> 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
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.
> don't perpetuate the myth that the 1970s and earlier would have been heaven
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.
>> 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.
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.
> they're saying that home-ownership is slipping ever more out of reach
The why don't you guys say that instead of reflexively fawning over a period that is objectively worse for us.
> slyly imply white people are more problematic for wanting homes to live in than people of other races
I never implied that, and that is why is said the following: "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".
To be brutally honest, whenever I and others point out that the historical nostalgia is not really positive for a large portions Americans, commenters like you reflexively try to shut us down.
Because you get to have housing, or you get to be right, but you don't get both. You'll never build the necessary coalition if you spend half the time weaving in truth telling about slavery and indigenous genocide.
The left has forgotten what power and politics is. It's not cathartic posting. That's why we keep losing.
Was it right that the gay marriage fight required us to seek the approval and acquiescence of straights for same-sex love? God no, it was grotesque. Did we win? You bet your ass we did. If the trans fight wasn't fought in the idiotic way it was, Trump wouldn't have had his best attack ad, and this might be a much better world for trans people.
I don't give a flying fig about who was in the wrong in the 50s about race (as if there's any doubt about that). Outcomes are much more important than never-ending reconciliation and truth telling, especially for marginalised people. Endless talking is a privilege. Do you want houses or not?
Fred Sanford owned a small business and lived in Los Angeles in an era when the majority of African Americans were working unskilled wage jobs [0] and overwhelmingly living in the South.
He and Lamont were middle and upper-middle class by African American standards as was seen in the 1970 Negro (the then term for African Americans) Census by the the US Department of Commerce.
And by overall American standards back then they would have probably been around the 50th to 60th percentile of households by income and would have been earning at least 60% than their racial peers in the South at the exact same time.
If you go through US Census data from 1970 - almost a decade after the Civil Rights Act was passed - it is harrowing. Now imagine how much worse it was before that.
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