Why do you hate it here? (Miami: live, backyards, racism)

[adam.g.harpool]

Originally Posted by What!

You're surprised at finding racism in the U.S.? Would you be surprised to find camels in the Sahara?

I'm not an idiot, but yes, finding such BLATANT anti-Hispanic racism prominently on display is a tad shocking. If that were targeted against Blacks (which I am, for the record), I don't think that it would be tolerated to the same degree that it is when Hispanics are the target.

I'm just frankly sick of reading about people who move to Florida, especially South Florida, and then become utterly shocked and irritated that everyone doesn't look like them. Nobody is keeping them here; there are plenty of roads leading to Nebraska, Kansas, or Kentucky if they want to live in some 95% conservative rural WASP paradise. They do nothing to inform people about the region, and as citizens they do nothing to advance a constructive dialogue to help solve our real problems such as poverty, crime, traffic, and lack of educational attainment. Complaining about the horrible mess that is I-95 during rush hour is one thing; complaining about having "too many Cubans in my neighborhood" is nothing but racism at its lowest, dirtiest level.

[u4icmusic]

This is because Hispanics don't live the same way blacks do. Blacks know English and the blacks that were in my neighborhood kept a really nice house. The Hispanics are rude, won't speak English, even when they know it, and expect us to learn Spanish. They also keep roosters in their backyards and live like pigs. I've seen this first hand.

[Wild Style]

Originally Posted by u4icmusic

This is because Hispanics don't live the same way blacks do. Blacks know English and the blacks that were in my neighborhood kept a really nice house. The Hispanics are rude, won't speak English, even when they know it, and expect us to learn Spanish. They also keep roosters in their backyards and live like pigs. I've seen this first hand.

wow, just wow.

[Lost in Translation]

Originally Posted by u4icmusic

This is because Hispanics don't live the same way blacks do. Blacks know English and the blacks that were in my neighborhood kept a really nice house. The Hispanics are rude, won't speak English, even when they know it, and expect us to learn Spanish. They also keep roosters in their backyards and live like pigs. I've seen this first hand.

Yikes!

[compelled to reply]

Originally Posted by u4icmusic

This is because Hispanics don't live the same way blacks do. Blacks know English and the blacks that were in my neighborhood kept a really nice house. The Hispanics are rude, won't speak English, even when they know it, and expect us to learn Spanish. They also keep roosters in their backyards and live like pigs. I've seen this first hand.

Proper translation- Some filthy moron in my neighborhood kept roosters in their backyard and they were Hispanic, so now I hate all Hispanics and I am rude to them, so they are rude to me back.

[Wild Style]

Originally Posted by compelled to reply

Proper translation- Some filthy moron in my neighborhood kept roosters in their backyard and they were Hispanic, so now I hate all Hispanics and I am rude to them, so they are rude to me back.

i hope the person isn't filthy because of rooster in the backyard. I for one am all for urban farming.

[compelled to reply]

Originally Posted by Wild Style

i hope the person isn't filthy because of rooster in the backyard. I for one am all for urban farming.

Yes, backyards for grazing and rooftops for growing.

[Nolefan34]

Originally Posted by Tungsten_Udder

Except that when I did it a few times recently that simply wasn't true. Unfortunately, I didn't video tape the drives to put them for you on YouTube or something, but obviously, someone is not being exactly honest here.

Tungsten>

What time of day did you travel at and how frequently? I would like to know because I drive I-95 between West Palm and Miami almost daily for work. I drive at all different times during the day, and hardly ever am I able to maintain the speed limit the entire length of the drive. Outside of a rare occasion during the middle of the day, I am usually getting stuck in some accident or bottleneck. The worst areas are North Miami/Opa-Locka, the 195 interchange, and in Pompano Beach around Copans and Atlantic. I'm sorry, but I just don't believe that you do 80MPH without hitting the brakes and just stroll into downtown Miami like a walk in the park. Even when traffic is flowing smoothly, there is always some accident that people slow down to look at or some idiot doing 55 in the lefthand lane.

[Tungsten_Udder]

Originally Posted by Nolefan34

Tungsten>

What time of day did you travel at and how frequently?

The last times were just a couple weeks ago, getting on 95 in West Palm Beach between 7 and 8 a.m., and leaving Miami in the evenings between 5 and 6 pm (which we did on purpose because we were checking the commute), and we did that a few weekdays.

I am usually getting stuck in some accident or bottleneck.

I don't disagree that this can happen there, but it never happened to us on those trips. It's also not happened to me on any other recent trip, although I hadn't purposefully driven on 95 from WPB to Miami during rush hours for some time. That's not to say that I hadn't driven on 95 during rush hours for awhile, but it's just not something I paid attention to--I don't usually pay much attention to time, I rarely wear a watch, etc.; on this last trip, we paid attention to it because my wife would be commuting from the WPB area to Miami (although she's going to be doing that on the train--two days I drove down and back to meet her at the MetroRail Transfer Station and Mangonia Park, and both days, both ways, I had to kill about a half hour because I got there that much faster than her--I could have gotten there faster than that, but I don't like to drive that fast; she was seeing how crowded, comfortable, speedy, etc. the trains were going to be).

(Edit: by the way, since you might be wondering, when we were down there during the day, we went condo hunting, as that was one of our options at that point--to get a condo in Miami instead, especially if my wife thought the commute on the train was going to be horrendous, etc. We ended up deciding against the condo for now (although we just got a call from one of the places we liked that they're lowering their price 25%! which would have made us consider that more), and on the third day--after we'd decided to concentrate on houses in PBC instead, we just did sightseeing until rush hour to drive back home.)

I've been in Florida for a week to a month at a time plenty of times recently, and I usually drive a lot, to various places all over the state from Tampa and Orlando south to the keys (but centered on the WPB area, because that's still where most of my family is).

I'm sorry, but I just don't believe that you do 80MPH without hitting the brakes and just stroll into downtown Miami like a walk in the park.

If the issue is whether we're saying that one could do that every day, I don't believe that either, and I didn't say anything like that. If the issue is whether it was like that when I drove that route my few recent times, then I see the disbelief as a psychological issue, lol.

Even when traffic is flowing smoothly, there is always some accident that people slow down to look at or some idiot doing 55 in the lefthand lane.

You definitely would have needed to change lanes occasionally when I drove down, too--the traffic was sparse enough that you could have always changed lanes. But we saw no accidents. I agree that you do see accidents often enough in South Florida on 95, but I haven't seen any for awhile (keeping in mind again that I'm not on 95 daily, because I'm not there daily any longer, but I have been in South Florida (and often on 95) for at least a month per year, and often more, while I've been living most of the year away from there).

[Nolefan34]

Tungsten>

Nice try, but you lose all credibility when you say you left Miami between 5pm-6pm and you were able to just drive the speed limit. I used to live in Miami in a condo that overlooked I-95 and every single weekday between 4PM-6:30 or 7PM I-95 northbound out of Miami is gridlocked, meaning completely stopped from downtown all the way up to the golden glades interchange. That is a 10-15 mile stretch of 95 that is backed up every single weekday. Accidents have nothing to do with it, its just normal rush hour. The amount of cars on the road leaving downtown for the afternoon rush hour causes things to be completely stopped every day. Not a day goes by where this is not the case, except on weekends or holidays.

Sorry, but you are speaking to someone who's lived there, and who travels daily for work. Now the traffic between West Palm and the Broward line is not bad at all, unless there's an accident. I will give you that part. But anywhere between downtown Miami and the Golden Glades is a parking lot every weekday if you travel with the flow of rush hour. Now if you are going against the grain, meaning traveling into downtown in the afternoon rush hour, or out of downtown in the morning rush hour, its usually not that bad. But by the way you described it it sound like you were traveling WITH the flow of rush hour. If that is the case, you are either full of BS or you didn't travel at the times you said you did.

Also, the traffic these days is reduced from what it was a year ago because of the recent spike in gas prices. It is estimated that the roads in Dade and Broward counties are anywhere between 10% and 20% less congested than past years because more people are carpooling or taking public transportation because they cannot afford gas. I have noticed that the traffic overall is much more tolerable than last year or before that. But it is still very bad during the rush hours.