Welcome to America, Please Be On Time: What Guide Books Tell Foreign Visitors to the U.S.

You might say that global food cultures tend to fall into one of two categories: utensil cultures and finger cultures. The U.S., somewhat unusually, has both: the appropriate delivery method can vary between cuisines, and even between dishes, and it's far from obvious which is which. Baked chicken is a fork food, but fried chicken a finger food, depending on how it's fried. If you get fried pieces of potato, it's a finger food, unless the potato retains some circular shape, in which case use your fork. And so on. Confused yet?

The books emphasize that the U.S. is safe, with one big exception they all note: "inner cities," which are described with a terror that can feel a little outdated. "When driving, under no circumstances you should stop in any unlit or seemingly deserted urban area," Rough Guide warns, going on to describe dangerous scams - a strange man waving you down for "auto trouble," another car hitting yours out of nowhere so that you'll get out - in a way that makes them sound commonplace.

Well I happened to be cruising through Gary, Indiana and the South Side of Chi-town today... their advice about "dont stop in a deserted urban area" would have been sound advice for me, 'cept I already knew that.

^Being in what is typically called an "interracial relationship" I feel that way in I would say 77.5679% of the places we go, that percentage increases the farther south I go, until I get to New Orleans.  Having a son who is very light skinned, I felt safer when he was very young, people assumed I was the nanny.

Come to the U.S. for holiday.  We won't shoot you, I promise!
8)

Back when I was in grade school and high school, my two brothers and I had what has now come to be known as a "Ghetto Pass".  We could walk through the roughest sections of Aliquippa PA with impunity.

Back in '68 my Mum mentioned to a family friend of ours (who lived in the projects) that maybe my oldest brother should stay away from that neighborhood for a while in the wake of unrest following the MLK murder.  The freind said "Mrs. Lyric, your boys got no trouble in this town.  Everybody in this neighborhood know that anyone who lay a hand on them will get their butts whooped but good. They can go anywhere they want and there will be no trouble.".  This from a woman who was once charged with attempted murder against a sports official, was once shot along with her husband by a former son-in-law, and who once came home to a dead son who had been assaulted with a baseball bat.  She was a very nice lady who took care of the LyricBrothers and our grandmother  when we were growing up, and I never doubted for a moment that the sports official got what he had coming.

Somewhere along the line those neighborhoods got much nastier, and I imagine that my ghetto pass has since expired.  :-\\

When they stress neighborhoods you shouldn't go into it seems they always point out "ghetto" or "urban" (read black).  As if the poor white neighborhoods are somehow different.  When I was a kid my friends and I, ages about 7 to 15, got together to walk the Freedom Trail when it was first started.  My mother told us not to go to the Bunker Hill Monument because it was in Charlestown and the racism was thick.  Well, we went anyway.  It was the scariest walk of my life, I still remember walking down Bunker Hill Street.  The people opened their doors or stood in the window, called us names, stood in the sidewalk so we had to walk in the street and spit as we walked by. They treat a group of kids walking the Freedom Trail like that, well.  It has gotten better, but only if you stay on the well traveled tourist trails. and Southie!  At least when Whitey was here you knew who was in charge, it is much the same, stay to the tourist areas and there isn't a problem.  The difference in these areas, in the "urban"(read black) areas when something happens people call the cops and everyone wants to tell what happened and be on camera.  In the "ethnic enclaves" of American/Irish and American/Italian they bury the body under the Mystic River Bridge and "nobody knows nothin'"

In the "ethnic enclaves" of American/Irish and American/Italian they bury the body under the Mystic River Bridge and "nobody knows nothin'"


Whether you call it "no snitchin" or "omerta", people in enclaves tend to keep their mouths shut.  Although where I lived, people pretty much were getting murdered by people within their own enclave.  "Italian on italian", "black on black", that sort of thing.  And usually nobody saw nuthin, even if they were the one who got shot.

When they stress neighborhoods you shouldn't go into it seems they always point out "ghetto" or "urban" (read black).  As if the poor white neighborhoods are somehow different.  When I was a kid my friends and I, ages about 7 to 15, got together to walk the Freedom Trail when it was first started.  My mother told us not to go to the Bunker Hill Monument because it was in Charlestown and the racism was thick.  Well, we went anyway.  It was the scariest walk of my life, I still remember walking down Bunker Hill Street.  The people opened their doors or stood in the window, called us names, stood in the sidewalk so we had to walk in the street and spit as we walked by. They treat a group of kids walking the Freedom Trail like that, well.  It has gotten better, but only if you stay on the well traveled tourist trails. and Southie!  At least when Whitey was here you knew who was in charge, it is much the same, stay to the tourist areas and there isn't a problem.  The difference in these areas, in the "urban"(read black) areas when something happens people call the cops and everyone wants to tell what happened and be on camera.  In the "ethnic enclaves" of American/Irish and American/Italian they bury the body under the Mystic River Bridge and "nobody knows nothin'"



In 94 or 95 I was at a training in a small all white town in MD.  I mean really small... My co-workers, all white, who had traveled with me, were not really aware of the stares I was getting when I walked down the street.  I have never been that scared in my life...it's not paranoia, you can feel the eyes burning right through you... I joked about someone taking the white sheets off the clothes (only I wasn't really joking) I begged my friends not to leave me alone when we walked through town. They didn't get it but they didn't leave me alone and I thank them for that. 

When they stress neighborhoods you shouldn't go into it seems they always point out "ghetto" or "urban" (read black).  As if the poor white neighborhoods are somehow different.  When I was a kid my friends and I, ages about 7 to 15, got together to walk the Freedom Trail when it was first started.  My mother told us not to go to the Bunker Hill Monument because it was in Charlestown and the racism was thick.  Well, we went anyway.  It was the scariest walk of my life, I still remember walking down Bunker Hill Street.  The people opened their doors or stood in the window, called us names, stood in the sidewalk so we had to walk in the street and spit as we walked by. They treat a group of kids walking the Freedom Trail like that, well.  It has gotten better, but only if you stay on the well traveled tourist trails. and Southie!  At least when Whitey was here you knew who was in charge, it is much the same, stay to the tourist areas and there isn't a problem.  The difference in these areas, in the "urban"(read black) areas when something happens people call the cops and everyone wants to tell what happened and be on camera.  In the "ethnic enclaves" of American/Irish and American/Italian they bury the body under the Mystic River Bridge and "nobody knows nothin'"


That's I refrain from the term "ghetto" and say "neighborhood."  Ghetto is such an alien word.  Certainly, the way some enclaves of public housing were designed fit the term "ghetto" in the Warsaw sense, but I find people who talk about problems of "the ghetto" imply "Of course there are problems, it's the ghetto!"  Out in the suburbs we didn't know anybody who lived in a ghetto, but we all lived in neighborhoods.  Thus, if you say "neighborhood," it makes things a little more familiar.

There are not just neighborhoods but whole towns in this country that are not as 'safe' as the 'most dangerous' urban areas. A few hours drive away is a town that is deliberately all white. They make no apologies for it, which makes me sick. Of course, I think that incest is probably also something they promote as well, so perhaps it is best if they keep themselves to themselves.  8-P

I have lived in urban areas and rural settings, and my experience is the more hostile environments to be the rural settings rather than the urban areas. Certainly I dealt with more bullies in the rural areas vs. the urban areas that I have lived.

There are not just neighborhoods but whole towns in this country that are not as 'safe' as the 'most dangerous' urban areas. A few hours drive away is a town that is deliberately all white. They make no apologies for it, which makes me sick. Of course, I think that incest is probably also something they promote as well, so perhaps it is best if they keep themselves to themselves.  8-P

I have lived in urban areas and rural settings, and my experience is the more hostile environments to be the rural settings rather than the urban areas. Certainly I dealt with more bullies in the rural areas vs. the urban areas that I have lived.


What's funny about the rural Midwest is that you can go to one small town and hang out in the local bar and the people are totally cool, and then you can drive 7 miles down the highway to the next town over and people are complete dicks.

There are not just neighborhoods but whole towns in this country that are not as 'safe' as the 'most dangerous' urban areas. A few hours drive away is a town that is deliberately all white. They make no apologies for it, which makes me sick. Of course, I think that incest is probably also something they promote as well, so perhaps it is best if they keep themselves to themselves.  8-P

I have lived in urban areas and rural settings, and my experience is the more hostile environments to be the rural settings rather than the urban areas. Certainly I dealt with more bullies in the rural areas vs. the urban areas that I have lived.


I was watching the Glee Project (season 2) there's a contestant from a town called Whitesville... I'm not gonna lie, I had a few ideas (right or wrong) about how the town got it's name  ;)