I comment a lot on stories having to do with state governments and legislation or regions of the country. It got me wondering how many people I’m accidentally disparaging when I don’t mean everyone in said state or region is terrible. So… Please be as specific or obtuse as your privacy filter requires. I’ll start:

I’m in the Bay Area, specifically Oakland. Despite Bay Area hate from some posters, I think it’s great. How about you?

  • sploosh@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Hey everyone, make sure you aren’t doxxing yourself. Comments in the Fediverse can be very hard to delete.

    • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.orgOP
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      4 months ago

      Good reminder. I am a proud Oaklander and won’t hide it, so I’ll just say again. Oakland!

  • remotelove@lemmy.ca
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    4 months ago

    A suburb north of Denver.

    You are going to find a metric fuck-ton of political diversity in Colorado. While it somewhat follows a fairly standard pattern of cities being blue and the countryside being red, it gets much more complicated than that here. (The elevation and mass quantities of craft beer does strange things to a human after a time.)

    • GiddyGap@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      Yeah, Colorado (along with the New England states) is one of few places in the US where rural does not necessarily mean red.

  • Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    I’m in rural PA.

    Pennsylvania is a weird state because we have half the population in cities, Philly and Pittsburgh are the big ones, but we’ve got quite a few smaller cities peppered throughout. The other half live in the middle of nowhere, Amish country and farmers for miles.

    The rural is deep red. I can see a Confederate flag from my porch. We can’t even claim that as “our heritage” or whatever bullshit the South says to justify it.

    Feel free to disparage my area, it’s pretty disgusting.

    • anon6789@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      I’m outside Allentown, but half my family is from up near Towanda. It is an odd state due to how we’re spread out.

      We’ve got Confederate flags around here as well. Less things plastered with Trump signs lately, but the last few months I’ve seen businesses with Houck signs all over. He’s an anti abortion activist that twice assaulted a 70+ year old man that was a patient escort at a clinic.

      All the people I meet from all over the state are usually very kind, but politically what many of them believe just confuses me. I just didn’t know what would ever change their voting bloc if things haven’t done so by now.

  • RBWells@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    I’m in, and from, Florida. Am over 50 so have seen the devolution of the political situation as we get more populated. But am in a very diverse city with a large queer community, and I think that’s what people get wrong about Florida, we have ever been diverse, not like up north where it’s more stratified. Everyone here, at least in the more populated areas, most neighborhoods are mixed on just about any axis you can spin us on. Like my street has old people, families, black, white, Asian, Muslim, Catholic, protestant, atheist, conservative, progressive, gay, straight, trans, able bodied and disabled.

    • kava@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      I’ve lived in a few different states and I was born in a foreign country. I absolutely love Florida. South Florida is an amazing place with great weather and great people.

      It all depends on the cultural lens which you use to look at it. One shopping plaza looks different to a Jew then it does to a Brazilian then it does to a Haitan. The Jew may come for the hummus lunch place and the Brazilian goes for the Brazilian nightclub. They exist in the same physical space but it’s like a parallel universe because they don’t see each other. I find this so fascinating.

      When you take the time to really explore you see a massive depth of different cultures. I love living among immigrants, including many fresh people right off the boat.

      Up north it simply isn’t the same. In Chicago there’s a lot of Latinos, but they’re virtually all Mexican. In South Florida you get every single type. Brazilian, Venezuelan, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Colombian, Central American… Mexicans are a minority.

      I don’t know if there’s another place in the world that has such a diverse mix of people from around Latin America. So many opportunities and interesting things to do.

      I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I hate the government, but I refuse to move.

    • ____@infosec.pub
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      4 months ago

      Respect for staying and staying strong. That devolution has been rapid and concerning.

      You sticking around encourages every person (disclosed or otherwise) in any of those groups to stay, and eventually force that SOB running your state out.

      My partner is a huge Disney fan, and I see behind the magic and respect everything they do to hide the actual mechanics of it all. It pains us that we can’t get on a WN flight to MCO because we refuse to spend money (that we are aware of) in states behaving that way generally.

      We miss Nashville, too, as well as a place between Nashville and Orlando that sells stuff people failed to “claim” for cheap.

      But I’m not buying gas in GA or FL, much less anything else, in the current environment.

      Miami once was a haven and a melting pot, and I personally welcome everyone to this country. But… current state of affairs.

      I couldn’t do it, we are both straight and a conventional married couple (mosly, aside from things that are no one’s biz). We fled a Midwest state because, among other things, we got tired of defending that WE wore masks/used hand sanitizer over a period of years.

      Fuck those people, we are not hurting them by vexing cautious. Turns out (it seems, per current research) we were right.

      The diesel bros are slowly feeling the long term results.

      • RBWells@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        It’s fine. Boycotts will hopefully get the attention of the businesses and they will push, we are dependent on tourism money. So yes, stay away if you need to, it may help eventually. DeSantis is such a fool to push the culture war stuff - as I said in a different thread, I’m tempted to run for governor myself on a platform of Make Florida Freaky Again. We have a culture of circus folk and drag queens, it’s literally part of our heritage.

        The state is gerrymandered to fuck, the legislature doesn’t represent us, as you can tell by all the constitutional amendments. But on the ground here, it’s still vibrant and diverse in my city and neighborhood, and there is so much I do like about this state, the actual land and creatures here, we have so many state and city and county parks, lots of public land.

    • GiddyGap@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      One of my favorite small cities. Would live there if I could, but it’s unfortunately too expensive.

      • RozhkiNozhki@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Yeah, way too expensive for us as well so we’re actually planning on moving to the other side of the bay. We are not renting, thankfully, but we’re pretty squeezed and moving elsewhere in Santa Cruz requires paying ridiculous amounts of money I cannot justify.

  • wjrii@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    DFW area of Texas. There’s a lot that’s good here, but the number of people who combine various levels of being small-minded and short-sighted are indeed very frustrating.

    • Lifecoach5000@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      And they all have cars that contribute to our THUNDERDOME traffic situation these days. I legit don’t even like driving anywhere in the metroplex these days out of safety concerns.

    • ____@infosec.pub
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      4 months ago

      My company has a campus there (among several other places) and I’ve abs ruled out any chance of landing there. Not just because screw you, I am more effective WFH, not less, but because the highly vocal haters populating the area make me look like an asshole just for living there.

      I’m also particularly sensitive to heat, but car ac is a thing. I just can’t justify supporting and effectively representing TX. Not a lot of good ways to state that I’m an ally of anyone misunderstood or whose rights have been trampled, while living in a state that consistently makes news for the exact opposite.

      Not worried about colleagues who know me, but if I want to make a move into a new position - internal or external - and the hiring mgr or hr rep is e.g., my friend who went through NB and landed on male, whose decision I respect, how the hell can I possibly claim to support them or any other group, if I’m daily buying gas and food in TX?

  • MelonYellow@lemmy.ca
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    4 months ago

    Currently in Oakland too! Wish more bay area folk would find their way here so I can stop relying on the subreddit🙃

  • southsamurai@sh.itjust.works
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    4 months ago

    Man, the closest I ever give to my location is in the south, in the Appalachians. Nobody needs to know more than that online, and fuck anyone that doesn’t like it lol.

    Every state here has dumb shit going on all the time. Political stupidity, economic stupidity, environmental stupidity, you name it, there’s something stupid going on in any given subject matter in most states. You find one that’s great at one thing, they’ll be horrible in another. Mind you, I’m talking the people; the land itself is incapable of stupidity, what with being mostly dirt and plants.

    Anyway. If you’re worried about disparaging people in a given state, just do what I do (and just did). Blame the idiots in California for a given issue, but don’t specify who you think the idiots are. Nobody objects to those other people that are idiots being disparaged. Why would they? Those other people are morons.

    That’s not even a joke. I mean, it’s meant to be vaguely humorous, but it’s legit.