Thanks for your thoughtful article, it's very interesting. Personally, when traveling in the U.S., I've unscientifically observed that in many/most restaurants, I see black and white staff, and I also see black and white customers. What I see less regularly are black and white customers sitting together. Is that partial homophily? In Can…
Thanks for your thoughtful article, it's very interesting. Personally, when traveling in the U.S., I've unscientifically observed that in many/most restaurants, I see black and white staff, and I also see black and white customers. What I see less regularly are black and white customers sitting together. Is that partial homophily? In Canada, it seems a bit different. Yes, there are white and blacks and POC as staff and customers. But there seems to be more likelihood than in the U.S that there will be white and blacks and POC sitting together as customers, especially younger (than me) people. Homophily? Dunno. I ponder that.
Putting aside the somewhat-broken concept of homophily, it's hard to ignore that birds of a feather *do* sometimes flock together. But homophily is this nasty shortcut that says it's normal, natural, or comfortable. Fact is, we *do* have a habit of sticking with people who look/act/think like us, but that's the byproduct of so many complicated factors — class, legacies of racism, redlining/zoning, white flight/suburbanization, etc etc. None of that is *natural.* (Also, some of it is just demographics.)
Thanks for your thoughtful article, it's very interesting. Personally, when traveling in the U.S., I've unscientifically observed that in many/most restaurants, I see black and white staff, and I also see black and white customers. What I see less regularly are black and white customers sitting together. Is that partial homophily? In Canada, it seems a bit different. Yes, there are white and blacks and POC as staff and customers. But there seems to be more likelihood than in the U.S that there will be white and blacks and POC sitting together as customers, especially younger (than me) people. Homophily? Dunno. I ponder that.
Putting aside the somewhat-broken concept of homophily, it's hard to ignore that birds of a feather *do* sometimes flock together. But homophily is this nasty shortcut that says it's normal, natural, or comfortable. Fact is, we *do* have a habit of sticking with people who look/act/think like us, but that's the byproduct of so many complicated factors — class, legacies of racism, redlining/zoning, white flight/suburbanization, etc etc. None of that is *natural.* (Also, some of it is just demographics.)