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Old 10-26-2013, 12:21 PM
 
991 posts, read 1,109,906 times
Reputation: 843

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This happened pretty close to where I live

And it's embarrassing. I reside in Overland Park and I have to field phone calls from my East Coast family wondering how on earth I could live in a place like this. I explain to them that Overland Park is actually metro KC, which is very much urban/suburban, offers many cosmopolitan amenities and is quite a pleasant place to live. I get frustrated that this kind of crap has to continually happen in Kansas and I have to defend where I live to others...
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Old 10-26-2013, 01:01 PM
 
13,721 posts, read 19,251,067 times
Reputation: 16971
I'm pretty sure that the people who did that were not associated with WBC. They haven't taken credit for doing it and WBC definitely would take credit. And what happened at Carraba's could have happened in any restaurant in any city in the United States and I'm sure it has happened in other places. It's not a reflection on you or me or Johnson County or Kansas that it happened where we happen to live.

I would wonder about family who felt the need to stereotype an entire city or area just because they heard of an incident happening there. I hear news about areas all over the US, but I don't assume that everyone in the area is the same as the person the news report was about or that they embody the entire area's point of view.

I don't feel the need to defend myself or my city/county just because someone who happened to eat in a restaurant near where I live did something stupid.
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Old 10-26-2013, 01:56 PM
 
Location: Washington, DC area
11,108 posts, read 23,880,874 times
Reputation: 6438
One more reason I say Kansas City, Missouri and not just Kansas City. It really does change the tone of the conversation. While I don't think rural MO is any better than rural KS, the fact is that Kansas has a much worse image outside of KC than MO. People out here think Kansas is just hell on earth and many just assume KC is well Kansas so it's hell on earth too, yet they don't really have much at all to say about Missouri, nothing much seems to come to mind. That's even proven on city-data in many poll type threads.

When people ask, I tell them Missouri is very similar to Maryland (just no coastal beaches) and KC is about the size of Baltimore. That alone makes people stop and think because they would not have thought either was the case. I have said this a million times, but I think the "image" of KC is what Topeka really is. Small, in Kansas, run down, conservative, ugly etc.

It is annoying though that the negative press that Kansas generates does affect the image of KC. I have people ask me all the time about the school/church issues, extreme tea party type political issues and agricultural questions.

I'm like, dude, I'm from a large urban CITY in MISSOURI, not a bible thumping farming community in Kansas where people hide in storm shelters every night.
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Old 10-26-2013, 02:33 PM
 
Location: A safe distance from San Francisco
12,350 posts, read 9,715,411 times
Reputation: 13892
It is just possible that there is more to this story....as none of us were there.

Now I'll just sit back and read the next 10 pages of the obligatory everyone falling-all-over-each-other to out-condemn the customer couple and me for not joining the torch-carrying mob.
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Old 10-26-2013, 02:43 PM
 
Location: Washington, DC area
11,108 posts, read 23,880,874 times
Reputation: 6438
Quote:
Originally Posted by luzianne View Post
And what happened at Carraba's could have happened in any restaurant in any city in the United States and I'm sure it has happened in other places. It's not a reflection on you or me or Johnson County or Kansas that it happened where we happen to live.
True, this could have happened any place, any city, any suburb, any state.

But people will remember Kansas. Had it happened in a suburb of Boston or Seattle or Atlanta the story would not have the same appeal. Kansas has an image and stories like this just feed that image.
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Old 10-26-2013, 02:58 PM
 
13,721 posts, read 19,251,067 times
Reputation: 16971
Quote:
Originally Posted by kcmo View Post
One more reason I say Kansas City, Missouri and not just Kansas City. It really does change the tone of the conversation. While I don't think rural MO is any better than rural KS, the fact is that Kansas has a much worse image outside of KC than MO. People out here think Kansas is just hell on earth and many just assume KC is well Kansas so it's hell on earth too, yet they don't really have much at all to say about Missouri, nothing much seems to come to mind. That's even proven on city-data in many poll type threads.

When people ask, I tell them Missouri is very similar to Maryland (just no coastal beaches) and KC is about the size of Baltimore. That alone makes people stop and think because they would not have thought either was the case. I have said this a million times, but I think the "image" of KC is what Topeka really is. Small, in Kansas, run down, conservative, ugly etc.

It is annoying though that the negative press that Kansas generates does affect the image of KC. I have people ask me all the time about the school/church issues, extreme tea party type political issues and agricultural questions.

I'm like, dude, I'm from a large urban CITY in MISSOURI, not a bible thumping farming community in Kansas where people hide in storm shelters every night.
The truth is that people outside of the area think Kansas City, Missouri IS Kansas. Whatever they think about Kansas, they think about Kansas City and Missouri. I can't believe you continue to go on and on and on and on and on with your diatribe against Kansas. And if you want to talk about Bible thumping, you see more of that in rural Missouri, particularly southern Missouri, than anywhere in Kansas.
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Old 10-26-2013, 04:40 PM
 
991 posts, read 1,109,906 times
Reputation: 843
Quote:
Originally Posted by luzianne View Post
I'm pretty sure that the people who did that were not associated with WBC. They haven't taken credit for doing it and WBC definitely would take credit. And what happened at Carraba's could have happened in any restaurant in any city in the United States and I'm sure it has happened in other places. It's not a reflection on you or me or Johnson County or Kansas that it happened where we happen to live.

I would wonder about family who felt the need to stereotype an entire city or area just because they heard of an incident happening there. I hear news about areas all over the US, but I don't assume that everyone in the area is the same as the person the news report was about or that they embody the entire area's point of view.

I don't feel the need to defend myself or my city/county just because someone who happened to eat in a restaurant near where I live did something stupid.
The reality is that most people on the East Coast have preconcieved notions of our area. Unfortunately those notions get a lot of run because that area is much more influential with media. I find myself having to defend living in "flyover country" to family and even people I went to school with. I like this town very much but events like these feed into stereotypes.

Two years ago I was visiting my grandparents at their winter home in Palm Beach and they introduced me to a person who asked me , to my face, why i would ever live in KC, Missouri. So its not just a KS/MO thing.
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Old 10-26-2013, 05:00 PM
 
377 posts, read 569,617 times
Reputation: 358
Quote:
Originally Posted by CrownVic95 View Post
It is just possible that there is more to this story....as none of us were there.

Now I'll just sit back and read the next 10 pages of the obligatory everyone falling-all-over-each-other to out-condemn the customer couple and me for not joining the torch-carrying mob.
Wow, not over yourself much?

The story seems quite clear. The customers assumed the waiter was gay, and wrote a disgusting condemnation of him from their (ahem) Christian perspective, using a code word (***) that is common within the WBC. I don't see any justification for their actions other than pure bigotry. It's also not a "torch that restaurant" offense. It's just sad and stupid.

What more to the story could there possibly be?
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Old 10-26-2013, 05:11 PM
 
Location: Edmonds, WA
8,975 posts, read 10,204,425 times
Reputation: 14247
I agree... Even if there was some additional details left out, what's on the note speaks for itself. And even if it was terrible service (which wasn't the case because the note said it was excellent), there's really no context I can think of that would remotely justify or excuse those words.
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Old 10-26-2013, 06:41 PM
 
Location: Washington, DC area
11,108 posts, read 23,880,874 times
Reputation: 6438
Quote:
Originally Posted by luzianne View Post
The truth is that people outside of the area think Kansas City, Missouri IS Kansas. Whatever they think about Kansas, they think about Kansas City and Missouri. I can't believe you continue to go on and on and on and on and on with your diatribe against Kansas. And if you want to talk about Bible thumping, you see more of that in rural Missouri, particularly southern Missouri, than anywhere in Kansas.
Pretty much my point. What happens in KS affects KC's image. If WBC was based in Blue Springs, it would have far less impact on the image of KC than having them based anywhere in Kansas. To people from beyond 100 miles of the KC area, Kansas = Kansas City. And even though Missouri can be just as conservative or bible thumping, they don't tend to do it as often or make as much national news as Kansas does and therefore they don't have the same image that Kansas does. Missouri does not really have an image at all other than St Louis, Branson and things like Mark Twain. Missouri is also one of the bigger tourism states of the Midwest. Kansas tend to be dead last or very close to last in tourism of all 50 states. People outside of KC absolutely do think of Missouri as a nicer or at least potentially more tolerable and livable place than Kansas.

The name "Kansas" City alone is the single most damaging thing to KC's image because KC's image is tied to all the negatives and stereotypes that Kansas generates in people's minds (whether fact or not).

And as a person that grew up in KCMO’s great urban neighborhoods, the whole Kansas thing is rather annoying.

Trust me, I am FAR from alone.

The good thing about this is that KC is probably the most mis-understood and underrated city in the United States because people simply do not have any idea that KC is as nice as it is or offers what it does. Most people just do not imagine a large metropolitan sophisticated and artsy city with a dense urban core and tons of big city attractions built into rolling hills with lots of tree and rivers when they think of KANSAS city….

They imagine Topeka and WBC right now just some crappy town in Kansas with a good NFL team.
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