Many (most?) oldish white Anglophonic males are bigots

In My Humble Opinion
1

I lived a very sheltered life. I don’t recall any acquaintance who hated Jews. I don’t recall any acquaintance using the N____ word. Most of my friends were progressive or intellectual; and our topics of conversation were limited.

Then I retired to Middle-of-Nowhere, Thailand where foreigners are scarce; I started fraternizing with other expat retirees. Almost every single British male I’ve met hates Jews! (I asked one ‘Why?’ He replied ‘There must be something wrong with them; they’ve been hated for thousands of years.’)

Americans are scarcer than German, British or Scandinavian expats here, so I try to treasure them! One is very intelligent, but a hyperlibertarian nutjob. I was trying to avoid politics, but it came out that he prefers Trump to Hillary. He was obviously ignorant of GOP malfeasance but was uninterested in self-education.

I have one special friend, almost 80 years old now — the only one I know here who might have voted for Hillary. Long ago he showed bigotry against blacks, but he supported Obama. (Or maybe, to keep our friendship strong, he just supports Obama when he’s talking to me.) Yesterday I called him on the phone; somehow the conversation turned to gays. The disgust he expressed against the unnaturalness of gays was tangible over the phone — I could almost see his face twisted in hatred.

This made me sad and discouraged.

Add Buttigieg to the list of those who won’t have a chance once the Hate Machine is running at top speed. Four more years. :frowning:

2

Please correct any ignorance, but aren’t expats generally people who aren’t comfortable in/with their homeland? That at least is the case with the Arab & Filipino expats I’ve encountered over here, and the Americans I know who’ve sailed off into the sunset. As such, wouldn’t they be a good barometer of exactly what ideas aren’t particularly popular in the homeland? I mean sure, there’s bigotry here like what you mention, but one espouses those sorts of views to a stranger at great social risk.

Maybe your thread title would be more accurate as “Many (most?) oldish white Anglophonic male expats are bigots”.

3

According to CNN exit polls from 2016, Hillary won 39% of the vote from whites over age 65. Not a majority but not a blowout either. Trump won 58% and 3% were third paery

There is roughly a twenty point gender gap so I assume that means trump won white men over age 65 about 70-30.

Anyway, white men over age 65 only make up 6% of voters. So they aren’t the entire electorate.

4

You have met many such haters, they just know it’s not polite to say those things in public.

5

You reminded me, I first encountered something around 1990 as a college student, among male post-grads from affluent families: anti-semitism + libertarianism. I wrote papers for for a couple of them to pass their electives at UMass, and put that money toward my tuition at the CC. Win-win.

These are not deep thinkers.

6

Which is what we can settle for.

If the last few years have caused any real trouble it’s that those harboring hate in their hearts are now feeling free to express it.

7

In the same way an MRI causes trouble for a blown lumbar disk.

8

“It’s twue! It’s twue!”

Oh the Protestants hate the Catholics
and the Catholics hate the Protestants
and the Hindus hate the Muslims
and everybody hates the Jews

  • Tom Lehrer

Approximately 99.999% of Dopers are bigots, including those who try to label “oldish white Anglophonic males” as bigots. I’m a bigot too; I just try to treat everyone as an individual* and not let my biases govern my behavior.

*excepting Massholes and French Canadians who clog up the roads in Maine and try to eat all the clams.

9

What** Inigo Montoya** said - expats are generally outliers. The white Americans/Canadians in Asia often lean either quite far right or quite far left but not in the middle. They are expats because they are drawn towards life out of their own nation, and often some dissatisfaction with their own nation.

10

No. This is all silly.

Not at all in my experience in 30 years as an American in Asia.

People come over for thousands of different reasons but most commonly is the idea of coming over for a short time. Most expats return after one to two years. A few stay longer and a very few stay for 20 or more years. Most people who stay just find themselves falling into opportunities or such, much like most people who remain at home find themselves falling into various job opportunities.

I have never met someone whose primary reason given was because they were that dissatisfied with their home country.

I’ve rarely have political conversations with other foreigners here, but generally the people I know are moderately liberal.

Different countries are different. I’ve spent my years in Japan and Taiwan. Thailand used to have a lot more of the sleazy Western guy shacked up with a local and drinking a lot. We had very few of those in Japan because it cost too much.

All the countries have developed more. I was just talking to a Canadian friend who has been in Taiwan for 20 years. Taiwan used to have more guys like that much it’s gotten priced out.

More of these guys are now in Vietnam or Cambodia. Of course, most of them are pretty harmless.

I have no insight as to why the OP runs into so many bigots. It’s not typical of ex-pats in Asia.

11

But they believe they are.

I speak as somebody who’s deep inside the Republican base; I’m old, I’m white, I’m male, I’m straight, I’m nominally Christian, I’m from a rural farming background. So I can tell you a lot of people like me think that they’re the Real America and that the other other 99% of you are just living in their country.

12

AND you retired from law enforcement! It is simply impossible for you to not be a Republican ;).

13

I did restrict the generalization to “oldish Anglophonic males.” The Danes, Germans, etc. seem OK. One of my favorite retirees here is a very intelligent liberal Dane.

I occasionally meet young foreigners here teaching English. Most are likeable and serious (though some of the Americans are boisterous party types).

But my OP was focused on retirees. And I don’t live near Bangkok or a tourist resort, so foreigners are rarish … and often in odd situations. But the number of foreigners, especially Americans, is so small as to be statistically insignificant, and it was wrong of me to generalize. Even the claim that the Brits “all” hate Jews was biased — I reached this conclusion when I made the mistake of sitting with a group that frequently met at a shopping center to drink beer at noon. :smack:

But just very recently I learned that, of the two men I thought of as my favorite Americans here, one supports Trump and the other is a homophobe. :frowning: My dismay prompted the OP.

14

As someone who is also a white man originally from a small christian town, I fully agree.

But luckily we have elections and these people are just a fraction of the electorate. Of course this reality is why they push so hard for gerrymandering and voter suppression, so anyone who doesn’t look and think like them isn’t allowed to vote. But yes, I agree and I’ve seen it myself.

15

Thank you! That last sentence superbly sums up what I’ve been trying to tell people during and after many years in ultra-conservative Wyoming. (I’d say “rural Wyoming,” but it’d be redundant.) May I steal that line?

16

People with this mindset don’t see things like gerrymandering, voter ID laws, and Electoral Vote padding as cheating. They feel that these are legitimate efforts to make the voting system produce the results they think it’s supposed to.

17

I lack the necessary stupidity.

18

Nearly every expat I’ve ever known has been there for the same reason I’ve been there: our companies have sent us, except for retirees in Mexico, who are there for the culture and low cost of living, and not necessarily dissatisfaction with their homeland.

I’ve been an expat in Germany, Canada, Mexico, and China. Okay, in China, I’ve met a lot of English teachers, but most of those seem kind of scammy to me, as described in posts above. China’s the exception, I guess. Maybe Thailand, too, but I’ve never really “known” expats there; I assumed everyone that doesn’t work for a company is a tourist.

For the record, I preferred Trump to Hillary. I didn’t vote for either of them, though. I despise Trump, but am still happy that Hillary lost.

I’m not sure where any of this enters into my being a bigot, though?

19

I was responding to the two posters who were making the absurd and uninformed opinions that expats are generally dissatisfied with their home country and political extremists.

It may be that the people you know just have less of a filter than people at home. I’m pretty sure that there are lot of bigots throughout the world.

20

Touché. And prejudice can take many forms. (And sadly, some of the Anglophonic expats prejudiced against Jews, may also be prejudiced against Thais. :frowning: )

And — this goes for Balthisar too — one might be prejudiced against criminals, against abortionists, against welfare abusers, scientists, politiicians, clergy, religious zealots, bureaucrats, and many other subgroups.

IIRC, when I joined 9 years ago, Little Nemo was a Republican who no longer voted Republican. Do I remember that about right, Mr. Nemo ? If so, Congrats and Thanks!

Should we use Jackmannii’s estimate, 99.999%? Or knock it down to 99% to avoid quibbling. Either way I admit that I’m bigoted — I’m bigoted against Trumpists, or anyone who didn’t vote HRC 2016.

The American who discouraged me a week ago had similar sentiments to Balthisar re Hillary and Trump. Wondering about this, I asked some leading question and discovered that, whatever USA news my friend was getting it didn’t include the failing NYT (not his words), let alone Rachel, Colbert etc.

So, yes, it’s possible that my friend is not a bigot but, despite his strong native intelligence, has just been duped by fringe or fake news sources. Sad. Did this happen to you too, Balthisar ?

I suppose it’s possible the “despise Trump but happy Hillary lost” comes from some discernment. You explain WHY you’re happy Trump won, and WHICH anti-Hillary meme made you so opposed to her. Do that, and list examples of your prejudices; then we can discuss your prejudice and/or bigotry.