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When I moved to New York City after living in Florida and North Carolina, I was really surprised at the blatant bigotry here. I've had people respected in this

When I moved to New York City after living in Florida and North Carolina, I was really surprised at the blatant bigotry here. I've had people respected in this industry for their open mindedness look at me without irony and ask me if it's really as bad as everyone "down there" calling everyone else ... (looks around nervously) ... the N-word. Todd Barry has a great bit on this (language might be offensive to some) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfNnM2aYsWo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfNnM2aYsWo

stcredzero 11y ago
When I moved to New York City after living in Florida and North Carolina, I was really surprised at the blatant bigotry here. There is a lot of bigotry in the Bay Area and online. Considering what we know about the mental shortcuts people use to process complex social information, evidence/science minded people should expect there to be bigotry as an unfortunate phenomenon to be aware of. Instead, it has received the imprimatur of "sin." It's a thorny problem. Talk about bigotry in the "wrong" way, and you ironically open yourself up to yet more bigotry involving projections about your internal mental state.
placeybordeaux 11y ago
Move to Seattle from Atlanta and quickly got sick of people up here talking about how racist it must be in Atlanta.
- xoqem 11y ago
  This particular point has always been a bit funny to me. I mean, sure, there are super racist areas in the south. I grew up and lived in mostly rural Alabama for the first 20+ years of my life, and there were some rural areas that were just as terrible as people imagine (cross burnings, open Klan meetings, etc, though that was starting to die down in the last 10 years or so I lived there). That said, a lot of cities in the south are 30% - 50% black (sometimes more), and people who live in those cities, generally speaking, coexist and interact with many black and white people on a continual basis. It'd be kind of hard to do that and be super racists to the level people imagine the south to be.
  - ido 11y ago
    I talked to a lot more black programmers in meetups in Atlanta than I have in San Francisco (I'm not American and was a visitor in both places) & was surprised by how biased against the former people in the latter were, despite evidence to the contrary.
    - placeybordeaux 11y ago
      In Atlanta race is not a special issue, it's a fact of daily life. Interacting with black people isn't an unusual event where you get to pat yourself on the back for 'not being racist'. It's simply what happens everyday. Or maybe I am just bitter about a 70% white city talking about how racist a 53% black city must be.
grahamburger 11y ago
I had an opposite experience - I moved to Louisiana from a northern state and was shocked at the amount of racism and bigotry openly displayed. While looking in to buying a house I was told but multiple realtors to avoid certain areas because they are "too black." Also I distinctly remember seeing a bumper sticker that deriding mixed race relationships that ended with "don't be a race-mixing slut." Absolutely blew my mind - I didn't know those attitudes still existed.
- coldtea 11y ago
  >While looking in to buying a house I was told but multiple realtors to avoid certain areas because they are "too black." Besides racism, that's also a way to say "too poor/downtrodden/crime ridden". To which, they would indeed have a point (statistics wise), although that of course is caused by the systemic injustice and lack of opportunities against blacks for centuries. Also notice how people still say the exact same thing about "white trash" places in the North (and South), and nobody seems to mind, because while the US got more tolerant about race, they still don't give a rats arse about classism and social exclusion based on being poor and not a "success".
- 0xEFF 11y ago
  Was it the openness of the bigotry that shocked you, or the bigotry itself? In my experience, there isn't a huge difference in the level of racial bigotry between northern and southern states. The difference lies primarily in the openness of it. For example, the effects of deed-restricted home sales are still being felt today in many neighborhoods in northern states. In some ways, the openness of the southern brand of racism is more respectable than the northern brand. While the southern real estate agent was open with you, the northern real estate agent may simply assume you don't want to live in a neighborhood that's "too black," never say so to your face, and proceed to only show you houses in the "nice" part of town. Yes, it's a contrived example, but it's also something that happens every day all over the country.
  - gozur88 11y ago
    >In my experience, there isn't a huge difference in the level of racial bigotry between northern and southern states. The difference lies primarily in the openness of it. When I was managing people in the '90s in California one of the technicians who worked for me was black and had worked all over the country. He said he much preferred living in the South, because while there was no difference in the number of bigots he ran across, outside the South the bigots weren't brave enough to be open about it so it was harder to tell where he stood. I think there's probably some legitimacy to that view, but I always wonder how much "shit happens" type stuff gets identified as racism. I'm white, so when a white guy is an asshole to me I assume he's an asshole. If I were black I might assume he's a racist.

stcredzero 11y ago

When I moved to New York City after living in Florida and North Carolina, I was really surprised at the blatant bigotry here. There is a lot of bigotry in the Bay Area and online. Considering what we know about the mental shortcuts people use to process complex social information, evidence/science minded people should expect there to be bigotry as an unfortunate phenomenon to be aware of. Instead, it has received the imprimatur of "sin." It's a thorny problem. Talk about bigotry in the "wrong" way, and you ironically open yourself up to yet more bigotry involving projections about your internal mental state.

placeybordeaux 11y ago

Move to Seattle from Atlanta and quickly got sick of people up here talking about how racist it must be in Atlanta.

xoqem 11y ago
This particular point has always been a bit funny to me. I mean, sure, there are super racist areas in the south. I grew up and lived in mostly rural Alabama for the first 20+ years of my life, and there were some rural areas that were just as terrible as people imagine (cross burnings, open Klan meetings, etc, though that was starting to die down in the last 10 years or so I lived there). That said, a lot of cities in the south are 30% - 50% black (sometimes more), and people who live in those cities, generally speaking, coexist and interact with many black and white people on a continual basis. It'd be kind of hard to do that and be super racists to the level people imagine the south to be.
- ido 11y ago
  I talked to a lot more black programmers in meetups in Atlanta than I have in San Francisco (I'm not American and was a visitor in both places) & was surprised by how biased against the former people in the latter were, despite evidence to the contrary.
  - placeybordeaux 11y ago
    In Atlanta race is not a special issue, it's a fact of daily life. Interacting with black people isn't an unusual event where you get to pat yourself on the back for 'not being racist'. It's simply what happens everyday. Or maybe I am just bitter about a 70% white city talking about how racist a 53% black city must be.

grahamburger 11y ago

I had an opposite experience - I moved to Louisiana from a northern state and was shocked at the amount of racism and bigotry openly displayed. While looking in to buying a house I was told but multiple realtors to avoid certain areas because they are "too black." Also I distinctly remember seeing a bumper sticker that deriding mixed race relationships that ended with "don't be a race-mixing slut." Absolutely blew my mind - I didn't know those attitudes still existed.

coldtea 11y ago
>While looking in to buying a house I was told but multiple realtors to avoid certain areas because they are "too black." Besides racism, that's also a way to say "too poor/downtrodden/crime ridden". To which, they would indeed have a point (statistics wise), although that of course is caused by the systemic injustice and lack of opportunities against blacks for centuries. Also notice how people still say the exact same thing about "white trash" places in the North (and South), and nobody seems to mind, because while the US got more tolerant about race, they still don't give a rats arse about classism and social exclusion based on being poor and not a "success".
0xEFF 11y ago
Was it the openness of the bigotry that shocked you, or the bigotry itself? In my experience, there isn't a huge difference in the level of racial bigotry between northern and southern states. The difference lies primarily in the openness of it. For example, the effects of deed-restricted home sales are still being felt today in many neighborhoods in northern states. In some ways, the openness of the southern brand of racism is more respectable than the northern brand. While the southern real estate agent was open with you, the northern real estate agent may simply assume you don't want to live in a neighborhood that's "too black," never say so to your face, and proceed to only show you houses in the "nice" part of town. Yes, it's a contrived example, but it's also something that happens every day all over the country.
- gozur88 11y ago
  >In my experience, there isn't a huge difference in the level of racial bigotry between northern and southern states. The difference lies primarily in the openness of it. When I was managing people in the '90s in California one of the technicians who worked for me was black and had worked all over the country. He said he much preferred living in the South, because while there was no difference in the number of bigots he ran across, outside the South the bigots weren't brave enough to be open about it so it was harder to tell where he stood. I think there's probably some legitimacy to that view, but I always wonder how much "shit happens" type stuff gets identified as racism. I'm white, so when a white guy is an asshole to me I assume he's an asshole. If I were black I might assume he's a racist.