Does Racism Exist for Middle-Upper/Upper Class Americans?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My husband is Hispanic. I can't even count the number of times he has been ignored when asking for help at a store. We were at Bloomingdales one time and my DH asked to pay for an item. The sales lady said to him "you will have to wait" and she turned around to me and said "is there anything I can help you with?" I told her I was just waiting for my husband. She said, "oh, where is he, I can help him". I pointed at my DH and she made a disgusted look and said "wow, he is very lucky". I looked at her and said "no, I am the lucky one". We the walked out. It's quite pathetic.

Holy shit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For the record, I work in a male dominated industry, and sometimes I walk into meetings where people assume I'm there to take the meeting minutes. It's not always because you're AA.

I am the PP you quoted. The situations I was referring to have happened with other (white) women in the room. No one thought they were the secretary. And actually, there was one situation where a white woman and her attorney were coming in to meet with me and another colleague. She shook my colleague's hand, and ignored me. With only 4 people in the room, and 3 of them women, it was hard for me to see it as anything other than race.

Wow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:i feel for the nice black people in the country because they get lumped in with the bad black people.

Yeah, and the nice white people so rarely get lumped in with the bad white people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A staggering number of Americans think Barack Obama is not a real American citizen and that he's a Muslim! Would those idiocies persist if he were a white guy? Hell, no.

There were those who said McCain couldn't run since he was born in Pananma. It doesn't matter that when an active duty service member, or the wife of one, has a baby in another country that the baby is automatically a US citizen. They aren't issued birth certificates but Certificates of foriegn birth instead.

Obama: Black. Born to American mother on US soil. Legitimate birth certificate. Questioned mercilessly despite legal documentation and proof.

McCain: White. Born to American parents in a foreign country. No further questions asked.

How can you compare the two?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband is Hispanic. I can't even count the number of times he has been ignored when asking for help at a store. We were at Bloomingdales one time and my DH asked to pay for an item. The sales lady said to him "you will have to wait" and she turned around to me and said "is there anything I can help you with?" I told her I was just waiting for my husband. She said, "oh, where is he, I can help him". I pointed at my DH and she made a disgusted look and said "wow, he is very lucky". I looked at her and said "no, I am the lucky one". We the walked out. It's quite pathetic.

Holy shit.

Pathetic and even worse in flyover country.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A staggering number of Americans think Barack Obama is not a real American citizen and that he's a Muslim! Would those idiocies persist if he were a white guy? Hell, no.

There were those who said McCain couldn't run since he was born in Pananma. It doesn't matter that when an active duty service member, or the wife of one, has a baby in another country that the baby is automatically a US citizen. They aren't issued birth certificates but Certificates of foriegn birth instead.

Obama: Black. Born to American mother on US soil. Legitimate birth certificate. Questioned mercilessly despite legal documentation and proof.

McCain: White. Born to American parents in a foreign country. No further questions asked.

How can you compare the two?

Let me guess, you think Tryg really isn't Sarah Palin's kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My husband is Hispanic. I can't even count the number of times he has been ignored when asking for help at a store. We were at Bloomingdales one time and my DH asked to pay for an item. The sales lady said to him "you will have to wait" and she turned around to me and said "is there anything I can help you with?" I told her I was just waiting for my husband. She said, "oh, where is he, I can help him". I pointed at my DH and she made a disgusted look and said "wow, he is very lucky". I looked at her and said "no, I am the lucky one". We the walked out. It's quite pathetic.

You should have gotten her name and told her manager what she did. And then followed up with an email to the President of the store.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A staggering number of Americans think Barack Obama is not a real American citizen and that he's a Muslim! Would those idiocies persist if he were a white guy? Hell, no.

There were those who said McCain couldn't run since he was born in Pananma. It doesn't matter that when an active duty service member, or the wife of one, has a baby in another country that the baby is automatically a US citizen. They aren't issued birth certificates but Certificates of foriegn birth instead.

Obama: Black. Born to American mother on US soil. Legitimate birth certificate. Questioned mercilessly despite legal documentation and proof.

McCain: White. Born to American parents in a foreign country. No further questions asked.

How can you compare the two?

Let me guess, you think Tryg really isn't Sarah Palin's kid.

PP, I don't understand the relevance of your stupid correlation from left field.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm Asian and have had my fair share of racism from all different races and ethnicities. In my experience, white liberals can be pretty racist themselves.

Amen!!

[Anonymous]

"In my experience, white liberals can be pretty racist themselves."

There's a shocker!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A staggering number of Americans think Barack Obama is not a real American citizen and that he's a Muslim! Would those idiocies persist if he were a white guy? Hell, no.

There were those who said McCain couldn't run since he was born in Pananma. It doesn't matter that when an active duty service member, or the wife of one, has a baby in another country that the baby is automatically a US citizen. They aren't issued birth certificates but Certificates of foriegn birth instead.

Obama: Black. Born to American mother on US soil. Legitimate birth certificate. Questioned mercilessly despite legal documentation and proof.

McCain: White. Born to American parents in a foreign country. No further questions asked.

How can you compare the two?

Let me guess, you think Tryg really isn't Sarah Palin's kid.

That was an oh-so-smart rejoinder in, umm, November 2008?

[Anonymous]

PP, this is 12:42, I thought you were doing the 'ZOMG McCain IS A FURRINER' thing. My apologies.

And yeah, the "Tryg birthers" are the equivalent of the "Obama birthers" in terms of being able to deny the facts -- thing is you don't see Pelosi coming out and giving carefully worded statements about Tryg's birth circumstances the way you've seen McConnell.

[Anonymous]

My husband and I are both Indian. Both times we were looking for housing here in DC (one rental, one purchase) we had weird interactions with landlords/real estate agents.

1. We went to an apartment building in a predominantly white part of north Arlington. No one greeted us at the rental office; a woman sat at her desk for five minutes. Finally, we approached her, even though we thought she was busy and would get to us after finishing paperwork, or something - benefit of the doubt. She curtly invited us to sit down and asked us how many bedrooms we wanted. We saw a model we liked on paper and asked if we could see the apartment. She told us we could not. I asked if we could come back another day to see it and she said that she would not show us the apartment at all, and we would have to put down a deposit if we wanted to rent it, sight unseen. We have friends who lived in the building - when we mentioned this to them, they told us that a clause in their lease required that their apartment be available for showings to potential renters, and they did have people check out the apartment in the months before they vacated. I had no idea why we wouldn't be suitable residents - perhaps the Indian accent?

2. We met a real estate agent at a showing in Alexandria. He showed us one house later that month, and then refused to show us any more houses until we provided to him a prequalification letter. "You say you want to spend $X on a house, but I need to be sure you can afford these houses before I show them to you." We were looking at houses in the $350k-500k range; my husband and I are both professionals with graduate degrees. We qualified for significantly more than we were looking to spend. Not a single white person I know has had a real estate agent refuse to show them homes for fear that they were lying about their ability to afford the houses.

I can't even imagine how much worse it is for black people - at least some people have an (ill-informed) opinion that all Indians are financially successful; I imagine it's much worse for black and hispanic people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My husband and I are both Indian. Both times we were looking for housing here in DC (one rental, one purchase) we had weird interactions with landlords/real estate agents.

1. We went to an apartment building in a predominantly white part of north Arlington. No one greeted us at the rental office; a woman sat at her desk for five minutes. Finally, we approached her, even though we thought she was busy and would get to us after finishing paperwork, or something - benefit of the doubt. She curtly invited us to sit down and asked us how many bedrooms we wanted. We saw a model we liked on paper and asked if we could see the apartment. She told us we could not. I asked if we could come back another day to see it and she said that she would not show us the apartment at all, and we would have to put down a deposit if we wanted to rent it, sight unseen. We have friends who lived in the building - when we mentioned this to them, they told us that a clause in their lease required that their apartment be available for showings to potential renters, and they did have people check out the apartment in the months before they vacated. I had no idea why we wouldn't be suitable residents - perhaps the Indian accent?

2. We met a real estate agent at a showing in Alexandria. He showed us one house later that month, and then refused to show us any more houses until we provided to him a prequalification letter. "You say you want to spend $X on a house, but I need to be sure you can afford these houses before I show them to you." We were looking at houses in the $350k-500k range; my husband and I are both professionals with graduate degrees. We qualified for significantly more than we were looking to spend. Not a single white person I know has had a real estate agent refuse to show them homes for fear that they were lying about their ability to afford the houses.

I can't even imagine how much worse it is for black people - at least some people have an (ill-informed) opinion that all Indians are financially successful; I imagine it's much worse for black and hispanic people.

That's terrible. Could you have reported both places to a government housing authority to investigate? I hope they get what's coming to them!

[Anonymous]

Can't say for sure if this was a case of racism but several classmate friends and I had made (separate) dinner reservations for family after graduation from grad school at the same fancy, expensive restaurant in a big city with people from all over the world living there. One of my friends said she had been called the day before to confirm her reservations and asked if anyone else had been called. No one else had been; she was the only one who had a non-white sounding last name. Maybe they randomly call their list of reservations for the next day??