

USA Where the Poor Live Dearly - cyphunk
http://www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/2015-05/poverty-racism-black-neighborhoods-baltimore-ferguson-new-york

======
cyphunk
why would the original submission of this article be flagged? Not worth
discussing?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9516703](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9516703)

~~~
andor
I was wondering about that as well. The discussion so far was far from a
flamewar.

~~~
Mithaldu
The article seems to have done two things wrong:

1\. Got facts wrong, apparently. I'm not in a situation to know whether it
did, but it seems to have, and articles that seem wrong do get flaggedby
users, presumably to prevent spreading mistruths.

2\. It criticized the USA. I read HN via
[http://www.hckrnews.com/](http://www.hckrnews.com/) and thus get to see a lot
of the flagged articles even long after they're dead. Articles that criticize
the USA are always in that category. That doesn't mean all of HN flags those,
just that there is a critical mass of users with the necessary amount of karma
who dislike them.

~~~
cyphunk
On point 2, HN flagging things that are critical of the US... I find
surprising.

On point 1, facts. I haven't found where to dispute the articles facts yet.
Where the commenters dispute it's actually an issue of perception.

\- [1] Predetory Loan and banking services such as ACE that market to
predominant poor neighborhoods has a negative impact that is documented in
study and pop [2]

\- [3] the initial argument by power user tptacek is that the author didn't
bother to check poor white parts of the country. If you assume this article
was about something other than black poverty, okay I understand the argument.
But it was about poverty effecting the black community.

So I don't see the factual problem.

1\.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9516861](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9516861)
2\.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDylgzybWAw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDylgzybWAw)
3\.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9516769](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9516769)

~~~
Mithaldu
On rereading the article in german, the title is poorly chosen and
misrepresents the content, but i also do find the content largely correct
(also see my comment to jqm).

However, do note i said "seems wrong", not "is wrong".

As for flagging things that are critical, i don't find it very surprising. If
someone from outside your country suddenly starts saying strong things about
your country it can easily become difficult to differentiate between earnest
criticism and trolling, even for one who has little patriotism.

------
jqm
The title is "where the poor live dearly" but then the article goes on to talk
exclusively about perceived racial injustice.

Maybe the author didn't spend enough time in the US to see there are vast
swaths of the country full of poor Whites and Hispanics also? Nor notice that
there are in fact well to do Blacks in the US? It was a dumb article. And
poverty happens to people of all races.

~~~
cyphunk
Because the article isn't about white poverty. It comes at a time of the
Baltimore riots and I think it's understandable it doesn't attempt to address
all forms of poverty.

~~~
tptacek
It comes at a time of riots in Baltimore, but focuses on Ferguson and Park
Slope; these are three cities that have virtually nothing in common:

* Ferguson is a city not just influenced by racism but literally produced by it: it's an artifact of redlining and white flight, with a majority black population and a municipal government and police force dominated by whites.

* Baltimore is a city whose government is dominated by blacks, with a black mayor, black police commissioner, and a 50/50 black/white police force; the city of Baltimore was a manufacturing and shipping hub devastated by globalization, unlike St. Louis, which has a diverse economy with strong finance and health care sectors.

* Park Slope is an economically elite section of New York City where white corporate lawyers happen to have Jamaican nannies, which apparently says something about race relations in the US, though I'm not clear what that's meant to be.

It's a dumb article. It's not that it doesn't address all forms of poverty;
it's that it doesn't have anything coherent to say about any of them that any
US high school sophomore couldn't conjure up the night before the due date for
a social studies term paper.

~~~
cyphunk
I tried to re-read the article from your perspective but guessing my personal
biases are still getting in my way of seeing your point.

Is the article dumb? It starts out in the position as a first person
editorial, and one from the gaze of author in foreign land. Perhaps what seems
dumb is because it's not attempting to be a reportage and as much
investigative as it is just "a" perspective.

Does the article say nothing coherent? I think it does but that's my opinion.
Mostly however it references thoughts I seem to have already come across
elsewhere. So yeah you could argue it's not too original. But this doesn't
make it useless.

I think this article offends you either because it's written by a foreigner or
(and I believe the following more) it touches a topic you consider important
and find this articles simplification of disturbing. I respect that debate,
but not the boycott (calling for flagging).

~~~
tptacek
Or it could just be a bad article, contributing more noise than signal, doing
little on HN other than begging for us to make unwarranted assumptions about
each other.

~~~
Mithaldu
Not everything that fails to teach you something new deserves to be slapped
with the "shitpost" accusation.

Beyond that you're putting a LOT of effort in to put it down, more than any
shitpost that isn't factually wrong deserves.

