I've already figured out how I became who I am. It's pretty simple in its ultimate distillation and my home town plays a significant part. My hometown is Claremont, California. From what I just read in the Los Angeles Times, there's a P.C. thanksgiving controversy thing going on there right now. And I'm not surprised at all.
"Some say having students dress up as pilgrims and Native Americans is 'demeaning.' Their opponents say they are elitists injecting politics into a simple children's celebration."
It's the basic ingredients of the Great Culture War of America and it's happening in my very own home town. Quaint, huh?
The wiki says that Claremont is know as the city of "trees and Ph.D.s." That's just beat. Trees are nice and all but from what I remember, the Clare-hood is a college town and a retirement town. This may explain how my little village is embroiled a Great Culture War of America battle. Asshole trees have little to do with this thing.
Back in the day, when we all dressed up like pilgrims and indians and went Christmas Caroling (back when it was actually called "Christmas Caroling" and not something retarded like "Winter Sing-song Parade" or something), I distinctly remember visiting, as a class, the famous Claremont retirement communities of Pilgrim Place and Mt. San Antonio Gardens. We were cute relief from all the dying. And everybody knew that most of the vaunted Claremont old money was molding in mattresses at these centers.
Older, richer people are generally quite conservative and as a reflection of who is buttering the municipal bread, the Claremont city government has always been quite conservative. Very slow growth, restrictive toward big commerce, and a high authoritarian police force. Outsiders are more tolerated than welcomed. I believe the city has only grown at a rate of about a 5% per decade since I lived there. Still fewer than 35,000 residents in town is amazing for southern California. Just try to get a permit to build a new home. It's hard to do. Unless you have something to barter.
Yet Claremont is generally known as a college town. With eight colleges (most say seven, but I know better) within the city limits, it is indeed very much a college town. There is definitely a town-gown thing but it has always been peaceful compared with college towns like Berkeley. But college egg-heads are generally quite liberal and the college's influence on the town has always been quite righty.
And so the continuation of this fake-ass, drummed-up, Culture War of America drama isn't surprising to me at all. You have conservatives and liberals living together. You have the Claremont Institute in the same space as Ben Harper, Buckethead, and Snoop Dogg. Shit, I distinctly remember my 5th grade teacher reminding us to tell our parents to vote for Gerald Ford. Everybody voted for Jimmy Carter and nobody was surprised.
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