<story><title>In poor neighborhoods, McDonald’s have become de-facto community centers</title><url>https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jun/08/mcdonalds-community-centers-us-physical-social-networks</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>smokey_the_bear</author><text>McDonalds is the only restaurant I enjoy eating at with my 2 and 3 year olds. Every other restaurant is a slog to get through the meal. Honestly I&amp;#x27;d eat there more often if it weren&amp;#x27;t for the social stigma of it. (I live in Berkeley).&lt;p&gt;I am pretty sure the cheeseburger, apple slices, and chocolate milk are not much worse, and probably better, than the typical fare on a slapped together kids meal.&lt;p&gt;When I was a kid, my dad would take me to the local McDonalds to do math, several times a week. They&amp;#x27;d  let us sit there ordering nothing but sodas in a comfy booth for hours. These are some of my fondest childhood memories.&lt;p&gt;There are some issues with McDonalds, but it is a pleasant user experience.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>stcredzero</author><text>People finding community of some form is not just a good thing, it&amp;#x27;s an essential thing to human life. It should always be lauded. However, there is a lot of socioeconomic and sub-cultural in-group&amp;#x2F;out-group judgement in US society, all of which feels absolutely justified by those doing the judging.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.vox.com&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;4&amp;#x2F;21&amp;#x2F;11451378&amp;#x2F;smug-american-liberalism&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.vox.com&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;4&amp;#x2F;21&amp;#x2F;11451378&amp;#x2F;smug-american-liberali...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;In reality, it&amp;#x27;s all exactly the same sort of crap that was portrayed on Mad Men. Such prejudice is the same, whether it is enacted by tweed jacket wearing Ivy Leaguers, rural low-brow native americans, &amp;quot;poor white trash,&amp;quot; urban black people, affluent Koreans, undergraduate students, &amp;quot;Social Justice Warriors,&amp;quot; or Bay Area programmers. I should know, because I&amp;#x27;ve been on the receiving end of it from all of the above, while also being a member of about half those groups. (Often having diametrically opposed things projected onto me!)&lt;p&gt;When it comes down to it, people should be given a chance as individuals, not summarily judged as units of a group. (Martin Luther King Jr. put it best...)&lt;p&gt;I swear, when I hear some fellow &amp;quot;liberals&amp;quot; talking about their own rural underclass or Republicans or Christians, the kind of disdain that comes across seems like something that should no longer exist in the 21st century, outside of movies about the Jim Crow south.</text></comment>
<story><title>In poor neighborhoods, McDonald’s have become de-facto community centers</title><url>https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jun/08/mcdonalds-community-centers-us-physical-social-networks</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>smokey_the_bear</author><text>McDonalds is the only restaurant I enjoy eating at with my 2 and 3 year olds. Every other restaurant is a slog to get through the meal. Honestly I&amp;#x27;d eat there more often if it weren&amp;#x27;t for the social stigma of it. (I live in Berkeley).&lt;p&gt;I am pretty sure the cheeseburger, apple slices, and chocolate milk are not much worse, and probably better, than the typical fare on a slapped together kids meal.&lt;p&gt;When I was a kid, my dad would take me to the local McDonalds to do math, several times a week. They&amp;#x27;d  let us sit there ordering nothing but sodas in a comfy booth for hours. These are some of my fondest childhood memories.&lt;p&gt;There are some issues with McDonalds, but it is a pleasant user experience.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tompetry</author><text>&amp;gt; When I was a kid, my dad would take me to the local McDonalds to do math, several times a week. They&amp;#x27;d let us sit there ordering nothing but sodas in a comfy booth for hours. These are some of my fondest childhood memories.&lt;p&gt;This made me smile, as my dad and I did the exact same thing. He would get coffee and I would get eggs and hashbrowns before we set out on the days errands, and I remember doing long division problems with crayons for fun. I hadn&amp;#x27;t thought of those days in a very long time, thank you :)</text></comment>