that they had moved into. I've never heard of big new houses in well to do communities being cheaper than small relatively aged houses in a middle/lower class community btw...sounds like a fantasy market

Also i never said that minorities are incapable of maintaining a successful infrastructure. I said they were in capable of maintaining an infrastructure in an environment where people are actively trying to remove the infrastructure. This is not limited to suburbs and can easily been seen in the city as well (gentrification, college expansions). Its also not limited to minorities as many very rural mostly white communities have fallen in the wake of development by wealthy people seeking large open tracks of land to build communities and golf courses on.

I literally watched my neighborhood go downhill after more minorities moved in. Most of them were not accustom to things like dealing with the school board and townhall meetings so they politically they remained inactive. Since most the active citizens had left town and taken businesses with them the first thing we saw was the schoolboard (mostly white if not entirely at this point) make extremely poor decisions and turn our surplus into a debt. So naturally our schools which were just OK to begin with started doing worse and worse and worse. Taxes went up driving more people away which lowered housing value attracting more low income families. The school eventually got taken over by the state which means it was probably doing worse than some innercity schools or just as bad. Underfunded schools lead to uneducated, restless, futureless children who then go on make the area worse and have kids who will grow up in a worse environment meaning they will basically e stuck in the same dead end life as their parents which goes on to etc etc

this is text book sociology/geography, its basically the history of suburbs. Again im not saying minorities are incapable of building their own successful infrastructure. But its difficult to do in an environment when where people are actively tearing it down and no one cares.

most people here are just xenophobic and have to slowly get accustomed to foreign people/culturs.
blatant racists only out themselves in groups where they feel stronger.
(eastside germany city/town {ca. 500.000 inhabitants} here)

Some people in the city eye me with distrust at the bus stop, pull their belongings tighter to their bodies as i slowly edge towards them and frantically start looking around,till i ask them their destination in perfect german and they loosen up.

Much of this distrust(up to hatred) comes from generations of narrowminded families that haven't had a chance to mingle with other ehthnic groups yet and have to rely on the media and their friends/relatives to make up their minds about them.
There are also those who just turn out like that after certain personal experiences and generalize everything.

Such behaviour puts the foreigners into a disadvantage at school, looking for jobs/studying places and accomodation... not in all cases, but it is a proven fact and it is pretty irksome.
That's why asians for example tend to build up their small isolated businesses for an oligopol in certain industrial areas to systematically economize and become as indepentant as possible from others (as seen in the american "black hair" business).

but globalization will slowly iradicate that and we'll all become one big, beige population.

Racism isn't a problem around here...

Neither is sexual harassment.

They're the benefits!

Racism isn't too big of a problem here ><' It's the stupid gangs... I wouldn't mind it if they were just killing each other, but sadly they take innocent bystanders with them.

Ror wrote:Walls of text make me wet

a/s/l?

XemnasXD wrote:

Ror wrote:Walls of text make me wet

a/s/l?

You're a sick man... but I like your style