Last night I Googled "Bay Area vs. Boston." Among other hits, I came up with this. One of the posts read in part:
While I find that people are, at heart, pretty similar in different areas, the culture here is a bit more reserved and, shall I say conservative? Not politically, of course, but in the sense that there is less eccentricity and self-expression than I found growing up in the Bay Area. There are pros and cons to this feature of the culture, just like anything else.
I like this post. Let's look at the pertinent words here:
Eccentricity: Really fucking annoying in order to get attention.
Self-expression: See above, except there's usually some sort of label like art or profound attached. In Webster's terminology, see Burning Man.
The people who have the least to say tend to say it the loudest. Many of them are eccentrics who believe in self-expression. The Bay Area opens its doors and arms wide to these types, and when I moved here at 22 I thought it was a great thing.
Twelve years later, I realize there's a lot of room for self-editing in this world. Maybe the East Coast does it better. At any rate, I may be finding out for myself in the years to come.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
"Not politically?" I guess that excludes Boston's history of overt racism. Not that there's no racism in the Bay Area, just that there's so many races here I think people get confused. All the groups different from me have me outnumbered.
Not that I'm a racist anyway. I just hate. I'm an ist.
Dunno ... that was an excerpt from a forum post. Not sure how he/she sees Boston's take on the -ist way of life.
Confused racism, that's still racism of a different flavor. Not that I think anyone's immune.
Well, Boston's traditionally anti-Black. That's 2nd generation anecdotal on my part, no evidence or personal experience behind it. Heard it a lot, though.
In the Bay Area I assume the racism is primarily quiet except in small pockets. I live in a district of Oakland where over 100 languages are spoken. Hate anyone you want, you're surrounded.
And hell, I've been accused of racism, I've kicked people out of the store I work in for saying racist shit, I like so many people from so many places and guess what, assholes are everywhere too.
However fucked up anyone's upbringing might be, if you didn't catch that kind of hate you got some people beat. A fucking consolation prize for sure but we need all the prizes we can get.
I wouldn't assume that any brand of human cruelty is isolated in small pockets, particularly here in our beautiful Bay Area. Homophobia is well and alive in North Beach (read my recent blog post for more details) and people are still being held hostage by thug culture.
Also, I don't know that a bunch of hearsay necessarily makes Boston "traditionally anti-Black." I'm not denying it; I just don't know it to be true and I won't be too quick to assume until I see it or hear some pretty damn compelling evidence.
Post a Comment