I started this in the LGBTQ thread but thought it important to post here

[patty_bateman]

33. Thinking the same thing in Memphis

It's sad that you encounter this crap in Massachusetts. Just last weekend, I was thinking "It's white people" - let me explain...I live in the LGBTQ part of Memphis - it's small, but the folks are very nice and tolerant of everyone, as far as I can see. Last week, I was recounting my day to a friend who lives in Pennsylvania and told her that during my 2 hours of errands that day I encountered at least 1: Muslim, Christian, Jewish person, lesbian, gay, transgendered, AA, Asian, white, Hispanic, wealthy (presumably), homeless, Veteran and active duty military. So, a pretty good cross-section of our country within 1 mile of my home. I am always uplifted when I return home IF I only go about 2-3 miles around my home.

My sister and mother live in a suburb of Memphis that's just over the state border in MS. At least once a month, I go shopping with my sister in her suburb and it is terrifying. I am not skittish; I have been gay bashed before so it's not some unknown fear. I do not look overtly lesbian and I don't go looking for a confrontation. When I shop with my sister, I encounter white people, lots and lots of white people. And I'm white, too, but I don't think I'm their type of white. I also see a few AA people, but they, like me, know they are in hostile territory.

It's been my experience that when you get a group of white people together in South, they get a little nasty, perhaps even deplorable. They say things to other white people thinking all white people think like they do. When I wrote above "I don't go looking for a confrontation" I realized that they do (Trump Cultists. Is it Trumpites? Trumpitarians? What's the word?). When you don't go along with their racism, sexism, intolerance, Bible-thumping cult-speak they get outraged - not upset - outraged. No matter how you present opposition, whether it is by simply existing or with words or just when they imagine opposition in their heads - they are outraged.

I am very worried that folks in MA are seeing what I see here in the South - I thought "I was asking for it" by living down here. I guess it's everywhere now, though.