Funny how you lump the Midwest "flyover" here, the one that elects minorities to Congress, that has giant populations of immigrants from Somalia, middle East, etc, and that doesn't live gated in or secured by a doorman. Maybe your xenophobia for the people of the Midwest arises because you fly over them?

I have spent time flyover country, and, I'm sad to say that IME, the parent's is characterization is much closer than yours.

Would be nice to hear your explanation. I've lived in Midwest and both coasts. Haven't noticed a diversity difference. There are fewer Mexicans is the only difference I noticed. Otherwise lots of cultural diversity. Certainly more than in, say, Portland, Oregon, where everyone is white or Asian.

The interesting thing is what you're doing is really the exact same thing that drives racism. These [1] are the crime rates in the US from the FBI, organized by race. The values are not normalized to population sizes, so if one group makes up e.g. 50% of the sources of a crime that means something rather different if they make up 10% of the population or 60%. You'll find there is a strong correlation between discrimination and aggregate behavior of a group. And this is not just a trend in the US but worldwide and throughout history.

And to be clear I'm in no way alluding to any specific group. For instance Irish were heavily discriminated against in the US. They were considered alcoholics prone to violence and criminality. "No Irish Need Apply" was a typical phrase seen throughout the US. However, this stereotype yielding to discrimination was not driven by fantasy. This aggregate behavior did exist. And as the aggregate behavior rates changed, so did views against the group. Now they're just another group lumped in by the amount of melanin in their skin as if that identifies their cultural or genetic roots.

So back to your example calling East Germans xenophobic is laughably untrue in some cases. Merkel is very East German and probably not the first person you'd list when speaking of xenophobes. Yet of course if you were somehow able to poll individuals in xenophobic tendencies, you'd probably find a substantially higher aggregate rate in East Germany than in e.g. Belgium. Yet by now just claiming 'East Germans' are the most xenophobic, you engage in the exact same behavior you'd hope to combat.

This is not picking on you, and I'm certainly not offended. I'm just pointing out a rather ironic point. Ultimately, I think we should focus on behavior. Asking East Germans to, collectively, stop engaging in as much racist behavior is probably a smarter choice than my asking you to stop referring to East Germans as xenophobes.

[1] - https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-...