[cookiecaper]

This assumes that one's politics align with the politics and hostile culture in California. I intentionally avoid living in CA due to its culture/politics and have turned down multiple bona fide relocation offers to CA.

Like all places, the Midwest is not without its unhappy quirks or its difficult people, but Midwesterners are noticeably polite and friendly, even coming from other "flyover" regions.

Yes, they are generally conservative (not universally, and especially not among the young), but they can usually get along with their neighbors just fine.

When I lived in the Midwest, we had not only multiple gay people, but multiple gay teachers living in our neighborhood. While I'm sure it upset some of the parents, these teachers were able to go about their business just fine and spent many years teaching at the schools. This was in a very red region, not some liberal enclave.

We had people of all races and it was rarely, if ever, a visible issue. We didn't have anyone shouting racial slurs or visibly denigrating people. I'm sure this happened occasionally, not trying to say that there are literally 0 racists, but it was by no means a sentiment you'd come across with any frequency.

If you live in a big city like NYC or SF, you probably get exposed to more "intolerance" from contrarians/extremists who also live in big cities than someone who lives in the Midwest.

The Midwest is a great place to be. It's extremely unfair to cast such aspersions on it.

[throwaway729]

> This assumes that one's politics align with the politics and hostile culture in California. I intentionally avoid living in CA due to its culture/politics and have turned down multiple bona fide relocation offers to CA.

This is certainly true! To each his own. My point was that the midwest probably isn't a great place to be if you're looking for "cheaper California".

Sounds like we agree on that.

> When I lived in the Midwest, we had not only multiple gay people, but multiple gay teachers living in our neighborhood... these teachers were able to go about their business just fine and spent many years teaching at the schools

1. "Not being fired for being gay" is literally the lowest bar I can think of other that "not being imprisoned for being gay".

2. A school I attended explicitly discriminated against trans people in hiring. And those are the public schools. So, YMMV. I'm sure things have gotten better across the entire country since then, including the midwest.

3. Even without "lose your job/house" levels of hate, the world can still be a nasty place. E.g. imagine driving by this billboard every day: http://www.medina-gazette.com/news/2013/02/22/Passers-by-on-...

And of course most of the people you interact with disagree with the sign, but attend churches that teach the exact same thing. Those "midwestern nice" interactions don't feel so "nice" anymore.

> If you live in a big city like NYC or SF, you probably get exposed to more "intolerance" from contrarians/extremists who also live in big cities than someone who lives in the Midwest.

Sure. The difference is who's in charge! And that's the difference that makes a difference.

> The Midwest is a great place to be. It's extremely unfair to cast such aspersions on it.

For you. I hated it.

[cookiecaper]

>"Not being fired for being gay" is literally the lowest bar I can think of other that "not being imprisoned for being gay".

The point is that the community at large was willing to accept these people as role models for their children and did so with minimal hostility or interference (visible anyway, since I can't see what happens behind closed doors). Entrusting a teaching position is a little different than any other random job.

While I'm sure there are horror stories, in practice it would be very rare to find someone who was legitimately "fired for being gay".

The myth that Republican areas are hostile wastelands with poor quality of life for minorities has much more to do with confirmation bias and a desire to justify high cost of living than anything else, IMO. This is not to discount any personal experience you may have had, just my opinion on the sentiment in general.

[throwaway729]

> The myth that Republican areas are hostile wastelands with poor quality of life for minorities has much more to do with confirmation bias and a desire to justify high cost of living than anything else, IMO.

If only that were true, I'd move back to the midwest in a heart beat.

> This is not to discount any personal experience you may have had, just my opinion on the sentiment in general.

Name a "that doesn't happen here" scenario -- from blatant racial discrimination/brutality in policing to "bobby's parents sent him to pray-the-gay-away camp" -- and I experienced or directly witnessed a friend experience it before coming of age.

Whenever people shame me for being overly harsh on midwestern culture, I stop and feel guilty for a split second. Then I think back to these victims of its excesses and the guilt quickly subsides.

I firmly believe there are decent communities in the midwest. Especially in its cities. I don't doubt your or anyone else when you say you've had good experiences.

Unfortunately, that doesn't change anything about the fundamental cultural trade-winds of the aggregate region. Or the effect they have on people caught in the zip code one over.

[hueving]

>Name a "that doesn't happen here" scenario -- from blatant racial discrimination/brutality in policing to "bobby's parents sent him to pray-the-gay-away camp" -- and I experienced or directly witnessed a friend experience it before coming of age.

So you were born 20+ years ago? It sounds like your notion of the Midwest is about as stuck in the past as the notion that San Francisco is a hippie mecca.

>Whenever people shame me for being overly harsh on midwestern culture, I stop and feel guilty for a split second. Then I think back to these victims of its excesses and the guilt quickly subsides.

And you should feel guilty for continually shitting on a place you have no association with anymore.

[throwaway729]

> So you were born 20+ years ago?

And left less than 3 years ago. Not much had changed. In some ways, it got a lot worse. My perceptions aren't stuck in the past.

Again, don't believe me? Go person-by-person down your general assembly and send an email to each asking how they feel about allowing business owners the freedom to not serve LGBT people, or whether they will sponsor a bill to ban conversion therapy.

Or for that matter, ask if they support legislation to outlaw incrimination against LGBT individuals in hiring! Most midwestern states don't have such a law on the book.

And not just your representative -- all of them. Or even just yours and all from surrounding counties. After all, we wouldn't want to generalize.

> And you should feel guilty for continually shitting on a place you have no association with anymore.

Why?

I don't think the midwest is, on balance, a nice place to live. I think the cultural downsides of the region eventually bleed into your life, even if you try to cloister yourself in one of the urban liberal islands. My opinion may not be fair (I think it is, but allow the possibility that a lifetime of bad experiences was somehow unrepresentative). But it sure as hell isn't uninformed.

I think people who are considering moving to the midwest from a coastal area -- or especially from abroad -- should hear this perspective.