Why 'Liberal' Remains an Epithet
01/12/05 15:29
Digby has a comment on TNR and LA Times articles on cultural friction that help explain how "liberal" became a bad word.
Per Digby, the TNR piece (subscription required) cautions against seeing groups like The Minutemen as entirely extremist or fringe. The article suggests that a great many Americans feel an alienation affect when confronted with the ways of a decidedly different culture.
The LA times gives voice to those who fear the loss of middle class norms and the reduction of property values:
"The retired social studies teacher said she got involved because houses in her neighborhood had become packed immigrant dormitories. She suspects that most tenants in the rooming houses, including the one next door, are illegal. She deals with roosters crowing and men urinating in the yard, loud parties and empty beer cans dumped outside. She fears it's driving down the value of her house."
Digby quotes the TNR article:
"Those who have complained call it loitering, but one Hispanic resident told the Post that when the men gather outdoors, "[t]hey're having coffee; they talk about issues. ... It's part of our community." For the neighborhood's Hispanic population, this practice is a cultural tradition; for its newer batch of hip, ostensibly liberal urbanites, it is disturbing, and too closely resembles something American law designates a crime."
I am black. I am decidedly middle class. If I regularly saw a group of 5 or more white males "loitering" on a street corner or front stoop, I wouldn't like it. I would react just as those gentrifiers have reacted -- with suspicion and a bit of fear.
I have lived in LA barrios. There, I grew used to groups of men hanging about. It was a barrio for Chrissakes. Get used to it or get out. However, on LAs Westside, those same men would have been chased off by the cops so fast it would have made you dizzy. Different places. Different norms. As places change, so do those norms. However, during the transition, there is tension and anger--the latter mainly from those who see themselves losing something.
I most recently lived in a gentrifying area of Northeast Portland. It is Portland's black--and largely poor-- neighborhood. However, the neighborhood is changing--fast. Property values are skyrocketing and gentrifiers are coming in droves. Mainly all good white, particularly self-conscious liberals, mind you.
I set my black, decidedly middle-class ass across from a rental that was home to at least 5 unrelated individuals, some elderly, some young. Fine, sit on the porch. However, when a friend of theirs drives up with a bass thumping so loudly it rattles your brains, gets out of the car and leaves the radio BLARING as he goes in the house... sorry, my tolerance for "cultural tradition" ends.
When the neighbors had a house party (that charged admission) with folks spilling drunkenly out onto the street with their glasses and bottles in their hands until 4 am, my tolerance ends. This had been going on for years. It was a "cultural tradition." However, I happily called the cops.
The neighborhood was changing. And I was a willing change agent.
Suggesting that my reaction was "racist" is ridiculous. I'm just as black as those neighbors were. However, I was in the economic driver's seat. Middle class norms were prevailing here. I was willing to enforce them.
So Digby, get over yourself. There will always be racists among those who make such complaints. Those of us who are not must beware of them, and scream loudly when they show themselves. But to suggest that all those who make such complaints, that all those who express their economic and social anxiety are racist, simply makes enemies of those who ought to be your friends -- and your voters.