Topic: American Cultural Differences
started by: damien_s_lucifer
Even California is like that. People who live in LA are a lot different than people who live here in San Francisco. In the Bay Area, there is very little racial tension. A white man can walk into a bar in the blackest part of Oakland and not seem out of place or be in personal danger. If he's remotely cool he'll be adopted by the regulars.
In LA there are very definite "black," "white," and "Mexican" parts of town. From personal experience, I can say that a white man is not welcome in the black parts of LA (although they turn friendly if you say "I'm from Oakland"), and vice versa - there's a lot of anger on the part of the blacks and white people tend to be pretty racist. Attitudes are different, the slang is different- to someone who grew up in the Bay Area, it seems really, really weird.
So I thought it would be interesting to compare the different ways people are in different parts of the world. Tell me something about Philadelphia, West Virginia, Arizona, Syndney, Copenhagen, London, or wherever else you call home.
<class="forum-nazi" onload="remove_nationalist_sentiments()">This is not a US vs. everyone else thread!! This is about your HOMETOWN, not your COUNTRY!</class>
It should be a little like traveling without having to leave your beloved PC at home 
edit : misc. grammar & spelling.
This message has been edited by damien_s_lucifer on February 19, 2001 at 02:36 AM
we have what we call "wogs". in other words, anyone with an italian/greek background
lots of 'em.
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Self Improvement Is Masterbation. Self Destruction is the answer.
the only ones i don't seem to see a lot of are mexicans, but hey, u pitt's cafeteria even has a 'south central'.
the races seem to stay to themselves, until someone like ronald taylor or richard baumhammers shows up and kills a few people and then there's a shitload of cryin about racial tensions.
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kuru
'dancing is the vertical expression of horizontal desire.'
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At school though, whole different story. In classes there tends to be a mix of cliques, but even that isn't to much. I walk around in the halls a lot before school, and I see how people spread out. The punk rock/raver/gonna blow something up kids walk around, laughing about stuff mostly. The wannabee-ghetto-but-is-never-gonna-happen-because-there's-no-such-thing-in-north-carolina kids (black or white) fill up one big hall. All the abercrombie&fitch kids hang out in front, and from what I can tell mostly their freshmen... At lunch it breaks up about the same. Really the only clique that I've seen that has the "best mix" of anything is my own. We're only... 5 strong... but all the other cliques are like 9 idiot football players strong...
anyways... I don't see much racial tension until a fight or something breaks out, and most the time it's just between the fighting people, never really between the asians and blacks or whites and hispanics.
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So we obviously have a LOT of hills around here. They're bright green in the winter/spring, turning to gold in the summer. They're mostly oat grass with an occassional oak tree.
All of the ridges are protected from development, so there is a lot of open space. People go hiking in them a lot, a lot of parties are thrown up there, and *every* kid who grew up here spent most of their childhood playing in them.
The only problem with the hills is that since it often breaks 100 degrees in the summer, they're *very* flammable around that time. We have bushfires all the time. Everyone who lives around here knows the standard precautions to keep them from burning your house down, but it makes for a lot of smoky days in the summer.
People in the Bay Area are very mobile, mostly because you can get to almost any type of terrain in a couple hours. From Concord, the Sonoma and Napa vineyards (where most California wine comes from) is a thirty minute drive. The Bay (sailboating, windsurfing) is also about thirty minutes. The beach is about an hour, the mountains (skiing! snowboarding! gambling! woohoo!) are three hours away, and Disneyland is five hours. So we take a lot of weekend trips
We're pretty proud of our heritage, as home of the Beats, the hippies, the gays, and various other eccentric types- and yes, in San Francisco it is very common to see gay couples walking around. Very few people are actually bothered by it. The vast majority think it's cool that we live in a place where people are accepted for who they are.
We also are very emphatic that L.A. != California. For example, very few people here surf simply because the ocean is too cold, and the beaches are rocky - with the exception of Santa Cruz, if you go to the beach you bring hiking shoes and a jacket.
Gated communities exist, but most of us (even the rich) shun them. Although the word "dude" is in wide usage, that's about the only Valley Talk you'll find. Black people are allowed to do more than wait tables and run from racist cops. Ditto for the Mexicans - although a large portion of them are day workers who hang out at 7-11s waiting for a farmer to hire them. (The Central Valley - which is like 1/4 of the state's total area - is one enormous farm.)
Oh yeah, and can anybody say Medical Marijuana and the Cannabis Clubs? The Clubs carry a couple dozen varieties of the absolute best bud in the world outside of Amsterdam. Northern Lights, Purple Kush, White Widow, hashish, hash oil, kif, and a wide variety of magic foods (brownies, chocolates, spice mixes) are available there. I smoked four hits of White Widow and was damn near catatonic, and apparently that's not the strongest variety they carry. If you know the Right People you can get a card for just about anything. **drool**
and if you get caught with weed, the cops just take it, grind it out with their boot, give you a lecture and move on. If they're in a really bad mood, or you're a total dick, the worst they can do is fine you 贄 and suspend your driver's license for 6 months.
Okay, I showed you mine, so let's see more of yours. I ain't going on vacation any time soon.
Naw, our school is segregated (not officially). Most black people are from the rich ghetto and the white people from the rich suburbs so we don't mix well.
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This message has been edited by krackerboyz on February 19, 2001 at 10:54 PM
There's not much to do but go to the little clubs in Ames (Iowa State area) or a bar. Since I'm a) too young to drink and b) don't drink, I mainly go to movies.
I think that we've probably got "hanging out at a friend's house" down to a science, though.
And if you want to make this a matter or race... there's not a whole lot of that stuff going around. Of course, there are always those independent fools running around doing stupid stuff. (Like trying to ban immigration -- we even had commercials on TV about how they were "stealing our jobs." Keep in mind that this was while the unemployment rate was 2.5\%. Anyone who didn't have a job was unemployed due to laziness.)
There are blacks and whites... concentration depends on where you are. In the suburbs, it's mainly upper middle class whites, and it sorta downgrades as you get closer to the center of Des Moines. There are more and more Bosnians showing up; more Mexicans, too. But aside from exasperation at the language barrier, there's no problems...
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This message has been edited by Prometheus on February 20, 2001 at 09:54 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Prometheus:
I think that we've probably got "hanging out at a friend's house" down to a science, though.
My uncle lives in Iowa. He loves it for that very reason. Also because it has fireflies and snow.
)The thing I liked about living in Queens was how close it was to everything. I would hop on the subway and in 30 mins I would be where I wanted to be. I lived right near the water too which was great in the summer time because all I had to do was walk outside and I was at the beach. Like I said Queens is a pretty big place and we have a mix of everything. Where my mom lives (which is where I used to live) is mostly Irish with some hispanic mixed in. I would say everyone pretty much mixes well. In the "town" thats over the bridge (some of you may remember it Howard Beach) its a very white, italian community with very little diversity.
On long island it was a sea of white people. Three black students went to my high school when I graduate and they were more white then I was. We lived in what I would call an upper-middle class community that was kind of secluded from the rest of the town. When you told your classmates where you lived you always got the "damn, thats far" or "what does your dad do?" look- I never felt like i was better than them since my dad works for the New York City Housing Authority, it wasnt like he owned some company or was a lawyer or anything. My parents are working stiffs.
Now I live in upstate New York (after I graduated college I just couldnt live with mom any more)in one of the nicest counties in the state, but its still all white people and christians. I mean there are some areas where there are more blacks and hispanics- downtown albany, troy, and rensselaer for example. For the most part though its all vanilla and very little chocolate, strawberry or pistachio.
When Im done with Law school in a few years I'll probably move back downstate (this place doesnt move as quickly as Im used to)I miss the city too much to stay here.
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"I ated the purple berries...they tasted like burning"
That should be 2\% asian i wasn't adding them when i wrote this.
This message has been edited by ic0n0 on February 22, 2001 at 02:16 PM
quote:
Originally posted by ic0n0:
I would say its 90\% white, 8\% Hispanic and the other 4\% are Asian.
Of my 3 living locations in this lifetime, my favorite so far has been Milwaukee. Since I was going to school, I got a little difference glimpse than ic0n0. My school was located directly in downtown, so I spent most of my time among white folks. I have ventured out into some of the more ethnic parts of town, like up north roller blading (sort of frightening), down south (McDonalds in Mexico!), or out West. Driving out west is awesome because you drive through downtown, then you hit a nasty neighborhood, then a beautiful place, then nasty, then beautiful, etc. within a few blocks each.
As for downtown, it totally ruled. I lived 1 mile from Lake Michigan, and they have a rule down there where nothing can really be built on the lakeside of Lakeshore Drive. What that leaves is a huge park area with a bunch of Rollerblading paths. There's an art museum there, and they're building an all new museum as well with this huge friggin whale tale... it's artistic, or something.
During the summer, it's a huge party. Literally every weekend in summer is some block party downtown. There's Bastille Days (on my campus, basically), Jazz in the park every Thursday (also on campus), the Circus Parade, Summerfest!!!, and basically any other excuse to have bands and beer and fireworks.
If it weren't for the cold winters, I'd love to live back in Milwaukee. It's a huge party all summer long. Damn, I miss that.
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