Wednesday, November 03, 2004

Poor Joe

Joe the Povert has bought into Minnesota Nice. Joe, Minnesotans are only nice to other Minnesotans and, in particular, those Minnesotans almost exactly like them. Minnesota Republicans seem to be increasingly of the opinion that liberals, minorities, (insert a pretty large list here) are not like them - so it becomes a mathematical formula at that point. Stay here long enough and you'll hear Minnesotans wield "Minnesota Nice" just like they wield patriotism and the flag nationally.

Note:
The Yahoo Search
1997: Samuel L. Myers Jr., Special section editor and editorial commentary. 1997. In the Case of Race Relations, Minnesota Nice Translates into Silence. Color/s 6(3):14-15.
2000: http://www.mnnow.org/times/w00-07.htm
2004: (Search the page on "nice")

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ugh. How depressing.

Joe said...

Yeah, there's a lot of irony to "Minnesota Nice." But I had understood it to be a superficial sort of friendliness which nevertheless meant that people wouldn't flip each other off. At least not face to face.