Racist Experience in Darlington, WI. Other small towns similar? (Milwaukee: buy, live)

[Gabriel87]

I get looks to like I'm being judged!

[ccjarider]

Originally Posted by Gabriel87

I get looks to like I'm being judged!

You are

[nickerman]

that experience can happen to anyone anywhere in the world. I was Thailand in some outer area and I felt like I was from mars the way people looked at me. I didn't feel threatened but I felt like it wouldn't take much wrong doing to get those people riled up. I am Caucasian by the way. So it can happen anywhere to anyone.

[Buzz Bee]

Originally Posted by irootoo

In my experience, in a really small town, especially in a place that has "regulars," they tend to stare at anyone they don't know. (They also stare at people they think they might know, but aren't certain where they know them from.) It might be rude, but it's usually not racist.

I recall being stared at majorly in a Burger King in Paducah, Kentucky, which isn't even a super small town. I'm about as Caucasian looking as a person can get, so I assumed that it was just that the "regulars" couldn't place me.

Yep. Anytime I walk into any small town establishment where I am not known, it's the same thing. Everybody gets the once over.

Darlington has the campground, so they are used to a lot of visitors, and I have seen all races and all kinds camping there, so if the OP's story is actually true, it was more because the OP was an unknown than due to the race of the OP.

[Hans Bueller]

Darlington is a long way from Madison. Don't buy it.

[zachlooter]

I took the driving exam in Darlington because all the spots were full in Madison for a long time. And I was gonna leave town for a while, so I needed to take the exam before I left.

[MKEastsider]

Really not sure what to think about the fact that so many people seem to think such an attitude towards outsiders is okay as long as it's "not racist." Yes, let's all be suspicious of outsiders, justify that suspicion, then complain when small towners are broad-brushed as sheltered hicks.

I don't know about Darlington, but I've seen this attitude at play plenty of times in Manitowoc County (where my mom is from). I can't imagine the culture in Manitowoc County is that much different than the culture of any other predominantly rural Wisconsin county.

[MKEastsider]

One last thing to add to this... some years ago, I was forced to move into my mom's house on the edge of Green Bay when my apartment building was bought by some developers. Within a week of moving in, I was walking back to her house when a random guy in a pickup truck rolled up to me and began asking me random questions about who I was, where I was going, and what I was doing in the neighborhood. As he sped off, I had to laugh at the irony of the big decal on his tailgate of a bald eagle and the world "FREEDOM," knowing it was clearly lost on him.

Even though I am quite Irish-American, I dressed a lot more hip hop back then than I do now, so who's to say it had nothing to do with race? Either way, I've definitely noticed a very unapologetic "police state" mentality amongst a lot of older Wisconsinites, who tend to make up most of our rural towns.

[Nicci6Squirrels]

If you read the comments sections of the local news stations, it does appear that there is a real backward mindset among a lot of folks. Sometimes it makes me absolutely disgusted and sad to see the racist and ignorant comments. I always report them to facebook. I'd be SO embarrassed to be like that.

What's funny, though, is that I moved into a new neighborhood... a very close knit, lakeside one. I'm a middle aged white woman, but I still get looks like, "Who are you and why don't I know you?" Sometimes it's really not a race issue. The people giving me the looks are as white and boring as I am. People just tend to be suspicious, for weird reasons! Who knows? People don't get out much or something.

[zachlooter]

THese people need to get out of rural wisconsin and see the real world.