Polar Bear: Ned Flanders is Whiteness personified. I had a neighbor just like him growing up. He was extremely grateful for any help or kindness. Being nice and neighborly is part of being White. Maybe a bit of softness “Gorsh, can I get away with that?” Overly positive, naive, and selfless. Forrest Gump is another example. Sweet as a box of chocolates.
It’s actually true. At least with the White middle class anyway. They’re actually supposed to be that way. It’s part of the culture.
I don’t know much about the White upper, lower, or working classes. The lower and working classes might not be so much like this. They’re a bit more down-to-Earth. The White upper classes might not be as nice. They treat their homes like castles that no one is allowed to enter on penalty of death. It’s almost a damned affront to even ring their doorbell. Everyone is supposed to go home, burrow into their castles immediately, and never come out. Why do you need to borrow anything from your neighbor? You’re rich, dammit!
One thing though. That super-nice White neighbor might not let you into his house. Or will he? A lot of them were extremely nice, but they wouldn’t necessarily let you in the front door. It was almost some sacred inner sanctum.
Of course there are assholes in White middle class neighborhoods. Whites are humans, right? I remember once somehow my Mom’s car took off backwards down the street. My little brother and sister were in the backstreet partying it up as the car careened down the street. I think my Mom and I ran down the street after the car, probably yelling it at to stop. Lot of good that would have done, huh?
It traveled about a football field’s length before it crashed into a curb and went over into this lady’s yard. She had some flowers out front and it crushed a lot of them. She almost never came out of her house. Only time she came out was to yell at us kids for playing in the street. God knows why? Too much noise? She was mean as a snake and ugly as a witch. The whole neighborhood hated her.
A lot of the neighbors came out when they saw the car careening down the street backwards. They all converged on the lady’s property. Everyone was looking at her smashed flowers. She wasn’t home. Everyone quietly agreed, in conspiratorial whispers and shared winks, that no one wouldn’t say one word about what happened to her stupid crushed flowers. This is how the rules are enforced in White society. You act too antisocial and the whole neighborhood gets you back.
I haven’t the faintest idea what Black or Hispanic neighbors are really like. I live with them now and they’re not friendly but maybe it’s different for a Black in a Black hood or an Hispanic on a Hispanic block.
Black neighbors probably differ between urban and rural Southern areas. Alpha could maybe tell you what it’s like to grow up in a small Southern town. She grew up in Mississippi!
Arabs, Eurasians, Latin Americans, and maybe Asians (?) make great neighbors. The listed groups are different form middle class Whites. They are more “mi casa es su casa!” They’re hospitable. The Arabs had to be that way. You’re lost in the desert, dying of thirst, and there’s that guy with his tent and his camels ahead. He damn right better be nice and open his home to you for as long as you need because next time it might be him lost in the damned desert and he would need to rely on the kindness of strangers! Arab hospitality may have been born out of necessity.
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