Visit to Prospect Park (with HBD commentary)

I took the Q train to the Prospect Park station. This is on the bad side of the Park. Before heading into the park, I walked a bit down Flatbush Avenue, a commercial street which serves the mostly black residents of the area.

A large number of the stores were barbers, hair stylists, and nail salons. There is no white neighborhood with so many of these places. Black people obviously put a lot more time and effort into their appearance than white people. Who knew?

There were lots of places to buy greasy food like pizza and fried chicken. And many bodegas. Liberals like to complain that poor people are fat because of the “unhealthy” food sold in their neighborhoods. Well, there were loads of empty storefronts waiting to be rented (obviously, business isn’t booming along Flatbush Avenue). I challenge these liberal do-gooders to stop complaining and open up a store on Flatbush Avenue selling “healthy” food. Of course the store will go out of business, because black people don’t want to eat food that white people consider to be “healthy.”

On the other hand, such a store might be profitable because there are a few brave white people trying to gentrify the neighborhood. Amongst all of the stores catering to blacks were two SWPL places. One sold “fine art clothing,” and the other was a coffee house in which I could see white people sitting around with coffee and their laptop computers.

It looks like you’re in the country, but it’s Brooklyn

So then I walked into Prospect Park, and it was like I entered a whole different world. There were hardly any black people in Prospect Park, even though it borders a black neighborhood. Black people obviously don’t like trees. This probably explains why blacks always live in cities, and then when you wander off into the countryside, there are fewer black people.

This is not to say that Prospect Park was all SWPL. There were many ethnic and working class whites in Prospect Park. I even saw a Hispanic SWPL couple. They looked just like two white people dressed in a SWPL-hipster manner, except they were talking to each other in Spanish. This demonstrates how the word “Hispanic” covers such a wide variety of people. Black Puerto Ricans are Hispanic, but some of the very whitest people you’ll ever meet (such as the couple I saw in Prospect Park) are also Hispanic!

Comments

[S. Legree]

Why narrow it down to trees? Negroes don't like nature, period.

[Anonymous]

Have you not seen SBPDL? Explains some of the hair / barbershop thing.

http://stuffblackpeopledontlike.blogspot.com/2009/10/24-their-own-hair.html

http://stuffblackpeopledontlike.blogspot.com/2010/09/262-onus-on-barbershops.html

[Peter]

Barber shops and beauty salons are unofficial community and social centers in many black neighborhoods. It's not so surprising that you saw many of them on Flatbush Avenue. As for nail salons, I see them pretty much everywhere.

[Mick]

"Black people obviously don’t like trees. "

They don't like high desert either.
We just spend 10 days hiking in Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks.
I don't recall seeing a single black person. Not too many Hispanics either. A few Asians, many from Japan.
At first glance may be 30-50% of white visitors are Germans.
Probably during school vacation (white) American visitors are overwhelming majority. But Americans certainly are not overwhelming off-season.

It just a different culture. I don't blame French and Spaniards for not visiting our great National Parks in the West, I don't blame blacks for not being interested in the parks either.

If they have more fun eating fried chicken than hiking in the Parks, who is to say they are wrong? It is between them and their arteries.

[superdestroyer]

HS,

There are a group of blacks who actually like the outdoors. There are a group of blacks who hunt and fish but who do not hike. You have to go to places like Alabama and Louisiana to find them.

What is also odd is how middle age blacks are more interested in motorcycles now. I ran into a large group of them in Montana and they appear upper middle class, educated, and very friendly to whites.

[superdestroyer]

HS,

There are a group of blacks who actually like the outdoors. There are a group of blacks who hunt and fish but who do not hike. You have to go to places like Alabama and Louisiana to find them.

What is also odd is how middle age blacks are more interested in motorcycles now. I ran into a large group of them in Montana and they appear upper middle class, educated, and very friendly to whites.

[superdestroyer]

HS,

There are a group of blacks who actually like the outdoors. There are a group of blacks who hunt and fish but who do not hike. You have to go to places like Alabama and Louisiana to find them.

What is also odd is how middle age blacks are more interested in motorcycles now. I ran into a large group of them in Montana and they appear upper middle class, educated, and very friendly to whites.

[ATC]

"Nature" was not a good place for American blacks to be near until about 1964.

By the way, here's a lawyer's kid working as a computer programmer! Will wonders ever cease.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/fashion/weddings/24CORTLAND.html?_r=1&ref=weddings

[JP]

"Black people obviously don’t like trees.

They don't like high desert either."

You won't see a whole lot of them on the ski slopes, either.

[dk]

Blacks have actually historically lived in the more rural parts of the country. They started moving to major cities in the 20s to chase well paid industrial jobs.

Even more moved out in the post ww2 boom.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Migration_(African_American)

[Peter]

"There are a group of blacks who actually like the outdoors. There are a group of blacks who hunt and fish but who do not hike. You have to go to places like Alabama and Louisiana to find them."

When I lived in Connecticut there was a lake just down the road from me (http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&t=h&ll=41.595932,-73.009686&spn=0.0069,0.018572&z=17) that was popular with fishermen. The road ran right along the lakeside, so fishermen were easily visible. Many times you'd see 20 or 30 people fishing near the side of the road. Even though the area was no more than 10% to 15% black, at any given time at least a third of the fishermen would be black.

[Insider]

'There were hardly any black people in Prospect Park, even though it borders a black neighborhood. Black people obviously don’t like trees. This probably explains why blacks always live in cities, and then when you wander off into the countryside, there are fewer black people.'

Hm. Because you didn't see many black people in Prospect Park, this means that they 'obviously' don't like trees? And the fact that blacks don't like trees explains why they don't live in rural areas?

It seems like you're on tilt, HS. This is probably the most nonsensical thing I've ever seen you post.

[Haumea]

"Black people obviously put a lot more time and effort into their appearance than white people. Who knew?"

Pretty much everyone but you, apparently, no offense.

[SF]

"Black people don't like nature."
You should read Jimmy Carter's story of his youth, "An Hour before Dawn." The black people he grew up with were excellent farmers and fishermen.

[David Alexander]

*Black people obviously put a lot more time and effort into their appearance than white people.*

Out here on Long Island, in white neighourhoods, nail salons tend to be rather common place and nearly every strip mall features one. Hair salons are nearly as ubiquitous, but barber shops tend to be less common than what I'm used to in Queens. I must admit that my perspective is biased, but it seems that white men don't seem to have their hair cut as often as black men. I tend to go every four to five weeks to get my hair cut, but my white male friends seem to only go every other month or so. Admittedly, I'd consider going every two weeks because my hair looks much better when it's freshly cut versus when it's grown out. So, I'd argue that the elevated number of barber shops is due to the higher frequency of hair cuts for black men.

As for black women, they tend to go to hair salons frequently in order to straighten their hair with relaxer, and some will add extensions to their hair to make up for thinning or short hair. Some women will simply give up on this and wear wigs out of ease, but some middle class college educated black women will go "natural" out of some magical desire to express their "true" beauty. Of course, one could argue it's just one way of differentiating themselves from their prole sisters (or rebelling against their mothers) who in some cases would never be caught dead without straight hair.

The closest equivalent for whites would be women with curly hair who perm their hair and go to the hair salon on a weekly basis. I knew one Jewish girl at my old engineering school who had curly hair, but only permed it for her birthday in November because she simply didn't have the time and money to go on a weekly basis.

*Of course the store will go out of business, because black people don’t want to eat food that white people consider to be “healthy.”*

My cousin tends to run in Afro-centric circles, and there is small minority of blacks who are obsessed with health and have either given up pork claiming it to be "unhealthy" based on questionable reasons, and others like my cousin who have simply gone vegetarian or vegan. I suspect the problem ultimately is that the population isn't large enough to support a large number of stores catering to such a diet, and for those who don't have an animus against whites, it's not that hard to go to a white neighbourhood to secure "healthy" food.

[David Alexander]

**Black people obviously don’t like trees.**

FWIW, I've never really had an interest in hiking, camping, or hunting, but then I never grew up with such a tradition even though my grandfather's plantation was in the mountains in Haiti. OTOH, I love beautiful the beautiful rural highways upstate, but I'm an outlier that likes roads and trains admires the natural beauty that they can bring.

**You won't see a whole lot of them on the ski slopes, either.**

It's partially a money issue as HBD implies lower IQ and those lower wages and potentially less tolerance for cold weather, but the I suspect for those that have money, nobody really wants to be the only black person at a ski lodge. It's awkward if you're apprehensive and socially phobic, and it's miserable if you don't connect well with other white people. Since none of my friends go skiing, I've never had the chance to go along with them, and given limited budgets, I'd probably prefer to use my money for traveling overseas to ride trains.

[Peter A]

"Black people obviously don’t like trees"

That's odd since Africa is full of trees. That preference would seem to be nurture, not HBD.
But it's also true that hiking is a very Northern European activity. The only cultures that ever developed a real cult of hiking around in nature just to look at things are Northern Europe and China. You don't meet a lot of Jews or Italians on the White Mountain hiking trails either.

[JP]

"I suspect for those that have money, nobody really wants to be the only black person at a ski lodge."

Just bundle up enough and nobody will be able to tell your race or gender. Not kidding!

[Black Death]

" This probably explains why blacks always live in cities"

Have you ever been to, say, rural Georgia, South Carolina or Alabama?

[anonymous]

"Blacks have actually historically lived in the more rural parts of the country."

But those rural parts were in Mississippi, Alabama, etc. Maybe they avoid rural areas today because their "cultural memory" associates them with being dirt poor tenant farmers.

And because that's where all the crackers live!

[kurt9]

"We just spend 10 days hiking in Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks.
I don't recall seeing a single black person. Not too many Hispanics either. A few Asians, many from Japan.
At first glance may be 30-50% of white visitors are Germans. "

The veneration and worship of nature is an outgrowth of German Romanticism starting in the middle of the 19th Century. "Green" political movements are exclusively a Germanic-European phenomenon.

[J. L.]

"This demonstrates how the word “Hispanic” covers such a wide variety of people. Black Puerto Ricans are Hispanic, but some of the very whitest people you’ll ever meet (such as the couple I saw in Prospect Park) are also Hispanic!"

Thank you!! This has been my one-man crusade for awhile: to point out how pointless the "Hispanic" label is for HBD purposes. For example, Cuban-Americans from Florida are in many ways the exact opposite of the image Hispanics usually have: the are primarily white (with some mixed-race Mulatto), primarily Republican (all 3 Cuban-American congresspeople from Miami are GOP, and the Florida's GOP candidate and Tea party favorite for senate is a Cuban American), and more likely to be professional rather than working class.

Also, I've been around a lot of white, mainly progessional Puerto Ricans, and many mulatto, mainly working-class Puerto Ricans, and the cultural difference is... er, like night and day. The latter are much more influenced by their partly African genetics and cultural background. The former are like white professionals anywhere.

Lastly, I've known many Mestizo (mixed race white and native american) Mexicans, and they likewise have a different disposition than the Mulatto (mixed race white and black) Hispanics I've known.

[Twain]

Were you on a path when you took that picture or were you in the "woods" off any paths?