Fair enough.
Only little black homeless children who won’t be missed, of course.
That’s the thing - hey, I understand that people do sometimes have bad experiences in the South, and that even though I grew up here there’s plenty not to like. But honestly, we’re in the business here of fighting ignorance, and to suggest that Cletus and Bubba Joe kidnap black hookers and string them up of a Saturday night is a) ignorant, b) stupid, and c) downright offensive. And if they did we’d call them “serial killers”, not “good ole’ boys”. And it would make the national news, just like it does when somebody gets a cross burned on their lawn.
I don’t know anything about your vagina, rancid or not, and I wouldn’t speculate on it. But by the same token I don’t appreciate you generalizing your bad experience in my home state to the extent that you seem to sincerely think they’re still running lynch mobs. And by the way, I’ve heard that the Klan is biggest in Ohio, of all places.
I drove through there a few years back. I stopped for food and gas. The place seemed OK to me (and me being a northerner and minorityer), from what little I saw.
On the other hand, an old girlfriend interviewed for jobs throughout the south, including SC (Coumbia, SC). Very different experience. It was the only place where someone assisting the interviewer spouted racial comments and jokes when in a more casual environment (perhaps assuming that since old gf was white, she would automatically be in tune with that). This wasn’t an old fogey or an undereducated hillbilly, it was a youngish guy, an M.D. [I would think that the true hillbilly would be a more democratic soul, but I digress.]
So she found that person repugnant. But hey, everyone else was nice (or smart enough to keep their mouths shut), if a bit conservative. And that was Columbia, not Greenville; and she liked the mannerliness.
The point? Racial attitudes are still out there, and they are not insignificant. How much that matters to you, and how you choose to interact with it, is up to you.
Pat Conroy’s The Water Is Wide is a good read. Nonfiction about South Carolina.
And welcome to America. Stand up for what’s right.
Dogzilla, I can understand why certain parts of the country are unsuited for certain people. I for one, would hate to live in the desert, but some people do anyway.
I agree with a lot of what you said in your first post. What I can’t understand is why you took such offense to “You ain’t married yet? What’s wrong with you?” Take it as a compliment that you’re such a fox, surely some guy would have made you his wife by now. I’m single, and I get asked that a lot myself. It’s not unique to Greenville. Sure it’s annoying, but responses like “Because my cousin preferred to marry outside her bloodline” gets them scratching their heads.
Knowed Out, I didn’t exactly take offense to the comment. Just pointing out that some people think there is something wrong with being over 25, female, unmarried and having no children. (My own uncle called me an “old maid” around that same time frame, and THAT I take offense to. He is an Ohioan and a bigger jerk than anyone I ever met in SC. I wish I’d thought of your response! ;)) I did not take it as a compliment because the person who said this to me was another female and the look on her face said she viewed me with suspicion and derision. I found myself having to defend my situation. Once I explained to her that I wanted to get an education and settle into a career before I made decisions about marriage and family, that made sense to her and suddenly, I didn’t seem so strange. I ended up being friends with this woman, but on a very superficial level (because our lives were so very different, yet we still managed to come to understanding one another). And you’re right, this attitude that we should all be married and breed or something is horribly wrong is most certainly not unique to Greenville.
And yes, the racism is also alive and well in Ohio, and the Klan was very active there when I lived there. I remember being involved in a protest rally in college because the Klan was having a rally a couple towns over. That’s yet another of the reasons I don’t live there either. I could say a lot of the same things about my hometown as I did about Greenville and I never claimed that any of the things I mentioned were specific to Greenville. I could say some of these things about Tallahassee, in fact, but in general I find myself being judged far less harshly here than there. (Can you say, “purge the voter rolls?”)
Finally, there was that man in Texas who was dragged behind a pick up truck for being black. (cite)We have a citation documenting that Greenville County legislated acceptable bigotry. Knowing that black men still get dragged behind vehicles and knowing that this fair city thinks it’s okay to discriminate against one group, I can’t understand what is supposed to make me think that secretive, underground lynchings are an impossibility. I didn’t say they were common or that our Canadian friends are likely to encounter such an atrocity. But I had a few conversations with people that made me worry about what goes on out in the woods where there’s no video cameras.
Now. I googled “racism in Greenville South Carolina” and discovered that the residents there have been working very hard in the last five years to combat ugly racism. I conceded earlier that I left nearly 10 years ago and things could have changed significantly. So if I’m so full of crap, why didn’t anyone else run a google search and fight my ignorance with facts? Where are your citations to defend what a great and beautiful city it is and what a fabulous place to work it is? I think some of you are just supporting my point: If you don’t fit into the homogenous cookie-cutter demographic and you speak of different truths, you could be vilified and viewed with suspicion and derision. So if you’re Buddhists (or different from the “norm” in any way), keep your mouth shut about it and you’ll get along just fine.
In case it escaped your notice, the reason the case in Texas was on every news broadcast, newspaper, news magazine, etc, in the whole country was that it was so outrageous, disgusting, and abnormal. It was certainly not a secret. If people were doing the same thing in Greenville, it would likewise make the national news. To think there’s a secret lynch mob roaming the woods out there is just plain dumb and speaks to a certain amount of prejudice.
[Official Moderator Warning]Bruce_Daddy, your reply to Dogzilla’s post (see post #15) is so over the top for IMHO I actually checked twice to see if I had accidentally wandered onto the BBQ Pit forum by mistake. Personal insults, name calling, swearing, and the asking for “cites” as to someone’s honestly given personal experiences? Do not ever post like that outside of the BBQ Pit again. In fact, if you intend to post in this thread again, I suggest you start with an apology.[/Official Moderator Warning]
Not, however, in or near Greenville, SC. It is very definitely a two-employer town, BMW and Michelin, (there are a couple of rather small units of some larger companies, but most of them are tied directly to support of the big two) with nearly all the rest of the employment devoted to subcontractors who live or die at the whim of the two largest.
My longtime Cleveland client got screwed over by the conglomerate that sucked it up and one division was forced to merge with a separate division in Greenville. When the word came down about moving, several reps were sent down to scout around with the help of the Greenville division. The word that came back was that it was a very nice place to live (barring the fact that there were not enough multi-lane roads to move traffic during rush hour), but that there was not going to be any employment for the spouses or older children of anyone who moved down there. Greenville was at close to full employment for the people already there, but there was no swell of industry that was going to create more opportunities for people not already employed by the company.
Calendar, you might want to check out the website for the local newspaper, The Greenville News, for a few days. I think you’ll get a better sense of what’s going on and what the local mindset is. In the Letters to the Editor section, there seems to be an ongoing debate about all things God.
Greenville is my hometown, and I live in a neighboring county. I enjoyed growing up there, and I particularly like the downtown. But be forewarned- some of the people are absolutely bat-shit crazy on the Jesus front. Let us know what you decide.