Adobo.
Housing site Abodo has put together a study analyzing tweets to figure out the most- and least-hate-filled places in the country. Between June 2014 to December 2015, they geolocated 154 keywords among 12 million tweets. The keywords included slurs and other prejudiced language against black people, Hispanic/Latino people, women, gays and lesbians, transgender people, people with disabilities, and the overweight.
Here are the results for most hate-filled states:
And the overall least hate-filled states:
There are also breakdowns of Anti-Black tweets by city, Anti-Hispanic by city, Anti-Woman by city, Anti-Gay by city, and Anti-transgender by city. Full Story Here.
It is so easy to conclude that the problem is twitter.
I’m amazed to see Maryland listed as so bad. Being a Marylander for most of my adult life, I don’t recall a lot of verbal racism at all. Hardly any, since a lot of rather memorable chanting when I was in jr high school and they did the bussing (I wasn’t chanting: asshole grownups were)
I don’t think the problem is twitter; I think that, however, the apparent anonymity of the internet, plus a vehicle for self-expression, gives some people the ‘courage’ to say things they lack the actual courage to say. If I’m right, that’s good news because it means that most of these people know that what they are saying is stupid and wrong and reflects badly on them. I further support my observation with the horrified squeals of other internet assholes when one of theirs’ anonymity is breached and they suffer the consequences of their expression. The internet racists wear the anonymity of the internet like the clansmen of yore wore their hoods: not to be ‘scary’ but to hide from the consequences of their beliefs.
Marcus:
I’m guessing you don’t read much by John Waters.
Marcus:
Keep in mind that Maryland surrounds 3/4 of Washington D.C. and many Marylanders tend to view DC as full of black criminals, so some of the tweeting may be related to that?
I’m guessing you don’t read much by John Waters
To me, Waters was always “the weird guy up the street” -- I also lived on Guilford Avenue back when he was in that neighborhood ;) I didn’t realize he’s readable. Now I shall go in search of Waters’ blog or whatever…
(My favorite Waters thing was the “no smoking” short that he did, which they used to run before movies in most theaters in Baltimore. It’s on youtube I’m sure)
Keep in mind that Maryland surrounds 3/4 of Washington D.C. and many Marylanders tend to view DC as full of black criminals
As I said, I grew up in Baltimore. My first job was commuting in to DC to Gallaudet every morning, before I moved to an apartment on Rhode Island ave -- which was too much for me -- and I moved back to Riverdale. I’m well aware of how ‘many’ Marylanders view DC. Most of the Marylanders I grew up and worked with viewed DC as a wad of horrible traffic infested with lawyers and politicians. I.e.: we knew who the criminals were.
During the years that DC was the murder capital of the US, the people I hung out with all sounded like tinfoil hat conspiracy nuts because they talked about how the CIA was helping get crack into the cities to get black people to kill eachother off. I admit I thought that idea was ridiculous. At that time.
There are racists all over everywhere and they tend to be insular and ignorant (because getting out of your shitty neighborhood into someone else’s shitty neighborhood does a lot to help overcome the ‘divide et impera’ game the powerful have run on the poor) The dangerous racists in the DC/Maryland area remain in congress where they have always been.
Marcus:
He’s written a number of books. Waters *adores* Maryland, Baltimore in particular, but he doesn’t have any illusions about it.
I think it’s easy to seriously underestimate the amount of racists you might be surrounded by, simply by virtue of not hanging out with said racists.
The top two charts contradict each other.
The map shows New York & Florida as the most extreme states, with Louisiana in the mushy middle; the bar chart has Louisiana as the rudest, and NY & FL don’t even make the top ten.
And I doubt the software counting the offensive terms has much sense of context -- e.g., use of the N-word means very different things depending on the speaker’s race.
@Pierce R. Butler, #6: The map used in the OP is actually for “Anti-Transgender Tweets, By State (Excluding Nevada)” in the original piece at Abodo, not for all usages.
Atlanta #2 in both anti-black and anti-women… sigh… city too busy to hate, huh?
The transgender slurs one looks intriguing. Why the huge numbers in Orlando and LV?
Pierce, #6
Oh right. Didn’t think about that.
Pierce:
Mm hmm. Because of course, almost all uses of the word n*gger are being tweeted by black people, and it’s all positive, man. How does that work with slurs against LGBT people? Or women? Every use of bitch, cunt, slut, and whore should be counted as not-slurs because some women may use them?
I think it’s easy to seriously underestimate the amount of racists you might be surrounded by, simply by virtue of not hanging out with said racists.
That’s true. I encounter them more often up here in Pennsylvania and I either break off from them or make sure they modify how they speak around me (using my economic privilege!) So, yeah. I’m always surprised when I encounter it.
I work in an industry where overt racism is extremely rare (I have never encountered it, overtly) though there is a perceptible race/gender balance issue that many of us are aware of and are working on. Trying to work on the balance is one thing I can do, and not tolerating overt racism or sexism in my presence is another. I suppose not passing stupid bathroom laws is a third but that’s a given.
I’m sure if I hung out with Prince George’s County cops back in the early 90s when I lived in PG County, I probably would have encountered lots of racism. :( I guess that’s the problem -- I try not to hang out with people that I expect to be raving assholes. I don’t hang out in bars up here, either -- especially not the ones where all the trucks have Trump and confederate flag bumper stickers. Let them marginalize themselves.
Every use of bitch, cunt, slut, and whore should be counted as not-slurs because some women may use them?
That’s basically the same as saying “hey, it doesn’t hurt my feelings, so…” Because it’s saying that the term has no inherent hurtful value and depends entirely on the relationship between the writer and the reader. And, since that relationship is unknown, it cannot possibly be malicious. It’s a cute dodge I call “linguistic nihilism” -- in which you destroy the ability of a word or picture to carry meaning. The problem is it doesn’t actually work because the person who is hurt by the word doesn’t actually give an actual fuck about the writer’s motives.
My position is that certain terms, which have come to be recognized as terms of abuse, shouldn’t be used by anyone and if someone wants to say, “hey, I can tell ‘norwegian jokes’ because I am one…”* or whatever, the correct response is “that still makes you an asshole.”
I am not arguing with Caine’s position; I simply used the quote as a jumping off point. And, since I’m being a bit personal, Caine, I’ll take this opportunity to thank you for the lessons you’ve given me over the last couple years. Thank you.
(* I’m half Norwegian so I can use that as an example safely, right?)
Marcus:
That’s a good term for it. It’s a seriously low way of trying to weasel your way into saying “oh, you can’t say that’s bad”. Well, yes, I can say for sure that certain things are bad. If I had been looking for a place to live, and noted that a plethora of tweets containing slurs on all fronts, no, I don’t much care about the context of each and every tweet. I already know that’s probably not someplace I want to live. I don’t need to listen to a bunch of “oh hey, didn’t mean it that way” excusing.
Thank you right back, Marcus. The feeling’s mutual.