Michigan Rocks!!!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Ex-yooper here (and soon to be yooper again - we’re moving back). Concerning racism and such topics, I can attest to the fact that the UP is almost all white. The largest minority is probably Native American.

However, I can honestly say that my upbringing was very much colorblind. I never saw anything close to the racism I see in Colorado (where I currently live) in the UP. In my high school, there were a few black kids, a few Jewish kids, and a handful of other minorities (Hawaiian, Asian, etc) and nobody really paid much attention to it. They were all just kids, like the rest of us.

I understand things are different downstate, but I gotta stand up for the UP on this issue. Marquette (my hometown, and the largest town in the UP) is a college town, and is quite hip and diverse. Not a month ago the local theater in Negaunee (town of less than 5000 people 10 miles from Marquette) put on the “Rocky Horror Picture Show” with a very much “out” local gay man playing the Dr., and it went over GREAT. People LOVED it. When I was home last summer, we saw Eddie C. Campbell (blues legend, for those of you not familiar) play at the local club for about a $5 cover charge.

Not all small towns are cultural backwaters consisting of rednecks and intolerance. (Well, OK, maybe all the small towns downstate are (!) hehehe) If you can get past the 300 inches of snow every year, the UP is a great place to visit. After spending 10 years in what’s considered one of the most liberal, hip places in the country (Boulder, CO) I can honestly say that I would prefer living back in Marquette. It’s just better up there.

22

I grew up in the suburbs of Detroit (Royal Oak for those of you in the know) and went to public schools there.

In my entire high school of 1200 students there were no more that a couple dozen minorities. Both of my parents, however, worked in the Detroit Medical Center so I was always exposed to a lot of minorities.

Grand Rapids is hell on earth, oops…I mean it’s totally different. My parents lived there now and I lived there for about two years. There is a HUGE Dutch community that are all cheap “conservative” assholes. (Before you flame me, know that my maiden name was VanLeuven, so I am entitled to insult the Michigan Dutch)

I have never met a bigger bunch of hypocrites in my life. There is a church on every corner and more drug and alcohol use than I’ve ever seen. People will yell at you for using the lord’s name in vain, yet steal the butter and jelly packets from the local breakfast joint.

Child sexual abuse is rampant. Oh, there are gays and minorities, they just hide in fear from the Christian Reformers.

Richard DeVos (founder of Amway) and Frederik Meijer (founder of Meijer’s “Thrifty Acres”) are idolized. Businesses would rather hire Dutch employees and do business with Dutch clients rather than allow “outsiders” in.

There’s a lot of beautiful people there but it’s an ugly, ugly place. I HATE Grand Rapids.

[/rant]

23

I grew up in Canton (halfway between Ann Arbor and Detroit), one of the Detroit 'burbs. The suburbs have gotten a lot more ethnically diverse since I was a kid- there’s now a Hindu temple in my old neighborhood, which is fantastic.
Now I live out here in the hills of New Hampshire, surrounded by beautiful trees and the woods, and I can’t wait to get back to metro Detroit. Am I crazy?

24

Hi, hesredbird! Let’s do lunch sometime! :slight_smile:

25

Something I wrote a while back …

YOU KNOW YOU’RE FROM NORTHERN MICHIGAN WHEN -

  • You don’t call a foot of snow falling overnight a state of emergency; you call it Wednesday.

  • You have combination bait, tackle and gift shops.

  • The waist size of your pants is higher than the number of channels your local cable company offers.

  • You call a soda a “pop.”

  • The most observed autumn holiday in your area is the opening day of deer season. (Tomorrow!)

  • You drink beer brewed in Canada.

  • The majority of parties you’ve attended in your life had one corner of the room set aside for people playing euchre.

  • People walk into banks wearing ski masks, and no one gets excited.

  • You can tell a person is a “fudgie” regardless of whether they have fudge in their possession.

  • Sitting for hours on a frozen lake in front of a hole in the ice is an activity you look forward to for months.

  • On your weekend trips on I-75, both Friday on the way out and Sunday on the way back, you’re in the fast-moving lane, looking across the median at the bumper-to-bumper crawl.

  • You’re fiercely loyal about your particular make of snowmobile.

  • Your wife has shot a buck.

  • You’ve never said “Mackinack” or “Charlevoiks” in your life.

  • You regularly drive on roads that have never been paved, and probably never will be.

  • You know every person you graduated from high school with.

  • You go to restaurants named after the person who is actually cooking the food.

  • You’ve helped push the vehicle of someone you’ve never met out of a snowbank.

  • Your town has a curfew whistle.

  • When you think of a pasty, you think of something to eat; not something a stripper would wear.

26

Those are good, Milo! Quite Michiganian…Michiganderish? What the hell are we, anyway?

Whoops–I’ll be right back. I’m out of Vernor’s. :smiley:

27

Yes, but does Ann Arbor have seven straight people? (Just kidding :slight_smile:

I also live in Ann Arbor… Cranky, perhaps we should have an AA DopeFest. You work just down the street from me (I work in the Natural Science Building :slight_smile:

Any other AnnArborites out there?

LL

28

Hey all. While I’m not from Michigan, I feel I can speak with some authority on the subject… Dad grew up in River Rouge (hey, it was a nice city at the time), with 5 siblings. My brother and sisters are still in Detroit, albeit in Allen Park and Dearborn now. I also have an aunt, uncle and cousin in Ypsilanti, and my other cousin just moved out to Kalamazoo. I admit, I’m not altogether fond of Detroit, but when you consider that I’ve only seen it once or twice in the spring or summer and the rest of the time in the late fall or winter, and we don’t go to see the tourist stuff (if there is any ;)), I think it’s understandable.

Speaking of gays in Michigan… Dad took me, Mom, my brother and sisters, and a couple of Mom’s friends to Saugatuck for a couple of weeks probably 10 years ago. He rented a house, I think. I don’t remember much about the trip, except for playing mini golf, going jet-skiing, and getting baptised by Bev and Jim (Mom’s friends, and that’s another story altogether). When Dad got back home and was telling someone at the office about his trip, they remarked, “You know Saugatuck is practically the biggest gay mecca east of San Francisco, right?”

He didn’t mention the trip much after that. :smiley:

29

A few small points:

Howell isn’t a KKK capital, but north of there, between Byron and Oak Grove, is the home of the Michigan Militia. However, before anyone starts into the stereotypes, most of the locals consider them the village idiots. (I’m not claiming that it’s two guys and a shotgun, but I know a lot of people in that area who are very openminded about all “diversity” issues–and several who have stories about “those mouthbreathers” from back when they were in high school.)

I’m surprised that when everyone was tallying “diversity,” only Dragwyr mentioned that Michigan has a huge (Mexican derived) Hispanic population. Pontiac has a very large Hispanic population and there are several small towns in the base of the thumb where a lot of migrant workers decided to stop migrating. (Capac is one center for them.) Near Detroit, Del Ray is also mostly Hispanic.

The Detroit region also has a significant Belgian/Flemish group and a Maltese group, although they don’t call a lot of attention to themselves.

In terms of racial hostility, I’d guess that Athena was just far enough east, in Marquette, to miss it. The attitudes toward the Indians living in Baraga county are as bad as any white-on-black situations in the near suburbs of Detroit. I have heard (but only second hand) that similar problems are found near Escanaba and the Garden Peninsula. (We aren’t talking warfare, here, just a general disdain of the local natives by the local whites.)

I can guarantee that there are more than 7 gays in the state. Aside from the gay “neighborhoods” in Palmer Park and can’t think of the name–off Kercheval, west of Grand Boulevard in Detroit, there was a massive influx of gays into Royal Oak ten or fifteen years ago. (The city’s big enough that they don’t dominate city politics, but they are there.)

There is also a significant Hindu population on Detroit’s east side.

Hazel Park, on the north border of Detroit has been known as Hazeltucky for as long as I can remember and the city of Ypsilanti is sometimes estimated to be at least half Kentucky “workers” who plan to move “home” (to Kentucky) when they retire from Ford. (Ypsi is right next to Ann Arbor, which produces some interesting interactions in the shopping centers between the towns when the students and the auto workers mingle.)