General racial relations: 70s compared to present

Sawfish

Sawfish

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What is your current opinion of racial relations in the US when comparing your perceptions of how they were in the 1970s or so, versus haow they are today. It is more important to use your own personal experiences, ostensibly from various locales in the US, than it is to base your observations on news pieces, TV, etc. They can be some some value, but the best will be personal experiences or at most 2nd hand.

So let's use currently relations are better/about the same/worse than in say 1970.

I would like to parcel it into various permutations:

black/white
Hispanic/white
Asian/white

black/Hispanic
black/Asian

Hispanic/Asian
 

RadishRose said:
I don't speak for the Forum. Just my own observation, I've often seen this topic go bad, but maybe not this time.
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Thanks. I won't push if it is disruptive. It's just that I've particpated for quite a while on forums, and over the last 6-8 years with the ascendant generations. From my exchanges over many social issues I'm completely disoriented and I'd like to see if my confusion is generational, mostly.
 
I only really know about black/white. And from my point of view relations have improved, its clear to me. Not perfect, not as good as I'd like them to be, but surely better.

In the 70s legally mandated segregation was finally drawing it's last breath. And where it was already dead the memory was quite fresh. Segregation still exists, and is proving harder to finally eradicate than I thought it would be. But today it's not overtly supported by law.

Hopefully when our grandchildren get old and are asked this question they will report that things are much better.

I don't see anything wrong with talking about this here, it really shouldn't be political. Maybe what we should do about it could get political, but that wasn't the question. And we don't all have to agree on the answers, I think hearing from a diversity of folks on this would be helpful.
 
Frankly, I'd rather avoid such discussions on a general forum such as this. Face to face is always my priority, but there are forums designed for these topics.

Which is why I rarely, if ever of late, comment regarding same.

Sorry, Sawfish, I do hope you receive some cogent answers to clear up any confusion you have about your subject matter.
 
Personal opinion/observations only... absolutely no data to back it up, but when the 70s were past, I saw racial relations improving (my answer is for the black/white category) for a couple of decades... *however* I do believe it started deteriorating again around 10-15 years ago. I'll be interested in seeing the other opinions here.
 
Not the US, but in the mid 1970s I took a few telco courses in Toronto.....one participant was a Nova Scotia born black woman who lived in Niagara Falls, Ontario, with her black American husband (who crossed the border each morning to go to work).

At one coffee break she mentioned that her husband didn't like West Indians, "Because they didn't think they were black", ("Bob Marley, can you hear me?")

Me, as I've mentioned here previously, my best/oldest friend of close to 56 years now, was born in an internment camp for the Japanese in British Columbia in 1943.........I had black, (West Indian), friends in classes when I returned to school, and black (West Indian), co-worker friends in Saudi, as did other Anglos, (or white variations thereof).

I dunno.
 
I am a Canadian born Asian. When I married in the 70's, inter racial marriages were not the "norm". My parents were OK but my husband and I did get "disapproving looks" from strangers (especially Asians). The war was "fresh" in the minds of many back then.

Today, 50 plus years later, inter-racial marriages are not "frowned upon" and are
accepted.
 
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BC Flash said:
I am a Canadian born Asian. When I married in the 70's, inter racial marriages were not the "norm". My parents were OK but my husband and I did get "disapproving looks" from strangers (especially Asians). The war was "fresh" in the minds of many back then.

Today, 50 plus years later, inter-racial marriages are accepted.
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My above mentioned best friend was married to a white English-born woman, (unfortunately she died a few years back): not being him I can't speak on his behalf, but to everyone we knew they were just "XXXX & XXXXX".....no labels.
 
Alligatorob said:
I'd really like to hear @OneEyedDiva and any other black folks on the forum opinions. I am sure they see it from a very different perspective to mine, I am interested.

I am also interested in the other racial groups points of view.

Gaining a better understanding of others experiences would help us make things better.
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I'll start by saying I'm 75, white, married to an Asian descent woman. One of my two room mates in college in SCal in the late 60s, was black, and the first person to hire me into a software position was a project lead who was black.

I do not think that race matters, but shared values/goals do matter. I think you can see/notice phenotype differences, and people tend to generalize on this. It's incorrect to make an immediate evaluation on this.

All this said, from my experience, there was very much less tension between black/white people in urban west coast cities in the 60/70s. I feel that both groups recognized cultural differences and pretty much accepted these differences.

For Asian/whites, I suspect that it has not changed that much. I think that Hispanic/white (or Anglisized) relations are better now than in the 70s, but they were never really bad.

I feel that any tensions currently have been encouraged for political gain. I have no patience with this and hence want nothing to do with any political organization.
 
Sawfish said:
All this said, from my experience, there was very much less tension between black/white people in urban west coast cities in the 60/70s. I feel that both groups recognized cultural differences and pretty much accepted these differences.
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Why do you think that is? My black/white experience comes from the old segregated south, very different from the west coast.

Now I live in a very non-diverse rural Utah, according to the census my county is 0.6% black. We do have a few others, but at 95% white race relations locally are not much of an issue.
 
Sawfish said:
If this is a problem for this forum, let me know unequivocally. I'll either stop or leave.

These topics are of interest to me, especially since I have discussed them with younger posters on other forums.
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Hey, Sawfish, I'm with you! I get the gut feeling that there are a few, not all, folks here are are living "high off the hog" with fat pensions and maybe a big junk of dough in the saving account and maybe in some fancy gated community and they really, really hate anyone expressing any ideas or concerns that they don't agree with.

I think that is rather intolerant of their thinking. I don't want to live in a country where folks are afraid talk, to express new ideas or to criticize some new trend that just doesn't make sense. That kind of living reminds me of Stalinist Russia and Moa's China. Many people fought in the various wars so that we could enjoy life, liberty and the peruse of happiness. Unfortunately today, we have many people who wash away new ideas and ways of thinking with the concept of "my way or the highway." Sad state of affairs; if you ask me.
 
Alligatorob said:
Why do you think that is? My black/white experience comes from the old segregated south, very different from the west coast.
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My roommate was from NJ and his dad worked for the Post Office. My first SW boss's dad was in the military and he grew up all over the place.

I don't know about other regions.

I that originally on the west coast any black influx was for work, and so this legitimized these folks in the eyes of the whites who were already there, so at least it started out with apparent shared values.

Too, they were not terrorized as a group, as they were in other places in the US.

I don't know, maybe that has something to do with it.
Alligatorob said:
Now I live in a very non-diverse rural Utah, according to the census my county is 0.6% black. We do have a few others, but at 95% white race relations locally are not much of an issue.
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Packerjohn said:
Hey, Sawfish, I'm with you! I get the gut feeling that there are a few, not all, folks here are are living "high off the hog" with fat pensions and maybe a big junk of dough in the saving account and maybe in some fancy gated community and they really, really hate anyone expressing any ideas or concerns that they don't agree with.

I think that is rather intolerant of their thinking. I don't want to live in a country where folks are afraid talk, to express new ideas or to criticize some new trend that just doesn't make sense. That kind of living reminds me of Stalinist Russia and Moa's China. Many people fought in the various wars so that we could enjoy life, liberty and the peruse of happiness. Unfortunately today, we have many people who wash away new ideas and ways of thinking with the concept of "my way or the highway." Sad state of affairs; if you ask me.
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I draw a real sharp line between hurt feelings and physical hurt. The first is just a possible offshoot of a disagreement, the latter is unacceptable.

I can live with what people say to me, and about me.
 
From my perspective - (I am white)

black/white - Much better
Hispanic/white - Better
Asian/white - I have no experience other than what I see on the news

black/Hispanic - I have no experience
black/Asian - I have no experience

Hispanic/Asian - I have no experience

I had mentioned before that my family is diverse and that I am proud of that.

I have former co-workers who are black that I stay in touch with after ten years of retirement.
I have a granddaughter married to an imigrant from El Salvador. They met in college.
I have a niece married to a black man she met while in the Peace Corp in Ethiopia.

I was in high school when we integrated. I remember no problems with that although I do remember some black children being asked to leave our public swimming pool when we were younger. I am 71.

Having said all that, I now live in rural Oklahoma and was advised by a man here that "some Mexicans" had moved in on the other side of the mountain. It seemed to be a fact worth comment here.

I think it all depends on location and education level as well as just the opportunity to be exposed to people of other races.
 

General racial relations: 70s compared to present​


I feel compelled to comment

but doubt I'm one to take note of

I was pretty loaded in the '60s/some '70s
So were my Afro/Mexi friends
So.....everbod I was around just got along


Sawfish said:
It is more important to use your own personal experiences
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Personal?
Heh, family is about as personal as it gets
Ours is a veritable UN

Three generations

White (I'm more pink than 'white')
Afro
Mexi
Native American
.......there may be others.....somewhere

Bottom line;
as long as we're all fed, we're pretty docile with each other

Other bottom line;
I'd love to change out this onion paper thin Irish skin of mine for most any other
 
i'm probably not a good guage for this as i'm sort of a chameleon when it comes to racial interactions and have a thick skin which is a huge advantage. occasionally an altercation or simple misunderstanding breaks that magic and i would rather apologize and skulk away than act upon emotion. that don't always work but only in those rarest of times.

as a pacific islander (asian-ish) it really annoys me to find prejudice for blacks (and the indigenous) in our culture and an elevated respect for whites. won't even go into their disdain for (abc's) american born chinese (or in my case filipino.) then there's those odd lots who look down on other asian cultures, even their own.

its been my observation that sometimes even after having reached a mutual understanding people are still burdened by their predispositions and that can eventually surface occasionally over time.

it doesn't really seem to have changed that much over the years, a lot of it is just below the surface. it seems that, only now, people have been emboldened and act out of fear. sometimes for a misplaced sense of self-preservation.

population density also affects the potential of occurrence and is probably causative all by itself. so the short answer is... i don't know
 
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