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I see young people flocking to Asheville because it is full of "white, educated, liberal, gay friendly, atheist hipster or basically the young liberal elite" but no way could it be considered diverse. They'll turn up their noses at Knoxville which has a FAR wider diversity of cultures because there are so many residents who are traditional, conservative, Republican, or Christian, have a Southern accent, might be overweight or smoke cigarettes, or are of lower economic class or education.
A lot of crunchy types want a city that is diverse "just like me". Yes they want a few token minorities around to make them feel they are in a rainbow salad but that's it.
Asheville is hip and Knoxville is not. I'm not sure how diverse Knoxville is, but Asheville has very small populations of minorities outside of black and even that is only 17%. Asheville though is considered a bastion of diversity because its counterculture and the fact it lacks a strong presence of traditional culture. If they wanted true diversity, Nashville, Raleigh-Durham, and Charlotte are all better choices than Asheville.
And why would you think that? The reddest red neck in Kentucky when seeing a black man pull up at the light in his ford truck wearing a plaid hunting jacket with a nascar cap and a chaw of tobacco in his mouth would instantly relate to him as 'a guy like me'. When a well dressed business man sees a white boy with a sideways cap, gigantic jersey, xxl jeans with neon green trim around the seams, and making downsyndrom-esque curled hand gesticulations while he speaks he instantly sees him as 'one of those uneducated degenerates'.
This is true, its really about personal values, socioeconomic status and local culture, much much less about race. Now a black man in a plaid hunting jacket with a NASCAR hat on may be rare, but he would fit in down at the redneck bar in most places. People focus on race when the story is really about local culture and values.
The sad fact of the matter is that if you prize diversity and choose to move to a city based on its diversity, chances are you are making that place more White since desire for diversity is a cultural phenomenon largely grounded in the White American middle-class. The more White people that flock to these bastions of diversity, the more White they become.
Yep. It's all about political correctness, the pressure to be politically correct. Yet how many of these "pro-diversity" white people would actually walk the walk by...let's say hanging out with the Mexican day laborers in front of Home Depot, or becoming friends with the Vietnamese nail salon lady. It's total BS. And yet if they had a colleague who was Asian or Mexican, of course they would socialize with them. I mean god forbid they be seen as NOT pro-diversity these days in the corporate workplace! It's all so phony.
Knoxville has a wide variety of countries represented because of UT and ORNL. So in that way it is very diverse. But otherwise it is white bread americana with a notable representation of blacks and hipanics.
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Asheville though is considered a bastion of diversity because its counterculture and the fact it lacks a strong presence of traditional culture. If they wanted true diversity, Nashville, Raleigh-Durham, and Charlotte are all better choices than Asheville.
Yep. It's all about political correctness, the pressure to be politically correct. Yet how many of these "pro-diversity" white people would actually walk the walk by...let's say hanging out with the Mexican day laborers in front of Home Depot, or becoming friends with the Vietnamese nail salon lady. It's total BS. And yet if they had a colleague who was Asian or Mexican, of course they would socialize with them. I mean god forbid they be seen as NOT pro-diversity these days in the corporate workplace! It's all so phony.
In the workplace it has become part of your job to be "politically correct". If you fail to come acrost as a modern progressive politically correct person then you could lose your job, or never be considered for promotions. Why?? all because you do not conform to modern liberal vision of tolerance. No company wants to have Al Sharpton organizing a boycott against them because they do not put diversity programs in place in thier company, so employees of that company must at least appear to support these programs or they face the conseqences to thier careers. Do these kinds of things really change people and make them good little progressive PC types?? NO WAY, in fact they are very resentful of it and away from work they have become more resentfull of the minority groups that the company diversity programs promote. This is nothing more than PC bullying and blackmail, its either conform to what we want you to be or lose your job. People become phony to protect themselves from the PC police and the power they wield. Many lives have been ruined because a minority was offended at work, or someone was offended by a coworkers religion or traditional values. The safest thing to do is keep your mouth shut, or publically support political correctness. Your observation that most pro-diversity white people are really phoneys is true, but if you really think about it you can understand why. All this PC is not really making the nation more tollerant, its just making it more phoney and secretly resentfull of it and all it implys about the races.
I see young people flocking to Asheville because it is full of "white, educated, liberal, gay friendly, atheist hipster or basically the young liberal elite" but no way could it be considered diverse. They'll turn up their noses at Knoxville which has a FAR wider diversity of cultures because there are so many residents who are traditional, conservative, Republican, or Christian, have a Southern accent, might be overweight or smoke cigarettes, or are of lower economic class or education.
And they'll settle for making barely above minimum wage in some trendy, hip organic restaurant in Asheville while their counterparts in Knoxville are making good money at ORNL or TVA. Asheville might offer a "lifestyle," but not much in the way of jobs and that's how they want to keep it.
Yep. It's all about political correctness, the pressure to be politically correct. Yet how many of these "pro-diversity" white people would actually walk the walk by...let's say hanging out with the Mexican day laborers in front of Home Depot, or becoming friends with the Vietnamese nail salon lady. It's total BS. And yet if they had a colleague who was Asian or Mexican, of course they would socialize with them. I mean god forbid they be seen as NOT pro-diversity these days in the corporate workplace! It's all so phony.
This. The loudest ones are usually the phoniest, too.
My opinion is that in general people that say that they prefer diversity mean either diversity in small amounts where people that look, think, and act like them are still the majority (like having a choice of ethnic restaurants) or they somehow think that they don't really fit in with people that they might be expected to. For example I've noticed that many gay people claim to prefer diversity.
The reality is that the large majority of us would prefer to be around people that think and act like we do. Given the choice we usually choose to live among people that speak the same language, are the same religion, have the same values, have similar wealth, vote for the same candidates, and so on. Sometimes this can come down to race as some of those qualities can be somewhat predicted by race and nationality. As someone that lives in a very diverse community I can say often even in such a community interaction between races can be limited.
I think that when " white caucasian persons " say that they want diversity , they mean people of all races " (who are just like them) " like out here in california you can have a african american that sound white when (s)he's talking to you.....and the same goes for asiana and latinos....SOL smiling out loud...
Yep. It's all about political correctness, the pressure to be politically correct. Yet how many of these "pro-diversity" white people would actually walk the walk by...let's say hanging out with the Mexican day laborers in front of Home Depot, or becoming friends with the Vietnamese nail salon lady. It's total BS. And yet if they had a colleague who was Asian or Mexican, of course they would socialize with them. I mean god forbid they be seen as NOT pro-diversity these days in the corporate workplace! It's all so phony.
I think the situations you described are more about economics and class than about race. People tend to generally associate more with others on or near their income level, or at least with people who aspire to a similar lifestyle. I don't know anyone that would specifically seek out unemployed day laborers of any race for friendship.
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