In Message Thu, 20 Jan 1994 10:16:04 EST,
  Mark Bunster <[log in to unmask]> writes:
 
Mark I have to confirm your midwest minority statement.  My roomate at
school, a twenty year old midwesterner, confirmed to me that I was the first
Jewish person he had ever met.  That totally floored me, but there are
people out here who have these assumptions about me because I am jewish.  I
apologize for getting people started on the South.  I think all parts of the
countries have their problem areas, but they, maybe, hide them better.
Where I grew up, outside Philadelphia, wasn't all that much better, when I
come to think of it.
>I think also more often in the south one finds a pattern of ill will through
>confrontation as opposed to ill will through ignorance. Some Midwestern
>cities are still pretty provincial in their racial attitudes--they're so
>infrequently in contact with minorities that they (minorities) are seen as
>having the same base characteristics as those from common media portrayals of
>them. So, the ill will comes from fear and misunderstanding.
>In the south, many large cities are populated by more black and hispanic
>citizens than white citizens. Like it or not, (and there are certainly those
 who
>do not), whites have no choice but to exist in something more approximating
>attempted harmony.
>
 
>
>
>
>--
>Mark Bunster                      |Exchange conversation if you dare--
>Survey Research Lab--VCU          |Share an empty thought or a laugh.
>Richmond, VA 23220                |
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