{"id":39228,"date":"2014-06-04T01:37:51","date_gmt":"2014-06-04T05:37:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=39228"},"modified":"2020-07-12T01:38:05","modified_gmt":"2020-07-12T05:38:05","slug":"the-racial-map","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=39228","title":{"rendered":"The Racial Map"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Source<\/a>: based on 2010 census data, an interactive map was created that displays a dot for every single person that participated, which is color-coded to what they entered as their ethnicity.\u00a0 The result is what is being called the most comprehensive racial map ever created.<\/span><\/p>\n

I have to say that this thing is really cool to tinker around with.\u00a0 I don\u2019t hide the fact that my interest is often piqued at the topic of race; some of it happens to do with the fact that despite my American upbringing, my Korean heritage technically makes me a minority, and then there\u2019s the fact that I live in Atlanta, where in spite of the general perceived progression of the rest of the world, is a place where the topic of race and inequality is still a topic on almost a daily basis.\u00a0 The race card is still flung around here like\u00a0Gambit credit cards<\/a>, in a far-fetched stretch to incorporate this analogy.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Needless to say, it\u2019s really interesting to zoom in and out of the places of the United States, to see just how they break down, racially.\u00a0 Many stereotypical beliefs about particular places are justified, and then there are a few places where it\u2019s surprising to see congregations of particular ethnicities that you may or may not have known even existed in certain areas.<\/span><\/p>\n

Naturally, my focus goes to places where I live(d), and places I either visit often, were fond of, or would even consider residing in, in the future as well.\u00a0 In the cases of current\/past residences, some things are no surprise, but perplexing is the stumbling across an oddly concentrated chunk of a particular ethnicity in a location one might not have expected to see.<\/span><\/p>\n

Obviously, this map isn\u2019t without a large margin of error; after all, it\u2019s a known fact that there are plenty of people out there that either don\u2019t fill out their Census survey, and\/or dismiss it as a piece of spam mail, and whether people want to believe it or not, there\u2019s still countless numbers of people residing illegally within the United States, all over the place.<\/span><\/p>\n

What seems suspicious to me is the precariously low ratio of brown dots; which are representative of people who do not fall into the \u201cbig 4\u201d categories of white, black, Asian or Hispanic.\u00a0 Native Americans, Middle Easterners and since they\u2019re so insistent on being their own class from the rest of Asia, Pacific Islanders, should all be showing up as brown dots on this map, but there is a questionably low number of them; even in Hawaii.<\/span><\/p>\n

Regardless, it\u2019s still interesting to me to see the great racial divides in such a comprehensive visual format.\u00a0 One of the things that stands out the most to me is the visual justification of the belief that white people build cities, abandon cities, and watch from the suburbs as they\u2019re taken over by blacks.\u00a0 Also known as white flight, this map shows pretty clearly, that all across the country, most metropolitan areas, or even notably towns and cities themselves, are often times little green (the color designating blacks) clusters, surrounded by these giant halos of blue (color for white people).<\/span><\/p>\n

Zooming out entirely shows that in spite of the redneck paranoia that blacks are taking over the country, if the United States were to go into a racial war, then apparently white people outnumber black people, much less everyone else, combined, at least three times over.\u00a0 Not much disparity for black domination there just yet.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the biggest surprises for me was the suffocating Asian density located in San Francisco.\u00a0 When I went there, sure, I saw my fair share of Asians, and I knew there were lots of Asians there, but I didn\u2019t realize it was to the magnitude of what\u2019s viewable on this map.\u00a0 If I had to guess, I would have pegged Los Angeles, and even Seattle, to have been more crawling with Asians than San Francisco; and in all fairness LA might have SF beat in terms of volume, but certainly not density.<\/span><\/p>\n

On the flip side, one of least surprising things about this map was none other than home-sweet-home.\u00a0 Atlanta.\u00a0 Can\u2019t really be that surprised about anything, consider this is where I\u2019ve lived for the last eleven years now.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are common perceptions about the varying regions of the Metro Atlanta area, and how they break down racially.\u00a0 The interactive map gives credence to almost all of it, like the massive concentration of Asians that populate Georgia Tech, the great white flight into North Fulton County, the suffocating Hispanic presence all throughout Buford Highway, \u201cChambodia,\u201d and of course, the overwhelming notion that Atlanta is a predominantly black city.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is funny to see how drastic some of the dividing lines actually are in Atlanta; where it\u2019s evidently clear that the west, south, and southeast parts of the perimeter are pretty much completely black neighborhoods, you can see where the largest area of attempted gentrification is taking place.\u00a0 Memorial Drive is more or less the equivalent to 8 Mile Road out in Detroit, but it\u2019s the space in between Memorial and US-278 where it\u2019s a mixing bowl of blacks and whites, before crossing beyond the north part of US-278, where it becomes predominantly white.<\/span><\/p>\n

What is surprising about Atlanta though is just how predominantly black it actually is, especially in comparison to other cities across the country.\u00a0 From a cursory glance, there doesn\u2019t appear to be any major market or region that\u2019s nearly as densely saturated with a black population like Atlanta is.\u00a0 Even reputably black cities like Baltimore and Detroit don\u2019t compare to Atlanta, and in spite of the gentrification of Southeast Washington D.C., I would place them as the #2 blackest region in the country; behind Atlanta,\u00a0the\u00a0<\/em>blackest city in \u2018Murica.<\/span><\/p>\n

I mean seriously, look at the map.\u00a0 All that green, and how it\u2019s pretty much enveloped the entire city, starting from the south, moving north. It almost\u00a0looks like a piranha plant<\/a>\u00a0from Super Mario Bros.<\/span><\/p>\n

One last surprise was that I located my neighborhood on the map; the perception of being 97% black is pretty justified based on the map, but what\u2019s alarming is the fact that there\u2019s apparently more than one red dot in my neighborhood.\u00a0 Red dots mean Asians, and I was convinced that I was pretty much the only Asian person in my entire zip code.\u00a0 But apparently, there are like 3-4 other Asians in my own neighborhood that I\u2019m completely unaware of.\u00a0 I sure as shit haven\u2019t seen them, so I guess they\u2019re complete recluses.<\/span><\/p>\n

Either way, this interactive map is pretty awesome in general, and I\u2019d implore anyone to give it a gander, if this kind of stuff interests you.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source: based on 2010 census data, an interactive map was created that displays a dot for every single person that participated, which is color-coded to what they entered as their ethnicity.\u00a0 The result is what is being called the most comprehensive racial map ever created. I have to say that this thing is really cool … Continue reading The Racial Map<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[15,143,8,89],"class_list":["post-39228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-og","tag-ohatlanta","tag-ohgeorgia","tag-racism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39228"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39230,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39228\/revisions\/39230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}