Places that aren't as liberal as you would expect

While I will always respect the fact that Switzerland is the home of the Red Cross, professional work with Swiss clients has led me to believe that they are shockingly racist. They are also violently nasty to people they believe are beneath them in class.

White Australians are amazingly racist at every level and pass off their offensiveness as a "sense of humor".

I am obsessed with Japanese culture, and think they have one of the most beautiful aesthetics in the world, but they are surprisingly stunted in many ways.

As an American and a New Yorker I was disappointed by Chicago. It felt much more racially divided than I was expecting.

The British were much less liberal than I think they think they are.

^^^ We have a black lesbian mayor who enjoyed a great deal of voter support from "Whitey."

You?

Law school - I went to law school in my early 30s, so I was slightly older than most classmates, but not ancient. I was really surprised that most of my classmates seemed to be conservative in their politics. I wasn't the only "out" liberal; I was just surprised to be in the minority by far.

r2 you have a low-key civil war between the police & union on one side, & the DA and city hall on the other over the Smollett case. It's not just a rift on racial lines, but also class. There's nothing that pisses off both the uniforms & detectives alike more than a high level political redball case.

South side is a shooting gallery, but it got worse after that, allegedly because the response times were, shall we say, not as brisk as usual.

Vienna. After all this time, still very antisemitic and homophobic.

New York City

R5, I think you can include all of Austria. It is not as if Innsbruck is incredibly liberal.

Austria is not viewed as liberal. It has fascist tendencies

There are no district attorneys in Chicago or, indeed, all of Illinois, R4.

State's attorneys, yes. A state attorney general, yes. Federal, U.S. attorneys, yes. But no DAs.

With all their finger-pointing at the racist "old south", it's been my experience that northern US cities are far more segregated then any southern cities

Switzerland seconded. It's like Montana or some other libertarian shithole, just with more history. Deeply provincial, in spite of its wealth. An acquaintance originally from the French-speaking part told me he had moved to Canada to escape the pervasive racist, xenophobic and even homophobic attitudes. And he's a white guy born and raised there. When I spent some time in the German part some 10 years ago (Zurich, Berne, Luzern), I was shocked how rude and passive aggressive people were, not just to outsiders, but to each other. The kind of place where, if you're throwing a party and it gets a bit louder than it should be, the neighbor would rather call the police on you than ask you to turn the music down and where people used to bump into each other in supermarkets on purpose because they would refuse to move out of the way for anybody.

Philadelphia, City of Brotherly Love - NOT.

The UK is quite intolerant.

Hollywood.

Pretty much everywhere I've been except for most of the Bay Area and Asheville, NC (within the city only). Maybe Prague, too, but fuck it, I don't speak Czech so I mighta missed something.

Switzerland is one of the few Western European countries that doesn’t have gay marriage. That tells you a lot right there.

Is Swiss Chick on here? I’d like to know her opinion.

There's conservative, and then there's cuntservative.

Boston, Mass. I thought it was harsh and more segregated than New Orleans.

Why does Tina Turner live in Switzerland? If it’s so racist?

[quote]Switzerland is one of the few Western European countries that doesn’t have gay marriage. That tells you a lot right there.

Yes, but homosexuality was made legal there in 1942 - way before most of Europe.

[quote]Same-sex sexual activity was decriminalised nationwide in 1942 with the introduction of a national criminal code. Some cantons had legalized same-sex sexual activity previously. The cantons of Geneva, Ticino, [bold]Vaud and Valais had done so in 1798 by adopting the Napoleonic Code.[/bold]

I was in Geneva Summer 1983 and it was very gay and openly so...gay beach by the lake.

& an elderly friend of mine was in Geneva in the 1950s and she said even then, gays were very open and everywhere.

R15 Not Swiss Chick here, but did you know that women didn't get the vote until 1971? Some couldn't vote in local elections until 1991.

And, even if you meet all necessary requirements to apply for citizenship, your application is publicly posted in the municipality where you reside so that anybody with an axe to grind can come in and say why you shouldn't be granted it. There was a case a few years ago, where a Dutch woman who had lived in Switzerland for 10+ years prior to that as a law abiding resident got denied citizenship just because her neighbors didn't like the fact she was a vegetarian. Basically, a circuitous way to exercise legal xenophobia or settle petty grievances in the way that is beyond rational and fuck up someone's life.

R19 That’s still doesn’t excuse why they don’t have gay marriage. Quit making excuses.

Plus, there's this:

OP is right about Norway. I visited Oslo a few years to visit a (lesbian) college friend who grew up in a nearby village, and we went to the gay pride parade. She thought she saw one of her neighbors and was petrified of being found out, explaining that Norwegians' alleged tolerance is really just an outsized respect for privacy. Norway, like Switzerland, was desperately poor and rural until the 20th century, and neither countries are members of the EU (though both are party to the Schengen agreement). Funny what oil and questionable banking practices can do...

Switzerland has a complete social safety net but the culture and system is capitalist and individualist. Young urban people are more liberal than old rural people. The French speakers were more liberal than the German speakers thought it is evening out. Canton vary, like US states, in political culture.

My contribution to this thread is Dartmouth, UPenn and Princeton. Which were never known as SJW hothouses but they can be even more conservative in culture than expected.

R21. As I recall, this Dutch woman had written and spoken out extensively on her belief that the traditional bells that Swiss cows wear were cruel and constituted animal abuse.

This was the primary reason her neighbors decided to block her attempts to become a Swiss citizen.

R1/R12 the majority of Brits probably fall into what Americans would call middle-of-the-road moderaee conservatism. It isn’t encouraged or looked favourably upon here to hold or demonstrate extreme political views - at least not openly, or in any way that would cause disruption or embarrassment. Because it’s a small island and we all live at such close quarters, it’s imperative that we maintain a careful predicatably stable boat so to speak.

That restraint and moderation goes out the window however when it comes to blatant infringement of rights of an oppressed group by the ruling powers or classes. Then we go a bit Roundhead, or we smash up a school, or we throw ourselves in front of horses, etc.

We’re xenophobic and we don’t like change, but I don’t think that takes away from how accepting British culture can be. People don’t often get knifed here for being black or gay or not being Christian enough.

Vermont is racist as hell, homophobic, mostly conservative and very very backwards.

R10 is the routine US Southern apologist with unproven facts and say 'some of the worst racism I've ever heard are from Northerners!'

Pipe down - nobody is buying it.

Amsterdam Holland. Watched a documentary about Holland during the Nazi invasion 1940-45. Their reputation as anti Nazi is only partially true. Many Dutch citizens were not as tolerant as they would have us believe. Antisemitism was rampant. They just didn’t want Germany to tell them what to do. They actively participated in sending Jews to Nazi death camps. And were less than charitable to Holocaust survivors returning to the country.

They’re also racist towards blacks from the Caribbean nations that are part of the Dutch Commonwealth.

A racist tradition in Holland and Flemish speaking Belgium. Zwarte Piet.

R5, it's not just the Viennese, it's the entire country. Austrians like to present themselves as Hitler's first victims, but they in fact welcomed the Nazis with open arms.

I love the country...it's beautiful, but the people generally are very conservative and racist. When I first went there in the early 90s, I wanted to practice my German, so I spoke to an elderly couple with whom I shared a train compartment. They told me that how America treated the Indians and how the British treated the Irish was the same as how the Germans treated the Jews.

The English can be very prejudiced. The assumptions they make if have an Irish name are unbelievable.

I chalk a great deal of it up to level of education, your parents' level of education, generational shifts, and cultural or regional differences.

Yeah, R32 - the fact that it still goes on is shocking. But one of the biggest shows in the UK during the 60's and 70's was a minstrel show.

Yes - an actual minstrel show. In the 60's and 70's - over 50 years after the practice fell out of favor in the US. They finally cancelled it in 1978 - but still.

Every country in Europe is quite antisemitic. It's been ingrained in them for centuries.

NYC can be amazingly provincial and racist. There’s upper class Manhattan (which can be snobby while being “tolerant”) but the boroughs can be pretty bad. Lots of racist Italians, Hasids don’t like anybody, and blacks who hate whites.

R35, agreed on Europe. Currently they hide behind the Palestinians, but you’ll note that they can overlook all other kinds of humanitarian abuses that don’t involve Jews.

Every place.

Austrians are quite provincial and conservative. Swiss are just cunts. Germans, surprisingly enough, can be very friendly and good-natured. They love Americans. I've visited Germany many times (I'm American) and I've always enjoyed my time there.

Adding on to the Netherlands comments, Bruges was very racist when we visited. My husband and I got declined to be seated in a restaurant, not sure if it was because he is Mexican but they were going to seat me, Caucasian until they saw him. Suddenly no tables. I felt like I was in Arizona. Heard lots of anti-semitic remarks there, too.

R34 That's entertainment.

@ r29, I grew-up in Chicago, lived in the south for 25 years and am now back in Chicago. I speak from personal experience, but before I "pipe down" please, do tell me how your personal experience negates mine. I'll wait...

R42 > R29

[quote]NYC can be amazingly provincial and racist. There’s upper class Manhattan (which can be snobby while being “tolerant”) but the boroughs can be pretty bad. Lots of racist Italians, Hasids don’t like anybody, and blacks who hate whites.

There are times when I've been in NYC and have noticed how hostile the vibes are from black people there. It seemed odd in what is considered a cool and tolerant city.

I must say as a foreigner living in NYC in the 80s, New Yorkers were still very cool and accepting about gays, in general in spite of AIDS...others may have a different perspective on this and I chose with whom I mixed, so that helped obviously.

I mentioned Vienna rather Austria as a whole at r5 because you expect the provinces to be provincial but Vienna is a major international city renowned for its culture and interest in the arts. You'd expect it to be at least a little more enlightened. But,no.

The Swiss. They didn't allow women to vote in federal elections until the 70s.

Nowhere is as liberal as liberals deserve. There is no liberal utopia and never will be, such thing would be a freak of nature of a very low and strange order. Liberals are mostly just self-absorbed, shallow, hypocritical morons, or they are very bright, cynical people who specialize in manipulating self-absorbed, shallow, hypocritical morons.

[quote] I was disappointed by Chicago. It felt much more racially divided than I was expecting.

As a Chicagoan, I will say that I was amazed when I visited Montreal a few years ago and saw TONS of black and East Asian people hanging out together. I have never seen that in Chicago. It's eye opening when you visit different cities.

[quote] With all their finger-pointing at the racist "old south", it's been my experience that northern US cities are far more segregated then any southern cities

You are correct. I had a friend from Atlanta who attended the same college as I did. She would always say that the way non-black people in Chicago just throw around the n word was shocking. And in the south, you are largely either black or white, which means interaction is always going to happen between white and black people. People don't understand how the north rightfully wanted the south to integrated in the 50s/60s but also tried to make it easier for their own states and cities to stay segregated.

I agree on Chicago. One of the most solidly Democratic cities in America and more segregated and full of hatred than the deep south. Isn't it the most segregated city in the country?

Washington and Oregon. There's a reason some people call the PNW "the Deep North."

[quote] We’re xenophobic and we don’t like change

A lot of islander populations have this mentality. Just look at Japan.

R30 Country is called Netherlands, not Holland. That's like calling US - California or Texas

R50, Milwaukee and other rust belt cities are more segregated. The difference is Chicago is changing in the right direction despite all the negative publicity it (rightly and wrongly) gets. In the north side, there are plenty of black people who live among white people and there are neighborhoods like Hyde Park in the south side which are very diverse and integrated. But the rest of the south side and much of the west side is still left behind and that's where you see a ton of backwardness. But Bronzeville--Chicago's own Harlem--is being gentrified largely by upper-middle class black people. So change is happening but it's very gradual.

Most of the segregation in the US is now rural vs. urban, with POC in more urban areas. The rednecks of VT are incredibly racist, while the liberals living in the few cities are not. I see this reflected in most major cities in the East, as well.

The poor will always be looked down upon and most of the poor are POC, and have been for generations. Those whites who are poor are generally rural and say shit like 'at least I'm not black.'

It was why they finally succeeded in killing MLK. He had the nerve to finally make some headway into convincing the poor of this country that they should unite and call for economic equity through equal opportunity. Can't have that if you're poor, rural and white. Now who would you be able to look down on? and all those white girls and black boys coming together to talk about it was enough to push some asswipe to take the shot.

For the U.S.- any liberal mecca (SF, Austin, LA, etc.) has horrific class inequality.

For all the social graces around gay acceptance, anti-racism, cultural sensitivity, and so on... right-thinking, enlightened people in this country hate the classes below them with the firey passion of a thousand burning tiki torches. They don't want to see, hear from, or interact with the little people and enforce a myriad of class rules in order to keep themselves segregated.

[quote]Adding on to the Netherlands comments, Bruges was very racist when we visited

But Bruges is in Belgium?

Nearly every southern city. Never run into such pandemic conservatism anywhere else in my life -- Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Charlotte, Birmingham, etc. People say, but we have mayors-of-color, or politicians of all stripes, but that's only because most of those cities have majority people-of-color populations. The white people in those cities all seem to be silent members of the KKK.

[quote]Law school - I went to law school in my early 30s, so I was slightly older than most classmates, but not ancient. I was really surprised that most of my classmates seemed to be conservative in their politics. I wasn't the only "out" liberal; I was just surprised to be in the minority by far.

What did you expect when you decided on Trump University Law School?

Le Bal de la Croix Rouge Monte-Carlo

Black Americans that have lived in Boston and other cities usually agree that Boston is the most racist city ever. Even more than Chicago.

R61 Isn't Massachusetts most liberal place in the US? - non American

R62, in theory, hence the name of the thread :-). It is liberal when it comes to things like gay marriage, healthcare, etc. but when it comes to race, Boston is very backwards. Black Americans don't feel comfortable in Boston. Most of the black people in Boston are from The Caribbean and Africa.

You haven't been to Boston lately, R61, but probably because you can't afford it. Lots of POC hanging around with whitey in ol' Southie now, but only because they can afford it.

It WAS a segregated city and no more racist than anywhere else. They'd managed to do a damn good job of taking it away from the poorer folks who were finally getting a clue about what was really happening. Go to Brockton if you want to see what happens when gentrification creeps in. Why there? Because they don't have good water and never signed up with the MWRA.

Those rich bastards on Beacon Hill knew what they were doing and kept them at each other's throats. Can't have that smart kid from the 'bury competing with little Jon for that scholarship to Hah'vahd. Do you seriously think those ghetto dwellers knew anything about defacto or dejure racist policies or how to keep it going?

IT'S CLASS, not race, idiot. No white kids got any more of a chance to make it out of their ghettos than blacks did. But keep spouting that bs about places you know nothing about, Che, and ignore the real reasons they built that public housing.

^^^LOL at R64's entire rant. Attempts to make fun of me for not being able to afford Southie and then talks about how class is the big divider.

R62 it never was and never will be. What it is about has a lot more to do with maintaining the status quo and putting up a good front. That's 'merica - organized and maintained by the RICH.

Just ask Daniel Shays.

Little known fact: the British were allowed to maintain their holdings in the US after the Revolution was over. Boston has been mostly owned by British, and Dutch, interests since then and until the present day. Follow the money and be enlightened.

If this is a thread about the supposed "liberalism" of certain places, shouldn't this be a more all-encompassing discussion, instead of focusing almost exclusively on people's perceptions of racism? How about healthcare, environmentalism, provisions for the poor, etc.? Racism may be tied into some of this, but it's not the end-all topic of this nature.

Berkeley, CA. It goes out of its way to act liberal, but the economic stratification there is immense. There are people living in Berkeley who are solidly in poverty, others with just one foot in poverty. others who are homeless. And then there are neighborhoods with fabulously wealthy people.

You have to know where your place is in Berkeley. And you must stay there. That's the deal.

Nearly every US city that historically had a sizeable black population is segregated by race because of former racist housing policies.

SF has Oakland, LA has South Central, NY has (had?) Harlem, etc. Every major city has black neighborhoods. There aren't many cities that are truly very integrated.

As Good Will Hunting at R64 illustrates Boston has a large and entrenched white working class and underclass (and most tedious of all a segment of the middle class who insist on aping them due to some vestigial connection to pigshit Irishness) and their default mode is “fuck you and the horse you rode in on” to basically everyone who makes them feel insecure - which I’m sure adds a delightful frisson on top of the regular institutionalized racism “will I get shot by a cop for driving this car” yadda yadda that Black people face everywhere in America.

In terms of class, the west coast cities stand out to me due to their crazy amount of homelessness.

Adding to R68, I might suggest discussing places as they are today rather than at some point in history. R30 helpfully informed us that some Dutch people collaborated with the Nazis in WW2. In other breaking news, slavery used to exist in the US. I guess it’s not as liberal as I thought.

The Vatican! One might expect that a place with one of the world's highest rates of male gigolos and cocaine would be much more live-and-let-live, but those bitches are uptight!

Here's the correct way to be liberal: feel secretly ashamed when you think your racist shit and don't put it out there unless you want to be seen that way.

ALL white people have inherent racism in this country. The difference between a sincere liberal and a phony bullshit one is admitting that and keeping a constant check on yourself.

I have an American friend (Jewish with a non-Jewish wife) who lived in Hamburg, Germany, from the late 70s to the late 90s, speaks and writes German fluently. He says he never encountered any antisemitism there. Of course, he worked for Deutsche Gramaphon, the famous classical record company, and would not have likely met people who were overtly antisemitic (plus he looks very Jewish). Still, I do have the impression that Germany is one of the most civilized countries in Europe and is probably less antisemitic than most, especially Austria, its neighbor. My friend also lived earlier on for a year or two in Austria and always told me how blatantly antisemitic they were in Vienna. At that time most young Viennese would leave the country because it was so conservative and hidebound (good pastry though, I have to say).

R76, my friend's ex had a very different experience in Germany in the 00s. He lived all throughout Germany and he was stalked, harassed and even had to leave a job in one location due to the clearly racist sentiment of his boss. He was Lebanese but he was confused for being Jewish all the time. He had a horrible experience there and hated it. He felt far more welcome in America actually.

DL.

Aren't the Dutch responsible for apartheid in South Africa?

R76. Antisemitism in Germany has risen incredibly since the events beginning in 2015.

Pretty much any suburb, no matter what the voting statistics are, is going to be fairly conservative. Red vs blue voting demographics don't tell the whole story. Within the US, parts of Massachusetts were surprisingly conservative. Maryland is almost stiflingly conservative despite voting blue. Supposedly Austin isn't that hippie ish anymore. I've been told that Canada is more conservative than it appears.

r80: r76 here. Fucking depressing. No antisemitism here in my apartment (well-a little..I hate Fran Drescher's voice. I don't like the Goldbergs show). Guess I have to keep staying home.

R81, you raise a good point. I think large sections of the population just vote or identify the way they do because they are afraid of being "the other". Coastal Dems vote Democrat because they don't want to be like those white southerners. Canadians are so proud of their country, their motto is "we are not America!".

r81: Sometimes people vote Democratic because they have a strongly held belief in helping everybody in society, not just helping the rich get richer. I feel sorry for you. You have something missing in there. It's called empathy, compassion, a heart....Canadians have a reason to feel pride. They are a decent society for the most part.

r84 here: I was directing this to r83 not r81. R81 makes sense. There are a lot of secret conservatives everywhere, including in the supposedly liberal west coast city where I live.

[quote]it's been my experience that northern US cities are far more segregated then any southern cities

There’s an expression I’ve heard regarding the difference between race relations in the north and south.

In the south, they (meaning white people) don’t care how close you (meaning black people) get, as long as you don’t get too high. In the north, they don’t care how high you get, as long as you don’t get too close.

R84, You seem to be reading a little too deeply into what I posted. I am a lifelong Democrat. I am "blue no matter who". But I have met many Dems (and this is the same as many Repubs) who vote for no other reason except their mom and dad or friends are all Dems too. It's all about identity with some people and that explains why they vote the way they do.

Regarding Canada, it definitely has it's own share of issues. The homicide rate among their first nations is even higher than the one for black Americans. Anglo-Canadians tend to have the same talking points, all made in a defensive manner. They have a huge chip on their shoulder about proving to others they are so superior and different to Americans (they aren't). Look at their healthcare and homicide rate--both are good only by comparison to the United States. Yet the way many Anglo-Canadians go on, you'd think they'd live in a utopia. A lot of America's issues are due to the fact that it's a gigantic country with over 300 million people covering 50 states. Canada is a country of like 35 million with a few provinces, many of which have tiny populations. You will have far less issues in the latter situation.

Lots of Los Angeles county. Unless you go to the Westside and pockets of the valley or a minority neighborhood (not a guarantee, but more likely than not), you run into Repubes.

I suppose most people don’t consider it, what with its multiracial mix, but Hawai’i, though politically pretty liberal, has a racist underbelly. All the different racial groups seem to despise each other, with the Japanese acting the most superior and entitled.

But, despite their many colors, everyone seems to dislike blacks the most, whom they refer to in Hawaiian as “popolos.” Hawaiian for “purple,” referring to the dark purple berries on the black nightshade plant.

(As for the Japanese, I’ve often considered their culture resembles a delicate chrysanthemum, dripping with fresh blood.)

Unlike their image Europeans are NOT more civilized than Americans. It is VERY common at soccer games for the people in the stands to throw bananas and make monkey sounds when black players are on the field. These incidents have occurred in Eastern Europe and even in places like Italy and other parts of Western Europe including the UK.

[quote] Berkeley, CA. It goes out of its way to act liberal, but the economic stratification there is immense. There are people living in Berkeley who are solidly in poverty, others with just one foot in poverty. others who are homeless. And then there are neighborhoods with fabulously wealthy people.

San Francisco is stratified as well, and not just based on economics.

Being politically liberal does not equate with being compassionate or desiring equality anymore.

R90, I think all western nations tend to look at other nations as "less civilized" or "inferior" to their own. They have a hard time looking inwards. I think Americans are often an exception to this (in spite of all the "we're number one!" folks) because the media often publicly portrays Americans as being clueless idiots. In other countries, the media would not get away with portraying their own citizens this way.

Australia is a racist, sexist country stuck in the 1950’s

Most of rural MA is filled with hillbillies and racist crackers.

The small towns in CT can be very redneck. People don't think of rednecks in CT, but believe me there are a lot of them.

[quote] Why does Tina Turner live in Switzerland? If it’s so racist?

Because she has pisspots of money, which trumps everything else.

R34 R41 There were a FEW voices in the UK fighting against that at the time......

For those that don't know, this is an early prototype of a Daily Show type satirical commentary show, and they GO THERE with the lyrics. Prolific use of the N word, but to cut down the racists. They tear the minstrely, Swanee type song to shreds.

(And that's Millicent Martin singing - who some of you may know as Joan-Margaret from Grace and Frankie.)

Wait! No, I am totally wrong.

Or partly wrong, because the people backing up Martin in that song are in fact the same assholes at R34 and R41.

I am chastised. WTF?

r92: Maybe now being politically liberal equates to wanting Donald Trump and his Republican thug cohorts in Congress in jail--at least I hope so.

Amsterdam

Colorado

Queens, NY

I was surprised that there were red necks in New England. In Vermont they run rampant and don’t have many laws to govern them. They rape someone and get out of jail the next day. Liberalism and red neck inbreds aren’t a great combination.

People who aren't familiar with New England, especially Connecticut, think it's all WASPS like you see in the movies. HA! Far from it. All the NE states have TONS of white trash. It is no different from any of the Southern states. It's a side of NE you never really see in the media.

I wouldn't expect Colorado to be liberal.

I know friends who were transferred from small town in eastern NC to upstate NY. The could not believe the complexion of that city compared to where they came from. They described it as the south in the 50's. Their children came home after a few days and were astonished that there had been no fights yet. I looked up the black population of NY and it is 15.9% in the last census. Their town in NC was 62.9%

Norwegians may feel homophobic but they're so nice they'll have sex with you just because it would be rude not to.

[bold]I ræva? Ok![/bold]

R105, I have known a few southern folk who felt the same way when coming to northern cities like Chicago. They are amazed at the amount of segregation and lack of interaction you see between black and white people here.

George Carlin said that Hollywood likes to pretend to be liberal, but instead is obsessed with making money, and that's "the most conservative thing there is."

Berkeley is probably the most liberal city in the US.

I lived in Berkeley all through the 70s. It's so boring now--bunch of rich hippies who still look like slobs. I recognized some of the same faces when I stayed there for 5 weeks back in 2011. (I have unusually good face recognition apparently). They probably haven't changed their clothes since 1980 when I left. Actually, real estate is outrageously expensive there. At least one of my favorite writers is a resident--the great Michael Lewis (Moneyball, The Big Short, etc.). Most of the Bay Area is pretty liberal unless you cross the Berkeley Hills to Contra Costa County. Bunch of Karens and their husbands.

r110 Actually, that's exactly where I grew up -- on the other side of the hill from Berkeley/Oakland.

Isn't Mount Diablo out there? I took acid there and then flipped out briefly and never took it again. Three times--that was enough. I remember how yellow the hills got out there in all that sun (which Berkeley doesn't have).

R103, I think that, in part, is why [italic]the Beans of Egypt, Maine[/italic] did so well in the 80s. It was was like a modern Erskine Caldwell novel that seemed as though it should've been in the south, not in the northeast of our imagination.

R81, I don’t know what you mean by “conservative” in this context. Maryland is politically fairly liberal. Do you mean conservative in individual lifestyles? Prone to steady jobs, marriage, children, mortgages, worrying about the local schools, not prone to bohemian tastes … that sort of thing? I would call that being bourgeois, not being conservative. Most Marylanders are suburbanites, and most suburbanites are bourgeois, so if you consider that conservative, then you're right.

R105, your friends were apparently living in a bubble. The US is about 13% black. Their former town was the exception, not the town they live in now.

Upstate New York, outside a few cities like Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse, is very white. The same is true of central Pennsylvania, northern New England, the Great Plains and much of the Pacific Northwest. I don't see what that has to do with being conservative or liberal.

How about Spain? I apparently heard that Spain has a racism issue.

I would say Santa Cruz is the most liberal city in the US.

Berkeley is too rich now to be as liberal. And yes I went to Berkeley in the late 80's.

The great class divide between the Berkeley Flats and the Berkeley Hills long precedes the 1980s.

R76 He looks Jewish? So, he looks white then

"The great class divide between the Berkeley Flats and the Berkeley Hills long precedes the 1980s."

Yes I know that R118. My point is that NOW the flats are quite expensive, which wasn't the case 30 years ago.

Once a whole city becomes uber expensive, it is no longer a liberal, diverse place.

R120 Preach. There aren't any open, welcoming, tolerant places anymore. Gay teenagers don't have anywhere to go anymore.

R120 Berkeley had no affordable places to live when I when to school there 20 years ago, and it hasn't gotten any better. My lawyer sister and techbro husband just purchased a 4 bedroom/2 bathroom North Berkeley home for 1.4 million. Properties are listed at 800-900K, but they sell for way more.

Yes, R79. They gave us this charming sociopath whose obsession with racial segregation and Afrikaner domination is responsible for much of the general fucked-upness that continues to this day.

The Dutch tourists act as though they still own the place. Humourless, charmless, square-headed wankers, with a language that sounds like a someone without a tongue trying to speak through a bad cold.

R123, I thought part of the collective chip-on-the-shoulder of the Afrikaners is that the Dutch seem almost aggressively disinterested in them - and that South Africa, in so much as it’s able to attract European immigrants, seems to primarily attract British and Germans expats (usually snooty retirees).

R29 I've seen tons of white trailer girls in the south with mixed race babies. I don't see that so much up north in the rudest city in America.

A map for reference.

Czech Republic and Slovakia seem really insular and not that bright.

There are parts of New York City that are more antigay than parts of the South.

R125 Interracial dating and sometimes marriage are extremely common in red states, something like 1 in 4 babies in Texas are mixed race.

NC has huge mixed race baby boom

If so, then Jesse Helms is spinning in his grave.

So has Oklahoma.

R124 Namibia on the west coast of Africa, neighboring South Africa, that's where the Germans are. In Windhoek.

Paris, France.

Weren't there marches by thousands in the street against gay marriage just a few years ago? Paris is much less liberal and gay-friendly than most other major European cities.

Which Vermont do you live in, 102? That's not been my experience.

[quote]With all their finger-pointing at the racist "old south", it's been my experience that northern US cities are far more segregated then any southern cities

Decades later there remains a lot of truth to the old civil rights adage: “In the South, the white man doesn’t care how close you get, as long as you don’t get too high. In the North, he doesn’t care how high you get, as long as you don’t get too close.”

In the South one can sometimes be surprised by the seeming ease of relations between black and white strangers of all classes, the ease in crossing paths with someone on the street, the ease of simple communication (it may be stylized, but it works at some level.) In the North, there is more racial distrust between strangers, there is more often tension in crossing paths, and ease is "earned" by class segregation and vetting.

It's different styles, flip sides of the same coin maybe, but anyone who has spend a lot of time in different parts of the North and different parts of the South has seen this in some form, I suspect, and it can be jarring when switching from one place to another.

R10 is 100% correct.

I am a black Southerner and I follow black people on Social media from NYC. I am surprised at how many of them have no close white friends and view the world in very segregated terms. A lot of them Seem to lack close interracial exposure. In the South, black and white people generally have lots of close interaction. Today, many black people go to church with white people, go to same schools, live in neighborhoods with white people.

R137 Its true for me. There was a time when a school official in NYC wanted to defacto desegregate the 1% upper crust, 80% white public schools. Even Cynthia Nixon made a speech about how it was a bad idea. The parents were pissed.

This superintendent came from Texas, IIRC and had done similar things in San Antonio. It started a huge debate with parents wanting to keep their students away from the failing black and brown students. On one hand, race relations in NYC seem so bad, I don't blame them for being scared, but why not do more so each burrogh have more top-notch schools?

In Louisiana, something similar happened when the charter school system was brought into place. White students fled to whiter schools.

That old adage about the north and south is really dumb. Northern Europeans and Australians have Tall Poppy Syndrome and don't like seeing braggarts. The racism levels are similar between the two. The south is more prone to violence because of the southern culture of honor.

R116 Britney Spears was walking in Spain and someone called her body guard a racist epithet and she went off on them and had to be restrained.

Spaniards are awful when it comes to racism. They are open about it and don't give a fuck.

Datalounge.

[quote] Spaniards are awful when it comes to racism.

Yes they are. People from Latin America who visit or live there aren't exactly treated well. They are also told they "don't speak real Spanish" (they don't have the gay lisp). And if you are black, watch out. Not South Korea bad, but people will act differently towards you.

Most of the most liberal areas in America are also very classist. Just look at how many NIMBYs these places have. Zoning laws needs to be greatly reformed to reduce economic and racial segregation.

My late partner was from Spain. I referred to him once as hispanic and it pissed him off. I asked, "If a Spaniard is not hispanic, who is???" His reply, "The conquered people!" So, yeah, that history lives on.

He also told me that growing up in Spain there were very, very, few black people living there. When you saw one, it was considered good luck.

Los Angeles

Argentinians also hate being called Latino or Hispanic. I mean they HATE it. As far as Argentinians are concerned, they're Europeans who live in South America and they're not like "those people" i.e. all the other Latin Americans.

Cubans and Argentinians both seem to have a huge disdain for the rest of Latin America.

Latinos who are of 100% Spanish heritage are very bigoted towards Mestizos.

People who are Hispanic/Spanish/Latin/Whatever the fuck they want to be called have serious self hate issues and are desperate to be accepted as white.

Cubans are the WORST. If you've ever heard a Cuban go off about Puerto Ricans or Mexicans, they say exactly the same things that racist white rednecks say about them.

In general southern european countries (even with all the catholic influence in the past or even nowadays) are way more tolerant than the northern ones.

Scandinavia is watched like some kind of paradise but their rates of domestic violence and far right violence are way higher than other european countries

R149: Dear, nobody outside the USA will consider an italian, spanish or portuguese like anything than white (not all whites are arians). And i find incredibly surprising the inferiority complex that americans have with french. Everything french is cool, and of course they are white, well, the origins of french are exactly the same than italians and spanish, a mix of romans and celtic tribes

R140: That's a blatant lie

R151 Oh dear my ass. I said what I said. They have self hate issues. Other people in this thread have confirmed they squabble over stupid shit about how they’re classified.

r151 Datalounge posters have standards of whiteness that are like Nazi Germany. Even the French aren't considered white on DL.

R153 Americans are obsessed with race. Not even nazi germany was that obsessed. I remember when a magazine called Antonio Banderas de only person of color nominated to the oscars, that was absolutely ridiculous.

And of course is the ridiculous use of caucasian as white when the people of the Caucasus are very far from what americans understand for white,

In every country there are a good bunch of racists and homophobes, but in terms of race and homophobia the USA is in no position to give lessons to any western european country

Has anyone mentioned Los Angeles yet? I lived there during the Obama years and boy was I surprised to meet so many closet Republicans. All were wealthy straight white men who worked as producers and writers in the film industry. It definitely contributed to me swearing off Hollywood.

R156, weren't many of the people who moved to Southern California in the Depression era from the deep south and Oklahoma? It makes sense why that region would still have many Evangelical/far-right wingers today. I think Southern California has a HUGE number of Evangelical megachurches.

Growing up in the midwest in a bright white protestant home, the intricacies of race were made very clear. I have worked to stay aware of that awful early training and to steer clear of it as much as I can.

One afternoon when a co-worker in a company in the Wall Street area, an Italian man from Staten Island, went off on a tirade about "fuckin' niggers." It gave me great pleasure to dig into my midwestern training and tell him, "Listen up, buddy. Just stop this. And be very clear... where I come from, you aren't white. Italians aren't white. And Catholics aren't Christian, either. Just stop this." Oooo, his head exploded when I told him he wasn't white. Good times!

These racial, national, and social classifications are all entirely fictive. You can slice 'em and dice 'em any way you need them to be so you can hate the person you want to hate.

Historically, "white" in American terms meant WASP. Period. Not even Irish were considered really "white." That's how strict it was. Slavic people weren't white either. America had an extremely narrow definition of what "whiteness" meant. It was basically Northern European Protestants and nobody else.

R159, precisely. It's interesting to realize that many of those Catholic immigrants that were treated as being non-white became the most virulently Anti-black Americans. Much of George Wallace's support up north came from Catholic industrial workers in urban centers like Chicago. Sadly, the victim loves to become the oppressor.

Everybody wants somebody to shit on.

R161, yup. We love our hierarchies. Sad but true.

R161 it makes us feel better. Humans are garbage.

I've mentioned here before I've spent a year in the Netherlands as a foreign exchange student in Groningen. I'm fluent in Dutch so I did experience the country at its fullest. I've been back many times to visit. It was a very provincial country as the rest of Europe. The truth is most of the world is still very ignorant and it has more in common with the middle ages than most want to admit. The rise of the right in Europe is a good example of how conservative they still are.

As with the Netherlands, which was once called the gay mecca, progressivism is an elitist matter of highly educated people. We had the luck of having many elitist academics and elitist progressives with power to dictate public policy, but as with all the groups that get some power, they've overdone it and decided their power should be wasted with petty micro aggressions and pseudo scientific gender politics.

What I see is a world where the ignorant people who once stopped to be educated by the progressive elite decided to tell them to fuck off and are now reclaiming their stupidity globally. It's very sad, but also expected. Maybe a third wave of progressives will do it right when they rise, and they'll come soon enough.

I had to work with a woman from Switzerland and she said the most explicitly anti-Semitic thing I have ever heard anyone say outside of a movie about Nazis, and I refused to ever work with her again. She was working as a sort of agent for a sheikh from Dubai at the time to promote the UAE.

At another job, I worked occasionally with an old man from Switzerland who lives now in the Midwest. He is an economist and I had the sense he is very conservative, but he was pretty warm and friendly.

I enjoyed the documentary linked here about Susanne Bartsch, who is Swiss. But the only specific thing I remember about it is that she talked a lot about how she felt she had to get the hell out of Switzerland because it’s so conformist—she said something like, “Switzerland is a beautiful country. And it is the land of clocks and banks. And that is all you need to know about Switzerland. I had to get away to save my life.” Something like that.

I was surprised to find out that some of my ancestors came from Switzerland—they landed on the coast of North Carolina in the 1700s and most are still there to this day. My dad got the hell out of there to save his life.

[quote]weren't many of the people who moved to Southern California in the Depression era from the deep south and Oklahoma? It makes sense why that region would still have many Evangelical/far-right wingers today. I think Southern California has a HUGE number of Evangelical megachurches.

Even more so in Northern California, and it's not only the Okies- California residents of all ethnicities have their conservatives and religious assholes.

R104, I think I was mislead by the hippy-dippy, outdoorsy, legal pot gestalt of some parts of Colorado. But I discovered that the people I was friendly with there were all gun-owning Republicans that seemed to have very naive (or maybe just ignorant...everyone I know there is unfailingly polite so I wasn't sure) ideas about sexuality and such. They also told me that they didn't vote for Trump, but just "couldn't bring themselves" to vote for Hillary, so they wrote some local Republican they liked in...which I suspect they only told me to avoid a confrontation, but even if it's true, amounts to throwing your vote in the garbage and always pissed me off to hear about.

Germans are not white. They envied Swedes because they look nothing like them.

You're not wrong, OP. We have a Conservative government right now. Many Norwegians are selfish assholes who only care about themselves. They just want to pay less taxes, they don't care about people who suffer. I have never voted for the Cons and never will. Oh yeah, and Western Norway has always been Conservative. Must be because that region is isolated and very Christian.

Gothenburg, Sweden. Conservative and very insular.

[quote]Many Norwegians are selfish assholes who only care about themselves.

This explains why no one liked David Niven's second wife, who was Norwegian. Hjordis was her name and by all accounts she was a serious cunt. Everyone was grateful when Niven passed away because they knew it would be the last time they'd have to deal with her. His children also despised her. Just a negative and unhappy woman.

Sonja Henie had few friends either, because she was vain, greedy and selfish. Hmmmm.

[quote]Sonja Henie had few friends either, because she was vain, greedy and selfish.

But she was great in the sack!

Sonja Henie was also a big Hitler fan, so there's that.

[quote]an Italian man from Staten Island, went off on a tirade about "fuckin' niggers."

Not surprised. I have never met a mentally stable Italian.

In California there’s a fine line between liberalism and libertarianism.

[quote] In California there’s a fine line between liberalism and libertarianism.

Uh? Libertarianism is just Conservatism tarted up with extra selfishness and a lot of rhetoric about freedom.

You can tart up libertarianism with liberal hues, which is what often takes place in California and in Silicon Valley in particular. A lot of tech people present themselves as liberals but if you scratch the surface a bit, the views they espouse and the society they envision are closer to Ayn Rand than Eugene Debs. California gave the world the exploitative anti-worker gig economy, you’ll recall. The Golden State had its beginnings in the Gold Rush. It’s always been a place people move to in order to get rich before all else. That has been the prevailing ethic in California from 1849 to the present.

R175, brilliant! So exactly true!

A D.A. is a federal prosecutor, so yes Illinois has them.

Southern Europeans are indeed "white" in comparison to blacks and that enabled them to dispossess blacks of many professions during the Depression. Don't believer these Americans who are so fixated on the horrors of being ethnic. There were a few riots: against Greeks in Omaha and Italians in New Orleans; but nothing at all compared to what blacks experienced.

That said, Asians have often been subjected to extreme violence.

Hard to believe the upper Midwest was once both socially AND economically liberal. For years the leading leftist newspaper in the land was published in Emporia, Kansas and Topeka was America's premier center for Freudian Psychoanalysis. Today the average Kansas compares unfavorably in IQ to the average canine.

Plenty of British, German and Dutch retirees in Cape Town and the surrounding touristy areas, R124. Those state pensions go a long way here. The Brits are generally okay; the Dutchies and Germans love/live to complain.

The Afrikaners are a classic case of puritanical religion meeting racial insecurity over not being white enough, combined with a hyper-macho culture. The results have not been pretty.

Except that we call them U.S. attorneys or assistant U.S. attorneys, NOT district attorneys, R179.

Same with shih-CAW-go (correct pronunciation) and NOT shih-CAHH-go, (as the transplants and other non-native species say.)

On-sets and behind-the-scenes in Hollywood. There are obvious departments where gay men are found, but it is disappointing to have to trudge through so, so, so many heterosexuals.

R182, Kansas is NOT the upper-Midwest. The upper Midwest is still relatively liberal compared to the rest of the Midwest. But I get your point. Another interesting fact people seem to forget is that the western states--the ones that are really Republican today--were the first to grant women the right to vote. And I believe it was the western states that had the highest amount of college graduates a few decades ago. Interesting how things change.

Western states are egalitarian and populist, but not liberal on sexual issues, government support, or gun control. They do not like welfare or non-traditional families.

France...they are supposed to have this "live and let live" attitude towards life, but this doesn't stop them from being homophobic and racist.

Someone has already mentioned the Netherlands.