Now I can tell you that St. Louis generally isn't a racist city...Its a larger american city where the vast vast vast majority of the population has a very small town mentality and that small town mentality comes with ignorance...
I have lived in St. Louis most of my life and have a unique story of having lived in every different type of neighborhood...
I am half african american and half mexican (and have a jewish stepmother and half brothers, Im screwed! lol)...I was born into the south side of st. louis and moved to north county (hazelwood) when i was young and lived there until i was about 14...I then moved to west county (creve coeur) and attended Chaminade and then moved to Ladue and graduated from Ladue High and spent a ton of time hanging out with my many friends in Clayton and U. City...
Every township in St. Louis is pretty much treated as its own city and people really dont know much about the areas outside of their immediate areas and their immediate neighboring townships.
About 95% of my friends from north county are on the path to living in that area for their entire lives and don't know much about the rest of their city. My friends in Ladue refuse to go clubbing and eating in the city because they still think the entire city is a ghetto. My own family members in the north and south side refuse to come to the west end and west county where I live and have a business because the majority of the people in these areas are white and just stay in their own areas.
People generally segregate themselves and I honestly do it as well where I refuse to go to South County because the majority of the population there is white working class and I can honestly say I am more scared to end up in South county than any of the roughest ghettos of the city.
It is a very strange place with so many boundaries that 95% of the population refuse to cross.
There were a ton of asians that went to school with me in Ladue and there are a ton of chinese in olivette and tons of vietnamese in south st louis.
I personally have been harassed by the police in the area that I live but when I speak to them and they notice that I am educated they are threwn off and always mark my ethnicity as white if they pull me over and have issued me a ticket haha.
I have spent lots of time in Chicago and love how you can go to most neighborhoods and every culture is mixing black, white, asians, gay, straight and no one bats an eye...
If you go to a black club in St. Louis and you are not black you will get many glares and curious looks...same goes for me in Suburban bars.
People are still threwn off in St. Louis when mixing is going on, but generally you will not be harassed.
Many of my Chicago friends came down and asked to go to a hip hop club...but when you are talking about St. Louis hip hop club goes hand and hand with "Ghetto and all black"...it threw my Chicago friends off big time.
My summary is culturally St. Louis does kind of suck. It saddens me that the definition of a latin night in St. Louis is drunken northern mexicans with hoorible tejano music...no salsa, no merengue, no bachata...just reggaeton and cholos
(Hell I lived in Beijing for a year and they had 3 gigantic salsa clubs that had awesome latin nights...heh)
There are not a lot of latinos they are 2% of the population.
Most things in St. Louis can be classified as either black or white...if you are looking for a date in St. Louis and you are not black or white good luck. (Outside of the little culture bubbles like South Grand and the CWE)...
Most of St. Louis is very very mainstream...dont look forward to hearing anything but rock and hip hop at the very mainstream clubs...you can sum up almost all St. Louis clubs by one statement...Top 40! (Because of this all clubs end up canabilizing eachother because they are all the same and they tend to fail)
Be prepared to have most "ethnic" restaurants be heavily americanized and catered to the american palette....There is only one street i can truly turn to for authentic mexican and that is Cherokee and for asian there is south grand and olive.
If you are looking for a culturally diverse city, do not come to St. Louis.
You will be tolerated but you will be misunderstood
Well there's my two cents.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 1.5 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
