>When you factor in cost of living, you'd be making far more in Austin
I was stationed at Fort Hood in Killeen, TX another lifetime ago as an army infantry recruit in the late 2000's. I know all about living in central Texas as a person of color. Unfortunately red states have become a complete no go zone for me to even consider living in 2018.
I grew up and lived in Texas for 25 years in urban and rural areas. The confederate flag flies on cars, houses, college dorms/fraternity houses, inside of people's houses, moreso in rural but still everywhere in some measure. East Texas was probably the worst in terms of overt racism so it would be easy to miss unless the outdoor recreational opportunities there or driving to New Orleans was on your agenda.
I grew up in the South and presently live in the South and I think that this video is popular precisely because the sentiments expressed are contrary to the views of almost everyone in the African American community.
My stepfather is a 71 year old African American gentleman from New Orleans. He knows - and all of his friends and family know - that if you see the confederate flag up in front of a house or business, it means "Don't come here unless you want trouble".
Now of course this doesn't apply to every instance where the flag is flown - many people view it as a symbol of Southern Heritage. But it is completely ignorant to think that there aren't lots of people who fly it as a symbol of racial supremacy.
And historically it has meant much worse than that. My high school, Southside High School, in Fort Smith, AR was founded in 1963 - six years after the Little Rock Nine. The mascot was Johnny Rebel, a confederate soldier. During football games, we played Dixie as our fight song and before the 90's, waved the confederate flag at football games. In fact, the interior courtyard of the school was once one giant confederate flag. The practical (intended!) effect of all this was that for African American students living within our gerrymandered school district, the vast majority of them chose to go out-of-district to the other poorer high school. Through our mascot and the flag the local government had achieved de facto segregation without legal segregation, thus avoiding a showdown with the 101st Airborne.
Anyway, I don't know why I wrote this since probably no one will read it but I get really upset when I see something that smacks of Holocaust denial that applies to my native culture.
That guy's statement is clear that he purposely ignored the first ten words of my comment so even though we are supposed to give everyone the benefit of a doubt, the most charitable interpretation I can give is that they were just waiting for the opportunity to bait someone with that troll comment. It's like saying that one African American guy at all the Trump rallies who is obviously mentally unbalanced shows that African Americans support Trump.
This person is saying that their personal experience tells them they don't like Texas. You're telling them they don't know what they're talking about, but you haven't asked them anything about themselves or their experience. How could you possibly know what is good for them if you're not even willing to ask?
The equivalent would be saying that I met some racists in a trailer park in upstate New York so therefore New York City is obviously a backwards racist podunk town...
The problem is, people can make claims of racism, but you can't counter them or say they are exaggerated, so people think you live in some podunk racist state that's 100 years out of date and for the vast majority of people it's just not true.
Killeen is a military town in the middle of nowhere. It has a weird population. But the sibling comment that talks about people hanging Confederate flags isn't representative. California has nutters and boonies too.
San Antonio, Dallas, Houston, and Austin are the fastest growing cities in the nation. TX has a larger minority population than it does other. If it was such a racist backwater I think my friends would say something about it, but I too get the impression that the level of racism is about the same as any other major city.
I don't mean to demean their experiences, but I also don't believe it's representative of a state that in 20 years is going to be as important as CA if it isn't already in various areas. If you were transported to a neighborhood in any of those cities, you'd have a hard time figuring out you weren't in NY< CA, or any other major state/city.
When people write off entire states because of politics, that's missing a lot of nuance. If you want to do that, you can also ignore Atlanta, at your own fault, which has as compelling a minority cultural boom as anywhere in the country. Someone needs to tell Don Glover to get the hell out of there.
It's just as offensive to natives of various places to hear their home stereotyped as it is for races to hear their race stereotyped.
I have problems with food. Gluten gives me sinus headaches so I don't eat it. There's no real research on celiacs and sinus headaches. All the time people disregard my experience, my ability to identify pain, my ability to objectively assess my reactions, and suggest that it is placebo or in my head. This has really made me aware when people disregard other people's experiences.
They didn't say all Texans are racist. Just that they experienced racism in Texas. It's the same, playing Overwatch is a drag because people are jerks. Not everyone who plays Overwatch is a jerk, but I experience it often while playing.
I'm just making to clear that though racism and Confederate flags are the first two comments in a thread about a state, that's not representative of the state as a whole, regardless of their unfortunate experience. Not to downplay it, I don't doubt it happened, at all. It's just not representative of the state.
If the top comment on this thread was "California is full of racists, anyway", you'd bet you'd get the same response.
Does that not fall under "immediately dismissing others experiences"?
The thing is, many of us are very aware of that past and will do anything to change it. But also consider that some of it isn't even our fault (my Dad came from Gary, Indiana by way of Illinois). I can't change the past, only acknowledge it, and what I'm telling you is it isn't 1970 here anymore, and many people need to give up stereotypes about places and people the same way they need to do about races.
I was stationed at Fort Hood in Killeen, TX another lifetime ago as an army infantry recruit in the late 2000's. I know all about living in central Texas as a person of color. Unfortunately red states have become a complete no go zone for me to even consider living in 2018.