As a white person who grew up in a rural area who has lived in cities the last 20-25 years, I can guarantee you that if you exposed most rural whites to the “diversity” they would see in a standard U.S. city, it would not go well.
Sure - one of my professors explained to me that getting a college degree doesn’t show people that I’m knowledgeable or particularly smart - it shows that I’m trainable.
I had typed up a long reply to this, but it likely wouldn’t be of interest to anyone and was entirely anecdotal anyway. In any case, I have to say I disagree! Oh, sure, everyone is different, but I’ve seen firsthand how much someone’s mind can be opened by being taken out of their bubble and exposed to people with different backgrounds, ethnicities, etc.
I think it’s extraordinarily easy to be bigoted towards the other when they’re two dimensional cardboard cutouts, but it becomes much harder when they’re in the flesh and blood with a name and a story to tell.
It’s amazing the complete lack of insight being demonstrated.
If someone told you your beliefs were antiquated and you were incapable of accurately assessing what is and isn’t to your benefit, what would you think of them? Probably that they’re a smug, superior, vacuous knob end - and with some justification.
Clinton and the Democrats offered nothing. Both sides of politics are a long way to the right of social democracy.
The loss of industry has hammered these communities, and it is frankly embarrassing that there is no recognition that the dog whistling was equally for protectionism and domestic job creation, and moreover a wholesale rejection of the myopic focus on political correctness ad nauseum.
They despise you, in my view legitimately, and even after they put Donald fucking Trump in the Whitehouse in an expression of disgust for both sides of politics, after the utter failure of Obama’s change you can believe in, people still prattle on about minorities in a patronising tone. You’re so smart, but you are also so bloody dumb. I’m educated too (blah blah subtle self aggrandisement), so what, it’s irrelevant.
You had an overtly protectionist presidential candidate, something that is so far left wing it hasn’t been part of the political discourse since the 70’s, and there is zero recognition of what that means.
All you are capable of seeing is racism, and your politics are as insular as those you oppose, probably more so. Moreover, by not representing the interest of the dumb white people you expect to laud you, for reasons that are unfathomable, you contribute equally to the political divide, and the rise of reactionary politicians such as Trump.
Who is “you”? Are we all just an amorphous liberal blob or something?
While I might agree part of it is the diversity, I also know that much of it is that people who grow up knowing every street and store feel lost in a real city. My in-laws were from a small rural area and when you got them out of there comfort zone they were lost.
Humans are pretty adaptable, even the white ones stuck out in BFE.
With regards to this analogy and diversity, it is the difference between talking about baseball and actually playing baseball. Needless to say, the difference is… YUGE.
How empathetic to the {insert color here} people can you be if you’ve literally never met one before? Sort of what @kevinc was saying as well.
(Also, you’d think the internet would help here, at least in terms of “this guy in my gaming clan is {insert color here} and he’s pretty cool”)
Why stop there, killing them would solve every problem wouldn’t it?
No, no, we still need warm bodies to work the UberAgriBusiness ConglomoFarms until the Robots are ready to take their place.
BREAKING NEWS! People recieiving benefits from entitlement programs not happy that president they voted for who said he would crack down on entitlement programs is removing funding from entitlement programs.
But… I meant the ones I don’t use! You know, the ones that all of the inner city people live on, or the illegal immigrants use to live off of without working.
But, I trust the guy. He’ll get it done.
http://i.imgur.com/pBV36TM.jpg
One of the senior workers, Sharon Green, said she learned about the
potential cuts while watching PBS, which could also lose federal
funding. “These things are vital,” said Green, 72, is a retired
accountant. “There’s no way that they should have cuts — I mean, there
are many other places where they could cut, it looks like to me.” Green
will not say whom she voted for but said, “I didn’t have any concerns
along these lines for my party. I did vote, and I am proud of the way
that I voted, and I don’t believe we would have seen the cuts coming.
Who’s to know?”
Who could have known budgeting could be so hard?
On a recent afternoon, Long interrupted the students’ late-afternoon
meal of pigs-in-a-blanket to introduce a reporter. A mention of the
president prompted excited applause from the children, and a small group
of boys at one table started chanting: “Trump! Trump! Trump!”
The GOP voting bloc of the future…
Harris voted for Barack Obama when he first ran for president in 2008
because she liked his promise of change. But he disappointed her in a
number of ways, including, in her eyes, being too sympathetic to
Muslims. She voted for Republican Mitt Romney in 2012 and Trump last
year. She likes the president’s promises
to crack down on illegal immigration, which she thinks has hurt the job
market, and to bully manufacturers into staying in the country. She
said both of her daughters were out of work for months because they
worked for companies that moved overseas.
But Harris is upset by the president’s proposed budget, which would
dramatically cut funding for the Robert T. Davis Senior Center, managed
by the Bryan County Retired Senior Volunteer Program. Harris said she
gives each president 10 strikes before she withdraws her support. “I
have high hopes for Trump, but if he’s going to be cutting these kinds
of programs, that’s going to be one,” Harris said. “And we’ll see. I
hope I don’t get up to 10, but I will give him one for that.”
I love how the “good christian” “real” americans only seem to care about things that effect them personally, and have 0 empathy for anyone else. That is what Jesus taught right?
Trump 3:16 “If they don’t got money, fuck em.”
[quote]
Harris said she
gives each president 10 strikes before she withdraws her support. “I
have high hopes for Trump, but if he’s going to be cutting these kinds
of programs, that’s going to be one,” Harris said. “And we’ll see. I
hope I don’t get up to 10, but I will give him one for that.”[/quote]
This is hilarious. “Oh, the first nine screwings were okay. That tenth one really pushed me over though!”
“Ok ok ok… 20 strikes! But no more!!”
The only reason I’d want God to be real would be for him to come Rapture all these shitstains and spare us their moralizing.
The top comments on this article are actually not garbage.
People elected a CEO because he told them they would run the government like a business. So, if you run it like a business, these rural areas do not have enough customers to deserved services. The simple truth is that we wouldn’t be delivering mail or protecting all these small towns if we were a business. Their choice of president just means they cut their own throat. The reason there are no jobs there, is because the manufacturers want to be closer to major infrastructure and pools of educated workers.
I have lived in poor, mostly white communities all of my life. My experience has been that these folks always vote against their own interests because they buy the snake oil being sold every time, whether the salesman is a Democrat or a Republican. This time the salesman was a con man who calls himself a Republican.
The theme seems to be these people are naive.
I’d be more amused by the fact that they’d all be left behind, and be forced to deal with the fact they were so shitty.
I mean, hell, Christ already specifically told these idiots how this was gonna play out. It’s the parable of the sheep and the goats.
"But when the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. Before him all the nations will be gathered, and he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then the King will tell those on his right hand, ‘Come, blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry, and you gave me food to eat. I was thirsty, and you gave me drink. I was a stranger, and you took me in. I was naked, and you clothed me. I was sick, and you visited me. I was in prison, and you came to me.’
“Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry, and feed you; or thirsty, and give you a drink? When did we see you as a stranger, and take you in; or naked, and clothe you? When did we see you sick, or in prison, and come to you?’
“The King will answer them, ‘Most certainly I tell you, because you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’ Then he will say also to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and you didn’t give me food to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink; I was a stranger, and you didn’t take me in; naked, and you didn’t clothe me; sick, and in prison, and you didn’t visit me.’
“Then they will also answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and didn’t help you?’
“Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Most certainly I tell you, because you didn’t do it to one of the least of these, you didn’t do it to me.’ These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
Of course, you’ve got idiots like that guy someone posted recently, saying, “Oh, he’s just talking about other christians. He’s not saying you are supposed to help other NON christians.”
Which of course is totally absurd, and obviously false, based on any informed reading of scripture at all.
What’s nuts is that I don’t consider myself a religious person… but I’m appalled by how I clearly know more about these folks’ religion than they themselves do.
If the Rapture came and they were left behind they’d convince themselves it was all a trick by the devil and that they were the only good ones left.
Additionally, this came out of the post this week.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/local/2017/03/30/disabled-or-just-desperate/?utm_term=.98362ad7c611
Disability is the new entitlement program of choice.
Between 1996 and 2015, the number of working-age
adults receiving disability climbed from 7.7 million to 13 million. The
federal government this year will spend an estimated $192 billion on
disability payments, more than the combined total for food stamps,
welfare, housing subsidies and unemployment assistance.
The rise in disability has emerged as yet another indicator of a
widening political, cultural and economic chasm between urban and rural
America.
Across large swaths of the country, disability has
become a force that has reshaped scores of mostly white, almost
exclusively rural communities, where as many as one-third of working-age
adults live on monthly disability checks, according to a Washington
Post analysis of Social Security Administration statistics.
Rural America experienced the most rapid increase in
disability rates over the past decade, the analysis found, amid broad
growth in disability that was partly driven by demographic changes that
are now slowing as disabled baby-boomers age into retirement.
This is going to become a real problem. Really soon.
Big problem here already. Course, everything will eventually be outsourced anyway, so they’re just enjoying the benefits while they’re still available.
In the end we are better off dead so the rich have less traffic on the highways.
We all laugh but there is a huge looming existential crisis of a post-employment world where “guaranteed income” allows people to marginally survive. That all sounds great to older millennial / younger gen-Xers (now i finally have time to write bad poetry on Instagram and work part time at Starbucks), but what they’re failing to understand is that you’re either admitting the existence of or creating a class, a very large class, of people whose social “purpose” is merely consumption. It is a ver silicon valley way of looking at the world; the content creators and the content consumers, and if you have to subsidize consumers in order to have consumption, the more the merrier.