I grew up in rural Pennsylvania - someone please help me clear this up?

[LynneSin]

Teabaggers do not like minorities because they perceive them as being lazy, shiftless, welfare scamming cheats who keep having babies in order to make more money off of the government.

And yet growing up in rural Pennsylvania where 99.9% of my home county was white, I was surrounded by those who were lazy, shiftless, welfare scamming cheats who keep having babies in order to make more money off of the government.

And trust me, growing up in my rural part of Pennsylvania we had our drug problems (Crank vs. Crack), our crime and our poverty and yet if you asked folks from my home town what party they support - overwhelmingly they are republicans and the tea party is rampantly strong (along with the KKK and other white supremacy groups). You'd explain how the Republican party wants to eliminate their benefits and they would still vote to put them in office again and again.

So seriously, I just don't get how Tea Baggers claim they aren't racist. Can someone clear this up for me because I just don't get it.

[conscious evolution]

1. Its easy.More money for minoruties

equals less money for them in their minds.

[The Magistrate]

2. But Ma'am: They Were White. Compared To the Depravity Of Blacks, They Were Solid Citizens....

How could they carry on without someone to look down on?

[gateley]

14. "How could they carry on without someone to look down on?"

Well said. Sad, and true.

[Lilyeye]

24. "How could they carry on without someone to look down on?"

Bingo!

[Davis_X_Machina]

3. Tribalism. They were on the same team. Didn't...

...look different, didn't sound different, didn't eat weird stuff, or listen to the wrong music.

[immoderate]

15. Yep. Exception for one of "us."

And confirmation bias on the next "other" they see.

---imm

[CaliforniaPeggy]

4. I don't think there are any rational arguments to explain it.

These folks have not only drunk the Kool-aid; they helped mix it.

Go figure!

:shrug:

[texastoast]

5. Racist

That's it.

Because, as you said, drug abuse, shiftlessness, and cheating don't come just in brown.

[unpossibles]

6. I have noticed that the things people accuse others of and assume they do

are often their own distinctive features as well. Liars tend to assume everyone is lying, and cheaters don't trust others not to cheat.

[AlinPA]

7. I can't explain it, but you are correct about rural PA. nt

[LynneSin]

8. I suspect that is the norm with many rural parts of this country

:cry:

[ieoeja]

9. I grew up in rural Indiana. And to use a Will Rogers' quote:

They never met an African-American they didn't like.

But this never swayed them from their opinion that all those other African-Americans, the ones they never met, were mostly no good. So I guess a better quote for those folks would be:

They never liked an African-American they never met.

[LynneSin]

11. That's a very valid statement - I know I never met one until High School.

Sure I'd see them on TV or perhaps at the mall. But I never actually met one and knew them by name until middle school (well technically it was my high school but our school was 7-12 and I was in 7th grade.)

But honestly, Jimmy Carter changed my opinion on them back when I was 10. He had Barbara Jordan has his keynote speaker at the 76 convention and Ms Jordan really changed my opinion about minorities in general.

[AlinPA]

13. Barbara Jordan was a beautiful person.

[LynneSin]

19. Wasn't she :D Hearing her speak made me realize what those kids at school said....

about minorities might actually not be right.

Up until then I probably bought into all that 'lazy-shiftless' mentality. My parents never taught me that but you'd hear it all the time at school. But I was a pretty bright kid and even at 10 I realized that maybe there was something more there than the negativity of school children.

[Sal Minella]

23. What a phenomenal Supreme Court Justice she would have been!

The Jordan Court.
A Court that would have actually had some respect for the Constitution.

[TrogL]

10. They're authoritarians. They don't have to make any sense

They keep sane by creating an artificial reality where racism doesn't mean racism, pi*10=30.0 and try to make everybody else conform to this reality,.

[RamboLiberal]

12. You're right about rural PA

And I'll throw in WV and OH to boot. Both those states astound me as well in the racism.

I'm reading Freedom Summer about 1964 Mississippi. This description is apt.

"The impoverished whites of Mississippi kept one rung up on the social ladder by beating down the blacks below them."

[surrealAmerican]

16. Deep down, they know they are not any better than ...

... the people they portray as worthless, and it scares them.

[NNN0LHI]

17. Rural Illinois is no different

[LynneSin]

18. I think we could say Rural (Fill in the blank) for any part of the United States

But I can only speak of where I grew up. And honestly, I have no desire to ever EVER go back there again!

[Curmudgeoness]

20. These places are so white, that they don't even know any minorities.

And this causes fear/bigotry. But why they vote so overwhelmingly Republican has always baffled me too. Tradition? Or is it that the Republicans are big on the agricultural subsidies that they are all receiving. All the granges and ag groups push Repugs.

[Dawson Leery]

21. There are areas of rural whites in Connecticut too.

These pockets are everywhere.

[t0dd]

22. Grew up near Latrobe.. and yes, you've hit the nail on the head. nt

[B Calm]

25. Republicans have always been this way.