Geographical terms common in the US:
- reservations – the bits that are left of Native American nations.
- states – most of the US is divided into 50 states.
- blue states – left-leaning states that tend to vote Democratic.
- red states – right-leaning states that tend to vote Republican.
- slave states – those that had slaves in 1861.
- the tri-state area – a region with parts of three states, particularly one with a large city, like New York, Chicago, Philadelphia or Memphis.
- Not (yet) states:
- Puerto Rico
- District of Columbia (DC)
- Guam
- US Virgin Islands (islands east of Puerto Rico)
- American Samoa
- Northern Mariana Islands (islands north of Guam)
- uninhabited:
- Navassa Island
- Howland Island
- Baker Island
- Jarvis Island
- Midway Atoll
- Johnston Atoll
- Palmyra Atoll
- Kingman Reef
- counties – what most states are divided into.
- New York – almost always means the city, not the state, which is called “New York state”.
- Washington – almost always means the city, not the state, which is called “Washington state”.
- South
- the South – the former slave states in the south-eastern US. In 1861, most joined the Confederacy and fought the American Civil War to keep Black as slaves. It is “down”, as in “down south”.
- North
- the North – the states north of the South.
- north-east – the eastern part of the North.
- East
- the East – Asia. Can also mean the eastern US, especially the north-east. It is “back”, as in “back east”.
- Far East – East Asia: China and neighbouring countries, except for Russia.
- Middle East – South West Asia and North East Africa.
- Near East – the Middle East, especially in ancient times (over 1400 years ago).
- east coast – the east coast of the US
- West
- the West – western Europe, the US and Canada. Can also mean the western US. It is “out”, as in “out west”.
- Midwest – the middle part of the US, from roughly Kansas to Ohio to North Dakota.
- west coast – west coast of the US, not counting Alaska.
- Asia – this mainly means East Asia. Siberia and Israel are only Technically Asian.
- Europe – the part of Eurasia west of the Urals and north of the Caucasus. Turkey and Cyprus may or may not be part of it.
- Africa – the part of Africa south of the Sahara. Joe Biden, the US vice president, says it is a nation. Raven-Symone says it is made up of several continents.
- sub-Saharan Africa – Black Africa.
- North Africa – super-Saharan Africa, the countries along the north coast – and maybe Sudan too. Seen as only Technically African.
- Oceania – Australia and the Pacific islands, not counting the Philippines, Indonesia, Taiwan or Japan.
- America – almost always means just the US.
- the Americas – the continents west of Europe and Africa.
- South America – the Americas south of the Panama Canal.
- North America – the Americas north of the Panama Canal. Sometimes limited to just the US and Canada.
- Central America – the countries between Mexico and South America.
- Latin America – the Spanish-speaking parts of the Americas outside the US. Brazil is commonly seen as Spanish-speaking.
- American – from the US, especially when White.
- Indian – Native American. Can also mean someone from India.
– Abagond, 2015.
See also:
605
This is excellent information!
Perhaps you might look into the eleven separate social parts that have been discussed.
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You have California listed as a slave free state. It had slavery from the time of the missions all the way through to the gold rush in 1855. Sutter Mill enslaved natives to mind gold.
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I didn’t know that people considered Mexico part of “Central America”. I have never did.
Just checked Wikipedia. It also did not include Mexico. I am curious where Mexico is viewed as part of Central America.
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To Jefe:
I didn’t know that people considered Mexico part of “Central America”. I have never did.
I always though Mexico was part of North America. Googling “North America” by image seems to support this. Central America is a geographical subset of the North American continent.
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Brazilians speak Portuguese not Spansih. Portuguese is a Latin language though.
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@Abagond,
This post reminds me. It’s not known by virtually everyone. I just learned myself within the past month! But, California started enslaving Indians/Native Americans in the 1850s and 1860s and in continued until the late 1870s!!
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REWo21N5LZE), for example.
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@ Jefe
Mexico may or may not be part of Central America. I updated the post for that. Thanks.
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@ michaeljonbarker
Many states in the north once had slaves too, but they are not considered slave states.
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@ michaeljonbarker
In my experience, most people in the US do not know that Brazil speaks Portuguese.
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@Abagond,
I appreciate that, but actually, I have never seen Mexico included with Central America.
My question was, where do people (or what subset of people) include Mexico with Central America? The reason why I am asking is because I don’t want to disagree with those people and create an embarrassing situation or create misunderstandings.
The only people I have ever met who thought Mexico was part of Central America were foreigners overseas who had never stepped foot inside the US or Mexico.
Just did a google search. It looks like sometimes British think Central America includes Mexico.
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Nobody in southern California refers to Mexico as central America.
South of Mexico is considered central America.
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I think it’s misleading to call California a slave free state. From when the Spanish first arrived here in 1769 until as late as 1897 their has been slavery of Natives, Blacks and Chinese.
By 1818 eighty six percent of California Indians had been killed through the mission slavery system and by the time of the gold rush another two thirds would be wiped out in a ten year period.
The mines replaced the Indians with Blacks even though their was considerable push back from other miners who saw slaves as giving an unfair advantage to mine owners who used slaves.
The idea of California being a “slave free” state originates within white centric history. It is a myth. It attempts to tie California into the Civil War when California history has little to do with any Southern history.
Even after California was slave free on paper their was no enforcement of freeing slaves. Slave owners did not tell their slaves of the prohibition and continued to own and sell slaves.
By the late 1800’s Chinese slaves included females who were being sold in the open with documentation showing proof of ownership.
The impression that California was a “free slave state” is in insult to the California natives who were worked to death to virtual genocide, the Blacks who came who thought they were “free” nor thousands of Chinese women sold as sex slaves on the streets of San Francisco and Los Angeles.
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Abagond,
In my experience, most people in the US do not know that Brazil speaks Portuguese.
Wait, what? Isn’t that supposed to be common knowledge?
Also, thank you for writing this post! I admit I’m a bit confused with some aspects of US geography. For the longest time, I assumed “Midwest” was on the west side of the country.
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What the hell?!? The Midwest isn’t on the west, that’s slap bang in the centre!
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I think how one views ‘Washington’ depends on location. When back out West, when someone says that he’s going to Washington, “Where? Seattle?”, is a common reply. Further east the assumption would probably be that the speaker is referring to Washington D.C..
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I think it’s interesting that large numbers of Black folks migrated away from the south – after captivity – only to eventually return again… although none of your current crop of maps on this page shows that the largest concentration of African descended people in the US now reside in the Southern states.
I wonder which climate is the leading cause for this reverse migration?
The weather climate, or the racial climate?
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@ Fan
I added a map showing the top non-White race in each state (where Latino counts as a “race”).
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@ Fan – I stayed in the South because everything is so cheap.A $300k house down here would cost more than a milli in Cali (depending on location). Many of the things we did at home on a regular basis are things many people out here brag about which makes the racism laughable. The availability of water was also a factor.
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These maps are informative but if one googles ‘the world according to (los angeles, for example)’ – the perspectives are a more realistic measure of the way people think.
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@ Fan
Everyone I know who moved south did it mainly for economic reasons, though the weather was a factor too.
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Reblogged this on Boycott.
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I think you missed a few US territories: Iraq and Afghanistan.
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@ resw77
LOL.
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It is funny, but people in the Washington, DC area almost never use the term “Washington”. They usually say DC, or the District.
For example, “A District man was struck by a hit and run driver with Virginia tags.”
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@ Jefe
I know someone in the US who thinks Mexico is part of Central America: me.
If you look at Google Images, I am hardly alone in the English-speaking world, though it is not immediately clear how many of those images come from the US.
The UN considers Mexico part of Central America:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_geoscheme
So does Arnold Toynbee, a British historian I have read.
But both Webster’s and Oxford dictionaries do not. Nor, as far as I could tell, do any of the dozen or so US authors on my Kindle who bring up Central America, Frederick Douglass among them.
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@ Jefe
So, on the strength of Webster’s and the US authors on my Kindle, I changed Central America to “the countries between Mexico and South America.”
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@ Uglyblackjohn
Good point. I added one for New York.
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@ Jefe
I noticed that in your guest posts.
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@ Lord of Mirkwood
I did. How ironic.
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@ Lord of Mirkwood
The Democratic Party defended slavery. Later it carried out Jim Crow and pretty much kept it in place till the 1960s.
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“I personally could not think of many reasons to live down South. Southwestern Florida is a nice place to go on vacation for a week or two out of the year, but living in Dixie? It’s too hot, too Republican, and too racist for me.”
.
Mirky. you not so slick operator! You forgot to mention: “..and it’s too dark!”
Even a subconscious (or undercover) racist .. would recognize.
A cursory glimpse at the race map shows that Florida is a much whiter state than the rest of Dixie. That makes it more tolerable for a week, maybe two.. lol
Why wouldn’t you want to be closer to the Black people you profess to be an ally with?? (That’s a rhetorical question!)
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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Free_Trade_Agreement
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@ Lord of Mirkwood
When was the last time someone was lynched in the South for being Irish?
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@LOM
“I wouldn’t last two weeks without getting lynched, both because I’m Irish and because I’d probably march through the town center urinating on a Confederate flag and belting out “Marching through Georgia” at the top of my lungs, and that wouldn’t end well.”—Do me a favor and please stop talking about the south. You know nothing about it. Being Irish and carrying and Irish name will not get you lynched down here. There are plenty of Irish Americans living the white American dream here.
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@ Kiwi – ^^^KO^^^
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Do all readers know this website? https://atlasofprejudice.com/
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@ Jeff
I saw that site.
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@Lord of Mirkwood
That is not an indication that you know anything about the south. The south is no longer in a Civil War. The dynamics have changed in the south quite a bit and you trying to determine what it is based on things from 1800’s is about the most asinine argument I have ever heard.
I live here. Check mate dumb a***.
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I’ve noticed that a lot of people like to bring up the Irish as an antidote to the blacks, namely when talking about slavery and general oppression.
Nevermind how the Irish, like so many like-colored groups, managed to melt into the Great White American Collective™ – something that black Americans haven’t and likely will never get the chance to accomplish.
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@ Abagond
I know. That is why I wrote “all readers.”
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@Mack Lyons (@DDSSBlog)
“I’ve noticed that a lot of people like to bring up the Irish as an antidote to the blacks, namely when talking about slavery and general oppression.”
Actually, only one fellow commenter equates Irish with Black. It is a great irony since the Irish as an European ethnic group in the USA have worked tirelessly since the Famine Migration (1848) to oppress people of African descent.
Irish immigrants have employed riots, lynchings, beatings, arson and Job Busting (where ethnic Europeans, including the Irish would threaten employers and workers with mob violence if the Black workers weren’t replaced with White workers.) over the decades to secure their social and economic position in America. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2587658?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
Even today, the Irish form a historical core of the police forces in many cities that continue to terrorize Black communities with violence.
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Afrofem
@Mack Lyons (@DDSSBlog)
Just like Blacks do not like to lumped together as one unit, we should not lump any other group of individuals!
While true there are Irish who brutalize there are also Blacks and others!
If more Blacks could pass the test there would be more Blacks who would be accused of brutalizing!
Work on helping to change the test and educating the Blacks to pass the test!
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@Allen Shaw
What part of his post reads lumping into one unit? Please put the “they do it too” argument to bed. It does not change the facts of their posts. Jeez deflect much?
http://thebumblinggenius.blogspot.com/2012/10/when-you-hear-he-does-it-too-argument.html?m=1
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“It kicked British imperalisim out of America”
England imported 70% of their cotton from the South. Thats after they declared slavery to be illegal in their “empire”. So while they were officially against slavery they benifited economically in trade with the United States and we’re enriched by it.
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Mirkwood
So if the Irish don’t have white privilage are you saying they are oppressed by white privilage ? That you Mirkwood are being oppressed but white privilage ?
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“Protastant racsim”
Maybe you should create a Wikipedia page.
I’m confused though.
Does this make you an honorary white ? Are you able to pass when you go to mass or do you need a name tag? Do you think you could pass if you traveled to a large city? Do you think random people will try to guess where you are from and what religion you are ? What sort of things will people assume about you ? Do you think you qualify for affirmative action ? Do you think you would be discriminated against if you applied for a home loan in a protastant community ? What sort of reparations do you believe you deserve ? How would you feel if your daughter married a protastant ? What should we do about hate speech in protastant churches ? Maybe Bernie could create a special tax for protastants.
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sharinalr
@Allen Shaw
Words have meaning and the way we speak is not what we mean it is what other people hear!
When you say “the Irish or the Blacks or the Whites, you imply all.
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@Allen Shaw
“When you say “the Irish or the Blacks or the Whites, you imply all.”—For those who have a comprehension issue, yes. But for those of us who don’t then no it does not imply all. For example If I said white people have blue eyes. Does that imply all white people have blue eye? No. It implies that there are white people who do. Because logic would tell a person that all white people do not have blue eyes.
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“Anti colonialism has been a long staple in the U.S.”
Were you taught that in the public schools ?
What do you do exactly ? You still live at home ? How is someone like you possible ?
My mind is blown.
America is an Empire because it controls the money and the oil. Thats how it’s able to rule from afar. The World Bank and IMF.
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@LOM
“But I draw the line at insinuating that the Irish have white privilege!”—You also draw the line at calling out your own racism and that of Liberals, but I am not sure why you draw the line on things that are true.
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@ Lord of Mirkwood
The very fact that you think the US was in “diametric opposition” to British imperialism is a sign that you yourself enjoy White privilege. I doubt Native Americans saw it that way. Or George Washington’s slaves. Or Iraqis. Or Afghans. Or Palestinians.
US imperialism is just old wine in a new bottle. Much of the wealth of the British Empire passed to the US during the Second World War – and then, after the war, into the pockets of ordinary Whites, like Irish Americans, through the G.I. Bill and FHA loans. Blacks were largely shut out thanks to your precious Democratic Party.
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Hey Murkitroid,
“I am a very, VERY angry Northerner!”
could also be more accuarately said this way:
I am a very, VERY CLUELESS and DISTURBED Northerner!
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lotr said:
“Nope. Anti-colonialism has long been a staple of the U.S. ”
because the US turned to the caribbean and pacific instead of africa? this is getting a little wierd…
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I do detest the British Empire.
All this talk of the British Empire had me craving fish and chips. I had delicious halibut fish and chips for lunch with a side order of gravy. For those who detest the British Empire, one must admit that fish and chips was, and is, the only good thing to come out of it!
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@ Lord of Mirkwood
Instead of talking about what the British ALMOST did, maybe you should talk about what they DID do: freed their slaves some 30 years BEFORE the US did.
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LOM
“It seems as though Whitehall viewed your ancestors as being their equals, and viewed mine as being the scum of the earth!”—You gather that how? Because they were simply not fawning over the Irish? Your argument are more and more in line with “I don’t care how they treat blacks or Asians, but I care that they should treat Irish better than them.”
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@Herneith
LOL, “fish and chips” in Britain can’t touch southern (US) fried catfish and fries.
@sharinalr
That’s it. #trollssuck
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@ Lord of Mirkwood
Comments deleted due to moderated language.
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@Lord of Mirkwood
WHO CARES? IDGAF about the Irish in Ireland starving, because that is not what I asked you and it has absolutely nothing to do with what I said.
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@ Lord of MilkandCookies
What does the British committing atrocities against Ireland have to do with US geography?
Do you wander off topic on your blog like you do here?
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@Lord of Mirkwood
The reason why you are stunned at what is happening because it is not happening. No one excused what the British did, but people are also not allowing you to use the British to deflect from YOUR RACISM and double standards.
FYI those links may point to who is more racist, but they are not omitting the fact that places in the north are still racist.
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“New York is not the capital of any nation.”
Actually, New York City is the capital of the United Nations.
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“The Republican Party is a nest of war criminals.”
The Democrats are not better. Obama has droned more civilians then the Bush administration.
The bombing of Hiroshima was done when Democrats were in the presidency.
Shouldn’t the use of nuclear weapons be considered a war crime ?
“Imagine how damaging a trial like that could be for the Republicans in 2016.”
I think the Republicans are doing a fine job looking like fools without any help.
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@ Lord of Mirkwood
I probably pointed this out before, but it bears repeating on this thread:
This is how you seem to think:
Those are not your only tropes – you are also a class reductionist and White paternalist – but on this thread they are the main ones.
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@ Lord of Mirkwood
You know, right, that the winners write the history books? That if Hitler had won, the Holocaust would not be a thing. It would not even be called that. That before 1850 most Whites in the northern US supported slavery. That Obama is not much better than Bush II. That Sanders himself supports the use of drones?
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@ LoM – How does EVERY topic about which Ab posts ALWAYS have something to do with the Irish (-Americans)?
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http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/world-war-two/world-war-two-in-western-europe/the-attack-on-western-europe/the-german-invasion-of-holland/
Market garden is a great squad level scenario, a classic
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@ LoM – How does EVERY topic about which Ab posts ALWAYS have something to do with the Irish (-Americans)?
Good question, but I’m terrified he’ll answer it!
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https://www.warhistoryonline.com/featured/easy-company-crossroads-battle.html?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=postplanner&utm_source=facebook.com
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