Earlier quoted context omitted.
What things are happening in the Midwest that you consider overt racism?
confederate flags are another example.
So stupid considering they were Union. I just don't understand it.
On Being Midwestern: The Burden of Normality
101–110 of 350 posts
Re: On Being Midwestern: The Burden of Normality
#102I grew up in the Midwest and moved to Silicon Valley. I think that people here don't understand what this author describes as "Midwestern history is a study in racial quarantine." I would go as far as to say that racial is the wrong word to describe what happens in the Midwest. I think that communities in the Midwest have tighter cultural restrictions on what it means to be "one of us." This can be affected by where…
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Re: On Being Midwestern: The Burden of Normality
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm an ex-midwesterner living in Seattle. The midwest is not a place where you really strike it rich. It's a place where you have a shot of having a good family arrangement. You can easily surround yourself with relatives, and other folks like you. You're rarely forced into considering other points of view. There's a really strong sense of "being in your place" there, in many ways. I think the folks with a genuine cu…
Folks from those areas really want the economic growth from a new HQ, and were quick to point out progressive changes that happened in their city. They would never talk about those progressive changes in a positive light if big tech were not moving to their neighborhood. In a wider context you are probably correct, but it's worth pointing out that the urban areas in the South are pretty damn progressive.
I would agree with that, and folks from those areas probably take more grief from their neighbors than what we deal with.
Re: On Being Midwestern: The Burden of Normality
#104I grew up in the Midwest and moved to Silicon Valley. I think that people here don't understand what this author describes as "Midwestern history is a study in racial quarantine." I would go as far as to say that racial is the wrong word to describe what happens in the Midwest. I think that communities in the Midwest have tighter cultural restrictions on what it means to be "one of us." This can be affected by where…
As a Midwesterner, this is incredibly accurate. I personally don't like multiculturalism, and I don't know of many people in my area that do. In my opinion and experience, multiculturalism in society makes a sense of community very difficult if not impossible to create. Having standard methods of communication, standard social and moral norms, and standard goals and beliefs makes empathizing with my neighbor so much easier than it is in big cities.
There's also a question of how much a culture influences a persons behavior. Multiculturalism in school and work pushes the idea that all cultures are made equal, yet different cultures are represented unevenly in our society. There has been a significant amount of racism against Asians and Jews, yet both groups have significantly higher average incomes and college attainment rates than other groups. Personally, I don't believe that's a coincidence, and is due to their cultures that emphasize self-discipline, self-improvement, and consideration for their fellow man. There are some cultures formed by chronic stress and poverty(white trash, ghetto cultures) that don't have those traits, and so their people don't make it as far in life. That's not because of racism, that's because of poverty and chronic stress.
Re: On Being Midwestern: The Burden of Normality
#105I grew up in the Midwest and moved to Silicon Valley. I think that people here don't understand what this author describes as "Midwestern history is a study in racial quarantine." I would go as far as to say that racial is the wrong word to describe what happens in the Midwest. I think that communities in the Midwest have tighter cultural restrictions on what it means to be "one of us." This can be affected by where…
My first thought is how we need to start developing a better working vocabulary around having racist attitudes. Like the big-R Racist is the white power asshole who wants to create a white ethnostate--that's one that's easy to spot, and most of us can say we're not that. The real pernicious damage to communities of color comes from the little-r racism that SO SO MANY people carry around totally unthinkingly. Like eve…
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Re: On Being Midwestern: The Burden of Normality
#106I grew up in the Midwest and moved to Silicon Valley. I think that people here don't understand what this author describes as "Midwestern history is a study in racial quarantine." I would go as far as to say that racial is the wrong word to describe what happens in the Midwest. I think that communities in the Midwest have tighter cultural restrictions on what it means to be "one of us." This can be affected by where…
>Does anyone have suggestions on how to fix this? One option would be to have the cultures integrate so there are not sub communities for PoC. This doesn't seem to have worked. But the other option is that you expect Midwesterners to treat people from outside their community the same as people inside their community. That isn't going to happen. So it seems like it is an impossible situation.
From my outside perspective, this is bloody ridiculous. I live in a coastal metro, and routinely expect to encounter people from "cultures" more than a few towns over. Bostonians would laugh at you if you treat someone from Medford differently from someone from Milton. They'd nod if you treat Medford different from Malden, but that's because Medford is white-ethnic while Malden is black and Chinese -- they're just being racist and everyone knows it.
Let alone if you tried treating Medford different from Somerville! I mean, hell, what's next, holding up signs on the Common saying, "Californians go home"?
Worse, by my tastes, Bostonians are already a bunch of provincial chauvinists. I'm from New York. In New York, if you said that a Park Slope-er in Brooklyn just has a different culture from a native of Flushing, Queens, well, you're going to get somewhere between dirty looks and threats (I'm picking where my parents had me versus where my mother grew up). It's got too many ethnic and racial implications. Hell, you're expected to work every day with people commuting in from as "far away" as New Jersey, and we all know that New Jerseyians are degenerate douchebags with no culture, amirite?
(Yeah I grew up in New Jersey too.)
I mean, let alone talking about "where you go to church" in New York. If you can't cope with Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Evangelicals, and Catholics (of various ethnicities each) living in the same neighborhood and each having their houses of worship within a few blocks of each-other, look, don't move to New York.
So the protestation that Midwesterners just have to draw ingroup/outgroup distinctions about your particular church, neighborhood, school district, and choice of automobile comes across as yuuuuge levels of special pleading to justify levels of xenophobia that we'd think of as the stuff of stand-up comedy.
Re: On Being Midwestern: The Burden of Normality
#107I appreciate the effort the author put into this (and he/she is clearly a good writer), but as a Wisconsinite I can't help but chuckle at the length and type of content - it's thousands of well-chosen words in an academic voice describing... the Midwest. To me, nothing is more definitively a real metaphor for "boring" than my home.
Re: On Being Midwestern: The Burden of Normality
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it just meant that someone who claims to be humble is probably bragging. Not that no one is humble.
I see humility as having a proper understanding of your own ability without arrogance. If I am at Thanksgiving dinner and my mom tries to brag that I am the best programmer in the state it is humble to correct her in saying that even though I have a great job, there are a lot of things I still cannot do.
But look at the context. "Authenticity" has been made meaningless, so any mass-produced focus-grouped consumer product can be called "authentic". And it's now the same with humble, which mean that it should describe something small, frugal, or at least not-ostentatious. But now big, splurgy things or places call themselves humble.
Re: On Being Midwestern: The Burden of Normality
#109I grew up in the Midwest and moved to Silicon Valley. I think that people here don't understand what this author describes as "Midwestern history is a study in racial quarantine." I would go as far as to say that racial is the wrong word to describe what happens in the Midwest. I think that communities in the Midwest have tighter cultural restrictions on what it means to be "one of us." This can be affected by where…
I think you're missing a familiarity with a good chunk of the history of systematic racism in the U.S. There are reasons homogeneous communities form in the U.S. A few of those reasons have to do with city planning and legislation. City planning can be racist in nature and promote exclusionary communities. Redlining, while not typically state legislation, is a good example of practices that contributed to the formati…
If you remove race the issue is with poor/rich
Re: On Being Midwestern: The Burden of Normality
#110born and raised in michigan, lived all over the state. I hope i die here. This nerd doesn't know shit
> This nerd doesn't know shit While you probably have a point, this isn't a very professional or productive way of expressing your opinion. edit: To those downvoting me, can you please explain why? Is "This nerd doesn't know shit" really the kind of dialog that we want to promote on this site?
It's merely a distilled reply to the academic masturbation that is this article.