Is Minneapolis Racist? (St. Paul, Madison, Cleveland: store, suites, estimates)

[ColdRedRain]

Woohoo!!!! Another race thread!!! Fun!!!!!!

[ColdRedRain]

As a white male, I always feel like Minorities have some hidden agenda against me. Like they think I'm some biggoted redneck racisist ignorant fool, when that's not further from the truth. That's how I feel sometimes around minorities, and I think many white males, especially younger males feel the same...

It's a predicament, do we hold open the door and potentially be looked at like we're patronizing somebody? Or do we not hold the door and be looked at like a jerk?

I often get looks like, "Who's this whiteboy, he's probably some racist punk"

I live next door to a house with 2 african american families. Have they ever said ''hi'' to me? No. Have they ever nodded or stopped over to welcome themselves? No. But when I walked by after parking my car after work and I said "Hey guys how's it going, I'm your neighbor".. The 3 little kids started laughing hysterically at me, and the 'adults' responded with "Yeah, we know, what's your name?", I replied and they said "Oh yeah ______, good to meet you" and then pretty much blew me off, like "Yeah, yeah white boy, move along"

I hate racism and bigotry of all forms, no matter who's the "dominant group" and who's the "lesser group". What you experienced was sick, especially since it came from a group that should have known better since they were long persecuted in this country's history. You're not a racist jerk, they are.

[Cruz Azul Guy]

There was a recent Star Trib story that I think relates to this topic:

Twin Cities has widest jobless gap by race | StarTribune.com

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by Slig

There was a recent Star Trib story that I think relates to this topic:

Twin Cities has widest jobless gap by race | StarTribune.com

I admit that this sort of thing concerns me greatly. Is race (or racism) really the root cause? Or are there other factors at work (i.e., different work ethics across different ethnic or religious subcultures, or perhaps a few extreme situations which skew the total results)?

I note that they mention a disparity even when blacks and whites had "...the exact same educational profile...", but I know that in some types of positions (like software development), a person's formal educational profile means almost nothing ... it's the amount of real-world experience, technical skills, and specific line of business experience which often makes the difference when decided who to hire, not schooling, so I would hope those factors are also part of the equation.

Also, in most places I've been, layoffs have usually been determined either by length of employment, by amount of total professional experience, or by position in the org chart. Skills and education were almost nonfactors. Where were you when the axe started falling, and how long had you been there ... that's what mattered.

[uptown_urbanist]

There have been a couple of books out about this fairly recently; one of the arguments in the one I read (sorry, don't remember the name) was that there aren't many racists left today, or at least it's not racists in the sense that there used to be, but that the lingering effects of the institutionalized racism of the past is still here. I think the argument was that going and looking for specific, individual racist people was a waste of time (not that they're not out there, of course), and distracted from the other issues at hand. Focusing on racist people is taking the easy way out. Maybe a lot of Minneapolis employers are racist (and yes, I'm sure some are), but it could also be other things. The article mentions "social networking," for example; if black African immigrants are also folded into the African American category that could be skewing things a bit, or maybe even just newer black residents from other parts of the country, given that the article mentions, among other things, social networking; if you are newer to town and you're competing against people who have potentially years or decades of experience in this particular market and jobs are being filled by word-of-mouth, then yes, you'd be at a disadvantage regardless of race.

The Twin Cities doesn't have the long-established large black middle class that many other cities have, so I assume that contributes to this as well. And the large number of African immigrants also sets Minneapolis aside from other cities, where the black population is usually mostly American-born. In any case, while I think it's important that people are out there studying these things and trying to pinpoint where things are going wrong and how to address the issue, I'm also not going to jump to the conclusion that Minneapolis is a racist city. And (since I've only read the Strib report, not the full study) I'm also not going to jump to the conclusion, as did one of the people quoted in the paper, that this is discrimination, at least not in the sense of it being because employers are choosing white employees over black ones due only to skin color. Too many other factors at work, especially if you throw things like religion into the mix (with Muslim Somali immigrants, for example); I think there are a lot more people out there these days who are openly anti-Muslim than they are racist.

[Kid Cann]

What I think is sad about Minneapolis is the dispairity between Blacks and Whites. I would like to see numbers on educated African Americans or African Americans in professional settings. Am I the only one that see's this problem? I feel like in Minneapols-St. Paul, African Americans are clearly the inferior social class in terms of education, wealth and employment. How is that different than African Americans as a whole in this country? Not a whole lot, but in Minneapolis it seems much more apparent.

When I was in Philadelphia, where the city is nearly 45%/45% in terms of black and white, it wasn't uncommon to see African Americans walking around in Business suites and our hotel manager was African American. You would not see this in Minneapolis (or at least it would be surprising).

Does anyone not see what I am talking about? I really do believe Minneapolis-St. Paul does have a racism issue. Sure, for the most part the area is a 'sophisticated, educated, and responsible' demographic, but that still doesn't mean that there is this giant dispairity amongst social classes, wealth, employment and education.

[uptown_urbanist]

Kid Cann, you haven't demonstrated that this is a racism issue. (and yes, there are professional black people in the Twin Cities; not nearly as many as in cities like DC, Philly, etc., but it's not quite as rare as you make it out to be, either). Are these disparities the result of modern racism? I highly doubt it. I think many of the issues are the result from broader, long-standing social issues, and while some of those undoubtedly do result from racist policies of the past, that doesn't mean that it's contemporary racists or modern racist policies that are continuing them.

As far as the comparisons to east coast cities like Philadelphia, a lot of that is due to history. The mid-Atlantic states in particular have been magnets for African American migration for generations (and therefore have a long-established black and upper class black population), while in MN the history has been different.

So yes, I would agree that the Twin Cities have some major issues to work out as far as the massive disparity in terms of wealth and education between white and black residents, but that doesn't necessarily translate into a "racism" problem, at least not one that is caused by modern people making decisions based purely on race. If that was the problem, it would be a lot easier to fix. (although, of course, when incidents of racism are uncovered they should certainly be addressed!)

[City Data Guy]

You know, threads like these are really annoying. They are annoying for the following reasons:

• Threads like these almost always begin with a non-white user asking if its safe to move to a predominantly white area, as if they're thinking that every other local Euro-American is going to outright hate them for their skin color. Guess what? It isn't 1950 anymore!
• Based on the original poster's tone, they seem to think of most whites as racist, therefore they're stereotyping.
• Not all Euro-Americans are hateful racists. You cannot deny that. Sure, in the years before the 1970's, I would have said that a lot of white Southerners are racist, but today, I'm sure there are a lot more tolerant whites down there compared to the years before the 1970's.
• Cities aren't racist, people are.
• It's just really annoying.

If some of these people are just so afraid to move to a predominantly white area, why not just move to the United States-Mexico border?

Racism exists everywhere. Anyone, white, black, Hispanic, Asian, or Native American, can be racist and or a victim of racism. Stop being so stereotypical of 200,000,000 people. (That's roughly the number of non-Hispanic whites in the United States.)

On Topic: Yes, as a Hispanic, you are safe to move to Minneapolis.

Hispanics are a solid minority in Minneapolis; Hispanics make up over 9% of the city's population.

However, Minneapolis is one of 17 of the 100 largest U.S. cities to see a growth in its white population. (Source (http://www.startribune.com/local/35776774.html?elr=KArksCiUMcyaL_nDaycUiacyKUUr - broken link))

[srsmn]

Originally Posted by City Data Guy

You know, threads like these are really annoying. They are annoying for the following reasons:

• Threads like these almost always begin with a non-white user asking if its safe to move to a predominantly white area, as if they're thinking that every other local Euro-American is going to outright hate them for their skin color. Guess what? It isn't 1950 anymore!
• Based on the original poster's tone, they seem to think of most whites as racist, therefore they're stereotyping.
• Not all Euro-Americans are hateful racists. You cannot deny that. Sure, in the years before the 1970's, I would have said that a lot of white Southerners are racist, but today, I'm sure there are a lot more tolerant whites down there compared to the years before the 1970's.
• Cities aren't racist, people are.
• It's just really annoying.

If some of these people are just so afraid to move to a predominantly white area, why not just move to the United States-Mexico border?

Racism exists everywhere. Anyone, white, black, Hispanic, Asian, or Native American, can be racist and or a victim of racism. Stop being so stereotypical of 200,000,000 people. (That's roughly the number of non-Hispanic whites in the United States.)

On Topic: Yes, as a Hispanic, you are safe to move to Minneapolis.

Hispanics are a solid minority in Minneapolis; Hispanics make up over 9% of the city's population.

However, Minneapolis is one of 17 of the 100 largest U.S. cities to see a growth in its white population. (Source (http://www.startribune.com/local/35776774.html?elr=KArksCiUMcyaL_nDaycUiacyKUUr - broken link))

'Euro-Americans'....I like that. And, I like your liberal use of emoticons!

re: your last point, though: the population of Minneapolis has grown overall, though (will probably be between 400-410,000 this census, as opposed to 382,000 in 2000), so an increase in the white population is to be expected. It's a totally different game from places like Cleveland, St. Louis, Detroit, et al. where you still have "white flight," but black families continue to stay in the city and grow and non-white Hispanics continue to move in....

[City Data Guy]

Originally Posted by srsmn

'Euro-Americans'....I like that. And, I like your liberal use of emoticons!

re: your last point, though: the population of Minneapolis has grown overall, though (will probably be between 400-410,000 this census, as opposed to 382,000 in 2000), so an increase in the white population is to be expected. It's a totally different game from places like Cleveland, St. Louis, Detroit, et al. where you still have "white flight," but black families continue to stay in the city and grow and non-white Hispanics continue to move in....

European American

LOL...Liberal use of emoticons......How is my use of emoticons "liberal"?

St. Louis' white population increased, too.



St. Louis, MO

2000 Census:

Percent White: 43.8% (42.9% Non-Hispanic Whites)
Percent Black: 51.2%

(Source)

2006-2008 Estimates:

Percent White: 46.6% (44.4% Non-Hispanic Whites)
Percent Black: 48.5%

(Source)

Apparently, blacks have lost their majority status, and whites increased in both number and percentage.