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Trip or event that changed your outlook on something

lonestar50

HR All-American
Sep 3, 2007
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The DeSantis thread got me thinking about this. I was admittedly a right wing, brown people are bad, immigrants are bad, never left the Midwest. In short, an asshole. The thing that changed my viewpoint was a vacation to Puerto Rico. Surrounded by people who if I met at home would've thought they were criminals or on welfare taking up my tax dollars, instead they were the most friendly, kind, welcoming people. It was when I was having a conversation with someone at a restaurant that I realized that skin color or where your from doesn't matter. We're all human beings and should treat each other as such.

That one little trip changed me so much. Anyone else have an epiphany moment like that?
 
Not me but my brother served in Iraq and he always said their Iraqi allies literally had nothing except their uniform and their gun. So if the American soldiers received a care package and they gave the Iraqi soldiers something from it like a piece of candy, it was like Christmas to those guys.
 
I got shaken down and arrested for MJ possession on a road trip in my early 20s. I gave up on applying for “real jobs” for several years due to the dreaded question on the application. When I did start putting myself out there I found it certainly was a complication; to this day, I still have to go through an appeals process and write a personal letter to the state licensure board when I apply for my professional license—all because my roommate’s boyfriend had a hitterbox in his pocket as we were driving through Utah in 2000.
 
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I didn't need an event to open my eyes, my parents didn't raise me to judge people for what they are.
 
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Everybody is fat in the United States. Even RAGBRAI is turning into an obesity convention.

that is why Covid hit hard and healthcare is so expensive in this country.
 
The DeSantis thread got me thinking about this. I was admittedly a right wing, brown people are bad, immigrants are bad, never left the Midwest. In short, an asshole. The thing that changed my viewpoint was a vacation to Puerto Rico. Surrounded by people who if I met at home would've thought they were criminals or on welfare taking up my tax dollars, instead they were the most friendly, kind, welcoming people. It was when I was having a conversation with someone at a restaurant that I realized that skin color or where your from doesn't matter. We're all human beings and should treat each other as such.

That one little trip changed me so much. Anyone else have an epiphany moment like that?
Between a trip to italy ( seeing the church $$) and the priest abuse scandals i give much less to the catholic church compared to the past.
 
I guess trips to NYC and Boston changed my outlook on certain foods here in Iowa. We have trash pizza, Italian, and seafood options.
 
I guess trips to NYC and Boston changed my outlook on certain foods here in Iowa. We have trash pizza, Italian, and seafood options.
Visit Des Moines if you want some good Italian….Noah’s, Latin King, Barratta’s, Tumea’s, and Johnny’s.

Pizza….Noah’s, Centro, Stevie C’s, Bordenaro’s, and hit the local city run golf courses for the best thin crust Italian style pizza - Waveland, Jester, Blank, as the Cido’s run the kitchens and their pizza is damn good, especially the specialty ones with a pitcher of beer. Dough Company near Drake has good pizza and crust too.

Hope that helps improve Iowa’s food scene for you. One other, Sam & Gabe’s used to have a restaurant, now operate out of Merle Hay Mall - Tally Hoe To Go. Great Italian food options and pizza.

Splash, Fresko, and 801 Chop House for seafood.
 
When I was in college, I witnessed a cop do a traffic stop on a friend of mine in downtown Atlanta. My friend played basketball, and had an out of state tag. Cop initially said my friend was getting a ticket for not having a Georgia tag. When my friend produced his student ID, cop changed the charge to drag racing. The cop then dragged my friend from his car, pushed him over the hood, and hit my friend with a baton. My friend reacted, and the cop ended up over the hood of the car with the baton across his throat. The cop's partner calmly walked over and pulled my friend away, and cuffed him. My friend was charged with DUI, and assault with a deadly weapon. He blew .00 on the breathalizer. A complaint was filed, the GBI investigated, and the charges were dropped. There were at least a dozen witnesses.

The first cop was white, and a rookie. His partner was black.

My friend was beaten in the elevator at the Atlanta jail after he was booked. The GBI agent advised my friend to not pursue that.
 
When I was in college, I witnessed a cop do a traffic stop on a friend of mine in downtown Atlanta. My friend played basketball, and had an out of state tag. Cop initially said my friend was getting a ticket for not having a Georgia tag. When my friend produced his student ID, cop changed the charge to drag racing. The cop then dragged my friend from his car, pushed him over the hood, and hit my friend with a baton. My friend reacted, and the cop ended up over the hood of the car with the baton across his throat. The cop's partner calmly walked over and pulled my friend away, and cuffed him. My friend was charged with DUI, and assault with a deadly weapon. He blew .00 on the breathalizer. A complaint was filed, the GBI investigated, and the charges were dropped. There were at least a dozen witnesses.

The first cop was white, and a rookie. His partner was black.

My friend was beaten in the elevator at the Atlanta jail after he was booked. The GBI agent advised my friend to not pursue that.

Did you know MLKJ or any other stories from the Civil Rights era in Atlanta?
 
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Had great philosophical discussions with our Islamic IT guy (who was born in Morocco) after 9/11 occurred.

He would come out to my shop floor office over lunch and we'd just talk about whatever was on our mind or on the news at the time.

Have a ton of respect for that individual yet today as I really saw the kind of 'soft' racism he endured that you sort of ignored growing up and thought it was 'all in good fun'.

Our old boy customer service manager was particularly adept at being a dick towards him, never calling him his first name because he couldn't pronounce it, so he called him Ben (middle name was Bin) all the time. Never knew that bothered him until we had our lunch talks.

His American born wife still would walk a step behind him, always wore head coverings, etc.

This was in the heart of Sioux County, IA where I grew up. If you know of it, you know of it.

Long since moved away, still have some rose colored glasses memories of the area, but not naive to the negatives either.

Really, I was just learning to live how my parents always taught me to. No judgements, everyone is a child of God
 
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Had great philosophical discussions with our Islamic IT guy (who was born in Morocco) after 9/11 occurred.

He would come out to my shop floor office over lunch and we'd just talk about whatever was on our mind or on the news at the time.

Have a ton of respect for that individual yet today as I really saw the kind of 'soft' racism he endured that you sort of ignored growing up and thought it was 'all in good fun'.

Our old boy customer service manager was particularly adept at being a dick towards him, never calling him his first name because he couldn't pronounce it, so he called him Ben (middle name was Bin) all the time. Never knew that bothered him until we had our lunch talks.

His American born wife still would walk a step behind him, always wore head coverings, etc.

This was in the heart of Sioux County, IA where I grew up. If you know of it, you know of it.

Long since moved away, still have some rose colored glasses memories of the area, but not naive to the negatives either.

Really, I was just learning to live how my parents always taught me to. No judgements, everyone is a child of God
I worked with an Iraqi guy back during the war who used to teach at a university there before Saddam. After I left that place and went to a big engineering firm with contracts in country after the war he constantly hit me up to get him a job. He was a PhD photogrammetrist but he didn't care what the job was, he just wanted to go back and help rebuild. I tried to help him out but apparently the company was deluged with iraqi ex-pats all looking to go back and help out.
 
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I was pretty liberal in my younger years until I did our first joint tax return right after we were married.

Changed my whole attitude towards the Feds.
 
The first time I smoked pot I realized I had been lied to my entire life about pot.
 
When I was in college, I witnessed a cop do a traffic stop on a friend of mine in downtown Atlanta. My friend played basketball, and had an out of state tag. Cop initially said my friend was getting a ticket for not having a Georgia tag. When my friend produced his student ID, cop changed the charge to drag racing. The cop then dragged my friend from his car, pushed him over the hood, and hit my friend with a baton. My friend reacted, and the cop ended up over the hood of the car with the baton across his throat. The cop's partner calmly walked over and pulled my friend away, and cuffed him. My friend was charged with DUI, and assault with a deadly weapon. He blew .00 on the breathalizer. A complaint was filed, the GBI investigated, and the charges were dropped. There were at least a dozen witnesses.

The first cop was white, and a rookie. His partner was black.

My friend was beaten in the elevator at the Atlanta jail after he was booked. The GBI agent advised my friend to not pursue that.

This makes sense because I have noticed while you are generally more conservative you've shown more sympathy than most conservatives for the way minorities are treated by police officers.

I have to say what opened my eyes was all the videos coming out of it happening and how most of the people who where mistreated were black. Like African Americans I think are like 13% of the population but it seems like they are the person being beaten in about 80% of the videos of cops behaving badly.
 
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This makes sense because I have noticed while you are generally more conservative you've shown more sympathy than most conservatives for the way minorities are treated by police officers.

I have to say what opened my eyes was all the videos coming out of it happening and how most of the people who where mistreated were black. Like African Americans I think are like 13% of the population but it seems like they are the person being beaten in about 80% of the videos of cops behaving badly.
I'm definitely a fiscal conservative. No doubt about that. I don't fit the so-called conservative mold on many other things, like war mongering, defense spending, Patriot Act, drug laws, and trying to legislate morality to name a few.

I'm mixed race, and very sensitive to racism and racial bigotry.

That particular experience, as well as playing on a rec league team with a bunch of Sheriff's Deputies, taught me that all cops aren't bad, but more than a small minority are bad.
 
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I'm definitely a fiscal conservative. No doubt about that. I don't fit the so-called conservative mold on many other things, like war mongering, defense spending, Patriot Act, drug laws, and trying to legislate morality to name a few.

I'm mixed race, and very sensitive to racism and racial bigotry.

That particular experience, as well as playing on a rec league team with a bunch of Sheriff's Deputies, taught me that all cops aren't bad, but more than a small majority are bad.
Ya, there's a lot of assholes on the force nationwide
 
We went to the Dominican Republic for our honeymoon. I took for granted the importance of keeping hot food hot, and cold food cold, and also how nice it is to have regular, uneventful poops.
 
Traveling to Jamaica and helping to paint a school really opened my eyes to not only just how poor it was but to how appreciative the kids were to a coat of paint and some paper with crayons.
Talking to my son about being in the car with his black or biracial kids and how much more often they were pulled over and how differently they were treated as opposed to how he was treated if he were pulled over alone.
 
Another experience is my annual trips to a couple of Childrens Homes I support. Kids can't help their plight. Most of these kids have next to nothing, but are grateful for the love and environment they do have. It's heart warming and heart breaking at the same time. All they want is for someone to care about them.
 
When I started travelling internationally everything about the way I viewed the world started to change including my religious and political beliefs.

I spent time with a man from Pakistan over dinner one night and learned that we were pretty much the same regardless of where we came from.

Visiting South Africa and meeting so many somali refugees along with others in extreme poverty changed my view.

The same of so many other places I visited over the next few years. I know why we don't, but American's would do well to travel far more.
 
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