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Comment by sdljfjafsd | Hacker News Reader

Is that really any different from any other state, including California? Rural vs urban culture are completely different in every state in America. As Californians we still insulate ourselves from rural culture. The only difference in California those counties don't form the bulk of the electorate while in Texas they do. We still have the same problem: a cultural divide between rural and urban.

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Yeas it's different. I'r invite you to drive through the rural west America, through arizona, nevada, wyoming and colorado. Even the rural areas of california have so many people. You will also noticr that the californians are almost all wearing masks even in the rural areas.

Rural California north of Sacramento is similar to those places and a lot of no mask wearing also. It is a large portion of the state. Check out a map to get a good feel. Texas is big, but California is not far behind.

Where the hell are you driving 1 hour out the bay and you're in no mask land?

It is. I've spent time in most of the U.S., minus Alaska and a few north eastern states, and some states have very distinct boundaries between city and rural atmosphere. In some states, I found places I was not supposed to be and it was made abundantly clear to me. There are some places that saying the wrong words or having the wrong beliefs can be incredibly dangerous. The degree of difference varies from state to state and also seems to change based more heavily on latitude. Not sure I understand why it works out that way.

I live in TX. I am very, very careful when I'm out in the sticks since the shitkickers are dangerous. I also lived in CA and even in the sticks out in central CA there's just nothing like the scale of xenophobic belligerence in rural TX (or the rest of the Bible Belt).

Careful how? Do you typically "stand out" as in being overtly gay, or wearing anti-relgious clothing?

I'm a white man and I suppose I would be a bit wary if I had a huge Bernie sticker on my car, I otherwise don't feel unsafe in the middle of nowhere TX. I just don't like that they're all rah rah GOP.

Careful how? Do you typically "stand out" as in being overtly gay, or wearing anti-relgious clothing?

My own (black) experience in West Texas (Ft. Bliss), "Careful" meant driving across state to see family in Houston and absolutely not stopping in certain counties, not even to piss or stretch my legs.

After getting stopped, pulled over and ordered out of my vehicle while an officer stood back at his car several times and interrogated about "where are you going" "where are you supposed to be" "who do you know in this town" and "where did you steal the car from" (all separate experiences) while doing nothing but trying to take holiday leave.

So... that kind of careful for some of us.

edit, before anyone even makes the attempt:

- I was not driving erratically

- I had no bumper stickers on my car signaling political viewpoints

- I was not wearing any 'curious' clothing other than a shirt and jeans

- I had functioning turn signals and brake lights

- I was driving a legally purchased, registered and insured vehicle at the speed limit (or +5mph) consistent with how I drive literally every day

I would have thought East Texas would have been the place to be wary.

Shrug.

I've had ... interesting interactions with police and even some ornery locals as far south as Austin (yes, that "blue dot surrounded by red" as people like to call it) and as far north as Milwaukee, which isn't that far from where I live now, comparatively.

Kinda stopped believing in that whole "social avarice is relegated to certain parts of the country" stuff before I even hit 23.

(but don't get me started about certain parts of Missouri)

That's terrible. I'm not completely shocked, but it is always jarring to hear that things like that happen.

I remember my truck breaking down in Menard, TX and my black friend and I walked into a restaurant in the morning... everyone stopped and turned around and stared at us for a moment and went back to their business.

I apologize for taking this less than seriously all things considered, it's a coping mechanism these days but I immediately thought of Blazing Saddles reading this

That is fucking lame. I hate that you had/have to endure this shit.

Sometimes I don't think humanity deserves to continue existing. It was a wacky experiment, but it is not working out.

A man was lynched in east Texas by dragging him behind a truck, that was in the news in our lifetime (in 1998.) I was surprised they prosecuted the killers because prior to this, no white person even went to prison in Texas for killing a black person post reconstruction.

>> no white person even went to prison in Texas for killing a black person post reconstruction

That's astounding. Do you have a source for this?

You can choose your own news sources but here's the wikipedia article. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_James_Byrd_Jr. It was pretty sickening to read the headlines in the newspapers at the time.

It can be surprising. Hell I'm from Louisiana and find it funny that people are just discovering how much White Supremacy took off in some places like the North West US. They somehow think we kept it all contained here for the last 120 years.

The Pacific Northwest has had a problem with right wing extremism (skinheads, neo-Nazis) for decades, and the polarization between left-wing cities and right-wing rural areas is particularly extreme in Oregon.

Oregon was founded as a "white utopia", so I guess it makes sense.

I think we need to admit that we are all racist. Every ethnic majority thinks they are the greatest, it seems. If we can't even admit it, I don't see how it will change.

It goes both ways. Try walking around Town Lake in Austin (where I live) wearing a MAGA hat and the tell me how much more diverse and tolerant folks are in the big city.

try that with a Vote Republican hat instead of a symbol of the man trying to pull a political slow coupe currently. MAGA is about Trump and his inhumanity and not necessarily party affiliation.

>I live in TX. I am very, very careful when I'm out in the sticks since the shitkickers are dangerous.

Put on a "Make America Great Again" hat and walk through downtown Chicago, San Francisco, Ann Arbor, or Cambridge before or after election day 2016 (or 2020). Now, put on a "I'm With Her" or "Biden/Harris 2020" shirt and walk through Provo, Fort Worth, Pensacola, or anywhere in "the sticks" of Texas or Oklahoma or Utah or Alabama before or after election day. In which scenario are you more like to be yelled at and/or physically attacked?

Yeah, if you're running around in a rainbow-colored, "I Love Sucking Cock" t-shirt, or wearing a, "Communism is the Bestism" shirt or some stupid shit like that, then yeah, you're not going to like rural Texas.

Newsflash, you're not going to like upstate New York, either.

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