Aceris
5159
When people like you accuse the kid of being a liar, what you are in fact doing is making the neo-nazis truth tellers.
Do you have kids?
Edit: Iâd guess the story is basically true but embellished. What was the âharmlessâ thing Sam said to his friend? We donât know, but Iâd guess itâs less harmless than weâre being led to believe, just as Iâd guess the interactions Sam had with school staff are less bad than weâre being led to believe. And skepticism on the Internet made me a Nazi is still a stupid argument.
Aceris
5161
I didnât know you were Andrea Leadsom.
Also yes. And thatâs the thing. His friends initially were supposedly quite liberal, and kids are going to see this kind of behaviour from liberals as an example of how to respond to someone who says stuff like this. Which means that it ends up isolating him further and making him easy prey for the neo nazis.
People like you (to borrow a phrase) are objectionable.
All stories on the internet are true else we create Nazis is an objectionable philosophy.
To be fair, we donât know what the initial incident was- it could have been a warranted response, or it could have been a massive overreaction.
Yes, I agree. We also donât know if the overreaction is as bad as itâs being portrayed by an angry child via an angry parent. Thatâs all Iâm saying.
So, my wife was flipping through an book of photographs of the ton we live in. Pictures of our ton between 1910 and 1940 I think, and she made a face. Right in the middle was a picture of the KKK in our town. Just for the record, we live in a small town in Pennsylvania, so not something I expected to see, or her either (she grew up in the town). Anyway, I guess I was surprised that someone decided to include it, not necessary that it had existed.
Iâll need to see when that book was published.
Isnât small-town Pennsylvania a bit like Alabama? At least that was James Carvilleâs view.
It has a lot of similarities, but I like to think the racism is a bit less blatant. We did recently elect an African American Mayor, despite being a GOP stronghold.
Again, Iâm pretty sure Iâm shocked, not because it existed, but that someone decided to publish a huge picture of the members, like the most vulgar class picture possible. I guess someone wanted to be honest about the townâs history.
Itâs odd. You have pictures of the old town stores and farms, old hotels and Main Street. And then, bame - 30 odd people, lined up in rows, all in the KKK outfits. Talk about whiplash.
Yeah, I imagine. My family hails from Parkersburg WV, and I imagine the history of that place is pretty damned terrifying, at least based on what it is like even now.
We call it Pennsyltucky.
I just found out we call the more rural parts of California, Calabama.
It wasnât just the south that had problems with the KKK during that period - as the KKK didnât care much for immigrants or Catholics either, which were prevalent in the north. That reminds me of a article a while back.
Honestly, rural Anywhere in America is pretty similar to Alabama.
Anecdote time!
My daughter and her friend are driving cross-country. Theyâre starting in Charlotte and will end up in Portland to deliver a (nice) car and a couple cats. Driving for a work-week with mewling cats in the back of a car sounds like Hell to me, but to them itâs a massive adventure.
My daughter is a blonde-haired white girl, and I worry about her in the same way that any other father would worry about their young daughter. But her friend is African-American, and that does add some complications to the mix.
I sat down with the other father to review the tripâs plan, and for the most part the two of them have planned on ending their dayâs trip in a relatively-large city (e.g., Nashville). But there was one dayâs plan where there simply wasnât going to be anything like that around and they were planning on staying overnight in some small town somewhere in the hinterlands. The other father objected to that, pointing out that there was just no way of knowing what type of reception his daughter might get in a town like that.
Both girls kind of rolled their eyes at that and said something to the effect of âDaddy, itâs Colorado! Itâs not like weâll be in Kentucky!â
At this point I jumped in and backed up my friend. âGirls,â said I, âthe country doesnât work like that. If youâre in a big city, youâre in Richmond. If you drive ten miles out of that city into rural areas, youâre in Kentucky.â
CraigM
5172
I will say that, broadly, the I-70 corridor from Denver to Grand Junction tends to be much more accepting than places like the eastern part of the stateâs scrub land. So if theyâre in a small town near Estes or something, itâll probably be fine.
But as you note, the point is well taken. Hell, we had an actual fucking nazi running for Congress in southern Cook county on the GOP ticket in 2018. So that shit is anywhere.
Thanks for posting that. Disconcerting that this area (Akron) used to have the largest KKK chapter in the nation, but Iâm trying to put a hopeful spin on it; I donât think the demographics would support that today.
Because people believe differently or because too many people have moved away from the area?
I HAD TO ASK!
Just a pro-tip: if you find that you are in that situationâhave to spend the night in Bupkisâlook for a town that has a college or university in it. Find a hotel close to that.
Lots of small towns across the country have small liberal arts colleges in them.
As someone whoâs lived in NE Ohio, a bit of both. Akron itself has become quite diverse and fairly progressive in nature. Thatâs not to say thereâs no racism (thatâs sadly everywhere in the US), but itâs generally much more subdued than it once was.
Timex
5177
Itâs important to note that while places like rural Pennsylvania have elements from down south, rural Pennslyvania isnât the same as a place like RURAL Alabama.
I mean, besides having running water and electricity, the ability to breed with non family members, schools that go beyond the 7th grade, and better weather, are we really all that much different from rural Alabama?
