The problem is, people can make claims of racism, but you can't counter them or say they are exaggerated, so people think you live in some podunk racist state that's 100 years out of date and for the vast majority of people it's just not true.
Killeen is a military town in the middle of nowhere. It has a weird population. But the sibling comment that talks about people hanging Confederate flags isn't representative. California has nutters and boonies too.
San Antonio, Dallas, Houston, and Austin are the fastest growing cities in the nation. TX has a larger minority population than it does other. If it was such a racist backwater I think my friends would say something about it, but I too get the impression that the level of racism is about the same as any other major city.
I don't mean to demean their experiences, but I also don't believe it's representative of a state that in 20 years is going to be as important as CA if it isn't already in various areas. If you were transported to a neighborhood in any of those cities, you'd have a hard time figuring out you weren't in NY< CA, or any other major state/city.
When people write off entire states because of politics, that's missing a lot of nuance. If you want to do that, you can also ignore Atlanta, at your own fault, which has as compelling a minority cultural boom as anywhere in the country. Someone needs to tell Don Glover to get the hell out of there.
It's just as offensive to natives of various places to hear their home stereotyped as it is for races to hear their race stereotyped.
I have problems with food. Gluten gives me sinus headaches so I don't eat it. There's no real research on celiacs and sinus headaches. All the time people disregard my experience, my ability to identify pain, my ability to objectively assess my reactions, and suggest that it is placebo or in my head. This has really made me aware when people disregard other people's experiences.
They didn't say all Texans are racist. Just that they experienced racism in Texas. It's the same, playing Overwatch is a drag because people are jerks. Not everyone who plays Overwatch is a jerk, but I experience it often while playing.
I'm just making to clear that though racism and Confederate flags are the first two comments in a thread about a state, that's not representative of the state as a whole, regardless of their unfortunate experience. Not to downplay it, I don't doubt it happened, at all. It's just not representative of the state.
If the top comment on this thread was "California is full of racists, anyway", you'd bet you'd get the same response.
Does that not fall under "immediately dismissing others experiences"?
The thing is, many of us are very aware of that past and will do anything to change it. But also consider that some of it isn't even our fault (my Dad came from Gary, Indiana by way of Illinois). I can't change the past, only acknowledge it, and what I'm telling you is it isn't 1970 here anymore, and many people need to give up stereotypes about places and people the same way they need to do about races.
