Was I a spoiled rich white kid? Did blacks and hispanics have it worse than me?

A comment made by Lt Mewa in another thread got me thinking about how I was raised and some differences between growing up in Texas, the midwest, and the South versus growing up in the middle of a big city like NYC, Chicago, LA, DC, or elsewhere.

Part of a convo with Mewa spoilered to save space.

A couple of points in response to Mewa:

1) Everyone, and I mean everyone had cars, white, black, hispanic, asian, even women!

2) It wasn't about race, or class, it was about practicallity. I literally couldn't have worked or done anything but go to school without a car unless one of my parents had quit their job to haul me around. Them buying me a car was an investment that paid itself off 10 fold by the time I was out of highschool.

3) NYC and a somewhat rural suburb of Dallas are 2 vastly different areas. Without a car at 16 in NYC you can still get around. Things are close enough to walk to or you can hop the subway. For me the nearest gas station or supermarket would have been a 10 mile walk and there was no subway or cab to take. School was 10 miles the other direction from my house. I could have taken the bus but then it still wouldn't have solved the issue of where I could work. My job in plano was 15 miles away, and other than the supermarket and the gas station, and a couple of fast food joints, I wouldn't have been able to find any work closer than 10 miles away.

4) Remember me saying we all had multi-acre estates? That wasn't just the kids on my block, that was the other 3000 people that lived around us as well. The whole area used to be cotton farms, you have to have a vehicle to get around or be productive when land is spread out like that. Now over the last 10 years Plano has expanded into my home town and people(including my parents) have sold their big chunks of land or massive profit to builders who are putting up subdivisions, strip malls, real malls, movie theaters, restaurants, and everything else you picture in a real city. So the town isn't the quiet little half-rural 1950's style area it used to be.

You've lived in Texas, Mewa, you know how spread out everything is. Even kids that live in Plano, Garland, Houston, Beaumont, Lubbock, Austin, or other big cities in Texas, for the most part need a car.

5) Driving in NYC takes some skill, I don't think 16 year olds should be driving there. Besides that, there wouldn't be room for all the cars if everyone had them.

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So what do you think wordforge, does having a car at 16 make you a spoiled white kid, or is it just a difference between growing up in one area instead of another?

That's where you made your first mistake.

You're just supposed to go Charlie Murphy on his ass.

I grew up on LI in the 70s. I bought my own car at 17 (in 1980). Each of my brothers before me bought their own too. So did all my friends, with possibly a very rare exception.

We were lower middle class, which in a town like Levittown ain't saying much. So I guess you were looking at other white kids. A shame, too, for a moment there I thought my dad bought my car for me.

But that's cool, back then I figured youz guys were the ones cutting through our yards and breaking into our homes.

[Just kidding. Back then we didn't have black folk around these parts. ]

It seems you know the reasons why us kids in NYC don't have cars.

It was different when I moved out of the city to Long Island. Those kids had cars. But what I saw was mostly whites.

Now between us is a bit of an age difference. I wonder how the blacks and hispanics in your area were doing in the 70s.

In NYC its just not common for HS kids to have cars. You are correct in that there is plenty of mass transit. I have never driven to work to any job I have had in NYC except when I worked nights and was provided parking.

But your life still sounds good. I mean you had a car at a young age. Well I got my first at 19 or 20 don't remember exactly. my father wouldn't put the car in his name but my mother did. I could have never afforded the insurance in my name.

Now I do think its a difference because of where you live but my other comment is more fun.

The world for blacks and hispanics has gotten better every decade. I probably need to look at things with more modern eyes.

When I was young that's how I saw it. White kids dad buys him a car and I'm taking the bus.

Depends on the car. Some of the kids at my high school (blacks, Asians, Hispanics included) had expensive and often highly modified cars. They were spoiled as shit.

My car was basically my parents' old car, just like the rest of my friends. That's not being spoiled, that's just our parents not wanting to drive us 15-30 minutes to school every morning.

Mewa grew up in compact city where you can walk or take the subway anywhere. Where I live, everything is spread out and we have a terrible public transportation system, so everyone has to drive everywhere.

So no, you weren't spoiled growing up.

heh

Why anyone would want to live in a city that's so hostile to private automobile owners and gun owners is beyond me.

In rural North Dakota, the contracting population is causing school district after school district to consolidate. It's now fairly common for the nearest high school to be some twenty to thirty miles away or more. Kids can (and generally do) get drivers licenses at 14 years old, if only because it's the only way they can get to school.

I grew up in a working class, but not particularly poor, neighborhood in the Chicago Southland near the Cook-Will County border. Not everyone had a car, but a good number did...I'd say 40% of the students drove themselves (and often friends who didn't have cars) to school. I had my own car (which I bought) from a little more than midway through junior year onward (pretty much the moment I turned 16 and got licenced), and drove to school.

I had a vehicle when I turned 16. An '80 CJ-7. $2,000. Paid for it myself.

'80 Cordoba

What the fuck is a Cordoba?

*googles*





That's a sexy pimp ride, right there.

"I was born a poor black child..."

The sexiest

http://home.milkmandan.org/dev/null/archives/chrysler_cordoba_ad.jpg

I had a car at 16. It was an old Cutlass Sierra that would try and shake itself apart at 60mph. I didn't have to buy it though. It was kinda the hand-me-down car in my family. When it started to go to shit, my parents just passed it down to the kids and bought themselves a newer car. The only expense I had to pay was insurance.

Was that KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANN?!?!?

Sadly, youtube didn't have the TV spot.

That was how it was s'posed to be for us too. But my older sister demolished two cars in the 3 years between her 16th birthday and mine

My momma bought me my first car. '73 bug. $500.00 plus another $500.00 or so to make it run, IIRC. I don't know why she didn't just make me save up for it myself, but I wasn't gonna turn it down.

I was driving on the roads at 11-12. I distinctly remember getting into a spot of legal trouble in my permit period, and my old man hauling me to the courthouse during harvest to let the judge know that I had to have my driving privileges, and that he'd make sure I was punished accordingly.

EDIT: Oh, and Mewa, this spoiled white kid was busting his ass all summer whilst all the brown kids in town sat on theirs and got fat.

Timmy had another good point. My car was bought for me by my parents from my uncle. I turned 16 in 1997, and the car was an 89 Cougar. The 89 is not the sportier looking cougar of today, it was a boat. I got it with well over 100,000 miles on it. When I was 18 I made one of the biggest mistakes of my life because I was desparate to get out of the grandma car. I purchased a bright yellow Ford Ranger. To this day I don't know what I was thinking. I regreted that purchase within 6 months of making it. I drove that one for 4 years before selling it to my little brother for 1500 because he totaled his 92 Ford Explorer and was in serious need of a vehicle.

There were other kids in my high school that were given brand new cars on their 16th birthdays. And some of those kids would wreck their cars and be given another new one by the next week. And when you drive through Plano it's common to see 16 year olds in new BMW's, Lexus', and even H2's.

To me that is just crazy. Sixteen year olds do the stupidest things behind the wheel. They need to be given something old that won't set you back when they wreck it.

I didn't get my first car until I was graduating high school. And then I paid for it on my own. It was a 1979 Ford Granada with gray paint and a maroon vinyl top.

That sucker had an a/c that would freeze you to death.

We had the only two cars named for Spanish cities

Yep, I remember my mom taking me to the courthouse in Plano when I got my first speeding ticket. She told the judge that if I didn't have my license I couldn't possibly get to work, so if he would let me keep it she'd make sure I learned a lesson. The lesson was that she paid off the ticket for me and I had to pay her back double the cost plus the cost of her taking off a day of work. I ended up out around $500, but that didn't stop me from turning around and getting another speeding ticket within a week of paying her back for the first one.

What's a speeding ticket?

Silence, drone!!
Produce nourishment for the business and artist classes!
It is your function! Comply!

:bitch:

Substitute "Cheyenne/Arapahoe" for business and artist classes and you've got a point.

Way back when I was sixteen (1980), it was the norm for the guys, no matter what race, to have a car by the time they were 16 or 17. Girls usually waited till they were outta HS.

My first car was a '72 Chevy Nova. Got that puppy to 120 mph once

Exactly like this one without the extended cab. The only plus side to this thing was that I couldn't possibly lose it even in the biggest parking lots. And before anyone asks, ya, that is the Baywatch truck.