This Presidency Has Exposed My White Christian Friends/ Editorial by John Pavlovitz

[2naSalit]

67. I agree with your assessment

of the cultural aspect of the bigotry in the northeast. I grew up there with a few stints in southern states. I grew up in a large mix of cultures and languages in the cities. Not so much in the rural areas back then. But I went to school with kids whose first language was not English and I would likely not hear English if I went to their house, which was the case many times. I thought that was normal. Even my parents' parents spoke other languages at home, though my parents only spoke English. I heard all kinds of languages from French and Spanish to Hebrew and Finnish, Polish, Lithuanian...

There was always tension between groups more in some places than others. Local rivalries were common, a tribalism of location as well as ethnic tensions. It's always been there. So when I moved to the western part of the country as a young adult, I was amazed at how homogeneous the populations of many places were once you get away from the coastal areas. And the bigotry seemed about the same. Only more about Indians and Mexicans (now they add anyone looking Arabic) but the same old crap.

I've been in and out of southern states and what I noticed most was the accent was different from up the coast.

I'm in a not-so-diverse environment now, same as it ever was.