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blorbschploble t1_ixunxg0 wrote

Think of Columbia as a weird place where the religious right takeover of the republicans never happened and the southern strategy did not take hold.

The republicans are democrats and the democrats are also democrats. There are some actual republicans but they are for the most part also democrats. There are progressives who kind of can’t stand democrats. They call themselves democrats. There is not much overt racism directed at individuals but there is a lot of accidental or systemic racism via the nimby thing. By in large I get the impression that people here largely want to do good, disagree on the details, mostly want to be welcoming but also kind like green space between buildings and wooded spaces. Re: protesting we’d go to DC for that.

It seems sometimes that surrounding areas are all trumpy and redneck (parts of jessup, out west on 32) but whenever I go somewhere that is actually like that I realize even the less (D) parts of MD are not full on crazy.

There are still isolated crazies occasionally running for school board.

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[deleted] t1_ixvefzn wrote

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CookieMonster932 t1_ixw83qp wrote

The NIMBYism of severely restricting the housing market from building lower cost housing such as townhomes and apartments thus economically restricting who can live where specifically regarding school districts. This is systemically racist as it leads to de facto segregation, just looks at the demographics of Centennial high school, very few black and Hispanic students.

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i_live_in_maryland t1_ixwspkm wrote

> such as townhomes

Dude, townhomes in Columbia are >$600k now. IDK about new apartment complexes, but I doubt anyone living in the Merriweather District or Ten.M or whatever is going in there because it is cheap.

"High density" housing (townhomes and apartments) is not automatically "affordable". People need to realize it so we can stop gifting this stuff to developers and then scratching our heads when it's still impossible for non-rich people to live in the county.

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CookieMonster932 t1_ixww4hr wrote

The best way to lower housing costs for all but especially for people on the lower income ladder is to increase the supply of housing. The White House recognizes that the housing shortage increases home prices for everyone. The most expensive type of home to build and therefore buy is a single detached home. Townhomes are cheaper and apartments less than that. And yes affordable is relative to the costs of housing in the community and that cost is very high, median price 570k in HoCo.

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[deleted] t1_ixwmotr wrote

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CookieMonster932 t1_ixwru4a wrote

Columbia is a wonderful place to live, but there is also racism. That racism reared its ugly head in the school redistricting fights. This is not just something in the news, it’s something I’ve heard in private conversations and basically anytime I just look at NextDoor. Relative to most parts of the country, I think the racism is relatively low, but I do argue that there are systems (school districting as well as the systemic blockages of new/affordable housing) that are racist in the county.

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i_live_in_maryland t1_ixwt6u3 wrote

> That racism reared its ugly head in the school redistricting fights.

I am not saying there isn't racism, but just because some schoolboard and county council members tried to make redistricting about race does not mean that opposing that redistricting plan is racist.

If you look at the results of that "successful" redistricting you'll see that it had basically no impact on school diversity but it opened up a bunch of new areas for fresh developments. It all goes back to developer money in this county.

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FranciscoSolanoLopez t1_ixx4vy9 wrote

So redistricting can make some areas that were previously unfavorable to development suddenly favorable to it since those areas are now in a "better" school district? Which would naturally increase profits for developers. If so, do you have any past examples to share?

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tptips420-69 t1_ixxcs7p wrote

Weee everything and everyone is racist, well unless I say it isnt!

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blorbschploble t1_ixxtzk1 wrote

Systemic doesn’t mean widespread or pervasive in this context, but rather built into the systems.

The place is an hoa, large focus on keeping housing prices up, a lot of the redistricting conversation is based on maintaining or at least not losing some of the advantage for our kids, missing out on how the eastern edge is underserved and less economically well off. Dues are based on property, not income and we inherit some regressive tax policy from the state.

Perhaps I should have used structural racism instead. I am not talking about the content of people’s hearts or their final destination in the afterlife. Just the (hopefully) unintended side effects of how things have worked. Behaviors, incentives, rules that are enforced or not, decisions we made vs how they could have been made differently.

For example, “I moved here so my kid could go to this exact highschool, why does he have to bus to another?” That’s a valid question. Makes some assumptions about how easy it is or not to pick where you buy a house, glosses over the experience of the kids who are bussing already, and doesn’t examine why we have to have fewer high schools than middle schools. How are we weighing needs? Am I personally ignoring someone else’s valid concern? Do neighboring non Columbia areas have a disadvantage in advocating for themselves due to fewer or less powerful local organizations? In this case the systemic racism would arise from people over simplifying the question through the lens of the collective experience of the majority. We potentially reinforce problems by seeking easiest path for us.

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[deleted] t1_ixxviqt wrote

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blorbschploble t1_ixxwdcq wrote

I think you are getting a little too “someone is wrong on the internet” about this - the emphasis was on pointing out there is low rates of overt racism, using the fact we have issues places full of well meaning but not entirely fully self reflective white people do as contrast.

Over emphasis of the lack of overt individualized hate is usually a sign we are missing structural stuff or hand waving it away. I like it here. I moved here intentionally. I think Columbia can ride to the occasion and has a head start compared to most of the country. Idiot racists made a lot of laws in the 1950s and 60s and I dunno if we’ve examined them all.

I used to live in Manhattan which has got to be one of the least racist and most racist places in America, so I guess I am at peace with the ambiguity of having pride in our town but also knowing it’s probably fucked up too.

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[deleted] t1_ixxxam7 wrote

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blorbschploble t1_ixy2ds4 wrote

So a little inside baseball about this. Everyone stereotypes, everyone has or will have racist thoughts at some point. What matters is what you do, and how you meaningfully atone (not perform atonement). Someone going around being like “I’m not racist” or “how dare you call me racist” what they are really doing is just identifying themselves as “not getting it”

What they are not getting is there is still work to do. That’s all. So I am unconcerned with people being hurt by the ugly word “racism” like I am unconcerned with when my kids say me telling them to cleaning their room (or whatever) isn’t fair. It’s not that I don’t know how to clean a room, or that I have a need to force them. It’s ultimately they’ll benefit from knowing how to do the work, and they are just saying “I don’t get that this is something I need to ultimately do to grow, for my benefit”

Lots of people who “get it” are called racist and their internal response is “well, ok. Probably not but hey, let’s listen and see why I make someone feel that way. Maybe I need to adjust how I am doing things here”

It’s a sort of “no one who is king has to announce they are king” kind of thing.

Even less so if we are saying maybe the way things are built benefits me more than my neighbor. It’s a weird hill to die on to be like “I am personally offended that you think this big collection of people I am not the boss of, maybe set things up unfairly before I was an adult.”

I’m a middle age white male btw. I’ll have to work a bit to give you more examples of systemic racism, but man could I give you examples of banks falling over to give me mortgages and instances of me getting way too much deference at work.

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blex64 t1_ixvmykn wrote

We had the hullaballoo about the busing/school redistricting a while back.

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