5 ms·

White people in these areas don't trust people from outside these areas. The only reason other people come to them is to paint the people in a bad light in some

White people in these areas don't trust people from outside these areas. The only reason other people come to them is to paint the people in a bad light in some way or scam them (why else would anyone come? it's certainly not for work or pleasure). It has nothing to do with there being "a lot at stake," they just genuinely don't like outsiders. source: from these areas. edit: removed the "white" from people

mc32 4y ago
It used to be, if you were a Yankee driving through Georgia on the way to Florida, a common corridor with NEasterners, they would often be advised to not detour off from the interstate, else risk get entangled in local "policework".
mimirs 4y ago
The photographer in this case, Baldwin Lee, was Chinese-American and grew up in Chinatown in New York. So his experience was probably not due to this phenomenon.
- lampshades 4y ago
  I think it's a safe assumption that holding a camera contributed to this phenomenon.
- deelowe 4y ago
  If you're implying it's because he looks Chinese, you're right but not just because of racism. It's because no one who looks like that lived there. There's a long history of southerners being taken advantage of. Do they not teach about carpet baggers and indentured servants anymore in school?
  - throwayyy479087 4y ago
    The idea that the victor is ever anything but perfect is rarely in history books. The history of Southern exploitation is heavily covered in Socialist literature, though.
x86_64Ubuntu 4y ago
Then why weren't black people pulling guns on him for "painting people in a bad light"? It's because in the South, the dominant white population has always hated any narrative that didn't show the chattel slave system or the Jim Crow system in a good, if not benign light. This links up with the history of the South and it constantly feeling that it's moral and social structure were always being under attack for being wrong.
- lampshades 4y ago
  People don't come to the South to write stories that will paint the black people in a bad light. I can't speak for the time that this photographer went to the South, but nobody defends slavery or Jim Crow or, from what I can gather, cares about discussing it.
  - x86_64Ubuntu 4y ago
    There is an entire civil religion called Lost Cause Ideology which has defending the chattel slave system as a cornerstone of it's beliefs. It's the reason that there were so many confederate statues created in the 1920s-1970s, well after the end of the Civil War. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cause_of_the_Confederacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cause_of_the_Confederacy
    - lampshades 4y ago
      Oh, wow, a Wikipedia page about something created in the 1920s-1970s. I actually learned about this through the internet several years ago. Not once in my entire life growing up did I actually hear about it.
      - x86_64Ubuntu 4y ago
        You don't hear about it, it's a term used by others to describe a set of ideals held by many white southerners. Just because you haven't heard of something doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
AviationAtom 4y ago
I think this discussion is a losing discussion, as history is recast as being strictly only one way. I could speak of the stories I heard on Thursday from a historian down here, but people would instantly discount it. It very much reflects our current times, where all is seen as either white or black, but nothing seen as a shade of gray. Polarization has benefitted no side, in any debate.
- jfengel 4y ago
  Polarization benefits both sides. It just doesn't benefit the truth. Sometimes one side or the other is on the side of truth, but even then, the other side benefits from the uncertainty. The further they are from that position the greater the relative benefit. If there's even the slightest hint of gray they benefit even more. Representing the middle is a pure loss. Both sides benefit from the clarity of their positions and the ability to commit. Usually both sides will assume your are on one or the other, and both benefit from that. One side gets a slight advantage from your numbers. The other benefits more from painting you as the enemy who will stop and nothing to destroy you and must be stopped at all costs. Reality, it turns out, is badly overrated.
  - AviationAtom 4y ago
    It can be quite lonely and frustrating having any centrist views, for many of the reasons you mention. Many assumptions made merely on the basis of hearing but one view. The hive mentality is two sides of the same coin, but I don't think anyone is incentivized to change it.
    - yieldcrv 4y ago
      Keep sharing your centrists views. Independents are the largest political bloc in the country at over 40% of voters. Partisans are not convincing, they are just loud and have representation. Everyone knows the ways in which both sides are different, we are frustrated by the ways in which they are the same, and that is valid too. Keep sharing, we’re watching. You’re not alone, we are actually more numerous than them.
themitigating 4y ago
Don't make excuses for people who just default to mistrust and hate towards people they don't know.
bandyaboot 4y ago
When you’re putting guns in peoples’ faces, they don’t need to paint you in a bad light. You’ve given them a photograph.
kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
There is a social narrative that white poverty doesn't exist in the US even though it is the bulk of all poverty. I've been places exactly like those in the article but everyone is white. Someone making that explicitly visible exposes a truth that many don't want to have acknowledged.
elevaet 4y ago
It's not just those areas. I had some months of "door-knocking" experience in Chicagoland, early noughties. The neighbourhoods tended to be racially segregated: Latino, white, or black. As a white person, we were often warned to avoid certain latino or black neighbourhoods by police and civilians, yet they were almost always more friendly and welcoming than white neighbourhoods, and never ended up being dangerous. In the white neighbourhoods there was a tendency to be greeted with suspicion, aggression, loud guard dogs, threats, and occasionally with guns. I imagine that the difference would be more pronounced if I was black and walking around in those same neighbourhoods.
kerpotgh 4y ago
In my experience, Black and Latino people are very warm and welcoming on an individual level. It’s the about 5-10% of individuals in the community that wreak havoc, and the communities already know exactly who those people are.

mc32 4y ago

It used to be, if you were a Yankee driving through Georgia on the way to Florida, a common corridor with NEasterners, they would often be advised to not detour off from the interstate, else risk get entangled in local "policework".

mimirs 4y ago

The photographer in this case, Baldwin Lee, was Chinese-American and grew up in Chinatown in New York. So his experience was probably not due to this phenomenon.

lampshades 4y ago
I think it's a safe assumption that holding a camera contributed to this phenomenon.
deelowe 4y ago
If you're implying it's because he looks Chinese, you're right but not just because of racism. It's because no one who looks like that lived there. There's a long history of southerners being taken advantage of. Do they not teach about carpet baggers and indentured servants anymore in school?
- throwayyy479087 4y ago
  The idea that the victor is ever anything but perfect is rarely in history books. The history of Southern exploitation is heavily covered in Socialist literature, though.

x86_64Ubuntu 4y ago

Then why weren't black people pulling guns on him for "painting people in a bad light"? It's because in the South, the dominant white population has always hated any narrative that didn't show the chattel slave system or the Jim Crow system in a good, if not benign light. This links up with the history of the South and it constantly feeling that it's moral and social structure were always being under attack for being wrong.

lampshades 4y ago
People don't come to the South to write stories that will paint the black people in a bad light. I can't speak for the time that this photographer went to the South, but nobody defends slavery or Jim Crow or, from what I can gather, cares about discussing it.
- x86_64Ubuntu 4y ago
  There is an entire civil religion called Lost Cause Ideology which has defending the chattel slave system as a cornerstone of it's beliefs. It's the reason that there were so many confederate statues created in the 1920s-1970s, well after the end of the Civil War. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cause_of_the_Confederacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cause_of_the_Confederacy
  - lampshades 4y ago
    Oh, wow, a Wikipedia page about something created in the 1920s-1970s. I actually learned about this through the internet several years ago. Not once in my entire life growing up did I actually hear about it.
    - x86_64Ubuntu 4y ago
      You don't hear about it, it's a term used by others to describe a set of ideals held by many white southerners. Just because you haven't heard of something doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

AviationAtom 4y ago

I think this discussion is a losing discussion, as history is recast as being strictly only one way. I could speak of the stories I heard on Thursday from a historian down here, but people would instantly discount it. It very much reflects our current times, where all is seen as either white or black, but nothing seen as a shade of gray. Polarization has benefitted no side, in any debate.

jfengel 4y ago
Polarization benefits both sides. It just doesn't benefit the truth. Sometimes one side or the other is on the side of truth, but even then, the other side benefits from the uncertainty. The further they are from that position the greater the relative benefit. If there's even the slightest hint of gray they benefit even more. Representing the middle is a pure loss. Both sides benefit from the clarity of their positions and the ability to commit. Usually both sides will assume your are on one or the other, and both benefit from that. One side gets a slight advantage from your numbers. The other benefits more from painting you as the enemy who will stop and nothing to destroy you and must be stopped at all costs. Reality, it turns out, is badly overrated.
- AviationAtom 4y ago
  It can be quite lonely and frustrating having any centrist views, for many of the reasons you mention. Many assumptions made merely on the basis of hearing but one view. The hive mentality is two sides of the same coin, but I don't think anyone is incentivized to change it.
  - yieldcrv 4y ago
    Keep sharing your centrists views. Independents are the largest political bloc in the country at over 40% of voters. Partisans are not convincing, they are just loud and have representation. Everyone knows the ways in which both sides are different, we are frustrated by the ways in which they are the same, and that is valid too. Keep sharing, we’re watching. You’re not alone, we are actually more numerous than them.

themitigating 4y ago

Don't make excuses for people who just default to mistrust and hate towards people they don't know.

bandyaboot 4y ago

When you’re putting guns in peoples’ faces, they don’t need to paint you in a bad light. You’ve given them a photograph.

kevin_thibedeau 4y ago

There is a social narrative that white poverty doesn't exist in the US even though it is the bulk of all poverty. I've been places exactly like those in the article but everyone is white. Someone making that explicitly visible exposes a truth that many don't want to have acknowledged.

elevaet 4y ago

It's not just those areas. I had some months of "door-knocking" experience in Chicagoland, early noughties. The neighbourhoods tended to be racially segregated: Latino, white, or black. As a white person, we were often warned to avoid certain latino or black neighbourhoods by police and civilians, yet they were almost always more friendly and welcoming than white neighbourhoods, and never ended up being dangerous. In the white neighbourhoods there was a tendency to be greeted with suspicion, aggression, loud guard dogs, threats, and occasionally with guns. I imagine that the difference would be more pronounced if I was black and walking around in those same neighbourhoods.

kerpotgh 4y ago

In my experience, Black and Latino people are very warm and welcoming on an individual level. It’s the about 5-10% of individuals in the community that wreak havoc, and the communities already know exactly who those people are.