"Immigrant" here means non-English speaking immigrant, particularly Spanish in this case. China town would also be described as an "immigrant" neighborhood. But English speaking wealthy immigrants tend to blend in and not form into cohesive neighborhoods.
This is a bad thing to say because in educated, liberal America racism is the worst possible crime you can commit, and non-English communities tend to be non-White (this was not so true 40 or 50 years ago). So if you voice that you don't want to live in an immigrant neighborhood, you will be accused of being a "disgusting racist bigot".
I think it is perfectly reasonable to dislike living near lots of poor people who speak a different language than you. But I missed a few brainwashing sessions in college. You shouldn't say things like that out loud if you ever visit America.
Oh I know, and I saw your other comments on the subject too. I'm just as disgusted by Political Correctness as you are, perhaps even more so.
In Europe, it's strictly forbidden to say anything negative about Africans or Muslims (or a combination thereof). That makes you a disgusting racist.
Our "Latinos" (Spain, Portugal, etc) are not sacrosanct, because they're just Europeans. Not that anyone talks about them anyway.
In our fervor for political correctness, the West seems to have forgotten that an immigrant is just someone who's moved into another country - nothing more, nothing less. In Finland, though, "an immigrant" has become an euphemism for "a Somali". Over there, maybe it's code for "Latino".
I don't think the author of the original post used the word in a negative sense. As I see it, he was just describing an area.
Haha. I hadn't realized that PC has come so far that you are no longer allowed to recognize or comment on immigrant neighborhoods.
There's lots of poor people and Spanish speaking people in the mission. This is good if you like Taquerias, bad if you dislike grime. If you don't fit in with homeless, hipster, or Latin culture, you will feel like an outsider. Some people may like it, some people may not. But if you don't like it, you are no longer allowed to say so!
I'm guessing that his offense is not embracing Latin culture. It is okay to dislike homeless culture, because
everyone does, or hipster culture, since it is predominantly White. But you aren't allowed to dislike Latin culture, since it is non-European and therefore protected. Interesting.
Oh, I get it. He's saying he doesn't want to live in a neighborhood where the only culture on offer is hipster, homeless, or Latin. And he's not allowed to think that, at least out loud, because Latin culture is non-White and therefore holy and infinitely lovable. He is guilty of crimethink.
As opposed to neighborhoods where the only culture on offer is American?
Also, "homeless" is not a culture.
Author is very obviously complaining about the presence of hipsters, homeless folk... and, well, immigrants, and seems to think that his aversion to such people is shared by many others. Judging by rent prices in the Mission and public opinion, this does not hold any water whatsoever.
Author is entitled to think whatever he damn well wants, but we are also entitled to judge his commentary on their own merits. And please, don't come to this table with 1984-bullshit whenever people are inclined to call a duck a duck. We really ought to make a term for it like we have for Godwin.
I don't like to live in Spanish speaking neighborhoods because I don't speak Spanish. I enjoy the food and the low prices, I don't enjoy the culture. If you don't speak English in America, you tend to be poor and less educated, which means you and I will have less in common. I fully realize I am not allowed to say this in Liberal America because this makes me a DISGUSTING BIGOT, so I don't post this under my real name account. But I admire the energy that you Right Thinking people put into your witchhunts.
> "If you don't speak English in America, you tend to be poor and less educated"
Such as the Asian immigrant population.
Which, last I checked, is experiencing quotas at Ivy League schools because they're getting in at rates much, much higher than any other race, and tend to come from backgrounds of higher education, even if their parents' English is poor.
You're trying to generalize your argument to minimize the appearance of being racist - but your argument doesn't actually generalize beyond the Latino community, which by and large does fit your description. So really, your objection isn't against "people who speak poor English", it's against Latinos.
> " I fully realize I am not allowed to say this in Liberal America because this makes me a DISGUSTING BIGOT"
Nah. From your own self-description I'd characterize you as an ivory-tower elitist (ironically, something conservatives tend to accuse of Liberal America) - you know, inability to find common ground with people with low-SES and low-education and such... Race does seem to play as a factor for you, but I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt when you say it does not. But of course, I don't know you in real life, so such judgments are rarely wise.
This argument isn't going anywhere productive, so I'm going to step out of it with this: your exact same rationalizations have been used against Blacks, and smells very close to the same arguments we hear coming out of the "I'm not anti-gay, I'm pro-marriage" camp. If it quacks...
I wonder how many of the second generation Asian students flooding Ivy League schools come from poor, non-English speaking ethnic ghettos? I'd guess not many. All the people I knew who fit that description in college went to good high schools. How good are the high schools in Chinatown?
For what it's worth, I wouldn't want to live in Chinatown either. Or any of the White non-English ethnic ghettos that used to exist a few decades ago.
I think calling people "bigot" happens too quickly. We should show some restraint.
> If you don't speak English in America, you tend to be
poor and less educated
Such as the Asian immigrant population.
Read closely. He says "tend to be". You've offered a supposed counterexample, but tendencies can't be disproved by counterexamples. "I know some really tall women" doesn't disprove the statement "Women tend to be shorter than men."
Technically that's correct, but it's a red herring. The top 1% currently take a little over 20% of the total income in the country and pay about 40% of federal income taxes. From the end of WW II to the 1980's, the top 1% took between about 8% and 12% of the total income in the country and their share of the tax burden was lower. The federal tax base was also much wider since there were far fewer tax credits available to average people and there weren't any common refundable tax credits.
Also, it's easier to follow your values when you surround yourself with a community that believes in the same values. That's why Christians have church.
Surround yourself with SV snakes, and you'll rapidly find your principles eroding.
Amen to that. Part of the job of a manager is to look out for the people doing the actual work. Taking ten large from a trusting employee is bad. Blaming the employee for leaving the cover sheet off his TPS reports is worse.
So none of the responsibility of what happened belongs to the OP?
I am not siding with his former employer, but anyone who has any work experience knows that they should make sure the cheques have cleared as soon as they have an idea that they want to leave.
It's a cynical view, but people should always expect a company to be less than cooperative once they leave, even when the company is in the wrong. I have found this to be even more true when dealing with smaller companies and startups.
When money is involved, it's better to be realistic than idealistic.
It's your own responsibility to tie up loose ends before you leave. After you leave, you should work with the assumption that you'll be the only adult at the table when dealing with your former employer.
If you get beat up walking down the street, is that your responsibility? Sure, in the sense that any idiot can always find ways that you could have avoided it if only you had done something differently. And in the very obvious sense that nobody else can suffer through the pain of a broken nose for you.
Seriously, it's not common sense to assume that an employer will behave stupidly once you announce your intention to leave? You should assume that you'll get walked out when you hand in your resignation, and that after that, your former employer will not play nice.
In small companies, I've seen owners contemplate/prepare nuisance lawsuits just to make examples out of recently exited people for sheer pettiness. And these were employers who would have been perceived as stand-up guys before the people quit.
It's a pretty old rule of thumb that you get your ducks in a row before quitting, just like you shouldn't accept any counteroffers from your employer after you hand in your resignation.
The OP gets some sympathy from me for getting shafted, but he gets no sympathy for being naive about how to leave a company.
Isn't it common sense to assume that there are dangerous people in the world? People getting assaulted should have known and taken appropriate precautions. I don't have any sympathy for them. Don't they read the papers?
You're not getting it. With hindsight, you can always find a way to blame a victim. It's great fun: you get the chance to look knowing and smug, and your success rate in predicting the past is 100%.
Don't kick people when they're down. You end up looking like a heartless jerk.
He's not a victim of a random crime (per your analogy, which to me is not apt), he's a victim of his own naivete and inexperience.
In the same way you had better know to take all of your most expensive gadgets out of your soon-to-be ex-girlfriend's apartment before you break up with her (lest they get smashed with a hammer), he should have done the same.
This is not even close to rocket science. To assume that people will behave like adults when you sever a relationship with them is extremely naive.
It was the company's responsibility (too) that there was no database backup when he wiped it.
It will be the company's responsibility when the referred employee hears about this and has a diminished reputation of the company. Will it bite them in the ass? Probably. Maybe tomorrow, maybe next month, maybe in a year when things get hectic and the referred employee sees no reason to be loyal to these guys...
>> It was the company's responsibility (too) that there was no database backup when he wiped it.
I always say "If you fail to prepare, prepare to fail." I'm seeing a pattern here in the OP's behavior that led to him wiping the database and his naive reliance on his former employer to do the right thing before exiting the company. This guy has no clue about how to contingency plan.
As for the company, shame on them, but that kind of douchy behaviour is rampant in startups and small companies. You always need to look out for your own personal financial interests first with startups, no matter how 'collegial' the work environment is.
I appreciate you doing this and I hope my employees would do the same if I were to act unethically in any future startup. There's a million sociopathic megalomaniacal assholes in Silicon Valley and that won't change unless people fight back.
