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Really tired of stereotypes.....


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Of course this haappened on Facebook. Anyway, a AA friend of mine who lives in Dallas said that some newscaster on the news said Texans were glad that the Bears lost yesterday otherwise the President may have been at the Superbowl in Dallas - because Texans don't want the President here. So then an onslaught of my friend's friends start bashing Texas and talking out their hiney's. I had to speak up because one too many confederate flag and gun rack comments happened. In the almost 6 years I have lived in Texas, I have seen many a gun racks and my dh has one (for hunting!) but in all the time and in all my visits/vacations to Texas before we moved here, I have only seen ONE confederate flag painted on the back of some guy's truck. Hardly representative of Texas or Texans.

 

I am so annoyed and frankly, the rest of America (hello California, my former state) could learn a lot from Texas.:glare:

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I know what you mean! I find it funny how ignorant some people really are about our nation out side of the state they live in. I moved to TN from CA 5 years ago. We, of course, received all of the stereotypical comments about the South. The funniest comment came from a friend of mine (she is white, married to an Asian, and afraid to visit because she is convinced people would not look upon their interracial marriage kindly). She was once describing a group of guys that were harassing her as she walked downtown. She said "They were like the people you probably see all the time. You know, in their beat up pick up truck...total hicks". Ummmmm.....no, actually, I don't see that all the time:lol:

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Heh. I remember being in eighth grade and taking a school trip to Washington, D.C. with a few members of my class. We were on the tour bus with kids from several other states, and we were supposed to list off what we knew about those states and then the kids would tell us if we were right or wrong. When they got to Oklahoma, everyone on the bus was dead silent until - I kid you not - someone said, "There are teepees there, right?"

 

*banghead*

 

Your friends sound spectacular. :glare: I wouldn't have kept my mouth shut, either.

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Just to clarify, the friends were the friends of my friend, not my friends. Although, I do have a few from CA that make wacky comments about Texas. On a phone conversation with a friend once I commented that I had just been to the new Super Target in a nearby town. She said, "You have Target there?" Um, yeah. She thought we only had Walmarts and Piggy Wiggly's I guess. :001_huh:

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I know what you mean! I find it funny how ignorant some people really are about our nation out side of the state they live in.

This is so true! I grew up in CA, and while visiting my Dad's family in UT I seriously got asked if I surfed to school. :001_huh:

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This is so true! I grew up in CA, and while visiting my Dad's family in UT I seriously got asked if I surfed to school. :001_huh:

 

 

LOL! I lived in CA for 23 years and almost every person I met over the years, outside of CA asked me if we go to the beach all the time or if I knew any celebrities.:lol:

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(she is white, married to an Asian, and afraid to visit because she is convinced people would not look upon their interracial marriage kindly).

 

This amuses me, because the only people I know who live in TN are my cousin and his wife. He's white, she's asian. :001_huh: They love it there.

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This thread has me LOL! I grew up in Kansas and was in Chicago for a music contest one time. Someone actually asked a group of us if we rode horses to school!!!!! Seriously?!?!? I was speechless, but someone else in the group who was much quicker on their feet, answered yes- then went into this whole crazy explanation about one room schoolhouses and how sometimes we saw "Indians" and had never been to a mall. Really insane stuff, but these people appeared to just eat it up.

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Well, I live in the DFW area, and there was indeed a newscaster (on Fox news) who said that some people were glad that the Chicago team wasn't going to be at the Super Bowl because then President Obama might have shown up... I was rather shocked that the newscaster said that, honestly. Hopefully he was WRONG about it, too.

 

As for the flags, Texans fly their state flag all over the place - *along with* the American flag. Also, quite a few stores, banks, etc. will have flags out front. I went on a road trip this summer (to NV, but went through part of CA on the way, as well) and realized that other states don't do that! Fewer American flags, and way fewer state flags.

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Well, I live in the DFW area, and there was indeed a newscaster (on Fox news) who said that some people were glad that the Chicago team wasn't going to be at the Super Bowl because then President Obama might have shown up... I was rather shocked that the newscaster said that, honestly. Hopefully he was WRONG about it, too.

 

As for the flags, Texans fly their state flag all over the place - *along with* the American flag. Also, quite a few stores, banks, etc. will have flags out front. I went on a road trip this summer (to NV, but went through part of CA on the way, as well) and realized that other states don't do that! Fewer American flags, and way fewer state flags.

 

Was it the national Fox news or the local affiliate? My friend in DFW said it was his local news........

 

Anyway, it was a dumb thing to say, but my irritation was mostly the reaction of these people. Of course insulting our Governor was included as well.

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This thread has me LOL! I grew up in Kansas and was in Chicago for a music contest one time. Someone actually asked a group of us if we rode horses to school!!!!! Seriously?!?!? I was speechless' date=' but someone else in the group who was much quicker on their feet, answered yes- then went into this whole crazy explanation about one room schoolhouses and how sometimes we saw "Indians" and had never been to a mall. Really insane stuff, but these people appeared to just eat it up.[/quote']

 

Just for the reverse example, I am from Chicago. I lived in Mississippi for a bit in high school. When I was moving back to Chicago, they were all terrified for me, and asked how often I saw drive-by shootings. :confused: I think they envisioned that I lived in a tenement with a brick wall and a flashing neon sign out my window, and listened to gunshots and sirens all night.

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I'm from Louisiana. I've had people ask me:

 

Do you have webbed feet?

 

Is your house on stilts?

 

Do you wrestle alligators?

 

Are you in the KKK? (Thanks David Duke:glare:)

 

Do you speak English?

 

Did you take a boat to school?

 

Did you own shoes when you were a kid?

 

 

 

Add in all the comments about bayous, gumbo, and Waterboy references, and you understand why I have stopped telling people where I am from.

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When I moved from CA to MO, I was asked, several times, if everyone in CA looked like those people on Baywatch. And, if I knew any celebrities. And, if I had palm trees in my yard.

 

Ignorance comes in all forms, though. I had a friend once who thought Chicago was on the ocean (and she lived in IL her whole life!) and once had another friend who said that because she was from Phoenix, she had lived on the west coast. :lol:

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We deal with sterotypes thanks to the Aryan Nations who used to reside in this area across the state line. My bil and his wife (he's white, she's AA/Puerto Rican) wouldn't come visit us cause they were certain they would get hunted down and killed. We finally convinced them that they were a very small group while they were here and they were finally run out several years ago. But the image is still very much connected to this area and it sickens me. Everyone assumes people here are a bunch of racist skinheads when it couldn't be farther from the truth, our area is a very diverse and welcomming community.

 

The other stereotype we've dealt with since moving here from Humboldt County in California is that we must know all the best places to get pot and we must know everything there is to know about growing and smoking. Yes, I was born and raised there but I never touched the stuff and wouldn't know the first thing about growing or buying it, lol!

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Just for the reverse example, I am from Chicago. I lived in Mississippi for a bit in high school. When I was moving back to Chicago, they were all terrified for me, and asked how often I saw drive-by shootings. :confused: I think they envisioned that I lived in a tenement with a brick wall and a flashing neon sign out my window, and listened to gunshots and sirens all night.

 

I spent the last 8 years of school (middle and high) out in the sticks of North Georgia. When I go back to visit family and I meet people I used to know and tell them I live in Maryland, near DC and Baltimore, they say, "Omaw-gawsh! Aren't you scared?!?!?!"

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