Earlier this week, we did a little Q&A for the boys at warblogle.com and today, they returned the favor, answering their questions in reverse.
Here’s the Auburn take for your reading pleasure.
What’s the first thing an Auburn fan thinks of when Cal football comes to mind?
I think of Marshawn Lynch, Aaron Rodgers, and the yellow and blue color scheme. I picture a smaller Rose Bowl that's probably not full, but a pretty campus. I think of okay football.
What’s the vibe like in Auburn after the lopsided win over UMass?
Fans are happy but cautious. They know what Auburn beat, but we also didn't really know what to expect in Game 1, but everything was pretty much as positive as it could be.
Name two Auburn Tigers that Cal fans should look out for and why?
Eugene Asante is a junior LB that transferred from UNC this past season. He wasn't a name you heard a lot in Fall camp, but had tons of tackles and a really smart block on a punt return against UMass. Is he a gamechanger? Maybe, but he's definitely not a name many people were looking at.
This is obvious, but he's new so it still counts. Payton Thorne wasn't asked to do a ton last week, but he obviously has the arm talent and was able to scramble out of trouble the few times he got in it.
Which two Cal Bears worry you the most?
The running back that ran his mouth is the only player I know.
Where does Cal have an advantage in this game?
Home field advantage. The very late start time. The travel Auburn is doing right now. That's it.
Where will Auburn excel most against the Cal?
Size and speed. Pretty much the most important parts of the game.
Who are your two favorite Cal Bears of all time and why?
The only two names I know: Marshawn Lynch and Aaron Rodgers. Oh, and the guy who hit the trombone player because that's just funny.
What is your score prediction/analysis for this game?
The Cal fans will be excited for the first quarter and it will be close, but eventually the difference in talent will show up. Auburn wins 34-14.
Where will Auburn and Cal end up this year?
Auburn will be in the Capital One Bowl at minimum, with at least 9 wins. Cal will go 8-4 and play in the Sun Bowl.
What do you think about Hugh Freeze?
He has brought excitement to the football program quickly. He is basically doing what Bruce Pearl has done. He knows he's gotten a 2nd chance at a big school and he won't take it for granted. People are rallying around him and believe in his coaching and recruiting ability.
Earlier in the week, we answered their questions for us. Here was our response:
What’s the first thing a Cal fan thinks of when Auburn football comes to mind?
SEC football with a pretty strong winning tradition. Cal fans have been looking forward to this home and home series for years and will travel well to Auburn.
What’s the vibe like in Berkeley after the monumental win over North Texas?
Many Cal people like myself saw the ingredients for a pretty solid football team this season, particularly with all the key portal additions, but spring ball and fall camp can only tell you so much. Sometimes you just need to see the team play against someone else instead of your own team to know what you’ve got. The big win was a relief. Cal often plays down to their underdog opponents in recent years so to win by 37 made a lot of people breathe a sigh of relief.
Name two Golden Bears that Auburn fans should look out for and why?
I’ll go with one on O and one on D. On offense, Jeremiah Hunter is a future NFL receiver. Smooth, great hands, consistent and tough to cover. On D, many would go with 1st team all-Pac 12 MLB Jackson Sirmon but in this case, I’ll go with CB Nohl Williams. He’s another future NFL guy who’s tough to beat in coverage and brings some swag to the field as well.
Which two Auburn Tigers worry you the most?
I’ll go with Hunter on offense if he plays. I think he may have the most upside of the Tiger backs. And on defense, I’ll go with Keionte Scott. Cal really liked him coming out of JC and he’s a versatile weapon at CB or nickel and on returns.
Where does Cal have an advantage in this game?
I’ll go with Cal’s run game against the front 6. They didn’t play the run very well against an inferior UMass team and Cal has a lot of weapons in the backfield, particularly RB Jaydn Ott, another future NFL guy.
Where will Auburn excel most against the Cal?
To me, it’s a tossup between Auburn’s rushing game against Cal’s front 7 or Auburn’s backfield against Cal’s passing game. Auburn may well come out on top in one or both of those categories.
Who are your two favorite Auburn Tigers of all time and why?
Gotta go with Kevin Greene to start. He was an animal. And of course, Bo Jackson for both football and baseball. One of the best pure athletes of all time.
What is your score prediction/analysis for this game?
After getting a better look at both teams last weekend and due to the late night game at home for Cal, I’ll go with Cal 31 Auburn 27. If you asked me last week, I’d have probably reversed the score.
Where will Auburn and Cal end up this year?
I’ll go with 7-5 regular season for both with both in middling bowl games.
What do you think about Hugh Freeze?
Great coach with a questionable past he’ll have to shake off by running a clean ship for at least a few years IMO and a great staff. Very strong recruiter, too, particularly in the portal this year. Probably didn’t make the best decision in referring to Cal’s defense as essentially basic, where Auburn knows what they’ll be seeing.
As a bonus, earlier this week, we did a podcast with Auburn’s Up Tempo Live Podcast. Our segment starts at the 4 minute mark:
The overwhelming majority of the nation's Black population lives in the South. They've been moving back there from the Northeast, Midwest and West for decades now.
Yeah, if you mean Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston.
They aren't moving to Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.
"California still led all states in Black in-migration, the next six highest were:
Maryland, Texas, Georgia, Virginia, Florida, and North Carolina. The new Black migration gains were clearly favoring states in the New South: southern coastal states and Texas, where economies and employment opportunities were on the rise."
I lived in California for 30 years and now live in Alabama. It is a great place to live with lots to do. You more than live up to your moniker, though inferior intellect would be more apt.
The life expectancy is literally a decade less then California.
Every statistic Alabama is near the bottom. Crime, healthcare, environment, poverty, education, womans rights, income. Insanely high infant mortality, insane child poverty rate. But they are doing a great job banning that evil CRT in schools, so they got that going for em!
You couldn't pay me to enter that ****hole.
Good Thing you don't. We don't need or want you.
In the mean time you literally take your young life in your hands just moving around the streets of San Francisco, and navigating through the sea of ILLEGAL 3rd world aliens pi**ing and sh**ing on your streets. Not to mention all the used drug needles that are collected daily off your streets.
See how easy it is to throw the SOS back in your face?
Our country's problems are too big to condone this type of attitude about other parts of the country. WE both have our challenges and opportunities and with less vitriol perhaps we can help each other solve our problems.
You have to realize when people here take this moral superiority posture towards the plight of African Americans in the South it's because to them African Americans are lawn signs and a slogan
African American communities have declined rapidly in the Bay Area- 48- 20% in Oakland since 1980; San Francisco, 13-5% and due to real estate gerrymander- unlike the South- most people here have little contact with them unless they are Ivy League lawyers who live in Orinda. ( The term people of color is more virtue signaling referring mostly to educated people who work in tech not cleaning ladies or gardeners)
So this moral bloviating comes quite easily to someone who neither lives nor whose children attend schools with the underclass. Also the denigration of the South's health care, crime and well being also ignores the fact that large percentages of who we are talking about are African Americans
I spend a third to half a year in Mississippi where my wife's people are from. It is a state with a lot of problems including racism but also one rich in culture, particularly but not only African American. Blacks and whites share and enjoy that culture and mix- sometimes with unspoken rules- but in a familiar way my wife never experiences in the Bay Area
I think you should speak for yourself and not make assumptions about the experiences of others with minorities and "the underclass."
I have experience on the Mississippi Gulf Coast where my SO was raised and her mom lived after retirement until about 10 years ago when she moved here. Blacks and whites there do interact in a familiar way. It's like Morgan Freeman in Driving Miss Daisy and it's a very uncomfortable kind of familiarity to anyone who has been exposed to life elsewhere like everyone knows what their role is supposed to be.
My SO's mom worked public health in Mississippi and you haven't seen poor until you have done public home health care in Mississippi. The way the state treats its poor, knowing they are mostly black, is despicable.
We're both speaking from our experiences.
My experience up in the Delta is different. Friends and families of different races mix, often are multi-racial and don't interact in a plantation way. Schools are similar . The old guard of course remains but changes. Urban areas- Jackson - are black majority, black ruled and blue voting; there is an internal migration of African Americans to cities
With regard to health care, it is a poor state and public health is terrible for both poor white and poor black and the power structure resists change, not unlike most places.
things are worse for poor Black folks in Mississippi. yes, they have a lot of poor white folks in that state. a lot. opioid epidemic is increasingly impacting white communities and increasing the size of poor white communities. that state is one of the most impoverished in the US. 15% of white folks in Mississippi live below the poverty line. 38% of Black folks in Mississippi live below the poverty line.
yes, poor folks have a lot in common. and, yet there is a distinct experience that Black folks in the South can speak to that poor white folks can't, although I am sure they have witnessed it. 10% of white children in Mississippi live in concentrated poverty, whereas 47% of Black children in that state live in concentrated poverty. That goes to the issue of urban vs rural. what it means is that Black families that don't live below the poverty line are still living surrounded by poverty, which negatively impacts their opportunities in education, work, etc. and so you begin to understand that the experience of poor Black folks is not the same as poor white folks.
Also, like I said, it is important to note that the people who can make changes to help the poor realize that while not all poor folks are black the vast majority of them are. That knowledge drives decision making. It hurts some white people, too, but those people are collateral damage. What is important is that the black people are kept in their place to perpetuate stereotypes and that as little money should be spent on them as possible because that would be throwing good money after bad.
I have relayed this anecdote here before but at my SO's school in Mississippi they had an honors program. It was filled with blonde cheerleaders and white football players. There wasn't a single person of color.
They had a turnover and a new principal came in from New York. Suspicious, he had everyone at the school tested for placement. The new honors class was filled with the children of the Vietnamese shrimp fisherman as well as a few black and Hispanic kids. Those kids had been in the LOWEST level. One of them (a Mexican kid) later went on to become a well-regarded plastic surgeon.
This wasn't in the 1930s. This was in the early 1980s!
One time around 2010 I was in Mississippi and I was talking to a salesclerk. We were making small talk and somehow the topic turned to the economy. I am a blonde white guy so people sometimes assume I am a cracker like they are.
She said: "You know what the problem is?"
Uh oh. Here it comes.
"No," I replied quietly.
"Black people! They just refuse to get a job and they cost us all this money!"
At least she didn't use the N-word. I have heard that used in Mississippi and Alabama, too, and in such a casual way. To say that to a stranger in public was… well, you can see why they like Trump. He says the quiet part out loud, too.
If I was a person of color I would get the hell out of there and stay out.
I should add that not everyone is like that. There are some very kind and tolerant folks. However; just a few people like that and the culture that breeds that is enough for this California guy to never want to be there no matter how pretty it is or how cheap it costs. We have people like that here, too, but they know they better keep it to themselves.
"while not all poor folks are black the vast majority of them are. "
I'm confused by that statement. Are you trying to say that the vast majority of poor folks are black or that the vast majority of blacks are poor? Neither is actually true. The federal poverty rate amongst blacks is high, 18-19%, twice that of other populations, but most Blacks are not actually poor. Additionally, although poverty occurs at a lower rate amongst the white population, the overwhelming majority of the nation's poor are white, and a plurality of the nation's poor are non-Hispanic white.
We're not gonna get any where trying to solve the nation's issues with poverty by ignoring the largest population of poor people.
Much of the racial conflict in the south over the years has actually been conflict between poor whites and blacks, stoked by wealthy elites, who used the issue of race to keep poor whites in check and onsides politically. Ignoring the problems of poor whites only feeds into that old system of control.
I lived in California for 30 years and now live in Alabama. It is a great place to live with lots to do. You more than live up to your moniker, though inferior intellect would be more apt.
The life expectancy is literally a decade less then California.
Every statistic Alabama is near the bottom. Crime, healthcare, environment, poverty, education, womans rights, income. Insanely high infant mortality, insane child poverty rate. But they are doing a great job banning that evil CRT in schools, so they got that going for em!
You couldn't pay me to enter that ****hole.
Good Thing you don't. We don't need or want you.
In the mean time you literally take your young life in your hands just moving around the streets of San Francisco, and navigating through the sea of ILLEGAL 3rd world aliens pi**ing and sh**ing on your streets. Not to mention all the used drug needles that are collected daily off your streets.
See how easy it is to throw the SOS back in your face?
Our country's problems are too big to condone this type of attitude about other parts of the country. WE both have our challenges and opportunities and with less vitriol perhaps we can help each other solve our problems.
You have to realize when people here take this moral superiority posture towards the plight of African Americans in the South it's because to them African Americans are lawn signs and a slogan
African American communities have declined rapidly in the Bay Area- 48- 20% in Oakland since 1980; San Francisco, 13-5% and due to real estate gerrymander- unlike the South- most people here have little contact with them unless they are Ivy League lawyers who live in Orinda. ( The term people of color is more virtue signaling referring mostly to educated people who work in tech not cleaning ladies or gardeners)
So this moral bloviating comes quite easily to someone who neither lives nor whose children attend schools with the underclass. Also the denigration of the South's health care, crime and well being also ignores the fact that large percentages of who we are talking about are African Americans
I spend a third to half a year in Mississippi where my wife's people are from. It is a state with a lot of problems including racism but also one rich in culture, particularly but not only African American. Blacks and whites share and enjoy that culture and mix- sometimes with unspoken rules- but in a familiar way my wife never experiences in the Bay Area
I think you should speak for yourself and not make assumptions about the experiences of others with minorities and "the underclass."
I have experience on the Mississippi Gulf Coast where my SO was raised and her mom lived after retirement until about 10 years ago when she moved here. Blacks and whites there do interact in a familiar way. It's like Morgan Freeman in Driving Miss Daisy and it's a very uncomfortable kind of familiarity to anyone who has been exposed to life elsewhere like everyone knows what their role is supposed to be.
My SO's mom worked public health in Mississippi and you haven't seen poor until you have done public home health care in Mississippi. The way the state treats its poor, knowing they are mostly black, is despicable.
We're both speaking from our experiences.
My experience up in the Delta is different. Friends and families of different races mix, often are multi-racial and don't interact in a plantation way. Schools are similar . The old guard of course remains but changes. Urban areas- Jackson - are black majority, black ruled and blue voting; there is an internal migration of African Americans to cities
With regard to health care, it is a poor state and public health is terrible for both poor white and poor black and the power structure resists change, not unlike most places.
things are worse for poor Black folks in Mississippi. yes, they have a lot of poor white folks in that state. a lot. opioid epidemic is increasingly impacting white communities and increasing the size of poor white communities. that state is one of the most impoverished in the US. 15% of white folks in Mississippi live below the poverty line. 38% of Black folks in Mississippi live below the poverty line.
yes, poor folks have a lot in common. and, yet there is a distinct experience that Black folks in the South can speak to that poor white folks can't, although I am sure they have witnessed it. 10% of white children in Mississippi live in concentrated poverty, whereas 47% of Black children in that state live in concentrated poverty. That goes to the issue of urban vs rural. what it means is that Black families that don't live below the poverty line are still living surrounded by poverty, which negatively impacts their opportunities in education, work, etc. and so you begin to understand that the experience of poor Black folks is not the same as poor white folks.
Also, like I said, it is important to note that the people who can make changes to help the poor realize that while not all poor folks are black the vast majority of them are. That knowledge drives decision making. It hurts some white people, too, but those people are collateral damage. What is important is that the black people are kept in their place to perpetuate stereotypes and that as little money should be spent on them as possible because that would be throwing good money after bad.
I have relayed this anecdote here before but at my SO's school in Mississippi they had an honors program. It was filled with blonde cheerleaders and white football players. There wasn't a single person of color.
They had a turnover and a new principal came in from New York. Suspicious, he had everyone at the school tested for placement. The new honors class was filled with the children of the Vietnamese shrimp fisherman as well as a few black and Hispanic kids. Those kids had been in the LOWEST level. One of them (a Mexican kid) later went on to become a well-regarded plastic surgeon.
This wasn't in the 1930s. This was in the early 1980s!
One time around 2010 I was in Mississippi and I was talking to a salesclerk. We were making small talk and somehow the topic turned to the economy. I am a blonde white guy so people sometimes assume I am a cracker like they are.
She said: "You know what the problem is?"
Uh oh. Here it comes.
"No," I replied quietly.
"Black people! They just refuse to get a job and they cost us all this money!"
At least she didn't use the N-word. I have heard that used in Mississippi and Alabama, too, and in such a casual way. To say that to a stranger in public was… well, you can see why they like Trump. He says the quiet part out loud, too.
If I was a person of color I would get the hell out of there and stay out.
I should add that not everyone is like that. There are some very kind and tolerant folks. However; just a few people like that and the culture that breeds that is enough for this California guy to never want to be there no matter how pretty it is or how cheap it costs. We have people like that here, too, but they know they better keep it to themselves.
"while not all poor folks are black the vast majority of them are. "
I'm confused by that statement. Are you trying to say that the vast majority of poor folks are black or that the vast majority of blacks are poor? Neither is actually true. The poverty rate amongst blacks is high, 18-19%, twice that if other populations, but most Blacks are not actually poor. Additionally, although poverty occurs at a lower rate amongst the white population, the overwhelming majority of the nation's poor are white, and a plurality of the nation's poor are non-Hispanic white.
We're not gonna get any we're trying to solve the nation's issues with poverty by ignoring the largest population of poor people.
The vast majority of poor folks are black in Mississippi. Alabama, too.
I lived in California for 30 years and now live in Alabama. It is a great place to live with lots to do. You more than live up to your moniker, though inferior intellect would be more apt.
The life expectancy is literally a decade less then California.
Every statistic Alabama is near the bottom. Crime, healthcare, environment, poverty, education, womans rights, income. Insanely high infant mortality, insane child poverty rate. But they are doing a great job banning that evil CRT in schools, so they got that going for em!
You couldn't pay me to enter that ****hole.
Good Thing you don't. We don't need or want you.
In the mean time you literally take your young life in your hands just moving around the streets of San Francisco, and navigating through the sea of ILLEGAL 3rd world aliens pi**ing and sh**ing on your streets. Not to mention all the used drug needles that are collected daily off your streets.
See how easy it is to throw the SOS back in your face?
Our country's problems are too big to condone this type of attitude about other parts of the country. WE both have our challenges and opportunities and with less vitriol perhaps we can help each other solve our problems.
You have to realize when people here take this moral superiority posture towards the plight of African Americans in the South it's because to them African Americans are lawn signs and a slogan
African American communities have declined rapidly in the Bay Area- 48- 20% in Oakland since 1980; San Francisco, 13-5% and due to real estate gerrymander- unlike the South- most people here have little contact with them unless they are Ivy League lawyers who live in Orinda. ( The term people of color is more virtue signaling referring mostly to educated people who work in tech not cleaning ladies or gardeners)
So this moral bloviating comes quite easily to someone who neither lives nor whose children attend schools with the underclass. Also the denigration of the South's health care, crime and well being also ignores the fact that large percentages of who we are talking about are African Americans
I spend a third to half a year in Mississippi where my wife's people are from. It is a state with a lot of problems including racism but also one rich in culture, particularly but not only African American. Blacks and whites share and enjoy that culture and mix- sometimes with unspoken rules- but in a familiar way my wife never experiences in the Bay Area
I think you should speak for yourself and not make assumptions about the experiences of others with minorities and "the underclass."
I have experience on the Mississippi Gulf Coast where my SO was raised and her mom lived after retirement until about 10 years ago when she moved here. Blacks and whites there do interact in a familiar way. It's like Morgan Freeman in Driving Miss Daisy and it's a very uncomfortable kind of familiarity to anyone who has been exposed to life elsewhere like everyone knows what their role is supposed to be.
My SO's mom worked public health in Mississippi and you haven't seen poor until you have done public home health care in Mississippi. The way the state treats its poor, knowing they are mostly black, is despicable.
We're both speaking from our experiences.
My experience up in the Delta is different. Friends and families of different races mix, often are multi-racial and don't interact in a plantation way. Schools are similar . The old guard of course remains but changes. Urban areas- Jackson - are black majority, black ruled and blue voting; there is an internal migration of African Americans to cities
With regard to health care, it is a poor state and public health is terrible for both poor white and poor black and the power structure resists change, not unlike most places.
things are worse for poor Black folks in Mississippi. yes, they have a lot of poor white folks in that state. a lot. opioid epidemic is increasingly impacting white communities and increasing the size of poor white communities. that state is one of the most impoverished in the US. 15% of white folks in Mississippi live below the poverty line. 38% of Black folks in Mississippi live below the poverty line.
yes, poor folks have a lot in common. and, yet there is a distinct experience that Black folks in the South can speak to that poor white folks can't, although I am sure they have witnessed it. 10% of white children in Mississippi live in concentrated poverty, whereas 47% of Black children in that state live in concentrated poverty. That goes to the issue of urban vs rural. what it means is that Black families that don't live below the poverty line are still living surrounded by poverty, which negatively impacts their opportunities in education, work, etc. and so you begin to understand that the experience of poor Black folks is not the same as poor white folks.
Also, like I said, it is important to note that the people who can make changes to help the poor realize that while not all poor folks are black the vast majority of them are. That knowledge drives decision making. It hurts some white people, too, but those people are collateral damage. What is important is that the black people are kept in their place to perpetuate stereotypes and that as little money should be spent on them as possible because that would be throwing good money after bad.
I have relayed this anecdote here before but at my SO's school in Mississippi they had an honors program. It was filled with blonde cheerleaders and white football players. There wasn't a single person of color.
They had a turnover and a new principal came in from New York. Suspicious, he had everyone at the school tested for placement. The new honors class was filled with the children of the Vietnamese shrimp fisherman as well as a few black and Hispanic kids. Those kids had been in the LOWEST level. One of them (a Mexican kid) later went on to become a well-regarded plastic surgeon.
This wasn't in the 1930s. This was in the early 1980s!
One time around 2010 I was in Mississippi and I was talking to a salesclerk. We were making small talk and somehow the topic turned to the economy. I am a blonde white guy so people sometimes assume I am a cracker like they are.
She said: "You know what the problem is?"
Uh oh. Here it comes.
"No," I replied quietly.
"Black people! They just refuse to get a job and they cost us all this money!"
At least she didn't use the N-word. I have heard that used in Mississippi and Alabama, too, and in such a casual way. To say that to a stranger in public was… well, you can see why they like Trump. He says the quiet part out loud, too.
If I was a person of color I would get the hell out of there and stay out.
I should add that not everyone is like that. There are some very kind and tolerant folks. However; just a few people like that and the culture that breeds that is enough for this California guy to never want to be there no matter how pretty it is or how cheap it costs. We have people like that here, too, but they know they better keep it to themselves.
"while not all poor folks are black the vast majority of them are. "
I'm confused by that statement. Are you trying to say that the vast majority of poor folks are black or that the vast majority of blacks are poor? Neither is actually true. The poverty rate amongst blacks is high, 18-19%, twice that if other populations, but most Blacks are not actually poor. Additionally, although poverty occurs at a lower rate amongst the white population, the overwhelming majority of the nation's poor are white, and a plurality of the nation's poor are non-Hispanic white.
We're not gonna get any we're trying to solve the nation's issues with poverty by ignoring the largest population of poor people.
The vast majority of poor folks are black in Mississippi. Alabama, too.
I'm pretty sure that's not true in Alabama. Mississippi that's actually probably true. If I had to guess I'd say that Mississippi is the only state in the union where the majority of the poor population is black. It's nearly 40% black demographically, so that's almost a certainty.
I lived in California for 30 years and now live in Alabama. It is a great place to live with lots to do. You more than live up to your moniker, though inferior intellect would be more apt.
The life expectancy is literally a decade less then California.
Every statistic Alabama is near the bottom. Crime, healthcare, environment, poverty, education, womans rights, income. Insanely high infant mortality, insane child poverty rate. But they are doing a great job banning that evil CRT in schools, so they got that going for em!
You couldn't pay me to enter that ****hole.
Good Thing you don't. We don't need or want you.
In the mean time you literally take your young life in your hands just moving around the streets of San Francisco, and navigating through the sea of ILLEGAL 3rd world aliens pi**ing and sh**ing on your streets. Not to mention all the used drug needles that are collected daily off your streets.
See how easy it is to throw the SOS back in your face?
Our country's problems are too big to condone this type of attitude about other parts of the country. WE both have our challenges and opportunities and with less vitriol perhaps we can help each other solve our problems.
You have to realize when people here take this moral superiority posture towards the plight of African Americans in the South it's because to them African Americans are lawn signs and a slogan
African American communities have declined rapidly in the Bay Area- 48- 20% in Oakland since 1980; San Francisco, 13-5% and due to real estate gerrymander- unlike the South- most people here have little contact with them unless they are Ivy League lawyers who live in Orinda. ( The term people of color is more virtue signaling referring mostly to educated people who work in tech not cleaning ladies or gardeners)
So this moral bloviating comes quite easily to someone who neither lives nor whose children attend schools with the underclass. Also the denigration of the South's health care, crime and well being also ignores the fact that large percentages of who we are talking about are African Americans
I spend a third to half a year in Mississippi where my wife's people are from. It is a state with a lot of problems including racism but also one rich in culture, particularly but not only African American. Blacks and whites share and enjoy that culture and mix- sometimes with unspoken rules- but in a familiar way my wife never experiences in the Bay Area
I think you should speak for yourself and not make assumptions about the experiences of others with minorities and "the underclass."
I have experience on the Mississippi Gulf Coast where my SO was raised and her mom lived after retirement until about 10 years ago when she moved here. Blacks and whites there do interact in a familiar way. It's like Morgan Freeman in Driving Miss Daisy and it's a very uncomfortable kind of familiarity to anyone who has been exposed to life elsewhere like everyone knows what their role is supposed to be.
My SO's mom worked public health in Mississippi and you haven't seen poor until you have done public home health care in Mississippi. The way the state treats its poor, knowing they are mostly black, is despicable.
We're both speaking from our experiences.
My experience up in the Delta is different. Friends and families of different races mix, often are multi-racial and don't interact in a plantation way. Schools are similar . The old guard of course remains but changes. Urban areas- Jackson - are black majority, black ruled and blue voting; there is an internal migration of African Americans to cities
With regard to health care, it is a poor state and public health is terrible for both poor white and poor black and the power structure resists change, not unlike most places.
things are worse for poor Black folks in Mississippi. yes, they have a lot of poor white folks in that state. a lot. opioid epidemic is increasingly impacting white communities and increasing the size of poor white communities. that state is one of the most impoverished in the US. 15% of white folks in Mississippi live below the poverty line. 38% of Black folks in Mississippi live below the poverty line.
yes, poor folks have a lot in common. and, yet there is a distinct experience that Black folks in the South can speak to that poor white folks can't, although I am sure they have witnessed it. 10% of white children in Mississippi live in concentrated poverty, whereas 47% of Black children in that state live in concentrated poverty. That goes to the issue of urban vs rural. what it means is that Black families that don't live below the poverty line are still living surrounded by poverty, which negatively impacts their opportunities in education, work, etc. and so you begin to understand that the experience of poor Black folks is not the same as poor white folks.
Also, like I said, it is important to note that the people who can make changes to help the poor realize that while not all poor folks are black the vast majority of them are. That knowledge drives decision making. It hurts some white people, too, but those people are collateral damage. What is important is that the black people are kept in their place to perpetuate stereotypes and that as little money should be spent on them as possible because that would be throwing good money after bad.
I have relayed this anecdote here before but at my SO's school in Mississippi they had an honors program. It was filled with blonde cheerleaders and white football players. There wasn't a single person of color.
They had a turnover and a new principal came in from New York. Suspicious, he had everyone at the school tested for placement. The new honors class was filled with the children of the Vietnamese shrimp fisherman as well as a few black and Hispanic kids. Those kids had been in the LOWEST level. One of them (a Mexican kid) later went on to become a well-regarded plastic surgeon.
This wasn't in the 1930s. This was in the early 1980s!
One time around 2010 I was in Mississippi and I was talking to a salesclerk. We were making small talk and somehow the topic turned to the economy. I am a blonde white guy so people sometimes assume I am a cracker like they are.
She said: "You know what the problem is?"
Uh oh. Here it comes.
"No," I replied quietly.
"Black people! They just refuse to get a job and they cost us all this money!"
At least she didn't use the N-word. I have heard that used in Mississippi and Alabama, too, and in such a casual way. To say that to a stranger in public was… well, you can see why they like Trump. He says the quiet part out loud, too.
If I was a person of color I would get the hell out of there and stay out.
I should add that not everyone is like that. There are some very kind and tolerant folks. However; just a few people like that and the culture that breeds that is enough for this California guy to never want to be there no matter how pretty it is or how cheap it costs. We have people like that here, too, but they know they better keep it to themselves.
sadly, they don't keep it to themselves here in Cali. Before Cal I had an art company for a while, my Black sales staff taught me quite a bit about race relations in California. Two were from South Central, one was from Missouri, and one guy was a Brit from Turks and Caicos. We learned where not to send them. The #1 most hated place: Orange County. Latino staff didn't like San Diego County or parts of Orange County for the same reason. The cops would be on them in minutes. guaranteed.
I think folks are more likely to control themselves and not say things that are outta pocket in the Bay Area. Bay Area is a bubble within the bubble that is California.
Orange County is not LA. North County is not City of San Diego.
LA and the Bay Area dwarf Orange County.
My point is that bigotry is not foreign to California. We got the bad spots from the bottom of the 99 up through Redding, and parts of LA County, Ventura County, Santa Barbara County, Humboldt, Mendocino, Lake, Trinity counties that aren't much different from the racist parts of Orange County and North County San Diego. we may not have sundown towns, but we have (particularly in LA county) a huge problem with racist law enforcement gangs who like beating and killing Black and Brown folks. we are not the paradise that we would like to think we are.
I lived in California for 30 years and now live in Alabama. It is a great place to live with lots to do. You more than live up to your moniker, though inferior intellect would be more apt.
The life expectancy is literally a decade less then California.
Every statistic Alabama is near the bottom. Crime, healthcare, environment, poverty, education, womans rights, income. Insanely high infant mortality, insane child poverty rate. But they are doing a great job banning that evil CRT in schools, so they got that going for em!
You couldn't pay me to enter that ****hole.
Good Thing you don't. We don't need or want you.
In the mean time you literally take your young life in your hands just moving around the streets of San Francisco, and navigating through the sea of ILLEGAL 3rd world aliens pi**ing and sh**ing on your streets. Not to mention all the used drug needles that are collected daily off your streets.
See how easy it is to throw the SOS back in your face?
Our country's problems are too big to condone this type of attitude about other parts of the country. WE both have our challenges and opportunities and with less vitriol perhaps we can help each other solve our problems.
You have to realize when people here take this moral superiority posture towards the plight of African Americans in the South it's because to them African Americans are lawn signs and a slogan
African American communities have declined rapidly in the Bay Area- 48- 20% in Oakland since 1980; San Francisco, 13-5% and due to real estate gerrymander- unlike the South- most people here have little contact with them unless they are Ivy League lawyers who live in Orinda. ( The term people of color is more virtue signaling referring mostly to educated people who work in tech not cleaning ladies or gardeners)
So this moral bloviating comes quite easily to someone who neither lives nor whose children attend schools with the underclass. Also the denigration of the South's health care, crime and well being also ignores the fact that large percentages of who we are talking about are African Americans
I spend a third to half a year in Mississippi where my wife's people are from. It is a state with a lot of problems including racism but also one rich in culture, particularly but not only African American. Blacks and whites share and enjoy that culture and mix- sometimes with unspoken rules- but in a familiar way my wife never experiences in the Bay Area
I think you should speak for yourself and not make assumptions about the experiences of others with minorities and "the underclass."
I have experience on the Mississippi Gulf Coast where my SO was raised and her mom lived after retirement until about 10 years ago when she moved here. Blacks and whites there do interact in a familiar way. It's like Morgan Freeman in Driving Miss Daisy and it's a very uncomfortable kind of familiarity to anyone who has been exposed to life elsewhere like everyone knows what their role is supposed to be.
My SO's mom worked public health in Mississippi and you haven't seen poor until you have done public home health care in Mississippi. The way the state treats its poor, knowing they are mostly black, is despicable.
We're both speaking from our experiences.
My experience up in the Delta is different. Friends and families of different races mix, often are multi-racial and don't interact in a plantation way. Schools are similar . The old guard of course remains but changes. Urban areas- Jackson - are black majority, black ruled and blue voting; there is an internal migration of African Americans to cities
With regard to health care, it is a poor state and public health is terrible for both poor white and poor black and the power structure resists change, not unlike most places.
things are worse for poor Black folks in Mississippi. yes, they have a lot of poor white folks in that state. a lot. opioid epidemic is increasingly impacting white communities and increasing the size of poor white communities. that state is one of the most impoverished in the US. 15% of white folks in Mississippi live below the poverty line. 38% of Black folks in Mississippi live below the poverty line.
yes, poor folks have a lot in common. and, yet there is a distinct experience that Black folks in the South can speak to that poor white folks can't, although I am sure they have witnessed it. 10% of white children in Mississippi live in concentrated poverty, whereas 47% of Black children in that state live in concentrated poverty. That goes to the issue of urban vs rural. what it means is that Black families that don't live below the poverty line are still living surrounded by poverty, which negatively impacts their opportunities in education, work, etc. and so you begin to understand that the experience of poor Black folks is not the same as poor white folks.
Also, like I said, it is important to note that the people who can make changes to help the poor realize that while not all poor folks are black the vast majority of them are. That knowledge drives decision making. It hurts some white people, too, but those people are collateral damage. What is important is that the black people are kept in their place to perpetuate stereotypes and that as little money should be spent on them as possible because that would be throwing good money after bad.
I have relayed this anecdote here before but at my SO's school in Mississippi they had an honors program. It was filled with blonde cheerleaders and white football players. There wasn't a single person of color.
They had a turnover and a new principal came in from New York. Suspicious, he had everyone at the school tested for placement. The new honors class was filled with the children of the Vietnamese shrimp fisherman as well as a few black and Hispanic kids. Those kids had been in the LOWEST level. One of them (a Mexican kid) later went on to become a well-regarded plastic surgeon.
This wasn't in the 1930s. This was in the early 1980s!
One time around 2010 I was in Mississippi and I was talking to a salesclerk. We were making small talk and somehow the topic turned to the economy. I am a blonde white guy so people sometimes assume I am a cracker like they are.
She said: "You know what the problem is?"
Uh oh. Here it comes.
"No," I replied quietly.
"Black people! They just refuse to get a job and they cost us all this money!"
At least she didn't use the N-word. I have heard that used in Mississippi and Alabama, too, and in such a casual way. To say that to a stranger in public was… well, you can see why they like Trump. He says the quiet part out loud, too.
If I was a person of color I would get the hell out of there and stay out.
I should add that not everyone is like that. There are some very kind and tolerant folks. However; just a few people like that and the culture that breeds that is enough for this California guy to never want to be there no matter how pretty it is or how cheap it costs. We have people like that here, too, but they know they better keep it to themselves.
"while not all poor folks are black the vast majority of them are. "
I'm confused by that statement. Are you trying to say that the vast majority of poor folks are black or that the vast majority of blacks are poor? Neither is actually true. The federal poverty rate amongst blacks is high, 18-19%, twice that of other populations, but most Blacks are not actually poor. Additionally, although poverty occurs at a lower rate amongst the white population, the overwhelming majority of the nation's poor are white, and a plurality of the nation's poor are non-Hispanic white.
We're not gonna get any where trying to solve the nation's issues with poverty by ignoring the largest population of poor people.
Much of the racial conflict in the south over the years has actually been conflict between poor whites and blacks, stoked by wealthy elites, who used the issue of race to keep poor whites in check and onsides politically. Ignoring the problems of poor whites only feeds into that old system of control.
concentrated poverty is a more accurate understanding of how poverty impacts Black communities, not just the poverty rate. Poverty line statistics alone do not really tell you much about how poverty impacts a community.
Like the concentrated poverty statistic of Mississippi were close to half of Black children live in areas of concentrated poverty. Meaning that even if you are not below the poverty line, you are still drastically impacted by the poverty levels in your community. Your schools, your roads, etc., are all impacted by poverty levels.
White folks poverty is more rural, than urban, meaning that white folks living in cities or suburbs are not as exposed or impacted by the poverty of the rural white community. Their kids don't attend run down schools, or have poorly maintained city infrastructure they have to live in. In contrast, the statistic showed how much more the Black community is impacted. That is what concentrated poverty is. You have to begin to really study the nuances of poverty beyond basic definitions. You begin to comprehend the gradient scale of poverty from relative poverty to abject poverty.
and, yes, the conflict between poor of all races over resources that have been limited by the wealthy elites is how the wealthy elites maintain their power. Addressing how poverty experiences are not the same for all races and require different solutions is needed.
My former colleague is a Mississippi Choctaw with black skin. She is well-educated with a graduate degree in engineering from Stanford. Her husband is a freelance artist, writer, comedian, and stay-at-home dad.
She decided to move to Huntsville for the lower cost of living when she had kids, which is important because her husband doesn't have a steady income. He also happens to be much lighter skinned.
I asked her how it was going and since she is from Louisiana she sort of knew what she was getting into. Huntsville (which I have been to) is a much better educated and higher income part of Alabama but it is still Alabama.
Even well-meaning people say offensive things, ask offensive questions, and make offensive assumptions with respect to her race and her career (being the breadwinner). They often want to speak to "the man of the house." She said working with the real estate agents to buy a house while her husband was home with the kids was a demeaning experience for her.
That can happen anywhere, but she definitely noticed the difference. That said, she is going to try to stick it out but I wonder if all the people who move to the South and talk about how great it is are white, male, heterosexual, Christian conservatives.
My former colleague is a Mississippi Choctaw with black skin. She is well-educated with a graduate degree in engineering from Stanford. Her husband is a freelance artist, writer, comedian, and stay-at-home dad.
She decided to move to Huntsville for the lower cost of living when she had kids, which is important because her husband doesn't have a steady income. He also happens to be much lighter skinned.
I asked her how it was going and since she is from Louisiana she sort of knew what she was getting into. Huntsville (which I have been to) is a much better educated and higher income part of Alabama but it is still Alabama.
Even well-meaning people say offensive things, ask offensive questions, and make offensive assumptions with respect to her race and her career (being the breadwinner). They often want to speak to "the man of the house." She said working with the real estate agents to buy a house while her husband was home with the kids was a demeaning experience for her.
That can happen anywhere, but she definitely noticed the difference. That said, she is going to try to stick it out but I wonder if all the people who move to the South and talk about how great it is are white, male, heterosexual, Christian conservatives.
