How bad is racism in your state?

14 comments

1. Pretty significant in ex-Confederate North Carolina.

2. I guess it depends on your personal understanding of what racism is. Utah has a decent sized Pacific Islander community. You’re probably bound to run into some form of racism, but outright slurs and stuff probably won’t be too common. Depending on where you move to in Utah you could check out some of the Salt Lake City based Pacific Islander community groups.

3. I like to think that racism isn’t too bad in Michigan given that we have a large minority population with African Americans, Arabs, etc living with white Americans so we’re over that stuff but I’m the wrong person to ask. I haven’t looked at any police data either.

4. I’ve been to 29 states and lived in three of them. There are some racist people but I don’t feel like the general population of any state is especially racist.

5. By chance are you going to BYU to play football?

6. Maine is surprisingly bad.

   Mostly the problem is no one up here knows any minorities outside of like one guy unless you live in the Portland area.

   Maine is 96% white.

   I grew up in Indianapolis so I am familiar with black neighborhoods, Latino neighborhoods, a surprisingly large Muslim population, etc. so interacting with minorities is a daily thing and that takes the edge off a lot of racism. But in Maine you can go for days without seeing anyone non-white so people have some racist beliefs but they are entirely based on ignorance (not that that makes it any better).

   But even saying that I have lived in a *lot* of states and spent significant time in more. I rarely encounter out and out racism anywhere. I have seen some soft racism like people avoiding black guys on the street or making comments about neighborhoods that have a racial tinge to them.

   It means there’s this weird dynamic where some Mainers have a generalized racism toward groups but they like the individual minority people they know. It’s weird.

   I have experienced anti-white racism against myself. Had an old guy call me a peckerwood (I had to ask my dad what the hell that meant) and let me know I wasn’t welcome in his neighborhood in Chicago (I was just walking to the train).

   I had two guys try to mug me and call me a fucking honkey.

   In elementary school I had a fat black girl call me a cracker and spit in my hair because she thought I cut her in line.

   So three incidents in 40 years, not common for me.

7. As others have said, this really depends on how loose or strict your sensitivity to racism is. Contrary to popular belief, I don’t think modern Idaho has any really significant ‘racism’ problems.

8. Illinois-rampant

9. Connecticut. It’s worse than you’d expect, but it’s still not open. And it’s worst in communities with low diversity, when people actually are friends with a few people of other races the racism drops off a lot.

   I’m white. It’s disturbingly common that I’ll be in a conversation with another white person and they’ll basically make a comment feeling me out for how much racism I’m willing to accept from them. These are mostly people who never have any reason to get to know non-white people, which I think makes racist beliefs much easier to maintain.

   I assume that their racism in person is subtle, things like ignoring the non-white person or talking behind their back, not open discrimination or insults.

10. It’s obviously not absent, but even in the deep South, people are basically never just openly and casually racist

11. There are lots of pacific islanders in Utah. You’ll be fine.

    The city I live in in Washington actually has a long history of being decidedly less racist than other communities. In WA as a whole there’s some ambient background racism but it isn’t directed at any one race, and whites aren’t immune. Honestly anti white racism has gotta be getting close to being the frontrunner, so feel free to come hang out here too.

12. Racism is such a nuance issue. I think we like to think for racist as people who burn crosses on yards and tell racial slurs at any minority they see. But that’s not the case. I think we overlook alot of racism and over examine alot of things that aren’t actually racism.

    I’m black and I am very fortunate to not have to face alot of racism. I can tell you exact stories of times I’ve face racism. There was a time where I do at my school would ask me all these stereotypes and, given my naiveness, I answered it honestly. It kind of took the wind out of his sails so he just stopped. I’m pretty sure we’re Facebook friends now. Another time, I was told that by a girl that I couldn’t take her to a dance that was happening because her dad didn’t want her to go with a black guy. The only thing was I wasn’t going to ask her to go with me because I wasn’t going to the dance myself. Given that i was the only black person in our grade, I guess I was spoken of in other people’s home, which is kind of weird, but not an issue. Besides those two examples, I can’t think of definitive racially motivated moments. I remember when I worked at a preschool that most of the parents kind of just eyeballed me, but that could also be because of their preconceived belief about men in childcare. There’s probably been women who rejected me and jobs that has been passed over because I’m black, but I can’t prove that.

    On the other side of this, I might have been treated better because I’m black. I’m definitely not your stereotypical black guy. I’m short, quiet, book smart, shy, and “speak weird” compare to everyone else, black or white. I think this otherness of me attracted people to me and I am personable enough for people to want to stick around. I’ve had tons of people be defensive of others for me and go out of their way to help me. While these examples are obviously positive ones, they can still be seen as racially motivated. People were originally interested in me because I didn’t act, look, or sound like the stereotypical black guy.

    All of this is to say, “I don’t know.” I’ve only really lived in a fourth of Arkansas and I visited Utah for, like, a day. For me, it’s not really racist. For some of my siblings, if indeed was racist. They’ve had teacher outright belittle them so I could have just been lucky. They only way to know if somewhere is racist (to you) is to go there yourself.

    I want to add one more thing. My mom grew up in q predominantly black city. I did not. She moved to a predominantly white city and is very uncomfortable not having other black people there. It makes no difference to me if there are other black people or not. My mom would point out a lot of racially motivated moments I did not see or did not experience. I think when people are uncomfortable, it’s easier for them to see things they feel are racist so that might be something you want to think about before moving to Utah.

13. Oddly complicated. Blatant and outward racism is very rare, you’ll never see a confederate flag, but smaller less obvious things are quite common. Massachusetts has a very small black population, especially for a state with a major metro area. I believe that this lack of interaction leads to lack of understanding.

    Many cities with larger black populations have middle class and affluent neighborhoods that are majority black. Boston doesn’t have that. Our black majority neighborhoods are associated with high crime rates (doesn’t matter what the crime rates actually are, many people think of them as unsafe areas). I believe this is both a symptom and cause of Boston’s reputation as a racist city.

14. Not that Utah isn’t a Red State with some pretty fucked up things going on due to the Mormon Church, but if I had to pick a red state to live in, you could do a lot worse than Utah. The business side of Utah Republicans seem to keep the culture warriors at bay and even the Mormon Church itself is kind of sort of moderating in recent years.

    I can’t say as a white, suburban raised man that I’ve experienced any racism. But there is definitely racism here, both in the actual individual people who hold racist believes, and racist policies of years past still impacting us to this day.