3 ms·
they'll deny it all day long but LOTS of areas in the midwest and south are racist as shit. there's HUGE value to just being able to blend in and go about your
by beachstartup 14y ago
they'll deny it all day long but LOTS of areas in the midwest and south are racist as shit. there's HUGE value to just being able to blend in and go about your god damn day without harassment, except you won't know it until you live in a place where you stick out.
people who are from these areas will say "i encountered more racist people in the north/west/whatever" but they're usually just referring to people who shared their racist opinion with them, not actually being on the RECEIVING END of a racist interaction.
which MAKES SENSE if you think about it - white people in manhattan or SF or LA are basically going to feel like a minority, and may seek a little bit of empathetic camraderie by complaining about race X Y or Z. if a white person does this in vastly majority white area they're just going to seem like an asshole with a chip on their shoulder.
the coastal areas make it easy to blend in no matter who you are. nobody is going to hassle you or ask you stupid ass questions.
- firefoxman1 14y agoI think some areas depend on city size. Moving from New Mexico to (southwest) Virginia I realized that small-town southern cities are extremely backward, especially with racism. However, head North to the northern 1/3 of VA and it's as diverse and accepting as any decent city.
- khuey 14y agoThe northern third of VA is basically the DC metro area.
- beachstartup 14y agonorthern virginia is a coastal 'elite' area DC metro. definitely not 'flyover country' as the original post described.
- angersock 14y agoExperience has been that folks are more openly racist, but at the same time less serious about it. I can speak to Texas: there are a lot of good ol' boys (especially in energy, oil, and gas), but people are friendly and fast to warm up. The way it's been presented to me has been that Southerners "hate the race and love the people" while in the rest of the country it's "hate the people and love the race". My (admittedly limited) sampling has been that the Texans I know are less seriously racist than the folks I've worked with from New York or other big coastal cities.