3 ms·

> I understand that people from the countryside can be seen as kinder towards people they like but my impression is that hatred and prejudice is much more preva

> I understand that people from the countryside can be seen as kinder towards people they like but my impression is that hatred and prejudice is much more prevalent there... That's not my experience at all. I dealt with more overt racism in NYC than any tiny red state town, and I've spent plenty of time in both. There are racist people everywhere, but even in rural areas, they tend to be ignorant and antisocial so they are not really in any position to oppress anyone. People tend to mistake talking heads on TV for actual people. People also tend to mistake voting patterns for personal quality of character. There's a caricature on TV (a bigoted one IMO) that small towns are full of shirtless racist rednecks that throw beer cans at all minorities that wander in town. That's because it's a useful trope and an easy way to advance a narrative. Every all town church I'm aware of sends missionaries overseas to build schools, wells, etc. That doesn't mesh with the "we hate foreigners" narrative. I had dinner in a tiny red state town last week. The most popular place in town is run by Mexican immigrants. And it's thriving. Life is more complicated than most media lets on. Even if we narrowed everything down to political views, the traditional red state view is that diversity in government (federalism) provides better prosperity, diversity, justice, freedom, and so on. Most red state types are fine leaving Colorado with its marijuana and Nevada with its brothels. They value the ability to self determine more than they value the ability to control other people.

deleted 9y ago
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Trill-I-Am 9y ago
What about the red states bordering Colorado suing to try to get federal courts to nullify its legalization?
splawn 9y ago
The GOP continues to be impregnated with racism thanks to the southern strategy.[0] If you don't think out in the open racist culture is alive, well and considered normal in the rural south, you are fooling yourself. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy
- humanrebar 9y ago
  I think there are overt racists, but they are in a minority and certainly not exclusive to any political party. Though this is a hard conversation to have meaningfully since different people mean different things by racism. The context here is a Northern European visiting the U.S. I think it would be a bit of a stretch to say they'll have a hard time in the rural south. I'd say (accented) rural Southerners would have a harder time in NYC than Scandanavian visitors would have in Mobile.
  - tptacek 9y ago
    Accented rural southerners would have no trouble whatsoever in NYC. This is one of those analogies that sounds like it should be true, but has no basis in fact. It's also a super weird comparison. Southern intolerance is subtextually about animus towards African Americans and Latinos. Nobody is arguing that a Scandinavian would have any trouble in Mobile. Further: Mobile is a weird choice for a comparison as well, since it's comparatively urban and well-educated. Mobile is more diverse than many parts of Chicago. When we talk about Southern racism, we're generally not talking about the urban south. Finally, and I want to make this point gingerly, but if we want to drag US political parties into this discussion, the Republican party is almost mathematically determined to be more racist than the Democratic party, which is a coalition of labor, minorities, and liberal whites. It's also just empirically true that the Republican party harbors more overt racists, but we don't have to dive into a lot of value judgements about conservatism and nationalism to conclude that; we can just observe that the Democrats have African American and Latino voters as one of the foundations of their constituency.
    - hueving 9y ago
      >almost mathematically determined to be more racist than the Democratic party, which is a coalition of labor, minorities, and liberal whites The assumption you build this on is that those groups are not more racist than the groups in the Republican party. The only way you could even make that kind of jump is if you subscribe to the definition of racism where you can't be racist if you are systematically oppressed in some regard. Is that the case? If not, then you will definitely need some data showing that blue collar workers, minorities, etc have lower rates of racism. The vast majority of racism I hear (assuming the definition based on race discrimination) comes from uneducated people, regardless of political affiliation.

deleted 9y ago

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Trill-I-Am 9y ago

What about the red states bordering Colorado suing to try to get federal courts to nullify its legalization?

splawn 9y ago

The GOP continues to be impregnated with racism thanks to the southern strategy.[0] If you don't think out in the open racist culture is alive, well and considered normal in the rural south, you are fooling yourself. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy

humanrebar 9y ago
I think there are overt racists, but they are in a minority and certainly not exclusive to any political party. Though this is a hard conversation to have meaningfully since different people mean different things by racism. The context here is a Northern European visiting the U.S. I think it would be a bit of a stretch to say they'll have a hard time in the rural south. I'd say (accented) rural Southerners would have a harder time in NYC than Scandanavian visitors would have in Mobile.
- tptacek 9y ago
  Accented rural southerners would have no trouble whatsoever in NYC. This is one of those analogies that sounds like it should be true, but has no basis in fact. It's also a super weird comparison. Southern intolerance is subtextually about animus towards African Americans and Latinos. Nobody is arguing that a Scandinavian would have any trouble in Mobile. Further: Mobile is a weird choice for a comparison as well, since it's comparatively urban and well-educated. Mobile is more diverse than many parts of Chicago. When we talk about Southern racism, we're generally not talking about the urban south. Finally, and I want to make this point gingerly, but if we want to drag US political parties into this discussion, the Republican party is almost mathematically determined to be more racist than the Democratic party, which is a coalition of labor, minorities, and liberal whites. It's also just empirically true that the Republican party harbors more overt racists, but we don't have to dive into a lot of value judgements about conservatism and nationalism to conclude that; we can just observe that the Democrats have African American and Latino voters as one of the foundations of their constituency.
  - hueving 9y ago
    >almost mathematically determined to be more racist than the Democratic party, which is a coalition of labor, minorities, and liberal whites The assumption you build this on is that those groups are not more racist than the groups in the Republican party. The only way you could even make that kind of jump is if you subscribe to the definition of racism where you can't be racist if you are systematically oppressed in some regard. Is that the case? If not, then you will definitely need some data showing that blue collar workers, minorities, etc have lower rates of racism. The vast majority of racism I hear (assuming the definition based on race discrimination) comes from uneducated people, regardless of political affiliation.