— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
Now that we know “techie” is basically a racial slur thrown around to marginalize cyber Mexicans, a few tipsters have written in alerting us to the low-grade hate speech being sprayed across the neighborhood. As one tipster critiqued:
I felt the double exclamation point was unnecessary. They already made their point by spray-painting the message across the entire street.
Such divisiveness here in the Mission. It was bad enough in the days when the poors hurled around senseless epithets like “techie” and bars openly discriminated against Google Glass-enabled humans, but now this? Where will it end?
Comments (69)
fuck you bro
Thanks for fucking up the neighborhood with spray-paint, brah.
This makes me sad. Please don’t vandalize my ‘hood. Also, I’ve lived in the Mission for 5 years. I’ve ALWAYS wanted to live in NorCal (FL girl here) and getting a marketing job w/ a tech company was my ticket here. It makes me really uneasy that all of this hate is spewed at me. So are no new transplants allowed to come into SF? I honestly don’t know what the solution is but the constant ‘techie hate’ is not effective. It’s just classist (is that even a word?). I’m not sure what I can do to help but am willing to listen to both sides.
Aww, you’re sad? How about the people who were raised here? How do you think they feel? I’m not saying what you are doing is wrong at all, just keep the pity party to yourself and get back to work and off da blogs.
What about the people who were raised here?
I go back to the neighborhood I grew up in and barely recognize it. This is pretty damn common.
Move on, brah.
I would hope they’re sad about the vandalism. too. Why wouldn’t they be?
I didn’t know it was a human right to forever live in the city they were raised in. My parents raised me in a a suburb that’s since seen large jumps in property values, but you don’t see me complaining that I can’t afford to move back to my hometown.
I have been here for two years now and I am in a very similar situation. My digital marketing job is the only thing that allows me to live in this beautiful city. I feel that even though I’m not a “techie” per say, the fact that I’m Caucasian, young(er), and living in the Mission means that I’m a direct target for misdirected angst and hate. I guess I should stop complaining because I can’t imagine the constant racial profiling and discrimination minorities face, but still, this constant out lash doesn’t make it right. Why can’t we all just get along?!
Lets all go on a rent strike until 1brs are 500
gen·tri·fi·ca·tion : Forced disenfranchisement of poor and working class people from the spaces and places in which they have legitimate social and historical claims.
Fuck you bitch! Go back to Florida!!
Lame, that’s a good sitting area right in front of Big Mouth.
News Flash:
It is still possible to sit there, unless bad words make your hiney hurt.
Uhh, I see nothing wrong with feeling sad about people vandalizing my neighborhood.
uhh, welcome to urbanity?! a little different from your suburbs. graffity/tagging happens.
Hey, techies empower yourselves; have Techie embroidered on your flannel shirts. That way the “poors” won’t be able to make you sad……and pouty……and thumb-suckie……and homesick.
All the cool kids are empowering themselves by wearing these:
http://www.zazzle.com/techdouche_san_francisco_native_shirts-23576406299…
http://www.zazzle.com/techdouche_changing_the_world_shirt-23524533403872…
Me Likey!
+1 million points.
yuppie white people hate graffiti like it’s some huge personal offence yet they consider themselves cultured… oh the hipster irony
Yeah, spray painting “FUCK U” on a bench is such fucking _art_, brah. CULTURE.
Ya brah, you’re cultured for sure brah. Keep spraying, brah. Show those yuppies, brah.
Some white people got hella mad when they read that, so mad their surfer accent came out and they called me brah
Move back to the LA burbs bruh.
Graffiti is art. This is just dumb.
99% of graffiti in San Francisco is not art. The rubbish by Carl, Euro, Nasty and such is just dog spray. vandalism ugly.
This spray painting at least has a point. Its a point I don’t agree with. Its presented in a hate ish way, that probably is not effective, but it has a minor redeeming social value of getting a discussion started.
Forget about techies — fuck the person vandalizing my neighborhood. At least I’ve never seen a techie do that.
I’m actually surprised that you’re supporting this kind of shit, KevMo. Seriously?
Tech people aren’t the whiners here. Everyone else complaining are. Especially the person who did this shit.
There is a difference between reporting and supporting, but I admittedly find the vandalism in the context of a “techie-as-a-racial-slur”-freakout amusing.
If by “freakout” you mean “one Chronicle reporter whipping up a little cheap linkbait on a deadline”, then yeah, I can see that.
eh, one reporter, but several TECHIES willing to be quoted.
Yeah, it is ridiculous.
KevMo is a disgruntled ex-techie and is hating on his brethren. He starts his Linked profile with “Drupal expert, front-end developer”. Why you always hating on your peeps Kev-brah?
If you can’t beat em, join em. If you can’t join em, write angry blog posts?
Ha, he deleted his own post and mine in response. Amusing
kevin puts his D on the table with his comments.
Also markets himself as “Freelance Drupaler, with a focus in media publishing, censorship resistance, front-end development, and user privacy.” https://drupal.org/user/174158/
I love this d0xing, can I join in?
Seriously dude, you see nothing wrong with lumping anyone who works in tech as a douchey, rude, gentrifying a-hole? You’re a Drupal/front-end guy?!?!
I don’t really want to write an spiteful opus on this, but, yes, having had a day job in the industry (admittedly in an off-and-on, often part-time capacity) for a number of years, I know it’s absolutely as crooked as it’s made out to be–seen everything from a CEO who refused to hire women because they “couldn’t hang” to guys in polo shirts using exaggerated accents to mock gay employees. Of course not everyone is terrible (and some company’s have a much better “culture” than others), but you still need a particular masochism streak to deal.
I’ve attempted to wean myself off of needing a day job a few times, but trying to make it as a writer is totally fucked these days. (But if you know of anything, do let me know.)
(Also, I’m surprised this is news to anyone. It’s not like I’ve hidden any of this.)
Whatever. I’m just going to shortsightedly label you a douchey brogrammer, KevBrah…that seems to be what all of the hipsters do anyways.
“Since 2009, tech has created 23,500 jobs - 86 percent of all new office positions in the city.”
- SF Gate
Tell me again that the tech sector isn’t good for San Francisco.
http://www.sfgate.com/technology/dotcommentary/article/Tech-s-space-appe…
It’s not as black and white as tech being all good or all bad. But how many of those jobs went to people who already lived here? How many of those jobs went to people in SF neighborhoods like Visitacion Valley or Bayview Hunters Point?
Cellphone robbery businesses are flourishing. The margins on muggings have gone up. Bike thieves are doing great. Cocaine/heroin operations may be suffering though, as tech worker favor prescription drugs.
“how many of those jobs went to people who already lived here”
REALLY????
What about it? If a thriving industry can’t support the existing residents, it can likely push them out as it makes way for the workers it brings in. That doesn’t seem problematic?
Literally nothing is stopping local citizens from buffing up their resumes, or learning programming, and applying for a job in tech. Companies *love* local candidates because they don’t have to pay to fly them into interviews. All this “But they don’t hire locals!” is just because the locals are too busy complaining to make themselves hirable.
Holy cow! Somebody forgot to check their privilege at the door! Are you willing to stand behind that statement and add your real name to this conversation? Because I’m really curious who has this much lack of cultural and economic perspective in the Bay Area in 2013.
Have you spent any time in the Southeast section of SF? Have you seen the kinds of things that people are dealing with just to keep their lives? People who were born into turmoil, who have inherited it and live in a city that is not making it a priority to deal with their struggles? You think there is literally nothing stopping them? For your statement to be true we would have to first agree that all people are born with basically the same lives available to them, the same set of opportunities and challenges. I’d be more than glad to show you some of the world outside your house that may make you see things differently.
So what’s your proposal, exactly? Google should have hiring quotas for locals? For people from HP/Bayview?
I wholeheartedly agree. LITERALLY NOTHING.
Here’s a great advice column on the subject that I’m sure you’ll find simpatico.
https://medium.com/p/4e22cc9c9a56
i mean let them eat cake..
How many jobs have been destroyed in the city by raising rents forcing businesses out over the same period of time, I wonder?
Probably fewer than 23k, I would guess, but still an interesting question.
Both great questions, Ariel & Doktorr. How can you go about and get that figure? This type of question is always asked but no one ever seems to go try to find the answer.
Another point to consider: how many of the jobs that were priced out were legal?
Hi Rob,
It’s not good for everyone; admittedly it is good for the 23,500 people who received jobs, including me. Yet there are many folks who are losing their homes and jobs, and who are suffering profoundly. Please think of these folks, and not just about your own personal financial gain. You can rise above this Rob. I recommend Ghandi’s “The Story of My Experiments With Truth.”
Hahaha! So KevBrah is an “adderal-addled entrepreneur busy disrupting old industries in his useless pursuit of wealth and Twitter followers”?!?
Ah, I like making sound-biterrific generalizations in the morning whether it’s true or not. Why not just lump everyone in an industry and create a forum for others to hate/degrade them? That’s ‘reporting’ right?
I was gonna send a picture of these to you, glad you saw them. It’s not just on the sidewalk, either. Even the mirror in the bathroom at Shotwell’s has seen this dirty slur recently.
….”mirror in the bathroom…recompense…for all my crimes of self-defense” ba doot-dat errbuddy skadance now.
Mirror in the bathroom recompense
For all my crimes of self defense
Cures you whisper make no sense
Drift gently into mental illness
I wonder what would happen if I spray painted “fuck the assholes that keep breaking into my car, brah!” ?
I have a hard time feeling sorry for white people.
Amenz!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dcr8dm9Prkk&feature=player_embedded
http://www.globalhiphopbattles.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/1289691484…
While I sympathize with the discomfort the new technology workers are feeling, I have some valid concerns.
I have worked, lived, and known many technology workers, and to be quite frank, many are very young, racist, and sexist. There is a lot of talk about segregating minorities and I personally find that very scary. They also talk of the inferiority of women, and how women are only useful for sex, marketing and secretarial work. All in all, there is a shocking disregard for human life if that life is not young, white or asian, and male. I cannot claim that every tech worker believes these things, but most that I encountered shamelessly espoused these beliefs.
I truly believe we are all equal, and I do not want to go backward with respect to this issue. San Francisco and Berkeley are symbols of equality, diversity, acceptance and humanism for me, and that is why it is so sad to see these cities overrun by greed, inhumanity, sexism and racism.
Well said!
If you’re upset about being called a techie, you’re probably a techie
San Francisco used to be a great, diverse, culture filled city with lots of friendly people. Now is mostly rich kids who lack soul and no nothing about the real people who made this city great. Now all the rich people from out of state and from Europe want to act like they are from here, but you are all a bunch of cookie cutter squares, fuck your worthless life. San Francisco was cool because of diversity, now its mostly the ugliest and most boring rich white people who bring zero personality and beauty to our city. All of these entitled rich losers and corrupt politicians were born fuckheads and will forever be fuckheads till they burn in eternal hell fire. They aren’t from SF, I spit on them and piss on their faces. if you see them in the street, cuss them out, let those techie fucks know they are not welcome here.
Overheard on a BART (aka douche caboose) train recently (“My neighborhood used to be cool- lots of coffee shops and places where you could by a good mayonnaise sandwich and chips combo for lunch- now it has all kinds of minorities and refugees moving in- I want my neighbrhood to stay exactly the way it was!)
Well, bro, hate to say it but what is good for the goose is good for the gander! Your “people” meaning the tech company bros and their likeminded women are invading my neighborhood. Maybe you priveleged folks could talk to each other more and work this out.
The bottom line is that the city should stay exactly the same as it was when I moved here in 1999. Back then this place was a warm, forgiving and full of culture. Now it’s full of Tinder dates and tech jocks with vanereal disesases and daddy’s credit card. We are the people. We’ve earned this by our tenure. Get out of this city!
And to those who are true refugrees, we welcome you.
Hate to tell you, but there’s another dude around these parts since 1989 who can totally out-curmudgeon you.