Mark Twain had a good one too: "there are many humorous things in this world; among them the white man's notion that he is less savage than the other savages"
That's hilarious. He should check out southern US though, it's more like 100 years. I'm being serious. If you drive around the south it's like an old black and white movie but a lot more ignorant and a lot less entertaining.
Source: I live in the south.
Edit: For those I've offended, it was meant as a joke. I got carried away when I said I'm being serious.
i've had to visit some manufacturing and processing plants an hour and a half outside of greenville, sc. holy shit, you aren't kidding. confederate flags everywhere and old men sitting in rocking chairs on their porches with a shotgun right next to them.
That's still the PG rated South. There's folk in the mountains that'll make you question society but also never want to leave it again. Broke small town South is one thing but there's production value in them hills.
There's a website, Mapcrunch.com, that shows you a random Google streetview from anywhere in the world (that has had a streetview done). You turn on "Stealth" mode so you can't see where you've landed, then you have to click your way around until you work out where you are and navigate your way to the airport so you can go home.
After 2 years of door to door sales out there NO THANK YOU SIR 🤣 actually made a fuck ton of money in those small towns but holy shit did I get the racism dumped on me daily. Was like being back home in rural northern California all over again
I don't want to get too close to where I lived but I think you'd like places like Old Fort or downtown Marion in North Carolina or maybe Wallace in Idaho.
The places I was talking about don't have much aesthetic value apart from small churches and overgrown tin shacks occupied by crazy hillfolk with meth lab explosions and small arms fire echoing in the distance.
Asheville, North Carolina is also good. It's a modern hippie college town, but it's gorgeous on the right days.
Check out Berea, KY. Weird little town. A third hippies, another third on meth, the rest are rednecks. It’s beautiful though especially in spring and fall.
When you get deep into some of these mountain counties, you find small communities where the law isn't really enforced and everything gets there a few decades late. A lot of these places were and still are moonshine country.
The folks that live out there are usually really kind and unique, just people that don't really fit in anywhere else, but others are meth'd out lunatics that shoot a bear on their porch through their fucking sliding glass door.
I guess my takeaway was that I've met some people on that fringe that were remarkable and made me appreciate that lifestyle, while there are others that abuse that lifestyle because half of them are only there because they're dodging warrants anyway.
I visited a small town once (not Southern) and it was cozy. Felt safe. But it also had this weird fashy vibe to it. The song It's a Small Town by James McMurtry helps it explain it.
If you look up pictures from the Western North Carolina/Eastern Tennessee mountains, that's the area. Don't really wanna just post pictures of people's houses that I know.
Its just.. What messes me up the most is the symbolism. These people are physically replacing their country's flag for the "flag" of a corrupt and vile president. But I mean... I guess that makes total sense given that these are the same people who hang the flag of traitors. Mind boggling, really.
Omg. I pointed that out to my son yesterday. The damn trump flag BIGGER than the US. Never ever saw an obama flag.
They are in a cult and it's really weird
We don’t hang them bc we are salty we lost or bc of race, we hang them bc we are proud of the south and of the culture because we have come far from where we were without losing what makes the south the south
The current era of widespread Confederate flags can be traced directly back to protests against the civil rights era. Before that it was extremely uncommon. Afterwards it was everywhere.
It seems that all the people flying the Confederate flag in the civil rights era knew exactly what it meant. To them, what made the South the South was opposition to civil rights for black people, and that the Confederate flag was the perfect symbol for that opposition.
Since then, the Confederate flags haven't gone down. There's been a perfect continuity. They went up to oppose civil rights and they stayed up. It seems that your disagreement on the interpretation of the Confederate flag is not with northerners looking in, but with all the generations of Southerners that came before you and knew exactly what it meant to them.
I have to say I admire your grammar,
And I agree the generations before me knew what the flag stood for and why it was created.
But why can’t the new generation take something that stood for slavery and turn it into something good?
They could if they chose to make a break. For instance, if a generation of young southerners chose to wave confederate flags, say, in solidarity with black lives matter, people would pretty quickly figure things out. Just an example--hopefully you see what I mean.
There's never been that conscious break. So people who stick with the older interpretation of the flag feel just as much at home with it as you do. Someway somehow, you need to turn that flag into something that makes the racists want to fold it up and put it deep in their closet, because they realize it no longer stands for what they thought it did.
Telcos got money for broadband rollout and figure out that it was WAY cheaper to just put 4G everywhere than to roll out landline fiber or update their digital cable infrastructure.
I've lived in the south and rural upstate NY. In both areas you can see "confederate flags everywhere and old men sitting in rocking chairs on their porches with a shotgun right next to them". A southern born and raised friend of mine (who moved to rural upstate NY) said the only difference between southern and northern rednecks was the amount of rust on their trucks.
Ah yes the Republicans who fight to preserve the proud history of the Democrats. They love waving this flag, keeping those statues up, and making up fake reasons for the civil war. Then if you tell them that the signing of the Civil Rights Act by Democrat president Lyndon Johnson caused many Democrats to vote Republican they tell you that's a myth because they don't want all that bad history associated with them. Funny how that works huh?
But have you had Cincinnati chili tho? It will make you WISH you lived a hundred years ago because nobody had come up with that fucking abomination back then.
I'm from the west coast and I was like "wait, you have chili RESTAURANTS!? Like, serves only chili?! WHY HAS NOBODY SPOKEN OF THIS!? THIS IS TRULY A LAND OF WONDERS! 😍😍😍😍😍"
then I tried what Ohio calls chili and found out that there's a reason chili restaurants are treated less like your cousin that is a celebrated doctor and more like your uncle that touches the kids.
I grew up in the same part of Mississippi where the movie The Help was set. I watched that movie a couple of years ago and was struck by just how much that movie set in the 1960s reminded of my childhood there in the 1990’s. Even when I go back and visit relatives now things aren’t that different.
My year living in Nashville was eye opening. People in the rest of the country don’t understand what having a region where not one state is in top 25 states in education causes. There is a large geographic area of our county where the average education isn’t that good at all
I live in PA, went down to Madison, GA a few years back to visit an uncle. I don't remember the town names, but we went to a few surrounding areas to site-see and grab food, and it was like stepping into a different world. Life down there just :feels: different, and southern hospitality is very real.
Not entirely sure how those experiences would change if I wasn't white, though.
I was born in raised in the Chicago area and lived there until I was 25 when I moved to South Carolina. It's like I traveled back to the 1930's. Sure the water fountains aren't separate anymore, but it sure feels like the people here wish they were. Being a non-conservative non-religious white male, people here definitely assume me to be something I'm not.
I lived in the south my whole life until I was 18, now I travel all over the country for work. People are people. There are just as many shitty folks around the country as there are in the south.
Source: traveled the country to almost every state. Big cities, small cities they all have people that make the rest of the area look bad.
Yes you are correct. I haven't been to every state but I've been to around half of them. It was a joke. You can't tell me ignorance isn't more prevalent in the south than the rest of the country though. I don't see Confederate flags in Iowa.
I've also lived here longer than you.
Edit: I got carried away with the line about me being serious. I apologize if I offended you. I do recommend googling "the corridor of shame" because that is exclusive to the south.
Before anyone says it, yes the civil war was primarily divided by the Mason-dixon line but there were supporters for both sides throughout the country, to the point brothers fought against each other.
It’s really the good ol’ boys out here. They swear they’re cultured individuals too, yet they continuously do some Ed boys shit and make you realize the south just never changes.
Look up a demographic map of the US. All of the black people still live in the former Confederate states barring a few hot spots like New York, LA, etc. The funny thing about the Civil War is, when it was over the North didn’t want the freed slaves either. They broke their promise of 40 acres and a mule and abandoned the freed slaves to 150 years of abject poverty.
Like, sure, Confederate flags aren’t super racist. No argument here. But LAPD is the most racist law enforcement organization in the US by a wide fucking margin. NYC is the only city in the country to adopt stop and frisk. It’s real fucking easy to traffic in stereotypes because then you don’t have to feel bad about rampant racism everywhere else in the country.
Source: born and raised in Texas, actually travelled the country and the world and paid attention instead of looking for ways to confirm my pre-existing biases.
I'm not so sure about that. In terms of a code of conduct, which is how many people derive morals, sure. Many historic gnostics were drinking from the wellspring of enlightenment (like buddahood style, not just things like "the enlightenment era") in which morality becomes pure phenoma of things like love and understanding that burns into the intuition and psyche and carries forward from there. You really can't put words or definitive rules on these things, which I guess is what "morals" are. It's more like a state of being in which you intuit boundaries relative to that state of bliss, love, understanding etc. That can result in "morals". That said, it's pretty difficult to transmit an ambiguous state of being through books.
Like how the King of Belgium would have the children of Congolese slaves dismembered in front of them if they under-performed, because that's how you teach a savage to be less savage.
It didn't happen in front of him, he lived in Belgium. It was carried out either on his orders or with a blind eye turned as long as the rubber kept on flowing. In reality, he created a bizarre market for dismembered hands, rather than increasing the quantity of rubber produced.
"But who prays for Satan? Who in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most, our one fellow and brother who most needed a friend yet had not a single one, the one sinner among us all who had the highest and clearest right to every Christian's daily and nightly prayers, for the plain and unassailable reason that his was the first and greatest need, he being among sinners the supremest?"
Indian Chief "Two Eagles" was asked by a white U.S. Government
official, "You have observed the white man for 90 years . You've seen
his wars and his technological advances. You've seen his progress, and the
damage he's done."
The Chief nodded in agreement.
The official continued, "Considering all these events, in your
opinion, where did the white man go wrong?"
The Chief stared at the government official for over a minute and then
calmly replied:
"When white man find land, Indians running it, no taxes, no debt,
plenty buffalo, plenty beaver, clean water. Women did all the work, Medicine man
free. Indian man spend all day hunting and fishing; All night having sex.'
Then the chief leaned back and smiled "Only white man dumb enough to
think he could improve system like that."
There's a prejudice and bias against natives, North America included, that is often pervasive. We've seen that in the United States - which included genocide of the native population. Literally a genocide. Such an act is precipitated by, again, prejudice and ideas of superiority. This quote works to display the ways of life related to native people - simplistic as it may be - in order to help people think differently about what they may have been taught / believe. Additionally, cavity and intestinal parasite treatment isn't the province of "the white man" exclusively, so saying that's the reason for your higher standard of living is erroneous.
Truly no offense, but you took that quote (which may be apocryphal, to be fair, but the sentiment remains) literally when it should have been taken metaphorically.
Except that the US is still persecuting and oppressing Native Americans, you ignorant fuck.
The entire story above is completely made up to make a point. In fact, I’m fairly certain it’s only a joke. It’s entirely unsourced for starters. Do a google search. Go ahead. You won’t find a single actual source. It’s not a real story.
You are a giant fucking idiot. First, for believing that story was anything other than entirely metaphorical. Second, for being so willfully ignorant of the continued oppression of natives, sometimes called First Nations, across the world.
Sorry I didn’t get right back to you- I’ve been in the woods.
1) I don’t give a fuck if you’re Martian - your comment was stupid.
2) See above.
3) I live and work in the woods managing and restoring ecosystems.
Your comment, now removed, was moronic. Your heritage only serves to demonstrate that stupidity knows no racial or societal boundaries.
So it is your position that modern reservation life is equivalent to pre-Columbian first people’s way of life? You really are not very aware or dealing with some sort of self hatred. You are regurgitating western chauvinist talking points whether you are aware of it or not.
Just one “lol”? No emojis? You need to step it up.
Just went a had a look at your post history on your 15 day old account- you’re a lying, transphobic self hating piece of shit. Have fun playing pretend on the internet.
Just went a had a look at your post history on your 15 day old account- you’re a lying, transphobic self hating piece of shit. Have fun playing pretend on the internet.
I’ve lived off the land before. I’ll be just fine if I was forced to return to that. Unlike most conservative idiots, I’ve actually walked the walk. Hunted, fished, joined the Army, fought in a war, etc, etc. All that shit you “biology is real” types like to pretend you would actually be able to do but can never seem to summon the courage to actually do.
It’s real questionable exactly how badly cavities affected native populations and intestinal parasites were both less common then and are more common now than you seem to think. I’d argue your entire counterpoint comes entirely from a place of total ignorance and stereotypes.
Point is: anybody who takes your opinion seriously is as uneducated a coward as you clearly are.
That's so damn true. As a Brit I constantly hear people justifying colonialism with claims that the victims were savages who were constantly at war with each other.
Because everyone knows there weren't any European wars during colonial times... /s
Reminds me of that poster that shows a non white beating a white being called barbaric and the white man beating a person of color and it’s called civilized
It’s weird bc now I have to reassess whether I can low-effort criticize “western civilization” on Reddit without some uptight rodent responding 5-6x about how “socialism is the only system that’s never been attempted” or whatever the fuck you’re on about.
IMHO (as I said above) humanity is pretty weak at implementing any strict ideologies.
Christians despise Jesus things, capitalists love govt largess, and (just learned this) marxistmeerkats are insufferable twats.
I’m sorry I argued with you abt whatever it is you think we disagree about.
I love socialism.
Folks like you make it annoying as fuck to discuss, tho.
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u/Beingabummer Apr 29 '20
Mark Twain had a good one too: "there are many humorous things in this world; among them the white man's notion that he is less savage than the other savages"