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?
Whitey here, but here’s some insight from a queer person in the deeply conservative south. I’m cis and straight passing enough that at worst I get some odd looks from time to time, but my other queer friends haven’t had better luck. Just recently one of them was being tailed in a grocery store by a dude and his kid, and they’d overheard the father say awful things about them to his kid, including “vile,” “dirty,” and “f*ggot” Didn’t confront my friend over it thankfully, cops in this town are notoriously bad if you’re not a white anglo saxon protestant man.