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The Asian friend was Sedimenjerry's not mine. But I have seen all races adopt Cowboy attire for various events. Didn't say they became cowboys and wore it all the time, but most people in Texas find the need to have a pair of boots for some occasion that calls for it. Can't say how many of my kid's friend's weddings have had the wedding party, both male and female in cowboy boots. And my daughter in law used it in her wedding and she is hispanic.
EXACTLY. It's not like people were coming into Walmart or Post Oak Mall in droves dressed as cowboys. They're not walking stereotypes. If any thing, this just reinforces what I'm saying. There are tons of people that do NOT look or sound like the typical rural, country Texan but so many still own cowboy boots or like country music and have a lot of Texas pride.
At this point I think I can say I know as many suburbanites from TX as I do from GA. Some liberal, some conservative. All of the most common races. There is absolutely a difference. It's not noticeable most of the time, no. But get to know them and you'll see the differences are there.
I really don't care what it is exactly, it's just not southern which was my point. New Orleans and southern Louisiana have a unique culture unlike the rest of the south.
...
You should be clear and knowledgeable before posting.
And-- Cajun culture and Creole culture are Southern. They are subsets of Southern Culture--just like how Appalachian culture, Indigenous Black American culture, Geechee/Gullah culture, etc. are subsets of Southern culture.
(Moreover, Creole culture {the "gens de colour" part} and Geechee/Gullah culture are also subsets of Indigenous Black American culture.)
First off "If you equate a red vs. blue map as akin to the ignoramuses vs. the enlightened, then there isn't much reason to attempt a reasonable conversation."
Where on planet Earth have I said that?
I said cities are liberal and rural areas, and suburban areas to tend to be conservative. It's the exact same thing in both states was my point. The political maps clearly showed it's same dived.
2. I said Texans have pride I said Texans have pride like California has pride this has more do with size and population.
3. I don't even no how to respond your story about your Asian friend considering I was raised in Texas and went to school and knew doezen of Asians, Black, white, latino, kids And I can tell no.
"That you ran with a crowd in Mansfield" ?........... I lived over 15 years in Texas. And never seen a cowboy boots and hat unless I deliberately at something about Texas history. You brought up The State fair duh cause that's the state fair but you don't see that if you go the Mall, to the Zoo, or normal public interactions. You don't Normally see stuff like that.
Cowboy stuff is views as redneck stuff, the majority of people who identify with that are white or listen to Country music. Again I never said there something wrong with most of people don't.
For you friend My guess is one time while was I moving back to Georgia 10th grade a lot of kids mocked that I lived in Texas and a lot of the kids never even heard of Fort Worth. But at some point I decided to buy A shirt that says Texas just mock them back. So my guess this maybe the reason your Asian friend has Cowboy hat.
The only Cowboys most people in DFW care about was The Football team. Texas Cities view rural the same way as Atlanta or Georgia does no less or more.
Well since you have some credentials, I will respond. I've lived in 6 different states and in Houston, San Antonio, Austin and Dallas. My parents are native Texans as are 3 of my 4 grandparents. You just seem to be in some isolated bubble.
Texans have pride like nowhere else. And it has to do with the Alamo and being an independent country and the long frontier era. So many of the westerns based on history happened in West Texas and that's part of the state's founding mythology. Your claim that size had everything to do with it was what made me doubt you had ever spent any significant time in the state. I still don't know how you could believe that.
I saw cowboy boots and hats all the time. Half of Houston wears them Go Texan week during the Houston rodeo. You have trail riders heading through town near rush hour and nobody complains. And while country music tends to have more white fans, every ethnic group will go to see country acts, even people like me who rarely listen to country music.
Now Dallas tends to be dressier and a little more pretentious, but there are boots and hats. And there certainly are in Austin and San Antonio. There isn't disdain for the "rednecks" like you hear in Atlanta. A lot of people have a dream of having a ranch out in the country. And pickup trucks are everywhere. The oil and gas industry involves lots of drilling in the sticks.
I just have no clue where you get your perceptions of Texas.
But as I said, I agree with you that number of counties here doesn't help. But Georgia is much more segregated in every way. Ethnically, politically, class. People are more likely to live near lots of people like themselves. That probably makes it harder to work together.
The funny things is I seen dozens of chicks in Texas wearing snow boots in the summers. But I have never seen a chick rocking some cowboy boots. My point was it's not a normal thing you aspect to see on a normal day bases
Seeing someone in a Cowboy hat isn't like "oh a cowboy hat" ...... it's more like "ohhhhhhhhhhhh he or she actually wearing a cowboy hat" type thing.
I completely agree with Texans having a lot of pride, You hardly see the Georgia flag in Georgia. You will litteally see a Texas flag 75% of the time you see a American flag in Texas. I disagree with the rural embracing thing but agree 100% with you pride aspect.
I actually think Georgia embrace rualness more, Atlanta is even develop in a away that benefit nature, the trees, large yards and etc. The big Chicken, The birth place of the Waffle House.
Anyways
I believe Atlanta balkanization is because of extra political lines. Cause by too many small counties and Cities. This create sharper division among political views, race and etc. Depending on that County voting demographics. So "us vs them" are smaller areas in GA than is to Texans. The Cobb vs Fulton thing wouldn't had exist because they would been one. So The Atlanta region needs to grow a mentally it's one.
Sorry if you think I was coming at you negatively I wasn't trying to do that.
Its not just a county/city thing. When they were talking about redistricting Inman MS in the Grady HS area in Atlanta, the neighborhoods were all going at each other-Candler Park, Morningside, Kirkwood. There was an us vs. them all within the city of Atlanta and within the same middle school and high school.
Its not just a county/city thing. When they were talking about redistricting Inman MS in the Grady HS area in Atlanta, the neighborhoods were all going at each other-Candler Park, Morningside, Kirkwood. There was an us vs. them all within the city of Atlanta and within the same middle school and high school.
Now that kind of argument happens equally in Texas. Start redistricting schools that affect the perceived value of one school boundary over another even within the same city and folks come unglued just about anywhere. Plano recently had a big kerfuffle regarding shifting the boundary lines amongst the three sr. high schools. Just as nasty as anything anywhere. So there are some examples that don't fit the argument.
But great post above about the perceived "Texan-ness" of peoples in all the major metros. I still say it is why there isn't the same level of fighting city vs. state that you see in Atlanta. Not that disagreements don't exist, just a much better relation state to metro than Georgia has to solve issues. Much more so.
Now that kind of argument happens equally in Texas. Start redistricting schools that affect the perceived value of one school boundary over another even within the same city and folks come unglued just about anywhere. Plano recently had a big kerfuffle regarding shifting the boundary lines amongst the three sr. high schools. Just as nasty as anything anywhere. So there are some examples that don't fit the argument.
But great post above about the perceived "Texan-ness" of peoples in all the major metros. I still say it is why there isn't the same level of fighting city vs. state that you see in Atlanta. Not that disagreements don't exist, just a much better relation state to metro than Georgia has to solve issues. Much more so.
What was different about the redistricting is the way neighborhoods were fighting each other. Candler Park residents put out a plan moving Kirkwood out. Morningside and others started a petition to push Candler Park out. It wasn't just people fighting to stay in their school. It became a very nasty fight with people stereotyping and saying bad things about the residents of the other neighborhoods.
You should be clear and knowledgeable before posting.
And-- Cajun culture and Creole culture are Southern. They are subsets of Southern Culture--just like how Appalachian culture, Indigenous Black American culture, Geechee/Gullah culture, etc. are subsets of Southern culture.
(Moreover, Creole culture {the "gens de colour" part} and Geechee/Gullah culture are also subsets of Indigenous Black American culture.)
By that logic, Miami is a southern city because it's in the south despite its obvious Latin american/Caribbean influences particularly from Cuban refugees.
The Gullah/Geechee culture is a very unique culture but its history and size is quite different from the rest of the south. It developed from enslaved Africans, many of which were from west Africa. It's very localized to the coastal areas of southern South Carolina at this point.
What's typical thought of as "The South" is result mainly of English influence early on with Scots-Irish influence in the Piedmont and Appalachians of the Carolinas and other areas as well as a broad African-American influence. Much of southern Louisiana is French based. From the time spent under French rule, from the Acadians fleeing eastern Canada, the Creole culture with French and Spanish influence from Europe. Louisiana is the only state with Parishes instead of counties, it has Bienvenue en Louisiane with Welcome to Louisiana on highway signs. It's the only state in the south to feature counties where more than 6% of the population speaks French. In fact, only a few other counties in the entire US have that number and they're in the Northeast. You can even look at religion and see the influence. Across the south it's largely protestant (southern Baptist) while the French influenced areas are Catholic. There's also a high distribution of Catholics in Texas and South Florida but that's likely due to Spanish influence.
Appalachia may be a subset, but it has a much different history with English influence and protestant church practices. Southern Louisiana Culture is unique and there's only a handful of cities you can find it. Even Northern Louisiana is much more like the rest of the south.
What was different about the redistricting is the way neighborhoods were fighting each other. Candler Park residents put out a plan moving Kirkwood out. Morningside and others started a petition to push Candler Park out. It wasn't just people fighting to stay in their school. It became a very nasty fight with people stereotyping and saying bad things about the residents of the other neighborhoods.
Let's be honest. This will happen anywhere in this country where a school has low performing student body and gets redistricted so that more of the students from the low performing schools go to the more higher performing school. Let's not act like this is an Atlanta only thing. I heard the same thing happened in Dallas in their Highland Park neighborhood.
The Asian friend was Sedimenjerry's not mine. But I have seen all races adopt Cowboy attire for various events. Didn't say they became cowboys and wore it all the time, but most people in Texas find the need to have a pair of boots for some occasion that calls for it. Can't say how many of my kid's friend's weddings have had the wedding party, both male and female in cowboy boots. And my daughter in law used it in her wedding and she is hispanic.
I am sure AA culture hasn't embraced the cowboy culture as much as white and hispanic have, but if you think I haven't seen blacks wearing boots here on multiple occasions, well think again.
The point is NOT that Texans of all stripes become cowboys. It is that Texans have a pride in their state and don't mind embracing some of the traditions that are strongly Texan FAR MORE than it happens in Atlanta. As Sedimenjerry mentioned, transplants of all stripes will embrace it to a degree that someone moving to Georgia will not embrace Georgia's history in whatever way that would be expressed. There is a disdain for rural Georgia from long time residents of the ATL and that attitude carries over to political attitudes for getting things done. That is the point, not proving that everyone wears cowboy boots.
And you need to come visit McKinney and surrounding areas. Not near as lily white as you claim. There is such a larger hispanic population in any part of Texas that comparing it to an Atlanta burb is hard to do. This area of Dallas has seen a HUGE influx of Asians, so it has a feel of Duluth or Johns Creek. McKinney is the historic county seat, it still has the side of town east of the tracks that is very obviously the old segregated part of town akin to southern towns from here throughout the SE all the up to DC. That side of town now has a larger hispanic population than AA, but McKinney still has a sizeable historic black population as well as black transplants from the rest of the state and from other parts. No, DFW has a much smaller percentage of AAs than Atlanta, but nobody ever expected it to be such.
Still don't know why living in McKinney would cloud my view on things. I am sure I am much older than you, so even if I didn't grow up here, have been half Texan for over 30 years. I lived in Fort Worth for three years in the 80s, married a lifelong multi generation Texan, spent the ensuing years back in Atlanta making at least one trip a year to visit the in laws, have watched the metroplex develop very closely even while in Atlanta.... since 1984. I don't think you can claim that many years, so don't disrespect my opinion on these matters based on the current address.
But all this is BESIDE THE POINT. The point is two fold. I completely agree that the ATL has a problem because of the multiple counties getting into the fray. Counties don't even get in the fray here, it is central city and suburb. Counties don't even vote on the things that brought up this whole point. Case in point. Aries gave a list of things that Atlanta needed to do to keep up with Dallas. One of those is transportation issues. Can't even begin to count the number of posts here that blast Cobb County for not coming into MARTA. The difference here? Individual cities vote to become a part of DART. Plano, the very upper crust, very republican stronghold that is very similar to East Cobb is part of DART, has bus service and has a couple of stations on the LRT. Can't happen like this in Atlanta because the county government has so much sway. But Collin County doesn't even have an arm to vote on this yea or nay. Each individual city can give it an up or down.
But this goes hand in hand with the state and city not being at war with each other. That doesn't mean that there aren't disagreements between urban and rural, just that Texas urban and rural interests don't see each other as the mortal enemy. They join together to work things for mutual benefit far more than Atlanta and Georgia do. Currently there is a very strong effort being made to bring a high speed rail connection between Dallas and Houston. Could be a game changer for the state. Will Georgia ever do anything like this more than a pipe dream? I doubt it. It is still a pipe dream here, but it has legs.
The whole cowboy boot thing is just a small example to give the folks back home some kind of tangible picture of the mindset of a large percentage of the residents here and wasn't a reason to hijack this thread.
OKay, I've gone on far too long on this and am boring everyone. Enough.
To be fair with the high speed rail, it's not like there are two fast growing 6+ million person metros in the state of Georgia. This comes back to the point I was making earlier. Dallas and Houston have the advantage over Atlanta of being in a more dynamic state.
I hate to be mean about it and further prove the point you and Bu2 make, but it's true. Georgia pretty much sucks outside of Atlanta and Savannah. It does. Savannah is the only city that actually has higher percentage job growth than Atlanta does. Just about every other metro underperforms.
And why does Atlanta have to have an affinity for rural culture to succeed? It's funny because it still doesn't stop people from calling Dallas boring(which it is because I was just there back in July). I think Atlanta has a lot more culture than Dallas does. The cowboy culture is incredibly overrated.
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