It's a bit more diverse than you might have noticed: 64.6% White (59.0% Non-Hispanic White), 20.9% African American, 0.7% Native American, 1.9% Asian, 0.1% Pacific Islander, 7.7% from other races, and 4.2% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino residents of any race were 15.6% of the population. (Wiki)

both family and place names.

I wonder where all the diverse people were hiding while I was there?

I am glad to know that they are there, though.

all we had was white bread every single day? No tortillas, no naan, no injera, no whole wheat!
😬

(hardly exotic by any standard) until she was in her 70s!!
(she's now in her 90s)

When we took her to a soul food restaurant here in Phoenix, it blew her mind!!!

(she flatly refused to go to a Japanese restaurant).

But, she did really well and thought the food was good, even though she said she still didn't understand it.

(Why do they serve waffles with fried chicken? What is okra and why should I eat it? Why does a restaurant serve Kool Aid?)

Ronald Reagan Highway...UGH!

Our Democratic Gov. at the time Janet Napalitano quickly named it by executive order after a Native American woman who died in Desert Storm.

I had mixed feelings about that. Definitely better than naming it after RR, but I didn't like the fact that it helped legitimize an illegal invasion of a foreign country.

on edit: grammar

I'm originally from Columbus but I've done 30 years in the Navy, so even though Ohio will always be home, I haven't lived there for almost 30 years.

I did a tour of recruiting duty in Cincinnati during the early 90's. God! What an eye opener.

I realized that Cincy was much more Northern Kentucky than it was Southern Ohio

Including the chapel where the wedding took place.

are treated at the Helen DeVos Children's Hospital feel like throwing up?

I spent some time at the Spectrum complex when my dh popped an aneurysm. Yup, huge portrait of Helen and her grandchildren prominently displayed, but they never tried to push Amway or R politics on me.

Dh was (for some reason) in the Meijer Heart Center. He was in a state-of-the-art room that could, if necessary, be transformed into a surgical suite within a very short period of time. He ended up being absolutely fine. I never wondered about the Meijer family's politics.

But they are still ill-gotten gains.

are disgusting, but my friend's 18-month old grandson has had six surgeries there, and is alive today because the hospital is able to attract TOP pediatric specialists because of DeVos money. Puts it all in a very different light, at least for me.

Probably every top hospital in this country has been partially funded by rich people's foundations, and I'm guessing that probably 90% of that $$ has its roots in some shady stuff. Look at it this way: every person or family that was scammed out of a couple of thousand dollars by Amway would probably have spent that $$ on something else--maybe a car, vacation, trinkets--but having it concentrated in the hands of the DeVos family allowed them to fund a hospital that has saved thousands of lives.

What if we had a society where we didn't HAVE to depend on rich people's philanthropy?

What if grifting your way to a fortune was not allowed?

What if the rich paid their fair share into the common good?

Then maybe children could get the life-saving surgeries they need WITHOUT having to depend on the good nature of the 1%.

there is a lot of hidden incest and gay affairs that dare not be spoken of. Although he left there over 12 years ago and feigns his "progressiveness" he is still a bigot at heart. I guess he just can't help it since he was reared in that kind of atmosphere.

Any idea that we Southerners were the most racist Americans was quickly shown the door.

I learned it is even easier to denigrate a different race when you do not know anyone of a different race.

And I know I will get flamed, but the food flat out sucks. Over cooked meat, potatoes and corn served with salt and pepper. And on fancy occasions add cream. My FIL thought onions were too spicy!!

The only reason the people in rural Indiana have not treated racial minorities as poorly as my people in rural Louisiana is because there are no racial minorities in rural Indiana. Do not know if that is true through out the Midwest because I have not been other places.

Have a nice evening.

The question is whether there are enough of them to swing elections to Rethugs. Seeing some states in the upper Midwest switch from blue to red is disturbing, but the South is still overwhelmingly red.

On a personal note, I'm white and grew up on the edge of Chicago near Midway Airport. I was 10 years old when MLK was slain. It was a very sad day in my family. My elderly Aunt who lived with us was in tears. When I went to school that day it was apparent the adults in the homes of most of my peers saw it differently. There was an air of celebration on the playground.

Rural areas are horrifically racist and backward.
Rural Midwest, rural South, rural Maine, Rural California are basically the same.

all of my life. When I go up to OR, I am amazed at all the white people!

It doesn't look like that in our part of the Midwest. Grand Rapids is what Grand Rapids is and where Grand Rapids is.

I was there to present a paper at the Sixteenth Century Society Conference.

Unfortunately, aside from my taxi ride to and from the airport, I only left the hotel once.

I had some good sushi at a nearby restaurant!

It was fall, and the leaves were beautiful! I remember that much!

I would like to visit again, it did look like a very nice city.

Academic conferences have a brutal schedule. Not much time to be a tourist.

You spent 48 hours in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Okay.

We did drive through Chicago twice (on our way there and back).

Chicago seems nice. I hope to travel and spend time there someday.

I'm not saying Grand Rapids wasn't nice. It is lovely country, so green and with beautiful rolling hills.

I was just saying it was really weirdly WHITE and, for lack of a better term, isolated.

"The racial and ethnic isolation of whites at the zip code level is one of the strongest predictors of Trump support".

Xenophobia.

It's just always been that way. There's some absolutely lovely scenery if you just go a little south and west. Try a town like South Haven, which is far more liberal than GR is.

There is diversity in Grand Rapids, but I think it's a pretty compartmentalized town.

There are actually a bunch of religious colleges over that way.

you have a better idea about what us locals are up against

And most white people here grew up in towns and school systems that are almost 100% white. This area is incredibly segregated. It's amazing. And you're right about everything else too.

There are a few liberal enclaves here and there, and they are more heavily populated, but most of Michigan area-wise is exactly as you described.

The area is home to a lot of Promise Keepers. Amway is headquartered in Grand Rapids, though the DeVos family is from Holland, MI, about 40 miles to the SW, As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, the Dutch Reformed influence is very strong in the area. The county where Holland is located is dry on Sundays, a fact I discovered the hard way by trying to order Guinness in an Irish pub-restaurant.

This is the DeVos' new house in Holland.



I know that Rahm Emanuel is generally hated around here, but last week he declared Chicago a "Trump-free zone".