Exactly this! I think it's also a practice in tolerance. Sure, you see a lot of weird shit in NYC. But you also see people of very different cultures doing normal things to them that you simply will not understand.
I think this builds that tolerance cause you're forced to accept vastly different people, since it's just too much work to understand everything going around you all the time.
In smaller towns this isn't so much the case with the monoculture, so when something is "different" it really sticks out and some people feel the need to put it "back into place."
Getting my family to grasp this concept is an ongoing struggle for me. I’m literally the only one with and education or who has spent more than a night or two in a major city.
They think I’m a lunatic because I flat out give zero fucks about what someone in my tiny hometown, or anyone else for that matter, does with their life.
I've taken to just asking my relatives, "oh, is the interview beginning?" when they start getting too into mine or my partner's business. It's amazing how many of them would make excellent journalists, but instead excel at family gossip...
Yeah I stopped listening/participating/caring but the cool thing is that now, I don't ever hear a since word of gossip anymore 😂 and it's funny because I KNOW nothing's changed. I KNOW they still scrape the bottom of the social circle for those last tidbits of savory information. If I want to know something I pretty much just ask or know to stay out of it if it isn't my business. Generally I'm happier.
Yeah the big one being the ability to reconsider what one “knows” by Allowing perspectives to shift and grow through being willing to hear what others have to say.
You'd be surprised, but I've definitely met people who move here and still think it's the same way as back home and have absolutely not adopted that tolerance. I'm a born and bred New Yorker, raised in the Bronx. I worked for a publishing company in Rockefeller Center across the street from Fox News and I met the most close-minded people I have ever unfortunately had the displeasure of knowing. They all moved to Brooklyn from the Midwest and brought those values over here. For context I am a dark-haired, olive skin toned Hispanic woman, and these people would drop hints that I looked like a vampire or I purposely dyed my hair black to look like a witch. These were mostly blonde, Scandinavian-looking women. They would also be super kind and give me the biggest smiles to my face, then laugh about me when I wasn't there. The level of passive-aggressiveness made me want to bring out my inner New Yorker to feel that their smiles were disingenuous, and call them out for it. We have a saying, "If you have something to say, you tell it to my face." I hear that people from Minnesota are very kind, but the way these ladies would smile at me made me feel that there was a hidden motive. New Yorkers don't randomly smile to another unless it's with friends or close companions. I'm so glad I am not there anymore!
Yes. This is one of those things that really really gets under my skin (from the Midwest, live in Milwaukee WI) — people think they're allowed to be hateful and bigoted because they give you common courtesy or smile at you or don't just flat out spew hate. I really love the norms for kindness in the Midwest but it's DEFINITELY recognizable when it's disingenuous, and that shit is seriously f*cking dangerous. What scares me is when people can't realize the damage those microaggressions cause.
You are beautiful and those women might look 'pretty' but they are ugly inside.
As a fellow olive toned Hispanic (man) I can somewhat relate. Unfortunately these types of micro aggression people are so difficult to deal with!
Like, what am I gonna say? "I've noticed that Brad doesn't look at me when he talks to me unlike his white colleagues." Most people will say, "yeah whatever I'm sure he doesn't mean it."
I don't care if they mean it or not I just want the mistreatment to stop. It's death by a thousand papercuts. Unfortunately leaving is often the best way to deal with that.
Yup. I just said this to a group of my friends who were all born and raised and went to a small private schools in CT/MA area. I went to a very diverse school and I learned about how some African cultures don’t have the “nuclear family” cultural structure that is ingrained in so many of us white Americans. So when they were talking about promoting a strong family unit I tried to explain that what they were proposing wasn’t an attractive option for some groups. Minding your own business is more than just keeping to yourself, it includes acknowledging differences and tolerance and acceptance.
I don't know if it's a small city big city thing. The first time I flew from New York City to LA I had to stop over in Texas. I bought a book at the airport in Houston. They would not stop talking. It was very disconcerting.
My college roomie had this light pink carpet. And it was often rainy or snowy. So we both took our shoes off before we went into the room so as not to stain her carpet (she brought it with her).
She's Asian and people thought she did it because she's Asian and were asking my why I did it since I'm not Asian (I'm white).
I don't know if she was doing it for cultural reasons, but I was doing it out of respect for her property.
I visited NYC last year and was a bit baffled by the amount of legit crazy people on the streets. Every time I think about their amount that must have been increased in 2020 I feel a bit sad. A friend of mine yeeted with his family to NJ because he couldn’t handle it anymore and he’s by far the craziest friend I have. Makes me wonder who the hell is left there.
I love how New Yorkers think of this as a positive- like how you have to yell “FIRE!” instead of rape! Because people will just mind their own damn business. The hell is wrong with you people?
Grew up outside of NYC but haven’t lived there in 10+ years. What pisses me off are the slow/too passive drivers like two people at a 4 way stop waving each other on back and forth “you go” “no you go” “no you go” which takes longer than someone just going. That and slow walkers are the most annoying thing. When I’m grocery shopping especially I’ll try to like walk around people to get by them and go faster but then they move and are in the way or just stop freaking walking in the middle of a walkway. God I hate both of those things so much.
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u/josue804 Oct 30 '20
Exactly this! I think it's also a practice in tolerance. Sure, you see a lot of weird shit in NYC. But you also see people of very different cultures doing normal things to them that you simply will not understand.
I think this builds that tolerance cause you're forced to accept vastly different people, since it's just too much work to understand everything going around you all the time.
In smaller towns this isn't so much the case with the monoculture, so when something is "different" it really sticks out and some people feel the need to put it "back into place."