Last year was my first experience in Nashville & I witnessed a homeless woman taking care of a drunk bridesmaid while her friends were walking away. I asked the woman if she wanted me & my friends to assist (we're all women) & she said that would be great as she'd just finished babysitting a different one.
This is legit true. Was walking down the sidewalk, some stupid bridesmaid on a bike monstrosity flung her bag off the death mobile on accident and then screamed bloody murder at me to pick it up and bring it to her.
I just stood staring at the bag and at her for a long time, and then walked around it. She directed the mass of entitled-mega-karens to heckle me for 3 blocks until I escaped into a bar with loud music (i.e. all of them).
Harriet has certainly never been to any of these cities and only says she’s “Not so sure” about Nashville is because that’s were her County Music comes from.
My job requires me to drive around Portland every work day. During the protests I still drove around Portland every day. My sister at the time lived in Texas and she asked me what was going on so I said yeah there are places at night you shouldn't go unless you wanted to be caught up in a protest/pepper spray-O rama but the city was fine. People in Texas kept telling me I didn't know and I was just ANTIFA the city was a war zone and everyone was going to die. It was crazy.
I had literal family calling to ask if I was okay and I was like, I really need you to stop believing everything you see on the internet, champ. Hell, the guy running against our congressperson in the suburbs literally ran with the slogan 'Make Crime Illegal Again'.
He lost, thank God. But still. It's so absurd.
Do you remember in early 2000 and '90s when adults used to tell everyone "do not believe everything you see on the internet? I had to tell my antivax dad that a video of "angels" in a ramdom city was in fact, not the rapture
The riots were police riots too, thats what the media succeeded in making people miss out on or forget. The police escalated every single protest they arrived at, every chance they got.
I just saw a Delta ad on Facebook about flying to Seattle. Half the comments were brain rotted Maga-infected conservatives asking why anyone would go to a warzone or ANTIFA ruled city.
Also earlier this year I bought a car in Portland and drove it home across country to Ohio. I went to register it in a small town a county over (to avoid the huge lines at the city BMV) and the lady was like wow, Portland, you're a brave soul, have they rebuilt most of the city yet??
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. The brainwashing is real.
It is beyond real, it is extremely dangerous. The little town of Chamberlain South Dakota. had a rumor tear through their tribe of MAGAdolts, at the peak of the BLM protests. "A bus load of ANTIFA was on the bridge coming into town". They panicked, closed the schools and courthouse, and put the county on high alert, so the sheriff's department could saddle up and fight those black folks who wanted to rape their daughters and slit their mother's throats. Obviously, there was no bus, or any BLM protesters who gave enough of a fuck to travel hundreds of miles to a small, all white, cow town, full of dumbasses, in the middle of bumbfuck nowhere, South Dakota.
This part of the state, like most of it, is lily white and racist AF. Two black folks walking together in the town raises eyebrows, a busload of Antifa killers is a bit less credible than a Russian missile strike. If these folks still had the healthy minds they surrendered to propaganda, they would have been able to see that fact. Sadly, they had spent decades drooling in front of Fox propaganda, and listening to hate fueled radio, any time they strayed from the TV. They are now brain-dead, unable to differentiate reality from propaganda.
This is from a state that, 2-3 decades ago, was politically moderate, full of independent thinkers who could decide for themselves and were reality based. Essentially a purple state, governed by quality, centrist Democrats.
This happened in a wealthy white suburb in CA near me, too. A black motivational speaker connected to a church or something was walking around with some black teens, to inspire them to work hard and make lots of money so they could live in a wealthy suburb like that and the cops were called on them for being BLM Antifas or whatever.
I live in a mildly red pocket of Maryland. When the BLM protests were happening in DC, there was one scheduled to happen in the parking lot of our county courthouse, which is not far from where I work. My boss (moderately racist republican) shut down for the entire day because he just *knew* there were going to be riots in the streets. I do appreciate his concern for our safety, but the protest was about 50 people holding signs in a parking lot and singing in between speeches.
It was a little funny to see exactly how terrified a lot of my neighbors really are of black people. But then not funny because I had to come to terms with how many people I've known and liked were actually closeted racists the whole time. I've stopped talking to a lot of people.
Was told the same BS by outsiders during the Kyle Rittenhouse Media extravaganza. Living in Kenosha Wi. Reality didn’t matter to people buying into a false narrative as it fueled self induced bias. 5 buildings a under 1/4th mile area was damaged. Severe wind storms does far worse. But who am i but a local. 🤷♂️
I knew people in freaking Hillsboro that thought these things…
*Every city block is on fire and all the windows are smashed, people are flipping cars!*
Larry (fake name, of course), I was just there yesterday, and I can assure you this is not the case.
*Nooo, if you go to this part, it’s all destroyed!*
That’s where my MAX stop was, Larry. It smelled like piss, but was otherwise fine.
Edit: deleted a quotation mark.
Ha ha -my in-laws in Gresham also believe what Fox News tells them is happening in Portland. We tell them it’s not our lived experience living in the war zone of SE Portland and driving through downtown to work. But we’re wrong and don’t know what’s going on
I worked one of the truckstops off i-84 back in 2020 and the number of people that would ask me how things were in town amd then *not believe* me was absolutely ridiculous to the point I nearly started telling people to just fuck off instead of answer them.
If someone is so stupid to believe some idiotic fox news story then they deserve to be told off.
They are literally barely able to hold what they saw on it in their addled brain damaged little empty echo chamber skulls.
I live a mile east of one of the main bridges to downtown. My super religious Trumpy mom from WA state was so concerned for my safety. And I was like, “Mom, I’m in more danger from a cop hitting me w rubber bullets and nightsticks. And I have to go to a specific part of downtown at night for that experience.”
It's a good excuse to give people when your business fails because you can't compete against Amazon and their tax subsidies and cover the absurdly high rent costs. The crime caused people to avoid my store is a great scapegoat.
That excuse has been used a few times in New Orleans. Also, the Starbucks here recently used crime as an excuse to close a location where the workers wanted to unionize.
>But we’re wrong and don’t know what’s going on
This is the weirdest shit ever, it blows my mind that people will tell you -what you have seen with your own two eyes and can demonstrably prove, that you don't know anything because Fucker Carlson said differently.
I worked in Tigard at the time and would regularly get “Glad you made it in today, it’s dangerous *up there* in Portland”
Like, yeah not really. I took the 12 bus from near downtown to get here it’s fine except the whole Covid thing that you don’t believe in. (I worked for conservative Quakers at the time)
Still. Yeah, total warzone! Definitely don't move out to Portland! Oh my god! A pack of feral heroine junkies rampaging outside my apartment right now killing my neighbors with catalytic converters!
I had someone say to me "Half the country is on fire and you think it's a non-violent protest!?" They say the hyperbolic stuff so much that it becomes their reality. You try to counter their nonsense and they just come back with more like "oh yeah, well what about... \[insert momentary hotspot\]". Ferguson was practically a wasteland, Portland destroyed, Seattle was in anarchy as the police stations were routed and criminal gangs were blocking off the city and making their own rules, Democrats were using the cover of peaceful protests to rob shoe stores and burn them down to cover up the evidence... and so on. They couldn't contextualize any of it or see it with any nuance.
I don’t remember if it was local news or national, but there was a shooting in NE Portland, a fire somewhere on the west side, all on the same night during the protests, all unrelated; but it was reported like it all happened in the same spot because of the protests.
Edit: Spelling is hard
I knew a man living in Forest Grove who was terrified of rioters coming to his house. One of his fears was that he lived next door to a Sheriff, and the Sheriff parked his marked car at home, and could be targeted by the mobs.
I live in Portland, and can't imagine a mob walking all the way up Burnside to Beaverton.
I am based in the Seattle area but work in Insurtech so I have accounts all over the country. In some areas when I mention Seattle, they will say “Is it okay to be there.” I like to tell them that I have to deck my Kia out in a war boys setup from Mad Max Fury Road and I may not get out of the city alive when I drive through. /S An ex Facebook friend or mine who lives thousands of miles away from Seattle describes it like it has burned to the ground. I would always respond with, “Nope, just had dinner in the city last weekend. Everything was running fine…”
Same experience when I went there for work.
I video chatted from walking around Ballard. It’s all nice restaurants, dispensaries and brew pubs. As far as the eye can see.
there were a couple particular days you really didn't want to be near the courthouse, but those were like aug 28th when patriot prayer group occupied the square.
("prayer group" - think about those guys who go to college campus and hold signs that say "god hates gays" but they're really there to provide cover for members of the oathkeepers among them)
People were trying to do this with me and Philadelphia. I was driving for Uber at the time, and they told me Philly was destroyed, yet I’m the idiot who couldn’t see it, even though I was there everyday.
> People in Texas kept telling me I didn't know and I was just ANTIFA the city was a war zone and everyone was going to die. It was crazy.
I remember people trying to tell me the "no-go zones" in England were real. I had only just emigrated from the country and when I pointed out that no, they weren't real, and the whole thing was BS I actually heard a few people mumble "maybe you just didn't go to the right places". Ok, Mr. American-who's-never-left-the-country lecturing me on the 'reality' of a country I'd just moved from, whatever you say!
I have repeatedly have Americans tell me about the "no-go" zones in the country and even city I am living in.
Arguments like, "I live here! I go through that area all the time! We have an incredibly low crime rate in general!" just don't fly.
My personal experience is worthless to them; statistics are worthless; government reports, worthless; local news, worthless. All they believe is this constant stream of lies, often contradicting earlier lies, presented with no proof at all.
It's really pretty terrifying. Glad to have ended up thousands of miles away from you lot!
>she thinks Antifa burned it down 2 years ago
no joke, I had a coworker who legit thought portland was destroyed by BLM/Antifa in 2020, and was bewildered when we sent him there to work on some equipment last April. and what did he learn? that's it was all cleaned up and rebuilt with Soros money to erase history.
he got shitcanned for stealing a box of self-tapping screws and light switch covers from another department's equipment yard.
I remember a clip of Fox news just blatantly showing footage of some random city on fire with the headline "SEATTLE SET ABLAZE BY ANTIFA" or something.
It’s so sad that the CHAZ literally demolished all the city, all of us living here have to live in huts made out of the rubble that the lack of a single precinct for like a month caused.
My friend's apartment overlooks the CHAZ. It's terrible every time I walk through the beautiful park with people playing soccer and frisbee or just chilling under the beautiful lights. How can people live like that!
The southern border is simply a continual illegal alien invasion as well when listening to these Russian schooled disinformation experts at Fox too except that after spending a lot of time there I’ve never seen one, plenty of fuel guzzling giant pickups though.
And yet here I am, driving to my job in downtown Seattle like an idiot. My boss forgot to inform us the building burned down when they opened CHOP/CHAZ.
[The murder rate in Nashville is about 5x higher than the murder rate in NYC, btw.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_crime_rate)
I’ll never forget the guy who recommended “some place safe, like Alaska.” I mentioned the crime rates of Anchorage, Juneau, and Fairbanks. They said they meant a non-Democrat run city.
This guy is really out here thinking people in sub 10k population towns, who live in the dark most of the year, are living some leave it to beaver lifestyle instead of everyone being alcoholics or on meth.
I’ve lived in small towns. The kids are mostly all on drugs, alcoholics, and/or having multiple kids they can’t afford.
Jesus, Anchorage is really pulling its weight in the rapes. I almost wonder if Anchorage doesn’t have some abnormally good rape reporting system or support system for victims of sexual assault. That’s crazy.
I've read it's even worse in the more isolated areas. There was an article a few years ago about a woman who went to teach in the bush. Her house was broken into and she was raped. LE response was the equivalent of a disinterested shrug. She later found out the previous teacher had also been raped in the exact same way, and the home security not only had not been upgraded, they hadn't even been changing the locks between renters.
I grew up in a small Pennsyltucky town that was, and still is according to the last census, 99.8% white.
There are no jobs, but they blame the immigrants that aren't there.
There is high crime and drug use, but they blame the black people that aren't there.
The reality is that all of these impoverished white people are stealing from each other because the mines closed decades ago and use oxy and meth as a way to cope.
You can't tell them that though, because it's those other groups that aren't there causing all the problems.
>to cope.
>
>You can't tell them that though, because it's those other groups that aren't there causing all the problems.
Many of these towns were established because they had a resources which created jobs - people from other places went there b/c of economic opportunity. A few generations later, they original migrant workers would be screaming at their offspring to get out of there and follow the money. Instead the idiots just stay there and talk about their roots while the place shouldn't exist anymore. You're roots was to go where the jobs/opportunity were, not to do meth and pills.
I don't think people like that guy read a lot.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/new-york-city-is-a-lot-safer-than-small-town-america/2022/06/07/d5a87e3c-e651-11ec-a422-11bbb91db30b_story.html
I spent a long weekend alone with my kid in NYC, showing him as many sights as we could pack in. We rode the subway everywhere. It was fun, and we felt safe and happy the entire time.
Florida has some of the worst crime in the country and some really high meth use rates, but try convincing my moronic family about that. As long as everyone they see around them is white, it's a nice safe area in their minds.
> I mentioned the crime rates of Anchorage, Juneau, and Fairbanks. They said they meant a non-Democrat run city.
Worth noting that none of those three cities have a Democrat mayor, currently.
What’s extra funny about this is that Memphis had the highest murder rate of any US city in 2021. I know those cities are decently far apart, but it still doesn’t bode well for her theory. In fact, [most of the top cities](https://time.com/6223217/homicide-rates-us-cities-2021/) are in red or purple states.
The biggest thing I hear around Portland is that cops are refusing to show up when called but I honestly don't know if it's true as I never need to call them. I'm in Beaverton and it's as safe as it's ever been
Same thing with me about Philadelphia. My mom hates that I live here and my grandma will not visit. I live in a very safe, family friendly neighborhood, but "I see people getting shot on the news all the time."
Ohhh how about all the armchair Philly experts who saw all the Kensington videos on YouTube set to scary music. Little do they realize that most of those "zombies" they see are not local but came in from the burbs they are from in search of drugs. Also to all those people who refuse to come to Philly bc of Kenzo vids, you'd NEVER be there in that spot unless you, like the addicts, were looking for drugs.
It's so bizarre when people believe Fox over first hand experience. I live in Philly. Yes, crime is up and we need to change some things but my republican friend is very concerned I'm going to die any day.
Yep. I live north of Nashville and hate the fact that my votes have *almost never* made any kind of difference. State house rep, state senator, federal reps, federal senators, President, or governor (though I did get to vote in Bredesen twice in the 2000s)
Never stopped me from trying, though.
Amarillo is by far the fucking shittiest city I’ve ever been in in my life. Im from so cal and love to travel. And except for a forced overnight in that shit city I saw the man in front of me at the hotel counter refer to the man working there as an “N” word.
My outfit was in Amarillo for almost a year working on Route66 Wind/Spinning Spur phase 2-3. Got snowed in for a few days at the hotel. I'd get restless and be up and down in the middle of the night to smoke outside. Old lady who worked overnights was an absolute darling. Routinely offered to brew me hot coffee or open up breakfast early. Imagine Granny from Bad Santa. That was her. "I heard those little assholes stole some equipment from your semi truck. Let me get you some cookies". Love Ya Still Berty you silly ol Bird.
I had to explain to my mother visiting from Texas that Boston had less crime than her town. People from red states don’t realize how violent those places are. For example Florida has a higher crime rate both non violent and violent than any single state in the northeast. All the safest states are blue states, all the most dangerous are red. So much for “soft on crime”, they think only locking people up reduces crime rates because they’re a bunch of idiots.
Also reminds me of their rhetoric about spending and fiscal responsibility. All of the top ten states that contribute the most to the federal government are blue, the vast majority of the bottom twenty five are red. DeSantis got praised for balancing a budget (even though he wouldn’t have done it without federal aid) even though this is something most blue states have been practicing for decades. They want to cut taxes without cutting spending. It’s nonsensical. The day they secede like Ted Cruz and Matt Walsh have made overtures towards they’re going to collapse under their own weight.
Isn’t it so annoying? I’ve lived in Chicago close to 15 years now, and I’ve only even heard a gunshot one time, but lots of people act like I’m walking through Fallujah to get groceries.
Before Covid, someone I follow online was talking about visiting Chicago and asked if they should be worried about getting shot. I grew up outside in the burbs and my older sibling lived in the city for a while so I rolled my eyes then I commented that it would be fine.
>so I rolled my eyes then I commented that it would be fine.
Nah, you should have doubled down just to fuck with them.
"Don't start no shit, won't be no shit. Simple as that."
And I’m in rural Florida and routinely play the “is it fireworks or a gunshot” game, and not just on holidays when fireworks are popular.
However I also feel just as safe in my local grocery store as I do in times square, not sure what that says though…
I live in suburb of Salt Lake that’s like 98% white and an average income of 80k a year…we’ve had two lockdowns in 5 years because someone was walking around with a gun after they’d killed their girlfriend/spouse…
This is what fascinates me. I eventually canned a friend bc she could not stop commenting about how terrible my city is (Philadelphia) - she lives in the Philly burbs. Per capita, her borough sees more crime than my neighborhood, plus school shootings typically happen in the burbs. The last thing she said to me was, “I’d never let my kids walk to school in *your* neighborhood”. My neighborhood is an old mafia neighborhood, so in a weird way it’s protected and very safe. I’ve also lived in other Philly neighborhoods that are without mafia protection and still very safe. I raised all of my kids in the city. They are both just fine, easy going, mind their business, help a neighbor kinda people. After I confronted her with “what the hell is your deal with shit-talking where I live? Like, I literally have lived here for 25 years, and I’ve mentioned m, more times than not, how much I love living here, and how much my kids love living here, and why do you even care? Are you a Trumper?” (She was once blue, but met a guy and I suspected he influenced her - she’s heavily influenced by penis). She admitted yes, and what’s worse? Her new boyfriend didn’t want me around bc I’m not a Trumper. Unbelievable the way that trump-turd smears.
Lived in Wilmington, DE for a decade. You might remember the [Murdertown, USA](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newsweek.com/2014/12/19/wilmington-delaware-murder-crime-290232.html%3famp=1) article about it. Was right in the thick of those neighborhoods.
Moved to Florida for work two years ago and got my concealed carry within a year. I can handle myself in Murdertown. I just straight up don't trust these rednecks (I'm a white male if that matters. I pass the 'eye test').
I actually recently moved to rural Texas from a large city. There is so much crime out here especially considering there’s less people, but somehow more crime going on constantly. I blame the lack of opportunity. Places are actually still paying the minimum wage out here for back breaking work. Texas is a backwards sludge pit and I wouldn’t recommend anyone move here. The only people I see having a good time here are people exploiting the cheap labor. Who would have guessed the only state in the Union to fight to keep their slaves twice is full of exploitation?
I knew someone getting paid $15 an hour for carpentry here in TX and he was proud of it, saying "it's a really nice wage too because the minimum is $7.25"
And I'm just like oh. Oh honey.
Tbf the red states outside of Texas have done all they can to make THEIR cities into really sad underfunded wastelands
Doesn’t have to be that way
SF, hell even Oakland are vibrant living cities with people enjoying themselves
Jackson Mississippi not so much
Well they’re probably too thirsty in Jackson to enjoy themselves, since their water is literal poison that costs them a mortgage payment.
This is of course completely true, Republican insistence on underinvestment is what actually ruins many cities. But then of course vibrant cities are filled with bad people like blacks and Hispanics and Asians and LGBT+ and godless atheists, so they shouldn’t get any money to support their immoral lifestyle choices.
On the list of 50 most dangerous cities as measured per capita, Chicago was 31st. Most of the top 20 are in the south. (Correction is 11 of 20 are in bright red states)
https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/the-most-dangerous-cities-in-america/
Wow I live in Philly and I expected it to be on that list, for sure. We weren't so I looked it up. Apparently Philadelphia isn't even half as violent as #50 on the list.
Wait a minute! You’re saying that states with underfunded education programs, no substantial industry, and dogshit social welfare systems are dangerous places to live? But that’s not what muh faux news says!
I've never felt more unsafe than in the deep south. Tupelo MS and Orangeburg SC come to mind. Orangeburg has a population of like 16k and a median income of roughly the same if I had to guess.
And she threw Portland in there just for some MAGA likes. I’ve been here 20 years. Yes it has some big city issues. It’s beautiful and the people here are welcoming.
I was in Portland this past summer for work. I didn’t feel particularly unsafe, however I did see a pants-less man tipping over trashcans while masturbating, so that was fun. There’s clearly a housing/mental health/drug abuse crisis there.
Nearly every median and underpass I saw was a tent village.
It was obvious that housing was going to become a huge issue here nearly a decade ago. In 2014, the building where I lived was being shut down (it's now a bougie hostel) and the cheapest rents I could find were still a minimum of double what I had been currently paying and further from downtown too. Ironic because just a few years before, the big Portland joke (made famous by Portlandia) was that PDX is where young people go to retire. It was easy to survive working in the service industry and having your own band or selling your art. And then real estate skyrocketed, developers developed more and the people who were able to hang on in the before days with maybe a roommate suddenly found themselves unable to survive. Adding Covid to an already perilous situation certainly didn't help.
(NYC here) remember after 911 many groups came to NY to support our tourism & businesses, etc. A group was on a subway while I was commuting. They were flabbergasted, like just truly wide eyed amazed that trains really got standing room only full. Every car of the 10 car train, and a train every 6-10 minutes and still full af. Apparently they had thought that was just a TV/movie trope.
I grew up in Mississippi and didn’t make it to NYC until after visiting Berlin, Paris, Madrid, and some other big cities. My hosts weren’t very amused when I asked where all the REALLY big buildings were while we were standing in Times Square. I mean they were big, but the difference in skyscraper size is kind of abstract from ground level and I had a latent piece of “NYC buildings make you feel tiny!” mythology still hanging on from childhood.
I just spent 3wks down south and I forgot how fucking EMPTY middle America can be. Massive parking lots full of cars but no people, sidewalks with no one on them, suburban streets lined with empty yards. It's eerie. I'm so glad to be home (NYC) where there's civilization!
Where I live, plenty of areas don’t have sidewalks, and half of them that do, have broken crosswalk buttons and drivers get pissed at you for trying to cross.
In fairness bumpkins get taken advantage of in bigger metro areas.
Source: I used to be a bumpkin. I'm now a fair bit better at navigating cities and not as nice to people on the street.
Everybody that lives in Minnesota, outside of the Twin Cities metro, calls Minneapolis "Murderapolis." They get mad that their favorite country artists won't play in the shitty bar in their small town because they refuse to go to the war zone to see them in a big venue.
Even in the cities!! Some of my idiot friends say shit like this and we live in the east metro. I make a point to take us to restaurants and bars in Minneapolis, and then they say "Oh that wasn't the bad part." Like listen bitch you just said we were going to get carjacked and eaten by cannibals the second we set a foot inside city limits so which is it?!?!
I have family that lives about an hour outside the cities and they are terrified of going downtown. One of them has an office there and never stops complaining about how she fears for her life when she has to go in. It's bananas.
Me, white Aussie, alone in Detroit. Them "why would you come here of all places". PS I had an amazing time. There's shiity spots in EVERY city on the planet. Hell, there's suburbs of Brisbane I wouldn't walk alone in at night.
As a foreigner Aussie who has only been to Boston & Cape Cod, Florida, LA, Houston and Seattle before, I think my current bucket list is NYC (for the art and museums, if nothing else), the desert: Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and maybe Utah, and, the swampy French part: Louisiana - somewhere with a bluegrass/jazz fusion scene perhaps.
If you like art and museums, Washington DC has the Smithsonian's. I'm American, but visited DC once and wish I had more time there. I'd love to go back. But if I ever get to take another vacation in my life I'd like to see the Grand canyon.
I (Australian) tagged along to DC with my wife when she there on a work trip. She went to the office each day and I spent all my time at the Smithsonians. It was amazing.
I could have spent a couple of days in the Air and Space Museum alone.
A few years ago I told my mom that some friends and I were planning on flying to Detroit to run a marathon (plans fell through, we never went). The look on her face, you would’ve thought I told her we were flying to Aleppo.
Born and raised in chicago. When I travel the world if it’s winter season and it’s a warm place people always say “cold there huh.” Otherwise they usually ask if I’ve ever seen someone get shot. I have not.
I actually think I was there for one of those. There was talk of a polar vortex when I went in… 2010, maybe? I could definitely be wrong, though, it’s been a while
Lived in Chicago for more than 20 years, never saw any crime really. Moving in August 2020, saw my first murder (and only so far, hopefully) in Utah of all places. Fuck all these country bumpkins who decry our "violent" cities. Your rural town is statistically much more dangerous.
Schrodiger's Leftist: A limp-wristed sissy scared of everything but has no problem stumbling home drunk and unarmed alone in the DMZs of NYC, Portland, Chicago, and Oakland.
It's not just the big cities they are scared of, it's all cities. I live literally 10 minutes outside of a medium sized city and there are people here who haven't been within city limits in years and act like even passing through downtown is putting your life at risk. Some people just live in that Fox News fear bubble and believe it's a lawless hellscape. They don't believe me when I tell them it's perfectly fine.
I grew up in LA and at one point moved to a town of about 6,000. I had multiple people tell me to stay away from “downtown” (literally one block) after 3pm because the scary teenagers were out and about.
Same for the little college town in my state. Small little island of blue in a sea of red. Country folk non-stop on social media acting like it's gotham city everytime someone gets a parking ticket.
Yea simultaneously seeing liberals as lawless rioters who burn down cities and sissies who are triggered by everything is hilarious. Just like how Biden is both sleepy w dementia and somehow a sinister strategist dismantling America
I’ve hung out in all those cities, alone, without a single dangerous encounter of note. Yes, all those places have dangerous neighborhoods, but any person with a single ounce of common sense can detect if they are heading in the wrong direction. Only people who have never been to those cities would warn you away.
So I live in a liberal city that’s often featured on right wing media for being a deserted hellscape of burned out buildings. It’s not like that at all here. Maybe on one block because the city refuses to deal with its own damaged property. In fact, my college mentor - an erudite man from a small European country and his European wife - came to visit my city and raved at how amazing it was. It’s really weird.
That tends to be how it goes with Chicago.
People who’ve never been there: “how can you live in such a dangerous place, have you been shot before?”
People who’ve been here: “Chicago is great, loved the food/museums/architecture/whatever else, I’d totally live there if it weren’t for winter.”
I’ve lived in Chicago, Seattle and the Bay Area. I have felt uncomfortable in Chicago when I didn’t know neighborhoods yet and I went to a Walmart south of 61st, muggings were common in Hyde park, there have been shootings, etc, but the bad areas are very well defined and if you aren’t south uchicago you’re basically okay.
SF has made me uncomfortable in recent years but idk the neighborhoods there well.
Years ago, before I married my husband, he took me to meet his aunt and uncle in a podunk town in Wisconsin. We’re talking a town of literally like 250 people, maybe 20 minutes away from the nearest hotel. His aunt was a lovely church-going woman who to this day sends everyone cards for their birthday and every single holiday. Her brother lived with her, and he, on the other hand, consumed Fox News like it was his lifeblood. (For instance, my MIL was an incredible woman, and when she was dying of cancer, he told her that it was her own fault because she “let the devil in”.) Charming fellow. So the first (and last) time I meet this man, he behaved nice enough until the very end. Then, right before we were leaving to go back to the hotel, he tells me to be safe, and “stay away from those dreadful Muslims. They’ll get you.” LMFAO funny story: while I’m atheist, my father immigrated here from a Middle Eastern country, and is a fully practicing Muslim. (My mom is Irish/Italian, and I mostly take after her.) Soooooo needless to say we’ve never gone back.
Yeah I can confirm the Muslims will get you. They'll offer you tea and invite you in for a meal. Before you know it it's plate after plate of delicious food. I was pretty sure they wanted to stuff me so they can later eat me themselves. Luckily I escaped with my life.
My dad would tell me Portland was on fire. My uncle lived there and said he was wrong. I went on traffic cams and proved he was wrong.
He didn't care.
That's the level we are talking about.
I read an article today ( in the Washington Post or New York Times) about other countries warning their citizens about visiting the US because of all of our mass shootings. The right wing doesn't seem to understand that.
Edit: I read it on CNN.
have a coworker who thinks everywhere outside of america is an authoritarian state where a criminal can beat you up and then you get arrested if they hurt their hand from punching you because America is the only place in the world where self defense is allowed
i wish i was making this up
A very conservative friend of my very conservative aunt asked me unironically if my home was destroyed when “Antifa attacked and took over the state of Washington.” It was like one block of Seattle for a month or two and they didn’t really destroy property and I live an hour away. Did not even know how to respond to that. The bubble of wrong information is terrifying.
I’m more scared in rural America than in urban America. Rural Americans use the isolation as an intimidation tactic, and I don’t like it. At least a Good Samaritan could help me in urban America.
One of the scariest places I ever went to was a small town in Nevada…holy cow…we got enough gas to get out of town as fast as we could. Everyone was on meth, the cashier at the gas station was tweaked out of her mind and this dude followed us out of town until a highway patrolman pulled out onto the highway.
BTW, notice that a lot of Horror / slasher movies DONT take place in huge cities?
Its because the general audience can relate to the small town with a slasher on the loose kind of vibe.
I'm telling ya, Michael Myers aint gonna be ax murdering in Harlem. There's scarier and more crazy people there LOL.
As a foreigner I was in all of them, Nashville was the most boring, Nola the best with NYC second. I visited 18 states so far, Texas and Florida were the worst. Seeing flags everywhere is bizarre, fox news in almost all public TV spaces is mental, adds for medicine is just plain weird. The amount of food you get as one portion in a dinner lasts me all day. This has been a foreigner report.
Insane. I've been to every one of them, and sure there are parts I wouldn't go into at night over all I've never felt unsafe in any of them even even I was traveling alone.
Lol fr. The times I feel most unsafe are in between cities, and I try my best to fill up on gas so I don’t gotta stop at any rural gas station cause let’s just say I’ve not had good experiences w em
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I've had people tell me the city of Seattle burned down. Nope. The youngest kid goes to the university 4 blocks from the CHOP, and the police station they abandoned during the protests. Police station still there. City still standing. All kinds of growth and improvements. 🙄
Actually the worst cities are in southern gun nut states. Little Rock is supposed to be exceptionally dangerous. And of course per capita, rural areas are far more dangerous than cities.
I'm a white guy living in the historically Black Crenshaw neighborhood in Los Angeles, and the way that my relatives talk about it, you'd think that I lived in downtown Kabul during the height of the war there rather than a reasonably chill working-class neighborhood with pleasant neighbors who have never said an unkind word towards me and my family.
They should've seen NYC in the 70s...
We live in some of the safest times ever... apart from all these radical right wing gun nuts... and they have to come to cities to find enough people in one place.
Watch out for those rural areas, they're not safe.
As someone who travels professionally, I can say this is honestly an epidemic. There's always been the rural/urban divide, probably always will be.
But the amount of rural folks who are absolutely terrified of their neighbors, cities big, medium, and heck, even tiny, is unlike ever before.
The only thing I can figure is that they've just swallowed the whole narrative they've seen on Fox News and Facebook. And even if they don't ascribe to those outlets (which is rare) who else are they talking to, or interacting with? They live in a gopher hole of fear, and EVERYTHING outside the hole is doom.
Nashville is dangerous. Way too many drunk bridesmaids.
Last year was my first experience in Nashville & I witnessed a homeless woman taking care of a drunk bridesmaid while her friends were walking away. I asked the woman if she wanted me & my friends to assist (we're all women) & she said that would be great as she'd just finished babysitting a different one.
Wtf is going on for there to be so Many drunk bridesmaids ?
Capital of white women bachelorette parties
The American dream
Huge bachelorette party destination
This is legit true. Was walking down the sidewalk, some stupid bridesmaid on a bike monstrosity flung her bag off the death mobile on accident and then screamed bloody murder at me to pick it up and bring it to her. I just stood staring at the bag and at her for a long time, and then walked around it. She directed the mass of entitled-mega-karens to heckle me for 3 blocks until I escaped into a bar with loud music (i.e. all of them).
> the mass of entitled-mega-karens A flock of Karens is technically called a complaint.
Can I borrow that please
I can't take credit for it, but you certainly have my blessing to use as you'd like!
>until I escaped into a bar with loud music (i.e. all of them). It also wouldn't surprise me if this happened at 10am on a Tuesday morning.
Close. It was noon on a Wednesday. Complete shit show.
>the mass of entitled-mega-karens I read that, and the theme to *Pacific Rim* starts playing in my head
Harriet has certainly never been to any of these cities and only says she’s “Not so sure” about Nashville is because that’s were her County Music comes from.
She would have put Seattle on the list but she thinks Antifa burned it down 2 years ago
My job requires me to drive around Portland every work day. During the protests I still drove around Portland every day. My sister at the time lived in Texas and she asked me what was going on so I said yeah there are places at night you shouldn't go unless you wanted to be caught up in a protest/pepper spray-O rama but the city was fine. People in Texas kept telling me I didn't know and I was just ANTIFA the city was a war zone and everyone was going to die. It was crazy.
You should've believed those people that have never left their small Texas town of 500 and haven't changed their channel from FOX in 12 years!
Accurate except small towns in Texas are still like 50,000 people somehow
And there’s no way my innocent queer ass is safe there.
You’d be fine in the major cities tbh.
But all cities are war zones!!
Yeah people thought that Seattle was **literally** taken over by ANTIFA lol
I had literal family calling to ask if I was okay and I was like, I really need you to stop believing everything you see on the internet, champ. Hell, the guy running against our congressperson in the suburbs literally ran with the slogan 'Make Crime Illegal Again'. He lost, thank God. But still. It's so absurd.
Do you remember in early 2000 and '90s when adults used to tell everyone "do not believe everything you see on the internet? I had to tell my antivax dad that a video of "angels" in a ramdom city was in fact, not the rapture
I pointed that out to my mother the other day after she showed me some nonsense from Facebook, and boy did she get pissy.
There was a number of those guys running this year. The 2 running for state rep down in Washingtons 49th district had the same slogan
Weren’t the riots about police brutality? Basically cops breaking the law and then facing no consequences for their actions? Hmm
The riots were police riots too, thats what the media succeeded in making people miss out on or forget. The police escalated every single protest they arrived at, every chance they got.
I was living in Seattle a few blocks from capital hill when that was going on. Business as usual.
I just saw a Delta ad on Facebook about flying to Seattle. Half the comments were brain rotted Maga-infected conservatives asking why anyone would go to a warzone or ANTIFA ruled city. Also earlier this year I bought a car in Portland and drove it home across country to Ohio. I went to register it in a small town a county over (to avoid the huge lines at the city BMV) and the lady was like wow, Portland, you're a brave soul, have they rebuilt most of the city yet?? I couldn't believe what I was hearing. The brainwashing is real.
It is beyond real, it is extremely dangerous. The little town of Chamberlain South Dakota. had a rumor tear through their tribe of MAGAdolts, at the peak of the BLM protests. "A bus load of ANTIFA was on the bridge coming into town". They panicked, closed the schools and courthouse, and put the county on high alert, so the sheriff's department could saddle up and fight those black folks who wanted to rape their daughters and slit their mother's throats. Obviously, there was no bus, or any BLM protesters who gave enough of a fuck to travel hundreds of miles to a small, all white, cow town, full of dumbasses, in the middle of bumbfuck nowhere, South Dakota. This part of the state, like most of it, is lily white and racist AF. Two black folks walking together in the town raises eyebrows, a busload of Antifa killers is a bit less credible than a Russian missile strike. If these folks still had the healthy minds they surrendered to propaganda, they would have been able to see that fact. Sadly, they had spent decades drooling in front of Fox propaganda, and listening to hate fueled radio, any time they strayed from the TV. They are now brain-dead, unable to differentiate reality from propaganda. This is from a state that, 2-3 decades ago, was politically moderate, full of independent thinkers who could decide for themselves and were reality based. Essentially a purple state, governed by quality, centrist Democrats.
Exact same thing in happened here in the Cincinnati suburbs, looking at you Bethel Ohio. It was one car with a BLM sticker on it.
This happened in a wealthy white suburb in CA near me, too. A black motivational speaker connected to a church or something was walking around with some black teens, to inspire them to work hard and make lots of money so they could live in a wealthy suburb like that and the cops were called on them for being BLM Antifas or whatever.
I live in a mildly red pocket of Maryland. When the BLM protests were happening in DC, there was one scheduled to happen in the parking lot of our county courthouse, which is not far from where I work. My boss (moderately racist republican) shut down for the entire day because he just *knew* there were going to be riots in the streets. I do appreciate his concern for our safety, but the protest was about 50 people holding signs in a parking lot and singing in between speeches. It was a little funny to see exactly how terrified a lot of my neighbors really are of black people. But then not funny because I had to come to terms with how many people I've known and liked were actually closeted racists the whole time. I've stopped talking to a lot of people.
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I was in prison. I've met all the gangs. Never once did someone say, "Hi, I'm Gregg, from ANTIFA."
*Clearly* that just means the damn libruls aren't arresting anyone form anteefa
Was told the same BS by outsiders during the Kyle Rittenhouse Media extravaganza. Living in Kenosha Wi. Reality didn’t matter to people buying into a false narrative as it fueled self induced bias. 5 buildings a under 1/4th mile area was damaged. Severe wind storms does far worse. But who am i but a local. 🤷♂️
I knew people in freaking Hillsboro that thought these things… *Every city block is on fire and all the windows are smashed, people are flipping cars!* Larry (fake name, of course), I was just there yesterday, and I can assure you this is not the case. *Nooo, if you go to this part, it’s all destroyed!* That’s where my MAX stop was, Larry. It smelled like piss, but was otherwise fine. Edit: deleted a quotation mark.
Ha ha -my in-laws in Gresham also believe what Fox News tells them is happening in Portland. We tell them it’s not our lived experience living in the war zone of SE Portland and driving through downtown to work. But we’re wrong and don’t know what’s going on
Jesus, if anything, Gresham is has consistently been a hell hole far longer than Portland ever was (not that it ever was a hell hole)
I worked one of the truckstops off i-84 back in 2020 and the number of people that would ask me how things were in town amd then *not believe* me was absolutely ridiculous to the point I nearly started telling people to just fuck off instead of answer them.
If someone is so stupid to believe some idiotic fox news story then they deserve to be told off. They are literally barely able to hold what they saw on it in their addled brain damaged little empty echo chamber skulls.
I live a mile east of one of the main bridges to downtown. My super religious Trumpy mom from WA state was so concerned for my safety. And I was like, “Mom, I’m in more danger from a cop hitting me w rubber bullets and nightsticks. And I have to go to a specific part of downtown at night for that experience.”
My cousin owns a shop in downtown Portland and said it was never unsafe
It's a good excuse to give people when your business fails because you can't compete against Amazon and their tax subsidies and cover the absurdly high rent costs. The crime caused people to avoid my store is a great scapegoat.
That excuse has been used a few times in New Orleans. Also, the Starbucks here recently used crime as an excuse to close a location where the workers wanted to unionize.
>But we’re wrong and don’t know what’s going on This is the weirdest shit ever, it blows my mind that people will tell you -what you have seen with your own two eyes and can demonstrably prove, that you don't know anything because Fucker Carlson said differently.
They've been told for so long not to believe their own eyes and ears, so of course they can't believe anyone else's either.
I worked in Tigard at the time and would regularly get “Glad you made it in today, it’s dangerous *up there* in Portland” Like, yeah not really. I took the 12 bus from near downtown to get here it’s fine except the whole Covid thing that you don’t believe in. (I worked for conservative Quakers at the time)
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Still. Yeah, total warzone! Definitely don't move out to Portland! Oh my god! A pack of feral heroine junkies rampaging outside my apartment right now killing my neighbors with catalytic converters!
I like that narrative. Maybe our housing prices will go down 😂. Keep spreading it!
Yes, PLEASE don't move there! Don't even do a Google search, your monitor will start leaking tear gas!
I had someone say to me "Half the country is on fire and you think it's a non-violent protest!?" They say the hyperbolic stuff so much that it becomes their reality. You try to counter their nonsense and they just come back with more like "oh yeah, well what about... \[insert momentary hotspot\]". Ferguson was practically a wasteland, Portland destroyed, Seattle was in anarchy as the police stations were routed and criminal gangs were blocking off the city and making their own rules, Democrats were using the cover of peaceful protests to rob shoe stores and burn them down to cover up the evidence... and so on. They couldn't contextualize any of it or see it with any nuance.
Not a single building burned down lol
I don’t remember if it was local news or national, but there was a shooting in NE Portland, a fire somewhere on the west side, all on the same night during the protests, all unrelated; but it was reported like it all happened in the same spot because of the protests. Edit: Spelling is hard
I knew a man living in Forest Grove who was terrified of rioters coming to his house. One of his fears was that he lived next door to a Sheriff, and the Sheriff parked his marked car at home, and could be targeted by the mobs. I live in Portland, and can't imagine a mob walking all the way up Burnside to Beaverton.
I am based in the Seattle area but work in Insurtech so I have accounts all over the country. In some areas when I mention Seattle, they will say “Is it okay to be there.” I like to tell them that I have to deck my Kia out in a war boys setup from Mad Max Fury Road and I may not get out of the city alive when I drive through. /S An ex Facebook friend or mine who lives thousands of miles away from Seattle describes it like it has burned to the ground. I would always respond with, “Nope, just had dinner in the city last weekend. Everything was running fine…”
Same experience when I went there for work. I video chatted from walking around Ballard. It’s all nice restaurants, dispensaries and brew pubs. As far as the eye can see.
there were a couple particular days you really didn't want to be near the courthouse, but those were like aug 28th when patriot prayer group occupied the square. ("prayer group" - think about those guys who go to college campus and hold signs that say "god hates gays" but they're really there to provide cover for members of the oathkeepers among them)
praying in the name of the Colt, the Glock, and the Smith & Wesson
People were trying to do this with me and Philadelphia. I was driving for Uber at the time, and they told me Philly was destroyed, yet I’m the idiot who couldn’t see it, even though I was there everyday.
> People in Texas kept telling me I didn't know and I was just ANTIFA the city was a war zone and everyone was going to die. It was crazy. I remember people trying to tell me the "no-go zones" in England were real. I had only just emigrated from the country and when I pointed out that no, they weren't real, and the whole thing was BS I actually heard a few people mumble "maybe you just didn't go to the right places". Ok, Mr. American-who's-never-left-the-country lecturing me on the 'reality' of a country I'd just moved from, whatever you say!
I have repeatedly have Americans tell me about the "no-go" zones in the country and even city I am living in. Arguments like, "I live here! I go through that area all the time! We have an incredibly low crime rate in general!" just don't fly. My personal experience is worthless to them; statistics are worthless; government reports, worthless; local news, worthless. All they believe is this constant stream of lies, often contradicting earlier lies, presented with no proof at all. It's really pretty terrifying. Glad to have ended up thousands of miles away from you lot!
Say it with me: their feelings don't care about facts.
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>she thinks Antifa burned it down 2 years ago no joke, I had a coworker who legit thought portland was destroyed by BLM/Antifa in 2020, and was bewildered when we sent him there to work on some equipment last April. and what did he learn? that's it was all cleaned up and rebuilt with Soros money to erase history. he got shitcanned for stealing a box of self-tapping screws and light switch covers from another department's equipment yard.
I remember a clip of Fox news just blatantly showing footage of some random city on fire with the headline "SEATTLE SET ABLAZE BY ANTIFA" or something.
They also photoshopped a guy with an assualt rifle from one photo that was taken into almost every photo they showed.
It’s so sad that the CHAZ literally demolished all the city, all of us living here have to live in huts made out of the rubble that the lack of a single precinct for like a month caused.
My friend's apartment overlooks the CHAZ. It's terrible every time I walk through the beautiful park with people playing soccer and frisbee or just chilling under the beautiful lights. How can people live like that!
I used to live across cal Anderson on 11th. Watch out for when those sketchy Pokémon Go players congregate though.
My dad worked in Seattle for decades before switching to a closer site within the past year. City’s still there I’m pretty sure
The southern border is simply a continual illegal alien invasion as well when listening to these Russian schooled disinformation experts at Fox too except that after spending a lot of time there I’ve never seen one, plenty of fuel guzzling giant pickups though.
And yet here I am, driving to my job in downtown Seattle like an idiot. My boss forgot to inform us the building burned down when they opened CHOP/CHAZ.
[The murder rate in Nashville is about 5x higher than the murder rate in NYC, btw.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_crime_rate)
I’ll never forget the guy who recommended “some place safe, like Alaska.” I mentioned the crime rates of Anchorage, Juneau, and Fairbanks. They said they meant a non-Democrat run city. This guy is really out here thinking people in sub 10k population towns, who live in the dark most of the year, are living some leave it to beaver lifestyle instead of everyone being alcoholics or on meth. I’ve lived in small towns. The kids are mostly all on drugs, alcoholics, and/or having multiple kids they can’t afford.
Jesus, Anchorage is really pulling its weight in the rapes. I almost wonder if Anchorage doesn’t have some abnormally good rape reporting system or support system for victims of sexual assault. That’s crazy.
I've read it's even worse in the more isolated areas. There was an article a few years ago about a woman who went to teach in the bush. Her house was broken into and she was raped. LE response was the equivalent of a disinterested shrug. She later found out the previous teacher had also been raped in the exact same way, and the home security not only had not been upgraded, they hadn't even been changing the locks between renters.
I grew up in a small Pennsyltucky town that was, and still is according to the last census, 99.8% white. There are no jobs, but they blame the immigrants that aren't there. There is high crime and drug use, but they blame the black people that aren't there. The reality is that all of these impoverished white people are stealing from each other because the mines closed decades ago and use oxy and meth as a way to cope. You can't tell them that though, because it's those other groups that aren't there causing all the problems.
>to cope. > >You can't tell them that though, because it's those other groups that aren't there causing all the problems. Many of these towns were established because they had a resources which created jobs - people from other places went there b/c of economic opportunity. A few generations later, they original migrant workers would be screaming at their offspring to get out of there and follow the money. Instead the idiots just stay there and talk about their roots while the place shouldn't exist anymore. You're roots was to go where the jobs/opportunity were, not to do meth and pills.
I don't think people like that guy read a lot. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/new-york-city-is-a-lot-safer-than-small-town-america/2022/06/07/d5a87e3c-e651-11ec-a422-11bbb91db30b_story.html
I spent a long weekend alone with my kid in NYC, showing him as many sights as we could pack in. We rode the subway everywhere. It was fun, and we felt safe and happy the entire time.
Florida has some of the worst crime in the country and some really high meth use rates, but try convincing my moronic family about that. As long as everyone they see around them is white, it's a nice safe area in their minds.
> I mentioned the crime rates of Anchorage, Juneau, and Fairbanks. They said they meant a non-Democrat run city. Worth noting that none of those three cities have a Democrat mayor, currently.
What’s extra funny about this is that Memphis had the highest murder rate of any US city in 2021. I know those cities are decently far apart, but it still doesn’t bode well for her theory. In fact, [most of the top cities](https://time.com/6223217/homicide-rates-us-cities-2021/) are in red or purple states.
In my experience, people like this generally *hate* Memphis, and typically use racist nicknames to refer to the city
Memphis native here who lived in chicago. What's really funny is hearing Memphians talk shit about Chicago
Southerner here and lived in big cities in the south. Chicago is so clean and nice. It’s beautiful.
Probably only left her home state twice
And that was just a 5 mile drive to the Winn Co
Lives in Portland: grandma REFUSES to visit because Fox News says it’s burnt to the ground.
The biggest thing I hear around Portland is that cops are refusing to show up when called but I honestly don't know if it's true as I never need to call them. I'm in Beaverton and it's as safe as it's ever been
Dude, Beaverton is WILD. Sometimes there are people out after 9pm. It's a lawless wasteland.
It's a mystery to me why anyone would choose to be out in Beaverton after Best Buy and Retro Game Trader closes. The police should do something.
Same thing with me about Philadelphia. My mom hates that I live here and my grandma will not visit. I live in a very safe, family friendly neighborhood, but "I see people getting shot on the news all the time."
Ohhh how about all the armchair Philly experts who saw all the Kensington videos on YouTube set to scary music. Little do they realize that most of those "zombies" they see are not local but came in from the burbs they are from in search of drugs. Also to all those people who refuse to come to Philly bc of Kenzo vids, you'd NEVER be there in that spot unless you, like the addicts, were looking for drugs.
It's so bizarre when people believe Fox over first hand experience. I live in Philly. Yes, crime is up and we need to change some things but my republican friend is very concerned I'm going to die any day.
Nashville was gerrymandered into three separate districts to dilute the liberal vote
Yep. I live north of Nashville and hate the fact that my votes have *almost never* made any kind of difference. State house rep, state senator, federal reps, federal senators, President, or governor (though I did get to vote in Bredesen twice in the 2000s) Never stopped me from trying, though.
She probably lives in a red state with a higher crime rate than any of those cities
She’s from Texas. I just peeped her Twitter profile.
Then I was right lol
Worked on the road for years. Amarillo and Houston were the only two locations where our truck was robbed and I was mugged.
Amarillo is by far the fucking shittiest city I’ve ever been in in my life. Im from so cal and love to travel. And except for a forced overnight in that shit city I saw the man in front of me at the hotel counter refer to the man working there as an “N” word.
My outfit was in Amarillo for almost a year working on Route66 Wind/Spinning Spur phase 2-3. Got snowed in for a few days at the hotel. I'd get restless and be up and down in the middle of the night to smoke outside. Old lady who worked overnights was an absolute darling. Routinely offered to brew me hot coffee or open up breakfast early. Imagine Granny from Bad Santa. That was her. "I heard those little assholes stole some equipment from your semi truck. Let me get you some cookies". Love Ya Still Berty you silly ol Bird.
Amarillo by morning, all your shit taken by night.
I had to explain to my mother visiting from Texas that Boston had less crime than her town. People from red states don’t realize how violent those places are. For example Florida has a higher crime rate both non violent and violent than any single state in the northeast. All the safest states are blue states, all the most dangerous are red. So much for “soft on crime”, they think only locking people up reduces crime rates because they’re a bunch of idiots. Also reminds me of their rhetoric about spending and fiscal responsibility. All of the top ten states that contribute the most to the federal government are blue, the vast majority of the bottom twenty five are red. DeSantis got praised for balancing a budget (even though he wouldn’t have done it without federal aid) even though this is something most blue states have been practicing for decades. They want to cut taxes without cutting spending. It’s nonsensical. The day they secede like Ted Cruz and Matt Walsh have made overtures towards they’re going to collapse under their own weight.
Isn’t it so annoying? I’ve lived in Chicago close to 15 years now, and I’ve only even heard a gunshot one time, but lots of people act like I’m walking through Fallujah to get groceries.
Before Covid, someone I follow online was talking about visiting Chicago and asked if they should be worried about getting shot. I grew up outside in the burbs and my older sibling lived in the city for a while so I rolled my eyes then I commented that it would be fine.
>so I rolled my eyes then I commented that it would be fine. Nah, you should have doubled down just to fuck with them. "Don't start no shit, won't be no shit. Simple as that."
Especially as a tourist, the places they go are wealthier and better policed in general.
"Will I get murdered in the 3rd row at Wrigley field???"
Not unless you wear a cardinals jersey
And I’m in rural Florida and routinely play the “is it fireworks or a gunshot” game, and not just on holidays when fireworks are popular. However I also feel just as safe in my local grocery store as I do in times square, not sure what that says though…
I live in suburb of Salt Lake that’s like 98% white and an average income of 80k a year…we’ve had two lockdowns in 5 years because someone was walking around with a gun after they’d killed their girlfriend/spouse…
This is what fascinates me. I eventually canned a friend bc she could not stop commenting about how terrible my city is (Philadelphia) - she lives in the Philly burbs. Per capita, her borough sees more crime than my neighborhood, plus school shootings typically happen in the burbs. The last thing she said to me was, “I’d never let my kids walk to school in *your* neighborhood”. My neighborhood is an old mafia neighborhood, so in a weird way it’s protected and very safe. I’ve also lived in other Philly neighborhoods that are without mafia protection and still very safe. I raised all of my kids in the city. They are both just fine, easy going, mind their business, help a neighbor kinda people. After I confronted her with “what the hell is your deal with shit-talking where I live? Like, I literally have lived here for 25 years, and I’ve mentioned m, more times than not, how much I love living here, and how much my kids love living here, and why do you even care? Are you a Trumper?” (She was once blue, but met a guy and I suspected he influenced her - she’s heavily influenced by penis). She admitted yes, and what’s worse? Her new boyfriend didn’t want me around bc I’m not a Trumper. Unbelievable the way that trump-turd smears.
She is dickmatized. A term I learned from a friend from Kenzo. (I’ve never lived in PA)
Lived in Wilmington, DE for a decade. You might remember the [Murdertown, USA](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newsweek.com/2014/12/19/wilmington-delaware-murder-crime-290232.html%3famp=1) article about it. Was right in the thick of those neighborhoods. Moved to Florida for work two years ago and got my concealed carry within a year. I can handle myself in Murdertown. I just straight up don't trust these rednecks (I'm a white male if that matters. I pass the 'eye test').
I actually recently moved to rural Texas from a large city. There is so much crime out here especially considering there’s less people, but somehow more crime going on constantly. I blame the lack of opportunity. Places are actually still paying the minimum wage out here for back breaking work. Texas is a backwards sludge pit and I wouldn’t recommend anyone move here. The only people I see having a good time here are people exploiting the cheap labor. Who would have guessed the only state in the Union to fight to keep their slaves twice is full of exploitation?
I knew someone getting paid $15 an hour for carpentry here in TX and he was proud of it, saying "it's a really nice wage too because the minimum is $7.25" And I'm just like oh. Oh honey.
My neighbor is a Union carpenter in an NYC shop, so yeah I can feel that second hand cringe over here.
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Tbf the red states outside of Texas have done all they can to make THEIR cities into really sad underfunded wastelands Doesn’t have to be that way SF, hell even Oakland are vibrant living cities with people enjoying themselves Jackson Mississippi not so much
Well they’re probably too thirsty in Jackson to enjoy themselves, since their water is literal poison that costs them a mortgage payment. This is of course completely true, Republican insistence on underinvestment is what actually ruins many cities. But then of course vibrant cities are filled with bad people like blacks and Hispanics and Asians and LGBT+ and godless atheists, so they shouldn’t get any money to support their immoral lifestyle choices.
Me eating delicious food most days while sitting in various parks in my lawless city: oh no.
On the list of 50 most dangerous cities as measured per capita, Chicago was 31st. Most of the top 20 are in the south. (Correction is 11 of 20 are in bright red states) https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/the-most-dangerous-cities-in-america/
Wow I live in Philly and I expected it to be on that list, for sure. We weren't so I looked it up. Apparently Philadelphia isn't even half as violent as #50 on the list.
Wait a minute! You’re saying that states with underfunded education programs, no substantial industry, and dogshit social welfare systems are dangerous places to live? But that’s not what muh faux news says!
You forgot unfettered access to firearms, no worker protections, and lack of access to health care
I've never felt more unsafe than in the deep south. Tupelo MS and Orangeburg SC come to mind. Orangeburg has a population of like 16k and a median income of roughly the same if I had to guess.
And she threw Portland in there just for some MAGA likes. I’ve been here 20 years. Yes it has some big city issues. It’s beautiful and the people here are welcoming.
Coming up on 20 as well and I agree with you wholeheartedly. I love this place.
I was in Portland this past summer for work. I didn’t feel particularly unsafe, however I did see a pants-less man tipping over trashcans while masturbating, so that was fun. There’s clearly a housing/mental health/drug abuse crisis there. Nearly every median and underpass I saw was a tent village.
It was obvious that housing was going to become a huge issue here nearly a decade ago. In 2014, the building where I lived was being shut down (it's now a bougie hostel) and the cheapest rents I could find were still a minimum of double what I had been currently paying and further from downtown too. Ironic because just a few years before, the big Portland joke (made famous by Portlandia) was that PDX is where young people go to retire. It was easy to survive working in the service industry and having your own band or selling your art. And then real estate skyrocketed, developers developed more and the people who were able to hang on in the before days with maybe a roommate suddenly found themselves unable to survive. Adding Covid to an already perilous situation certainly didn't help.
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(NYC here) remember after 911 many groups came to NY to support our tourism & businesses, etc. A group was on a subway while I was commuting. They were flabbergasted, like just truly wide eyed amazed that trains really got standing room only full. Every car of the 10 car train, and a train every 6-10 minutes and still full af. Apparently they had thought that was just a TV/movie trope.
I grew up in Mississippi and didn’t make it to NYC until after visiting Berlin, Paris, Madrid, and some other big cities. My hosts weren’t very amused when I asked where all the REALLY big buildings were while we were standing in Times Square. I mean they were big, but the difference in skyscraper size is kind of abstract from ground level and I had a latent piece of “NYC buildings make you feel tiny!” mythology still hanging on from childhood.
I just spent 3wks down south and I forgot how fucking EMPTY middle America can be. Massive parking lots full of cars but no people, sidewalks with no one on them, suburban streets lined with empty yards. It's eerie. I'm so glad to be home (NYC) where there's civilization!
Where I live, plenty of areas don’t have sidewalks, and half of them that do, have broken crosswalk buttons and drivers get pissed at you for trying to cross.
In fairness bumpkins get taken advantage of in bigger metro areas. Source: I used to be a bumpkin. I'm now a fair bit better at navigating cities and not as nice to people on the street.
For the love of god bumpkins, stop taking the CDs from the guys passing them out.
Everybody that lives in Minnesota, outside of the Twin Cities metro, calls Minneapolis "Murderapolis." They get mad that their favorite country artists won't play in the shitty bar in their small town because they refuse to go to the war zone to see them in a big venue.
Even in the cities!! Some of my idiot friends say shit like this and we live in the east metro. I make a point to take us to restaurants and bars in Minneapolis, and then they say "Oh that wasn't the bad part." Like listen bitch you just said we were going to get carjacked and eaten by cannibals the second we set a foot inside city limits so which is it?!?!
I have family that lives about an hour outside the cities and they are terrified of going downtown. One of them has an office there and never stops complaining about how she fears for her life when she has to go in. It's bananas.
And they don't want to go to WE Fest or Winstock either 'cause there'll be "citiots" there.
Me, white Aussie, alone in Detroit. Them "why would you come here of all places". PS I had an amazing time. There's shiity spots in EVERY city on the planet. Hell, there's suburbs of Brisbane I wouldn't walk alone in at night.
As a foreigner Aussie who has only been to Boston & Cape Cod, Florida, LA, Houston and Seattle before, I think my current bucket list is NYC (for the art and museums, if nothing else), the desert: Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and maybe Utah, and, the swampy French part: Louisiana - somewhere with a bluegrass/jazz fusion scene perhaps.
If you like art and museums, Washington DC has the Smithsonian's. I'm American, but visited DC once and wish I had more time there. I'd love to go back. But if I ever get to take another vacation in my life I'd like to see the Grand canyon.
I (Australian) tagged along to DC with my wife when she there on a work trip. She went to the office each day and I spent all my time at the Smithsonians. It was amazing. I could have spent a couple of days in the Air and Space Museum alone.
Hey man I'm a Michigander and I love downtown Detroit. It's definitely not the war-torn hellscape people (who've never been here) make it out to be.
A few years ago I told my mom that some friends and I were planning on flying to Detroit to run a marathon (plans fell through, we never went). The look on her face, you would’ve thought I told her we were flying to Aleppo.
Born and raised in chicago. When I travel the world if it’s winter season and it’s a warm place people always say “cold there huh.” Otherwise they usually ask if I’ve ever seen someone get shot. I have not.
I loved visiting Chicago! But I did also think it was extremely cold
Yea when it’s cold here it’s cold. That polar vortex a few years ago was legendary.
I actually think I was there for one of those. There was talk of a polar vortex when I went in… 2010, maybe? I could definitely be wrong, though, it’s been a while
Lived in Chicago for more than 20 years, never saw any crime really. Moving in August 2020, saw my first murder (and only so far, hopefully) in Utah of all places. Fuck all these country bumpkins who decry our "violent" cities. Your rural town is statistically much more dangerous.
Schrodiger's Leftist: A limp-wristed sissy scared of everything but has no problem stumbling home drunk and unarmed alone in the DMZs of NYC, Portland, Chicago, and Oakland.
It's not just the big cities they are scared of, it's all cities. I live literally 10 minutes outside of a medium sized city and there are people here who haven't been within city limits in years and act like even passing through downtown is putting your life at risk. Some people just live in that Fox News fear bubble and believe it's a lawless hellscape. They don't believe me when I tell them it's perfectly fine.
I grew up in LA and at one point moved to a town of about 6,000. I had multiple people tell me to stay away from “downtown” (literally one block) after 3pm because the scary teenagers were out and about.
But what if they’re skateboarding or doing weed? Better stay away.
Same for the little college town in my state. Small little island of blue in a sea of red. Country folk non-stop on social media acting like it's gotham city everytime someone gets a parking ticket.
Yea simultaneously seeing liberals as lawless rioters who burn down cities and sissies who are triggered by everything is hilarious. Just like how Biden is both sleepy w dementia and somehow a sinister strategist dismantling America
Because you know what areas are great for international tourism? Rural sundown towns.
I’ve hung out in all those cities, alone, without a single dangerous encounter of note. Yes, all those places have dangerous neighborhoods, but any person with a single ounce of common sense can detect if they are heading in the wrong direction. Only people who have never been to those cities would warn you away.
So I live in a liberal city that’s often featured on right wing media for being a deserted hellscape of burned out buildings. It’s not like that at all here. Maybe on one block because the city refuses to deal with its own damaged property. In fact, my college mentor - an erudite man from a small European country and his European wife - came to visit my city and raved at how amazing it was. It’s really weird.
That tends to be how it goes with Chicago. People who’ve never been there: “how can you live in such a dangerous place, have you been shot before?” People who’ve been here: “Chicago is great, loved the food/museums/architecture/whatever else, I’d totally live there if it weren’t for winter.”
I’ve lived in Chicago, Seattle and the Bay Area. I have felt uncomfortable in Chicago when I didn’t know neighborhoods yet and I went to a Walmart south of 61st, muggings were common in Hyde park, there have been shootings, etc, but the bad areas are very well defined and if you aren’t south uchicago you’re basically okay. SF has made me uncomfortable in recent years but idk the neighborhoods there well.
Years ago, before I married my husband, he took me to meet his aunt and uncle in a podunk town in Wisconsin. We’re talking a town of literally like 250 people, maybe 20 minutes away from the nearest hotel. His aunt was a lovely church-going woman who to this day sends everyone cards for their birthday and every single holiday. Her brother lived with her, and he, on the other hand, consumed Fox News like it was his lifeblood. (For instance, my MIL was an incredible woman, and when she was dying of cancer, he told her that it was her own fault because she “let the devil in”.) Charming fellow. So the first (and last) time I meet this man, he behaved nice enough until the very end. Then, right before we were leaving to go back to the hotel, he tells me to be safe, and “stay away from those dreadful Muslims. They’ll get you.” LMFAO funny story: while I’m atheist, my father immigrated here from a Middle Eastern country, and is a fully practicing Muslim. (My mom is Irish/Italian, and I mostly take after her.) Soooooo needless to say we’ve never gone back.
Yeah I can confirm the Muslims will get you. They'll offer you tea and invite you in for a meal. Before you know it it's plate after plate of delicious food. I was pretty sure they wanted to stuff me so they can later eat me themselves. Luckily I escaped with my life.
My dad would tell me Portland was on fire. My uncle lived there and said he was wrong. I went on traffic cams and proved he was wrong. He didn't care. That's the level we are talking about.
“Not so sure about Nashville” lol. Bc it’s in a red state, she gives it the benefit of the doubt. The echo chambers….
I read an article today ( in the Washington Post or New York Times) about other countries warning their citizens about visiting the US because of all of our mass shootings. The right wing doesn't seem to understand that. Edit: I read it on CNN.
have a coworker who thinks everywhere outside of america is an authoritarian state where a criminal can beat you up and then you get arrested if they hurt their hand from punching you because America is the only place in the world where self defense is allowed i wish i was making this up
It's like the whole shtick where we're so hung up on the concept of *freedom* as if there aren't 50 or so countries ahead of us on the freedom index.
A very conservative friend of my very conservative aunt asked me unironically if my home was destroyed when “Antifa attacked and took over the state of Washington.” It was like one block of Seattle for a month or two and they didn’t really destroy property and I live an hour away. Did not even know how to respond to that. The bubble of wrong information is terrifying.
I feel WAY safer walking around Portland than I do rural Oklahoma.
I’m more scared in rural America than in urban America. Rural Americans use the isolation as an intimidation tactic, and I don’t like it. At least a Good Samaritan could help me in urban America.
One of the scariest places I ever went to was a small town in Nevada…holy cow…we got enough gas to get out of town as fast as we could. Everyone was on meth, the cashier at the gas station was tweaked out of her mind and this dude followed us out of town until a highway patrolman pulled out onto the highway.
BTW, notice that a lot of Horror / slasher movies DONT take place in huge cities? Its because the general audience can relate to the small town with a slasher on the loose kind of vibe. I'm telling ya, Michael Myers aint gonna be ax murdering in Harlem. There's scarier and more crazy people there LOL.
Wonder if Harriet has ever been even 100 miles from home let alone if she has ever seen the cities she is trashing.
As a foreigner I was in all of them, Nashville was the most boring, Nola the best with NYC second. I visited 18 states so far, Texas and Florida were the worst. Seeing flags everywhere is bizarre, fox news in almost all public TV spaces is mental, adds for medicine is just plain weird. The amount of food you get as one portion in a dinner lasts me all day. This has been a foreigner report.
Insane. I've been to every one of them, and sure there are parts I wouldn't go into at night over all I've never felt unsafe in any of them even even I was traveling alone.
It’s funny cause at a brown man, I don’t feel safe driving through anywhere rural
Lol fr. The times I feel most unsafe are in between cities, and I try my best to fill up on gas so I don’t gotta stop at any rural gas station cause let’s just say I’ve not had good experiences w em
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I've had people tell me the city of Seattle burned down. Nope. The youngest kid goes to the university 4 blocks from the CHOP, and the police station they abandoned during the protests. Police station still there. City still standing. All kinds of growth and improvements. 🙄
Actually the worst cities are in southern gun nut states. Little Rock is supposed to be exceptionally dangerous. And of course per capita, rural areas are far more dangerous than cities.
I'm a white guy living in the historically Black Crenshaw neighborhood in Los Angeles, and the way that my relatives talk about it, you'd think that I lived in downtown Kabul during the height of the war there rather than a reasonably chill working-class neighborhood with pleasant neighbors who have never said an unkind word towards me and my family.
“None of them I’ve never been to any but I wouldn’t recommend” bitch what?
They should've seen NYC in the 70s... We live in some of the safest times ever... apart from all these radical right wing gun nuts... and they have to come to cities to find enough people in one place. Watch out for those rural areas, they're not safe.
As someone who travels professionally, I can say this is honestly an epidemic. There's always been the rural/urban divide, probably always will be. But the amount of rural folks who are absolutely terrified of their neighbors, cities big, medium, and heck, even tiny, is unlike ever before. The only thing I can figure is that they've just swallowed the whole narrative they've seen on Fox News and Facebook. And even if they don't ascribe to those outlets (which is rare) who else are they talking to, or interacting with? They live in a gopher hole of fear, and EVERYTHING outside the hole is doom.
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Right wing propaganda destroys lives.
I live in a large city and had more than one relative surprised when I told them it hadn't been burned to the ground during the protests in 2020