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taurath | 12 days ago
Guilty as charged! I also do think that there’s an additional sense within those communities of the “normalcy” of homeownership both within the spaces, and reflected back via mass culture. True, nobody in New York has an apartment like they did on Friends, but the shows made to appeal to middle class America, even the ones like Married with Children still held “well there’s a house” even though the main character is a deadbeat - this isn’t played for laughs or out of irony, it’s just the default.
Even in the 50s, 60s, and 70s sitcoms and shows you rarely see people renting - homeownership rates are pretty steady around 62% back to the 60s. Among white Americans it’s like 75% or something. So I don’t think it’s entirely rose tinted glasses, even if there is a point to be made about the biases of the HN crowd.
alephnerd|12 days ago
Sure, but you have to remember only 58% of Americans today are non-Hispanic White.
For the other 42% of us, we would have been legally segregted in much of America deep into the 1970s as it took the DoJ a lot of effort to litigate against explicit and implicit attempts to sidestep the civil rights act. For us, while there may be a kernel of truth in what you described, the reality is we would have been second class citizens if we were born then.
If you want to complain about rising housing prices, complain about that. But don't perpetuate the myth that the 1970s and earlier would have been heaven when a large portion of Americans today would have been segregated back then.
It's insensitive.
> True, nobody in New York has an apartment like they did on Friends, but the shows made to appeal to middle class America, even the ones like Married with Children still held “well there’s a house” even though the main character is a deadbeat - this isn’t played for laughs or out of irony, it’s just the default
Few shows represent the bottom 50% of society irrespective of race let alone back in the 1990s or even today. The only prime time shows I can think of that showed that bottom half of society as independent individuals was Shameless.
Even "The Jeffersons" back in the 70s was basically a standard upper middle class sitcom despite being revolutionary in showing African Americans on primetime.
Heck, the HDI of much of America in 1990 [0] is comparable to Russia, Serbia, and Belarus today [1].
And even Marc Andreessen would often recount growing up in the rural Midwest without indoor plumbing and having to take a s#it in the freezing cold. He was born in 1971.
[0] - https://globaldatalab.org/shdi/table/shdi/USA/?levels=1+4&ye...
[1] - https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/country-insights#/ranks
taurath|12 days ago
I understand where you're coming from, and hope you've not been given the idea that I'm idealizing the past - I'm only alive today because the present isn't the past. Weird to bring up.. Marc Andreessen of all people as authority after that. Not the pull I'd expect
I don't think there's ever been a panacea, and things have always been been rougher for anyone not white. But I do think that everyone's getting choked out by housing and inflated asset prices in ways that no living generation has. Since '85 rent has gone up 325% more than incomes. I understand you wrote a lot, but don't take what I said and extrapolate my other beliefs - I'm a much more complex person.
troad|12 days ago
>> It's insensitive.
Stop problematising everything, complete with Twitter style mic drops. OP didn't say the 70s were heaven, they're saying that home-ownership is slipping ever more out of reach. This is a true point for people of all races, religions, sexual orientations, etc.
There's nothing constructive about trying to slyly imply white people are more problematic for wanting homes to live in than people of other races. It's pointlessly divisive, and undercuts the sorely needed pro-housing coalition.
You're playing into what the elites want: an opposition that is fractious, navel-gazing, and delightfully (to the elites) impotent.
jdkee|12 days ago