Do you feel sorry for the white liberals in Birmingham, Alabama?

[they don't love you like i love you]

God Yes. There's enough pockets of them but they all still must be miserable. It's not even like Atlanta or Austin where they still dominate the immediate area. Just all around miserable.

[ElectionsGuy]

No, I don't. And if I were, why only white liberals? Wouldn't I feel bad for liberals in the area in general?

[Joe Republic]

reported for racism.

[Grumpier Than Thou]

Why would I...?

[TNF]

I feel sorry for workers in Alabama because they're subject to the tyrannical rule of capital. I have no sympathy for liberals in any instance.

[Mr. Illini]

If anything they are beginning to take over. Jefferson County is trending D fast.

[Хahar 🤔]

Why would I feel sorry for white people?

[politicus]

Why would I feel sorry for white people?

Why not? People are people. What horrors have an upper middle class kid like you suffered from the evil whities since you can not feel sorry for them?

[Maxwell]

I feel sorry for every person in Alabama.

[memphis]

I would much rather be anybody in Birmingham than in rural Alabama (somebody who has spent time in both). Being a political minority isn't the worst thing in the world. I'm a white liberal in the preppy Republican enclave of East Memphis. I could pack up myself and move to Midtown, where white liberals are the majority and there's a lot more nightlife, but I like where I live just fine, and it takes all of 15 minutes to drive to Midtown, which I do from time to time and used to do more often when I was in my 20s and got out more. All in all Birmingham's an ok town. It's has some of that Appalachian post-industrial feel, much like Pittsburgh, and some serious ghettos, much like almost every American city, but it also has enough restaurants and theaters and parks and all the rest to be an interesting place to be. This is true for just about any metro of a million people or so. Yes, there are more restaurants and art galleries in New York City, but how many restaurants and art galleries can one person visit?

[DC Al Fine]

I don't understand all the fuss about being the political minority. There are a hundred other things that play a larger role in making a place nice or crappy.

[they don't love you like i love you]

I live in Minneapolis so I'm very used to everyone around me having the same political views. It'd feel weird to not have that.

[windjammer]

I live in Minneapolis so I'm very used to everyone around me having the same political views. It'd feel weird to not have that.

Wait, you don't live in the former Bachman's district???

[they don't love you like i love you]

I live in Minneapolis so I'm very used to everyone around me having the same political views. It'd feel weird to not have that.

Wait, you don't live in the former Bachman's district???

No I never had her represent me thankfully.

[Boris]

Is BRTD suggesting white liberals can't be friends with black liberals

[RFayette]

I don't understand all the fuss about being the political minority. There are a hundred other things that play a larger role in making a place nice or crappy.

This.  Also quite racist.  The idea that white liberals can't feel at home with all the black liberals is weird, to say the least.

Look, in my school (which overall is fairly centrist but leans left, and is definitely left on social issues), some of the happiest people are the far-right religious socon creationists.  Ideological parity != happiness.

[memphis]

I live in Minneapolis so I'm very used to everyone around me having the same political views. It'd feel weird to not have that.

1. Do you commonly discuss politics with "everybody?"
2. Life is all about steping outside your comfort zone and trying new things and meeting new sorts of people. I can't imagine insisting that all your neighbors think just like you.

[angus]

God Yes. There's enough pockets of them but they all still must be miserable. It's not even like Atlanta or Austin where they still dominate the immediate area. Just all around miserable.

We were in Birmingham once.  Spent the night there after spending much of the day in the INS office.  This was before the DHS existed and subsumed the INS, among other agencies.  My wife was still in the process of acquiring her green card.  We started the process in San Francisco, near where we were living at the time, but it takes a couple of years and we were re-assigned to Memphis, and then to Birmingham, during the process.

We just hired a birminghammer as a colleague.  (He has informed me that they like to be called Birminghamans, but somehow that just doesn't have the same appeal to me.)  He's originally an engineer by training, and then later a biochemist.  Nice guy.  His daughter goes to the same elementary school as my son and is in the same grade.

It's a nice enough town.  Blue collar and heavily industrial, not unlike its eponym city.  Hot in the summer, at least when we were there, but festive with many galleries and shops and playgrounds and other diversions, and I'm sort of a worshiper of the sun anyway so intense heat is not a drag.  I frequently do my best work when it's 95 degrees with 95 percent humidity.  (Memphis is a bit more festive, what with the pulled pork and the music scene and of course Graceland, but it's a similar climate.  We did Memphis a couple of times.)

I do feel sorry for that Birmingham woman whose daughter went missing in Aruba, genuinely so, but I got so damned tired of hearing about it constantly night after night on the television news.  I can't get the image of Greta van Susteren repeating the syllables Joran van der Sloot and Natalee (with two ee's at the end)  over and over in my mind.  That story got really old really fast for me.

Voted no in the poll.  If you had asked, "Do you feel sorry for me?" I'd have voted no as well.  Ignorance is bliss, or so they say, so I reckon that you're just about one of the most joyous and content individuals on the planet.

[RFayette]

I live in Minneapolis so I'm very used to everyone around me having the same political views. It'd feel weird to not have that.

1. Do you commonly discuss politics with "everybody?"
2. Life is all about steping outside your comfort zone and trying new things and meeting new sorts of people. I can't imagine insisting that all your neighbors think just like you.

Indeed.  I personally would loath to be around a bunch of libertarians (they tend to be extreme for my tastes) and would much prefer being around a bunch of ultra-liberals or Independent Fundamental Baptists.

Uniformity is boring.

It's like taking the integral of a straight line.....dull.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

I feel sorry for every person in Alabama.

[Goldwater]

No, why would I? Because they have to suffer the horrible injustice of interacting with people who have differing political views? Give me a break.

[IceSpear]

I know one R-PA who doesn't.

[IceSpear]

I feel sorry for every person in Alabama.

I'm sure they'd say the same about Oklahoma.

[they don't love you like i love you]

Is BRTD suggesting white liberals can't be friends with black liberals

Black liberals sure, but this is Alabama, they might vote Democratic but that doesn't make most of the blacks there liberal. Although to be fair you're probably a lot more likely to find them in Birmingham than in the rural black parts of Alabama.

I live in Minneapolis so I'm very used to everyone around me having the same political views. It'd feel weird to not have that.

1. Do you commonly discuss politics with "everybody?"
2. Life is all about steping outside your comfort zone and trying new things and meeting new sorts of people. I can't imagine insisting that all your neighbors think just like you.

I don't discuss it with everyone, but you can glean info easily in this age. Bumper stickers and what people post on Facebook. I see only liberal stuff on Facebook (some of it pretty stupid in all fairness, but nowhere near as stupid as the right wing nonsense I hear about), and can kind of safely assume every person I meet is some generic liberal type. It came up at my work a bunch in 2012 especially when the debates were on in the break room and everyone was cheering on for Obama and laughing at Romney. Also it's quite nice to be able to safely assume that people aren't Birthers or think the Tea Party is anything but f[inks]ing idiotic.

[7,052,770]

I've never had trouble finding liberals to be friends with in Mississippi, (not that I restrict my friends to liberals or anything, just that I don't have to look hard for them or anything), and I'm sure it's the same in Alabama.