Which of these two factors do you think of more when you consider a city diverse?

[Docere]

I'd also say Boston is more diverse than Oakland because it has more white immigrants, a rather diverse Black population and no group dominating its Hispanic population, even if it's more "NHW" than Oakland.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Ant131531

I find it hilarious people on here are acting like Black and White Americans share a similar culture when that's pretty far from the truth.

Culturally, they're pretty similar in the grand scheme of things, yeah.

If you put in a room a white guy from Georgia born and bred, a black guy from Georgia born and bred, and a fresh off the boat immigrant from Vietnam or Pakistan, it's obvious that the pairing that will have the most common cultural experiences to discuss by far is the former two.

[dimondpark]

Originally Posted by Ant131531

I find it hilarious people on here are acting like Black and White Americans share a similar culture when that's pretty far from the truth.

Yes people here are coming off as extremely ignorant and closed minded on the topic. I think much of it is based on personal ego.

[dimondpark]

Originally Posted by Docere

I'd also say Boston is more diverse than Oakland because it has more white immigrants, a rather diverse Black population and no group dominating its Hispanic population, even if it's more "NHW" than Oakland.

Again, ethnically perhaps Boston is more diverse, but you continue to refuse actual racial diversity which matters to plenty of people.

lol

[Capsicum]

Originally Posted by lio45

Culturally, they're pretty similar in the grand scheme of things, yeah.

If you put in a room a white guy from Georgia born and bred, a black guy from Georgia born and bred, and a fresh off the boat immigrant from Vietnam or Pakistan, it's obvious that the pairing that will have the most common cultural experiences to discuss by far is the former two.

I agree that generally two people growing up in close proximity in the same society in the same country share more common experiences with one another. But then again there can be other factors.

For example if the black guy from Georgia was a young, left-wing irreligious university professor, and the Pakistani immigrant was also a secular-minded professor who came to work stateside in the same college town where they met, assuming all could speak English and understand one another, they might have more in common, than if the white guy was a blue collar, practical-minded grandpa with a high school diploma only, living in the countryside with his multi-generational household, and so was the Vietnamese immigrant who finds this family lifestyle easy to relate to.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by dimondpark

Again, ethnically perhaps Boston is more diverse, but you continue to refuse actual racial diversity which matters to plenty of people.

lol

So Pakistanis and Koreans are "one race"? Why do East and South Asians get lumped together?

[Capsicum]

Originally Posted by Docere

So Pakistanis and Koreans are "one race"? Why do East and South Asians get lumped together?

Both were barred from immigrating to the US as "Asiatics" for several decades in the 20th century under the Asiatic Barred Zone?

[dimondpark]

Originally Posted by Docere

So Pakistanis and Koreans are "one race"? Why do East and South Asians get lumped together?

Hey, That's a great question.

But Im not here to assist in your constant attempts to move of the goal post.

I'll continue looking at it the Canadian way:

Visible Minorities 2016:
Oakland 73%
London 55%
Boston 54%
Toronto 51%

[emathias]

Originally Posted by Capsicum

...
South American etc...

Just out of curiosity, what would that look like? 45% of all South Americans consider themselves white - with Argentina and Uruguay reporting over 80% white, and Chile also reporting majority white - and even in countries where there is no majority, the "white" part of the population often sets the dominant culture. Of the ten most populous countries, only one country is majority Amerindian (Bolivia), and one is majority mestizo (Paraguay), not coincidentally the only two land-locked South American countries. Even famously diverse Brazil reports a majority of mono-racial people of European, African, or Asian descent.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by emathias

Just out of curiosity, what would that look like? 45% of all South Americans consider themselves white - with Argentina and Uruguay reporting over 80% white, and Chile also reporting majority white - and even in countries where there is no majority, the "white" part of the population often sets the dominant culture.

Latin Americans tend to consider themselves "white" even when they aren't, though. Their self-reported "white" stats are pretty useless for purposes of "white" in the U.S. (even Dominicans mostly consider themsevles white, and I would wager a strong majority of Dominicans are at least black-white mix).

[cannedairspray]

We can talk for hours about race and ethnicity and go around in circles. "Race" is descriptive for and in certain places at certain times (say, Chicago, 1950 or Utica, 2018 or Xi'An, 1995) but even then there's problems and inconsistencies. But trying to talk about them in different periods (including the future) in very different places...it can be fun to argue about but beyond that you're getting nothing out of it.

A Mexican immigrant who speaks very little English living in El Paso and one of Charlie Sheen and Denise Richard's kids might both be "Hispanic", but what does that even tell you? I'm certain that one of those kids (I've never seen them, just googled Sheen to make sure I wasn't misremembering that he had kids with someone famous, turned out she was white) looks and "acts" white enough that no one would ever think they were Hispanic unless they went out of the way to tell them. And there's millions of people in the US exactly like that and in twenty years they'll be tens of millions more.

Is that going to make the US more diverse? Maybe, in the way the US was more diverse after an influx of Italians and Irish and Germans than it was beforehand, but they're just going to be called "white" so maybe people in 2038 don't think so. It's all an artifact of the time and place and thus impossible to argue about objectively.

[Acajack]

To me, diversity is enriched much more by what people have "acquired" during their lives than the genetics they've accidentally inherited from their forebears and determine skin, hair and eye colour, facial features, etc.

A Chinese girl who's been adopted by a Québécois francophone family and gets raised as such in some city here in Quebec may contribute a teeny bit to the visual and genetic diversity of her city, but unless she makes an effort to reconnect with her Chinese roots her meaningful contribution to her home's diversity will be fairly minimal.

This isn't bad or good. C'est la vie.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Capsicum

I agree that generally two people growing up in close proximity in the same society in the same country share more common experiences with one another. But then again there can be other factors.

For example if the black guy from Georgia was a young, left-wing irreligious university professor, and the Pakistani immigrant was also a secular-minded professor who came to work stateside in the same college town where they met, assuming all could speak English and understand one another, they might have more in common, than if the white guy was a blue collar, practical-minded grandpa with a high school diploma only, living in the countryside with his multi-generational household, and so was the Vietnamese immigrant who finds this family lifestyle easy to relate to.

We all may have things "in common" with people from the unlikeliest of places. Human identities are circles which can be concentric and can also overlap with others.

There is definitely a degree of difference between African-Americans and "white" Americans but to people outside of the U.S. these two groups seem more similar than Americans often recognize. Even if you talk to sub-Saharan Africans for example for the most part they don't consider AAs to be "fellow Africans from overseas" but rather Americans just like all the others. An important point also is that in addition to the huge amoung of cultural stuff that is "shared" between Americans of all races, even in the elements of the other's respective cultures that blacks or whites choose not to partake in, the "other" is still aware of this stuff and it's not totally "foreign" to them.

As you say it is arguably a natural state of being that people living together in close proximity will morph into a more cohesive whole eventually.

In some cases though humans have worked against these natural impulses with discrimination which is why for example African-Americans remain somewhat distinctive from the broader American whole. If they had been treated like normal people historically, black people in the U.S. wouldn't be any different from white people any more than redheads are different from blondes or people with brown hair. There is nothing fundamentally cultural about skin pigmentation. We can of course debate whether or not African-Americans remaining a fairly distinct entity or not is a good or bad thing, but what I say is still true.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by dimondpark

Again, ethnically perhaps Boston is more diverse, but you continue to refuse actual racial diversity which matters to plenty of people.

lol

A city comprised of mainly whites, backs and Hispanics...is not diverse but simply a cross section of the US. Houston is not diverse because these three groups are prominent but the presence of everyone else from around the mixed into the fold.

[dimondpark]

Originally Posted by JManc

A city comprised of mainly whites, backs and Hispanics...is not diverse but simply a cross section of the US.

Asians are chopped liver now?

[JManc]

Originally Posted by dimondpark

Asians are chopped liver now?

You missed the part where I said: Houston is not diverse because these three groups are prominent but the presence of everyone else from around the mixed into the fold.

As it has been discussed above, The term "Asian" is one step from being as vague as simply calling them humans. Yes, people from (or of) Asia do have a sizable presence in most major US cities but none from a particular region/ country.

[iheartthed]

In America the two are closely related.

[dimondpark]

Originally Posted by JManc

You missed the part where I said: Houston is not diverse because these three groups are prominent but the presence of everyone else from around the mixed into the fold.

As it has been discussed above, The term "Asian" is one step from being as vague as simply calling them humans. Yes, people from (or of) Asia do have a sizable presence in most major US cities but none from a particular region/ country.

I know I know, just joshin ya.

[Capsicum]

What about Native Americans? The demographic representation is not large in most North American cities, but one could argue that individually there's a lot of diversity since individual native groups, like Navajo or Iroquois, are as different as different nationalities like Italians and Swedes, or Chinese and Japanese etc.

[Capsicum]

Originally Posted by emathias

Just out of curiosity, what would that look like? 45% of all South Americans consider themselves white - with Argentina and Uruguay reporting over 80% white, and Chile also reporting majority white - and even in countries where there is no majority, the "white" part of the population often sets the dominant culture. Of the ten most populous countries, only one country is majority Amerindian (Bolivia), and one is majority mestizo (Paraguay), not coincidentally the only two land-locked South American countries. Even famously diverse Brazil reports a majority of mono-racial people of European, African, or Asian descent.

Okay, maybe then I should word it to mean racial diversity as measured by people with origins native to the major continents -- eg. white or European origins, black or African origins, Asian origins, indigenous origins of North and South America (I guess Australian natives would also count, but there are few outside Australia). Basically differences that people perceive as physical appearance differences because of long, distant origins when humans lived in isolation on separate continents but socially construct as being "races". The more racial diversity (in general), the more spread out among the continents the ancestries of the city's inhabitants are.