As a Chinese American, I kinda have this self-imposed rule to never enter the boundaries of a red state, and even within Blue/Purple states, to avoid ending up in some rural town. Bascially, half of my country is inaccessible to me due to my perceived fear of potentially being a victim of racism.
Am I being paranoid?
Not particularly unsafe. I’ve had to pull off during road trips either for food or emergency car maintenance in rural Louisiana and in Alabama. The Louisiana pit stop at a small garage in the middle of nowhere didn’t make me feel unsafe, but the guys in the shop were unironically talking about how you could turn your Bluetooth on in order to see who around you has been vaccinated because their MAC address would show up.
In Alabama a ton of people were staring at me… I was like… Do I have something on my face? Oh, you just think it’s weird that a Latino guy is in your small family restaurant for breakfast?
In South Carolina there were a bunch of dudes toting confederate flags, which was unsettling, but they didn’t threaten me or anything.
I unfortunately live in a red state now to be close to family for a few years. I can’t wait till I can move back to the PNW or Colorado to be closer to one of my brothers.
Get out as soon as you can
I may have some insight here actually. I recently ate in a buffet (bonus, with the local church crowd that had just been released) in a small town about 45min from my house, the type of place that has no signage or anything (beyond the name on the front) because you’ve either been there before or someone you’re with has, so you’re just expected to know “plates here, line starts here, pay here, bathrooms hidden here for some reason,” etc. I am a white guy, but never been to that small town, so all the patrons were looking at us like “who the fuck are those people” simply because they knew everyone else there at least in passing or “seen around town” but we stuck out like a sore thumb simply for being “new.”
Could’ve just been that.