"Most Whites find it easy to ignore residential segregation. I experienced a good example of this inattention when I told a lunch-table’s worth of White colleagues at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences about the linguist John Baugh’s project on “linguistic profiling” (Baugh 2003). Baugh has developed a matched-guise test in which a single speaker uses a “White professional,” a “Latino,” or a “Black” voice in making telephone inquiries about the availability of advertised rentals in the San Francisco Bay area. The “White professional” voice is much more likely to yield an invitation to make an appointment to look at the property, while the other accents are more likely to result in a response that the rental is no longer available. My colleagues, all sophisticated scholars, were genuinely surprised at this result; several mentioned that they had thought that this sort of discrimination had long since disappeared."
-
Jane H. Hill, The Everyday Language of White Racism (via wretchedoftheearth)
*****
This is like when me and my white soon-to-be husband were looking for places. I’d call up and they’d say, “Come on down! Get an application!”. Because I don’t “sound” black.
Then I’d walk in 2 minutes later and they’d be all, “Oh. Sorry, we just rented it.”
Then I’d send him in and he’d get an application.
The best part? Walking back in while he was completing the application. “Oh, they gave you an application? But they told me it was just rented. ODD. THAT. I’m going to report them so let’s just skip this place, m’kay?” The looks on their faces and the pathetic apologies were just too much fun.
Used to deal with the same thing with road trips. Hotels would tell me that there were no vacancies, but my white roommate would go in and get us a room, usually cheaper than advertised.
*****
(via faboomama)
I do similar stuff at restauants and other places of business with my white bf. At least it makes it easier to know where not to go!
(via 23andchildfree)
Reblogging again for the commentary
(via darkjez)
But we’re just supposed to *trust* and think everything is an *isolated* incident.
(via hamburgerjack)
Not so sophisticated scholars, were they? I mean this really, really shouldn’t be all that surprising.
(via stfunithingas)
It shouldn’t be surprising, but I guarantee that most white people find it unbelievable
(via wretchedoftheearth)
I’m going to reblog this every time I see it on my dash. My parents pointed out how this phenomenon worked when we were moving to PA (they’d get steered to crummier neighborhoods and have to insist on being shown others). Housing discrimination is still pretty widespread and the gatekeepers? Tend to either intentionally or due to unchecked bias reinforce the status quo.
(via invisiblelad)
It always floors me the things people are surprised at. Meanwhile, every person of color is sitting here like, “Oh. Must be another day that ends in Y, and in other news, water is wet.” Like, really, people are surprised by this, and whenever they show surprise at learning stuff that we go through, I have to poker face, lest I end up giving them the most disbelieving side eye in history because how do you NOT know this? But then, you know. Some people have the privilege of being able to be unaware it because it’s not a problem they have to deal with. :/ (via lori-jaye)
Reblogged again for commentary
(via covenesque)
Sounds like my friends when they were looking for a place in Midtown memphis(mostly white liberal middle class area)… they said people would invite them to see the places and then would either suddenly become unavailable or they would just ignore their phone calls.. but the Obama’s said “no more excuses.. work harder”…
(via jcoleknowsbest)
Sort of had this issue with an acquaintance of my boss. The application was approved and all systems were go until the potential tenant (a Black person) faxed in a copy of their picture ID. Suddenly, the landlord didn’t want to rent the home out anymore. A real estate agent on behalf of the client threatened to pursue legal action and the acquaintance asked us for advice.
I read the email and was like, “pbbft, your landlord fucked himself over. what do you want us to say? have fun getting sued, you should’ve known better.”
(via sara-huynh)
Officially in love with sara-huynh
(via carrionofcats)
The number of times this has happened to me are too many to count. My anglo sounding name and secretary voice throw white people for a loop every fucking time.
(via sourcedumal)
Happens to me every time I want to book anything, buy, rent, etc. Buy my problem is, my name is completely Arabic so I can’t hide my race behind a ‘white accent’.
(via heirofmedusa)
I lived for a certain amount of time in Lafayette, CA. When my parents tried to rent a townhouse in a nicer part of town they never even got a call back and the “For Rent” sign continued to stay up a while after. We had our windows graffitied with words: “fag,” (none of my family is even gay). The final straw: a lady walked up to my mom while we were packing the car for a vacation and proceeded to tell us that she didn’t know Indian women could have short hair and that we should go back to our country. It hurt then and it hurts now.
(via satanic2chainz)
I knew y’all would have a gif set of this by morning.
Truth.
(Source: sandandglass, via cityyandcolour)
98 year old dobri dobrev, a man who lost his hearing in the second world war, walks 10 kilometers from his village in his homemade clothes and leather shoes to the city of sofia, where he spends the day begging for money.
though a well recognized fixture around several of the city’s chruches, known for his prostrations of thanks to all donors, it was only recently discovered that he has donated every penny he has collected — over 40,000 euros — towards the restoration of decaying bulgarian monasteries and churches and the utility bills of orphanages, living entirely off his monthly state pension of 80 euros and the kindness of others.
(via nickelcobalt)
(Source: gypsyone, via likeneelyohara)
"Every man is more than just himself; he also represents the unique, the very special and always significant and remarkable point at which the world’s phenomena intersect, only once in this way, and never again. That is why every man’s story is important, eternal, sacred; that is why every man, as long as he lives and fulfills the will of nature, is wondrous, and worthy of consideration."
- Demian by Herman Hesse
AUDIBLE CHOCOLATE: shinimegami: logic-and-art: aka14kgold: anedumacation: I just heard...
I just heard John Boehner say that increasing the minimum wage would actually be a disservice to workers, because a low wage encourages workers to get some skills. Because no one has to work at minimum wage if they…
If someone had asked me: Did I not love you then? Was I not sure of my love for you 3 years ago?
I would have stared in stony silence because I loved you then completely and wholly.
Now the question evoked tears, and I wasn’t sure what the tears meant; did I love you no more? I knew I did - but still I cried. It felt like a wound deep somewhere, like the very sinews of my being had been ripped apart and just like the nights in college we spent drunk, painting the town all colors of carefree debauchery I had woken up with bruises I could not explain.
I was not alone but I was lonely. Terribly, painfully lonely to the very core of my existence.
I had lost myself and I frequently found myself in songs that read despair, in books that sang loneliness.
