People in Dallas: good & bad

[Lakewooder]

Originally Posted by theloneranger

I think of Prestonwood as Dallas' "weirdo cult" now. However, compared to most of the country Dallas' strongly religious people are actually quite tame.

Well you must not be old enough to remember W.A. Criswell!

[Tex?Il?]

[quote=Texsez;8983384]Yes, Dallas does have segregation problems. The black leaders nurture a culture of hate towards whites. QUOTE]

Through my observations in other non-Texas southern cities and confirmed by other friends (I live in the Chicagoland area and may hopefully be moving to Texas next year) that in general the southern black culture (and I include Texas in this) are more laid back, less divisive and more respectful.

I guess there are tensions everywhere, but at least from anecdotal evidence suggests that southern black culture is less likely going to consider assimilation as "selling out" because as I've learned that although there have been historic racial segregation, the fact is that white southern culture and black southern culture have more in common with each other, whereas northern white and northern black culture (from the great migration to northern cities) developed separate cultures while living in the same cities.

I mean I can't even think of any African American rappers from DFW except Cowboy Troy (country rap) who I think is quite creative, and considers himself a black conservative.

I know Houston has more rap artists, and of course Atlanta a whole other city as far as that goes.

[$DFW8$]

Originally Posted by caphillsea77

I have read countless threads on Dallas and it seems to me the thing that people like most about living in the Metroplex is the people. What is it about Dallas-Fort Worth that makes the people so special? I realize DFW is a big and diverse area and I've heard everything from snobby & materialistic to friendliness and down to earth. For all the transplants how do the people in Dallas compare to where you came from?

I know I am a little behind on the current subject in the thread(I have been so busy lately traveling for business that I haven't had much of a chance to get on here), but I wanted to answer your question in my point of view.

The people in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and Texas overall are VERY nice. When walking down streets or in a store, people will stop and say hello and carry on a conversation with you. I am from NYC, where everybody is always in a big rush and very fast paced, so being greeted by people was a shocker for me when we first moved to DFW. Now, I am not saying that Dallas is slow-paced, but it is slower paced compared to NYC, Boston, LA, etc. The areas are so much more family-oriented, as you will see families outside and interacting with their neighbors. Now, of course there will always be some people that are not as nice and have a bad attitude about life, but every area has some of these.

[Texsez]

Originally Posted by caphillsea77

Ah nice, this thread is going back to my original inquiry and topic. You're on to something, and I'd love to hear you elaborate on why you think Texans are the cat's meow.

We have :
1) The most beautiful women on the planet
2) Oil
3) Natural resources
4) Best Food
5) Dallas Cowboys
6) Most lakes and fishing
7) Diversity
8) Death penalty
9) Armadillo and Chupacabra
10) Infrastructure
11) ok....my fingers are tired.......

[will_I_am29]

Originally Posted by azriverfan.

I'm from Southern California who lived in Dallas for a brief period and now live in Phoenix. I disagree with the rest of the respondents. The culture is still southern. Yes, people were polite but fake. There is a lot of passive aggressive people in Dallas. The majority of the population are Southern Baptist evangelicals and thus are not tolerant toward other faiths or people of other religions. I'm not very religious and remember being told I need to be saved. I didn't even know what the term "being saved" was until I lived in Dallas.

Regarding it's diversity, yes it's true Dallas has a lot of diversity BUT it is segregated. What I mean by that is the mainstream doesn't embrace its diversity. It was strange because the Whites tended to hang out other Whites, the Gays lived in their own part of town and didn't interact with non-Gays, the Blacks had their own group, the Asians had their group. Coming from California and Arizona, that was just strange to me because in my friendship circle, we have all types of people but in Dallas, it was just so strangely segregated.

Lastly, there is still a lot of racism toward Blacks. The White population in Dallas is not tolerant of interracial dating and interracial relationships. It's just a strange thing to them. People in Dallas would always say "I'm not racist BUT I can't date a black guy or a black girl because my parents would kill me" It wasn't like the Deep South or anything like that but their racism was subtle when it came to relationships. I remember when the Dallas Cowboys had Quincy Carter as their QB and the city was not comfortable with a Black QB being the starter for their beloved Cowboys. I'm half Hispanic and I remember I would get asked all the time why I didn't speak with a Mexican accent or the first thing people asked me was my race; race was a really big deal to people in Dallas. It was as if they couldn't understand how a Latin-appearing individual could speak English without an accent. I never got asked that growing up in LA and I haved never gotten asked that in Phoenix.

In terms of the education aspect, yes, it was pretty educated. However, most of the people went to universities and colleges in Texas so they still held on to many of those conservative beliefs despite having a degree.

Thats very interesting, because here in Houston is almost like that in a sense, maybe not in your face. Houston is diverse and very intergrated even in the most suburbs. Dallas seemed to be sterile and kind of too perfect but liked it. Houston is more gritty and kinda a mess in a sense and I feel Houstonians are friendly but not their drivers (who very rude and selfish) compare to Dallas drive who are very safe and cordial.