4 ms·

Or maybe they themselves have experienced discriminatory behavior in the Midwest? As an LGBT guy, I'm always direct when pointing out that I left the South par

Or maybe they themselves have experienced discriminatory behavior in the Midwest? As an LGBT guy, I'm always direct when pointing out that I left the South partially because of discrimination, and someone is always happy to butt in to say I'm making it all up and the South is perfectly open and tolerant. It gets tiring.

prepend 6y ago
“The south” is a really big region so maybe someone pops up because you’re tarring an entire region based on your individual experience. As an LGBT person, I grew up with people telling urban legends about gerbils and whatnot. Perhaps they witnessed a single person doing this, but attributing it to a large group is not very accurate. I grew up in the south in a super backwards small town and now live in a really forward town in the south. It’s a big place and there’s a lot of great places. Stereotypes are based on common behavior but don’t apply to everyone here or every part of the south.
- scarmig 6y ago
  I'm tarring an entire region because I say, truthfully, that I left it because I experienced discrimination there? Can you elaborate the ways I'm obligated to caveat and contextualize my experience so I don't hurt other people's feelings by honestly relaying it?
  - prepend 6y ago
    You’re not obligated to do anything, especially not to help me and others better understand you or make your comments useful. “The south” ranges from Virginia to Texas. Maybe you lived everywhere and experienced discrimination everywhere. For me, I grew up in a down of a 1000 people and live just a few hours away in a town with maybe one of the most diverse cultures (including LGBT) in the country. If I said that because I experienced discrimination in my shitkicker little town that the entire south was similar, that would be wrong, and not very helpful to anyone trying to understand the south. I suppose you can avoid absolutes and generalizations if you want to help others. But you definitely aren’t obligated to help anyone. But generalizations jump out at me and annoy me because I’ve frequently encountered jerks saying something about perverts or crime stats and then just fall back on that they were just honestly relating their experience. But there is a difference between my experience and me saying that my experience applies to others. Especially if not backed by data and a suitable generalization.
    - scarmig 6y ago
      To be clear, you're accusing me of tarring an entire region for relaying an experience I had in it. I didn't even make any claim that the South is more discriminatory against LGBT people than elsewhere, though if you're going to project that onto me anyway... I guarantee you apply this kind of radical stance against all generalization in a very selective way. Do you get upset if someone says that Russia is a repressive country? Or that California is expensive? Even if I were to give my entire life story, you can always feign offense, claiming "city A 20 miles away from city B is totally different, you can't generalize an entire county!" At some point I'd have to be listing all the individuals I had negative experiences with, and even then, isn't it unfair for me to represent the entirety of their person with a single selective moment of their life?
      - asdff 6y ago
        It's like when people hear a statement like you've made they recoil and assume that 100% of your interactions in a region involve discrimination. What they fail to understand is that the rate you experienced discrimination is higher in these areas than in others. It's a probability, it's clear to me from the context that surely not every interaction of yours in the south is bad, but given drawing a random interaction out of a hat, you are more likely to have a bad one living in Virginia than in New York. Given this reality, I wouldn't want to live in the American South either. There must be some sort of logical block that prevents people from understanding the nuance in these comments, and rushing to defend against absolutes that no one implied existed. I blame a lack of understanding of statistics and probability.
        scarmig 6y ago
        Exactly. I've also experienced discrimination in San Francisco, for what it's worth! But as soon as you make any statement that it tends to be more common in the South (or even if it's merely implied), people end up triggered and rise up in defense of it.
        prepend 6y ago
  - DetroitThrow 6y ago
    Being more specific about the locale would help. Nashville is not Atlanta, NOLA is not Tampa when it comes to flavors of discriminatory attitudes - and rural or suburban attitudes are different as well. Describing where you went to for relief also adds even more context.
    - nilkn 6y ago
      Not to mention Houston, for instance, is one of the most diverse cities in the entire country -- more diverse than much of CA. It's also one of the largest and most iconic cities of the South.
      - asdff 6y ago
        Houston remains one of the most segregated cities in the entire country.
        nilkn 6y ago
        This page ranks it 18th in that regard: https://cityobservatory.org/most_segregated/ https://cityobservatory.org/most_segregated/ Of note, LA is measured as being more segregated than Houston.
    - specialist 6y ago
      Memo: There's a gradient from liberal urban islands to the surrounding regressive rural areas. With some exceptions. Surprised?
  - mensetmanusman 6y ago
    Not tarring, maybe he was just pointing out the unconscious bias of the statement not being more elusive.
Chris2048 6y ago
someone is always happy to butt in to say ... the South is perfectly open and tolerant which would be a generalisation, which is exactly what jacobriis is warning of
- scarmig 6y ago
  No, jacobriis is not doing that. He's stating > when people say things like this they often do so to feel virtuous themselves You're laundering his comment into some abstract statement about how you can't make generalizations about anyone, when he was the one making a generalization that people who say that they experienced X are making things up.
  - Chris2048 6y ago
    Yes he is, here is the relevant quote: The idea that people in the Midwest (which has a population of over 65 million people similar to France and the UK) are only friendly to white people is pretty crazy. You quoted a different part. I'm not "laundering" anything, there are multiple statements there. I didn't get the link between "someone is always happy to butt in" and whether or not OP experienced racism in the Midwest, but I am speaking of the generalisation of those experiences to the whole area, which jacobriis covers in the above quote. > how you can't make generalizations about anyone, when he was the one making a generalization generalisation in original post: people are friendly, as long as you look like them generalisation by jacobriis: when people say things like this they *often* do so to feel virtuous unless that's a silent "often", the generalisation is qualified, versus the unqualified generalisation in the first case. But it's not just that - "generalisation", or specifically "bad" generalisation takes a particular form, otherwise how do you distinguish it from a metaphor? The way the first characterises a specific area based on personal experience, versus the second which talks of "people" in general based on some personal judgment makes them different kinds of statement: the first as an objective account, the second an explicitly subjective opinion. > that people who say that they experienced X are making things up No, he said they "do so to feel virtuous themselves" i.e. their motivation, they didn't say anything about the actual truth of the statement. They did not say anything to suggest that they are "making things up". Given you just accused jacobriis of saying this, I now have to wonder about your original statement: "someone is always happy to butt in to say I'm making it all up" - did they specifically say that, or was that your interpretation?
learc83 6y ago
>I'm making it all up and the South is perfectly open and tolerant. I'm sure you're not. But "the South" is diverse. Atlanta has a very large LGBT community (both in absolute terms and as a percentage) and culture that is completely different from areas just an hour away. It's very possible that you and the people you are talking to had completely different experiences. Both of you are almost certainly overgeneralizing your experiences when you say "the South". People who live in the South get upset that the country likes to pretend that the rest of the country outside a few urban centers is any different. That is, if you had left the South for the rural or suburban Midwest or most of Pennsylvania, you'd likely have had a similar experience.
- scarmig 6y ago
  Thanks for explaining my experiences to me, as someone who spent twenty years living in exurban Atlanta.
  - yeetawayhn 6y ago
    Your comments indicated that such an explanation was necessary to improve your understanding.
  - meheleventyone 6y ago
    It’s amazing how many people are going out of their way to prove your point.
    - learc83 6y ago
      What point? That living in one small exurb in the South gives them enough experience to generalize a region of 125 million people?
  - learc83 6y ago
    I'm not explaining your experience to you. I'm telling you that your experience growing up in 1 place doesn't give you the ability to generalize a entire region. >exurban Atlanta Exurban Atlanta is not Atlanta. That's like saying the Jersey Shore is Manhattan.
nilkn 6y ago
It's important to clarify that you are mixing up two geographic regions here. You seem to mostly be referring to the deep south (especially since you refer to Atlanta in a later comment), which according to generally popular definitions is physically distinct from the midwest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_South https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_South https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midwestern_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midwestern_United_States
- scarmig 6y ago
  What's more reasonable: 1) That I'm confusing the Deep South and the Midwest or 2) That I'm commenting on a tendency of people to discount people's individual experiences because they don't like the idea that a particular region treats different people worse than other regions
  - nilkn 6y ago
    What's reasonable is that you're doing both things simultaneously and probably in the process getting a lot of complicated reactions because of imprecise use of terminology.
    - scarmig 6y ago
      Not a single person here was confused between the Midwest and the South, and you're obfuscating to generate noise.
      - nilkn 6y ago
        There's at least one person who shifted the discussion from the former to the latter (you). If you did so intentionally, knowing fully well the regions are completely distinct, perhaps you should consider your own role in generating noise before you accuse others of that. I do not believe it was unreasonable or obfuscating or noisy for me to point out that the discussion abruptly shifted to a totally different area of the country and that it was unclear whether this shift was intentional or an innocent mistake.
pratik661 6y ago
I’m not LGBT (but I’m an ethnic minority who grew up in suburban Atlanta). I wanted to add that personally it’s not enough to just be ‘tolerated’. I’d rather be in a place where I’m “mainstream” or at least normalized. In that sense (for me as a South Asian) the Bay Area and NYC are no comparison so the South or the Midwest. I feel like I’m an active member of mainstream society there, not someone in the sides.
- grugagag 6y ago
  That is very cultural as well. I'm of Eastern European origin (white) and feel quite at home in large cities with varied population and racial variety and would feel quite uncomfortable to live permanently in the rural south just because of cultural differences.

prepend 6y ago

“The south” is a really big region so maybe someone pops up because you’re tarring an entire region based on your individual experience. As an LGBT person, I grew up with people telling urban legends about gerbils and whatnot. Perhaps they witnessed a single person doing this, but attributing it to a large group is not very accurate. I grew up in the south in a super backwards small town and now live in a really forward town in the south. It’s a big place and there’s a lot of great places. Stereotypes are based on common behavior but don’t apply to everyone here or every part of the south.

scarmig 6y ago
I'm tarring an entire region because I say, truthfully, that I left it because I experienced discrimination there? Can you elaborate the ways I'm obligated to caveat and contextualize my experience so I don't hurt other people's feelings by honestly relaying it?
- prepend 6y ago
  You’re not obligated to do anything, especially not to help me and others better understand you or make your comments useful. “The south” ranges from Virginia to Texas. Maybe you lived everywhere and experienced discrimination everywhere. For me, I grew up in a down of a 1000 people and live just a few hours away in a town with maybe one of the most diverse cultures (including LGBT) in the country. If I said that because I experienced discrimination in my shitkicker little town that the entire south was similar, that would be wrong, and not very helpful to anyone trying to understand the south. I suppose you can avoid absolutes and generalizations if you want to help others. But you definitely aren’t obligated to help anyone. But generalizations jump out at me and annoy me because I’ve frequently encountered jerks saying something about perverts or crime stats and then just fall back on that they were just honestly relating their experience. But there is a difference between my experience and me saying that my experience applies to others. Especially if not backed by data and a suitable generalization.
  - scarmig 6y ago
    To be clear, you're accusing me of tarring an entire region for relaying an experience I had in it. I didn't even make any claim that the South is more discriminatory against LGBT people than elsewhere, though if you're going to project that onto me anyway... I guarantee you apply this kind of radical stance against all generalization in a very selective way. Do you get upset if someone says that Russia is a repressive country? Or that California is expensive? Even if I were to give my entire life story, you can always feign offense, claiming "city A 20 miles away from city B is totally different, you can't generalize an entire county!" At some point I'd have to be listing all the individuals I had negative experiences with, and even then, isn't it unfair for me to represent the entirety of their person with a single selective moment of their life?
    - asdff 6y ago
      It's like when people hear a statement like you've made they recoil and assume that 100% of your interactions in a region involve discrimination. What they fail to understand is that the rate you experienced discrimination is higher in these areas than in others. It's a probability, it's clear to me from the context that surely not every interaction of yours in the south is bad, but given drawing a random interaction out of a hat, you are more likely to have a bad one living in Virginia than in New York. Given this reality, I wouldn't want to live in the American South either. There must be some sort of logical block that prevents people from understanding the nuance in these comments, and rushing to defend against absolutes that no one implied existed. I blame a lack of understanding of statistics and probability.
      - scarmig 6y ago
        Exactly. I've also experienced discrimination in San Francisco, for what it's worth! But as soon as you make any statement that it tends to be more common in the South (or even if it's merely implied), people end up triggered and rise up in defense of it.
        prepend 6y ago
- DetroitThrow 6y ago
  Being more specific about the locale would help. Nashville is not Atlanta, NOLA is not Tampa when it comes to flavors of discriminatory attitudes - and rural or suburban attitudes are different as well. Describing where you went to for relief also adds even more context.
  - nilkn 6y ago
    Not to mention Houston, for instance, is one of the most diverse cities in the entire country -- more diverse than much of CA. It's also one of the largest and most iconic cities of the South.
    - asdff 6y ago
      Houston remains one of the most segregated cities in the entire country.
      - nilkn 6y ago
        This page ranks it 18th in that regard: https://cityobservatory.org/most_segregated/ https://cityobservatory.org/most_segregated/ Of note, LA is measured as being more segregated than Houston.
  - specialist 6y ago
    Memo: There's a gradient from liberal urban islands to the surrounding regressive rural areas. With some exceptions. Surprised?
- mensetmanusman 6y ago
  Not tarring, maybe he was just pointing out the unconscious bias of the statement not being more elusive.

Chris2048 6y ago

someone is always happy to butt in to say ... the South is perfectly open and tolerant which would be a generalisation, which is exactly what jacobriis is warning of

scarmig 6y ago
No, jacobriis is not doing that. He's stating > when people say things like this they often do so to feel virtuous themselves You're laundering his comment into some abstract statement about how you can't make generalizations about anyone, when he was the one making a generalization that people who say that they experienced X are making things up.
- Chris2048 6y ago
  Yes he is, here is the relevant quote: The idea that people in the Midwest (which has a population of over 65 million people similar to France and the UK) are only friendly to white people is pretty crazy. You quoted a different part. I'm not "laundering" anything, there are multiple statements there. I didn't get the link between "someone is always happy to butt in" and whether or not OP experienced racism in the Midwest, but I am speaking of the generalisation of those experiences to the whole area, which jacobriis covers in the above quote. > how you can't make generalizations about anyone, when he was the one making a generalization generalisation in original post: people are friendly, as long as you look like them generalisation by jacobriis: when people say things like this they *often* do so to feel virtuous unless that's a silent "often", the generalisation is qualified, versus the unqualified generalisation in the first case. But it's not just that - "generalisation", or specifically "bad" generalisation takes a particular form, otherwise how do you distinguish it from a metaphor? The way the first characterises a specific area based on personal experience, versus the second which talks of "people" in general based on some personal judgment makes them different kinds of statement: the first as an objective account, the second an explicitly subjective opinion. > that people who say that they experienced X are making things up No, he said they "do so to feel virtuous themselves" i.e. their motivation, they didn't say anything about the actual truth of the statement. They did not say anything to suggest that they are "making things up". Given you just accused jacobriis of saying this, I now have to wonder about your original statement: "someone is always happy to butt in to say I'm making it all up" - did they specifically say that, or was that your interpretation?

learc83 6y ago

>I'm making it all up and the South is perfectly open and tolerant. I'm sure you're not. But "the South" is diverse. Atlanta has a very large LGBT community (both in absolute terms and as a percentage) and culture that is completely different from areas just an hour away. It's very possible that you and the people you are talking to had completely different experiences. Both of you are almost certainly overgeneralizing your experiences when you say "the South". People who live in the South get upset that the country likes to pretend that the rest of the country outside a few urban centers is any different. That is, if you had left the South for the rural or suburban Midwest or most of Pennsylvania, you'd likely have had a similar experience.

scarmig 6y ago
Thanks for explaining my experiences to me, as someone who spent twenty years living in exurban Atlanta.
- yeetawayhn 6y ago
  Your comments indicated that such an explanation was necessary to improve your understanding.
- meheleventyone 6y ago
  It’s amazing how many people are going out of their way to prove your point.
  - learc83 6y ago
    What point? That living in one small exurb in the South gives them enough experience to generalize a region of 125 million people?
- learc83 6y ago
  I'm not explaining your experience to you. I'm telling you that your experience growing up in 1 place doesn't give you the ability to generalize a entire region. >exurban Atlanta Exurban Atlanta is not Atlanta. That's like saying the Jersey Shore is Manhattan.

nilkn 6y ago

It's important to clarify that you are mixing up two geographic regions here. You seem to mostly be referring to the deep south (especially since you refer to Atlanta in a later comment), which according to generally popular definitions is physically distinct from the midwest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_South https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_South https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midwestern_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midwestern_United_States

scarmig 6y ago
What's more reasonable: 1) That I'm confusing the Deep South and the Midwest or 2) That I'm commenting on a tendency of people to discount people's individual experiences because they don't like the idea that a particular region treats different people worse than other regions
- nilkn 6y ago
  What's reasonable is that you're doing both things simultaneously and probably in the process getting a lot of complicated reactions because of imprecise use of terminology.
  - scarmig 6y ago
    Not a single person here was confused between the Midwest and the South, and you're obfuscating to generate noise.
    - nilkn 6y ago
      There's at least one person who shifted the discussion from the former to the latter (you). If you did so intentionally, knowing fully well the regions are completely distinct, perhaps you should consider your own role in generating noise before you accuse others of that. I do not believe it was unreasonable or obfuscating or noisy for me to point out that the discussion abruptly shifted to a totally different area of the country and that it was unclear whether this shift was intentional or an innocent mistake.

pratik661 6y ago

I’m not LGBT (but I’m an ethnic minority who grew up in suburban Atlanta). I wanted to add that personally it’s not enough to just be ‘tolerated’. I’d rather be in a place where I’m “mainstream” or at least normalized. In that sense (for me as a South Asian) the Bay Area and NYC are no comparison so the South or the Midwest. I feel like I’m an active member of mainstream society there, not someone in the sides.

grugagag 6y ago
That is very cultural as well. I'm of Eastern European origin (white) and feel quite at home in large cities with varied population and racial variety and would feel quite uncomfortable to live permanently in the rural south just because of cultural differences.