COMMENT BY
Joi from Banning, CA
COMMENT ABOUT PLACE
Banning, CA
COMMENT
I put my plan of escape into action
I moved to Atl in 2016, stayed 3 1/2 yrs. I hated it. I was born in Los Angeles, I'm a Cali Girl. Grew up accustomed to seeing all races, think nothing of it. Cali people tend to accept everyone. I'm Chinese and really look Chinese, but from LA, I'm as American as can be. I first "felt" racism in Atlanta. Didn't know what I was feeling. I was in an all Black Walmart. Who are they looking at? I looked behind me. Are they looking at ME?! What's going on? The feeling I felt was like a movie where a white person walks into a black nightclub and the music stops, everybody looks, that's what it felt like. I saw confederate flags. :0 I saw the Governor's Commercials with him holding a shot gun and saying he'd take all the Mexicans back in his bus, I thought it was a skit from Saturday Night Live! At my job, a coworker called me "ching ling" to others (I haven't heard that since elementary school) OK, now everything else. The traffic is horrible and the way they drive, a car went all the way across the lanes from the fast lane to get to the exit ramp, another car stopped on the fwy for no reason, crazy. The weather is unpredictable. I found out that it rains more in Atlanta than in Seattle, why does Seattle get such a bad rap for it's rain! In Atl, you better carry an umbrella in a holster like a gun in the western days. It can rain at any moment and the weather forecasts are always wrong, it's a waste to pay the news weather people. It will be sunny one minute and raining the next. Georgia is not conservation minded. There aren't any recycling places. No one uses fabric bags for shopping. Georgians complained when the State instated the "hands free" law no cell phones while driving. In general, Georgia isn't very proactive and progressive. Ethic restaurants: mexican, asian foods, going to find a lot of "generic" ethic eateries. It's my openion that Georgians wouldn't eat something that's "foreign" so businesses don't sell it. (a million Taco Bells) Lots of segregation areas. If you want to find Korean, go to Duluth. Mexican, go to Norcross. Soul food, go to Stone Mountain and other areas. The only good thing is their gas prices. And people LOOK angry. Everyone looks so unhappy. Customer service sucks everywhere. I had to set my plan in action to escape. I'll gladly pay the higher gas price for the sunshine, the many different people and the "vibe" of California.