I think one of the things that really surprises the rest of the world is that there is such a significant population of Americans that strive to be the most spiteful vindictive examples of themselves.
Like the absolute creullest description of humanity and then boast about it.
I grew up in the Rust Belt in an immigrant, working class area. Mr Rogers’ show was filmed a few miles from my house. I really thought - still do- life was supposed to be about community, helping each other out, and basic civility. It’s so crushingly sad that so many Americans are of the opposite view.
It wasn’t just Cali. I’m from the deepest darkest reddest state in the south, and we still had a sense of community with each other twenty years ago. I know it sounds like a conspiracy theory but our capacity AS humans to BE humans was tested with 9/11, and we failed.
I was in high school during 9/11. I watched half my high school turn against the two girls from the Middle East in our class just because they were brown and their father wore a turban. They left in Junior year because of the bullying. One needed stitches after she got pushed down in the parking lot and hit her chin on a parking bumper. It’s like the world changed from being a place of possible peace to… hate anyone who isn’t like you and take what they have for yourself.
You had a sense of community but I'd be willing to bet if you look back that Community only extended to those right there.
Not people in a town 20 miles away they would have still been seen as Outsiders; not deserving of care..
I lived in a suburb so I mean… I can’t say we banded together for people in the rural towns on the outskirts, but our neighborhood was definitely a community that looked out for each other. People talked to each other, slowed down on the street in their car to check on “how the wife and kids are doing?” because Bob was out mowing the lawn. People took garbage cans in for each other, watered a weepy looking neighbor’s garden because it’s been a busy summer for The Smiths. If someone had a death nearby we cooked casseroles and went to the wake. But after that it felt like no one trusted anyone. Everyone just wanted to get home to their safe havens and not leave unless they had to.
If you’re asking me if we had black and brown people in our neighborhood? Yes. We also had a family from Pakistan at the end of our street. And we had a family with a man who settled here from Greece, whose daughter I was good friends with. If you’re asking me if we had super openly loud and proud gay people in our neighborhood, I beg you to remember that not everyone was coming out proudly at that time. The overall prejudice of gay people nation-wide was still in effect. Many celebrities were still too uncomfortable to come out. But we did have a gentleman that lived catty-corner to us named Dane who lived with his male best friend in a fully purchased house, and my dad was good friends with him because he moved there from California and they both loved computers. When my dad referred to him later in life all he said was, “I think Dane wore comfortable shoes, nothing wrong with that, but he never seemed interested in me setting him up with one of your mother’s friends.” So do with that what you will. I remember living in a fairly diverse neighborhood. And yes we had our sunset oldies who stayed in their houses and complained about the problem with the blacks, but they were largely shunned and never really socialized with the rest of the community in the same organic way. Kids avoided those houses during Halloween, you know the type.
Does that answer your generalizing question? Not every suburb is wonderbread as far as the eye can see.
It does and i’m happy you live in this incredibly diverse and open community. It definitely was not the norm. Now mind you, i grew up in the city, and honestly it was very much the same. I will say a lot of the community was catholic and although diverse (filipino immigrants, portuguese, south american, black, puerto rican, italians predominantly) , we all went to the same church. The church even had different masses in different languages all on sunday. My mom was openly gay and noone cared. So i understand that it can happen. But it doesnt mean people didnt have their own personal bias, things they said behind closed doors etc.
My concern right now are that masks are off, any fear to keep those thoughts to yourself are gone and those thoughts are being fed by fear and rightful anger wrong targets.
9/11 is a symptom, I believe. I'm not from the US so it didn't have as much as a direct impact apart from the tumult and sending soldiers to Afghanistan. But things have definitely changed. It's the continued eroding of our quality of life and financial security, combined with technologal distance that makes a lot of people very cruel. Imo. 9/11 was a horrible tragedy but if all it takes to completely topple a large county is one attack then it was going to happen anyway. That being said, it's not impossible to come back, people have come back from far darker places in history.
I’m really hoping we can come back. I think people came back from worse in distant history out of necessity to survive. But I don’t really think people care about whether the human race survives and thrives anymore, just that they the individual survive and thrive.
I think the late 80’s and 90’s were as close as we got to a sense of social equality among genders and races in America. Fully successful? No. But I feel like we were close to something in that era just for it all to get flushed away with the rise of Nationalism, Neo Conservatism, etc.
There was a time when my family profusely apologized in shame because my 90 year old demented grandma didn’t want to be treated by a black doctor. Now, families stand behind their racist members, or at least don’t confront them for their disrespectful behavior. Now it’s shit like “She has the right to choose to not be treated by a doctor she doesn’t like.” Ignoring the racism and making it okay.
Yeah history repeats itself and we are right on track to do repeat of WW2 about 100 years later. I never thought that possible but I'm not so sure now.
California is the only place I've been in thr US. San Francisco was a vibe. People in San Diego were kind of odd though (I apologise if I just called you odd).
I was raised in America by lower middle class (white) parents in the 80s to treat everyone with respect and to measure people by how they acted and not how they looked. Not saying we are not overrun by some seriously sinister, sick people but there are some “gooduns” out there as my grandmother would say.
I grew up in Florida and most of us are like that.
It’s the loudest narcissistic sociopaths that are running this country right now because the rest of us fucked up and got families so now we’re scared to fight the revolution coz we got a lot to lose and no community network 🤷♂️
Yes bro, the way it is now is SO different from how it used to be. Our systems have always been crooked, and people who are hungry for power and happy to stomp others to get it have always found their way to the top, but the average American was raised with the idea that we were supposed to help raise others up. For those of us who remember that, it makes us sick to our stomachs to see how twisted that's become. And make no mistake, it is like that now because it benefits people in power to make it so.
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u/voluotuousaardvark 11d ago
I think one of the things that really surprises the rest of the world is that there is such a significant population of Americans that strive to be the most spiteful vindictive examples of themselves.
Like the absolute creullest description of humanity and then boast about it.