Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
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Notes -
Because most people's interactions with other people are inside their building, rather than outside? I am going to gently point out that someone who lives in the community you describe living in might well have fewer interactions with people from the seedier side of the tracks than someone who is on the NYC subway every day.
I also want to point out that I mentioned, twice, my extensive experience teaching in an urban public school -- I taught there longer than I have lived in a building with a doorman. So the intimation that somehow I have no idea what the "underclass" is like is mistaken.
I would also like to point out that it seems a bit odd that you are suddenly conflating urban African Americans with "the seedier side of the tracks."
Anyhow, let's not forget the actual claim that the OP made: That 'African Americans . . .in large cities" exhibit "a general sense that they don't need to follow the tacit expectations of society in regards to dress, politeness, language, obeying what seem like trivial rules, and dozens of little things like that; the glorification of criminality; a disinterest in the traditional family unit (e.g., no real sense that they're "expected" to settle down with a wife and kids; having children and more or less abandoning them and not seeing that as particularly shameful); an intense culture of honor, where slights by strangers must be met with a verbal or physical altercation."
My point is simply that that description -- especially glorifying criminality and responding to slights by strangers with verbal or physical altercations -- applies only a to small minority of African Americans in large cities, and I stated the evidence on which I based that assumption. And you actually haven't even refuted that! All you have said is that an urban subculture exists, but your description of that subculture -- that people are louder and touchier, and have a particular mode of speaking -- is far milder than that described by the OP, and one which I agreed with.
Moreover, if indeed the African Americans in your town indeed generally have the attitudes and behaviors that the OP describes, then perhaps that answers OP's question: African Americans in towns like yours are worse than those in urban areas, because the African Americans in NYC and Oakland do not generally have those attitudes and behaviors.
Finally, a note on doormen: The reason that many buildings in my area have doormen is that, 30 years ago, the area was in fact quite seedy -- prostitutes and drug dealers were quite common. So, the presence of a doorman can indicate not that the residents of the building never interact with the seedier side of life, but rather quite the opposite. Moreover, the job of a doorman in NYC is not so much to keep people out as it is to provide services to the residents, especially dealing with deliveries, a major issue in a city where many people do not have cars. And, it is not as if buildings without doormen, including those in your town, must of necessity allow unfettered access to the building: There are such things as buzzers, after all.
There we go, thanks for playing.
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