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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   42787 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 8, 2025

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In 2016, a tourist family from Nebraska visiting Disney World allowed their toddler to wander around the edge of a small lake near their hotel without close supervision. The young boy was attacked and killed by an alligator. Anyone who grew up in the Southern United States knows not to let small children wander around bodies of water unattended. Nobody explicitly tells you this, but there is a general cultural understanding of alligators, how they work, and where they live.

I know it’s controversial even here to refer to the homeless urban underclass as vermin or wild animals, but I can’t think of a better metaphor.

Everyone who grew up in a major American metropolitan area knows that certain environments around the city are the natural habitat for a certain kind of predator. You don’t have to know these locations by heart. You can identify them simply by looking around at the ambient population. The (small-n) native American knows that these environments are significantly more dangerous than other areas of the city, and thus require a heightened level of vigilance when one is unable to avoid these areas in the normal course of city life. You cannot expose yourself by putting earbuds in and spacing-out on public transportation directly in front of a disheveled black man wearing a hoodie, especially if you are a small and vulnerable young girl who sticks out.

You cannot expose yourself by putting earbuds in and spacing-out on public transportation directly in front of a disheveled black man wearing a hoodie

I would submit to you that this is not some universally known people of social lore that every native-born American knows. Living in DC I've done this on hundreds of occasions and I've only been stabbed twice. If I see a disheveled black man on the Metro, I am vastly more worried he's about to regale me with an obviously made up sob story and ask for money.

If I see a disheveled black man on the Metro, I am vastly more worried he's about to regale me with an obviously made up sob story and ask for money.

To be fair, this is also a negative outcome.

Living in DC I've done this on hundreds of occasions and I've only been stabbed twice.

I’m assuming this is a joke?!?!? I like not being stabbed.

I like not being stabbed.

What if you consider your lesser-privileged counterparty in the knife-involved incident may have enjoyed the experience more than you were saddened by it?

You develop thick skin

To be fair, this is also a negative outcome.

It is, but it is vastly less concerning and mostly a function of the nature of urban poverty. Beggars are ancient phenomenon.

I've only been stabbed twice

Only twice? Noob

I know it’s controversial even here to refer to the homeless urban underclass as vermin or wild animals, but I can’t think of a better metaphor. Everyone who grew up in a major American metropolitan area knows that certain environments around the city are the natural habitat for a certain kind of predator.

It's not like Ukraine or Eastern Europe in general is radically different from North Carolina in that regard though.

Eastern European gopniks do not usually commit random acts of violence in front of bystanders. They might do this against a minority male, but a white Ukrainian female knows that while she shouldn't take a shortcut through a park when the dog walkers have left, on a train no one's going to mug her or rape her unless she and the perpetrators are the only people in the carriage.

But ‘has black people’ is, in charlotte, not narrowing it down, and this woman was used to public transportation anyways.

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