I suspect that the confederate flags and guns were a poorly specified way to say “Republican.” Obviously there are some Republicans who are part of the community, and even more conservatives in general, but a significant portion of the community is gay and trans, two groups that are often discriminated against in more conservative areas of the USA. That portion of the group seems to be even more prevalent in the Bay Area community. The concern, to me at least, is not difference of thought, but rather being discriminated against.
Thanks for this comment! Yeah, the worry was not that we would be against being around our outgroup, but that they would be against having us there. I’m Asian, and I’ve heard from family members who live in smaller cities in the US that they feel increasingly unsafe traveling in more rural areas—there are increasing numbers of Confederate flags, even in the Midwest. Even when I was a kid we got funny looks, standoffishness, and frequent attempts to convert us to Christianity (and we’re only half-Asian, which may well be the easiest type of non-white to be!). Sounds like it’s worse now. This may be just a matter of perception, but I think it’s important. I get nervous when my sister brings up being gay when we’re in a rural diner; I definitely wouldn’t want to bring a bunch of people who are trans, autistic, and/or talk openly about eugenics to an area like that.
Also, uncontroversial opinion: it seems generally bad to be around people who might perpetrate violence against you. For all of the faults of the Bay Area’s liberal culture, it does promote a sort of radical acceptance of weirdness, which means people don’t have to hide the fact that they’re trans, poly, or whatever else they may be. And while you may genuinely have to worry about backlash for political opinions here (e.g. the 2017 Milo Yiannopoulos debacle on Berkeley campus), protestors generally prefer to cultivate an image of nonviolence, which means you are at least probably not in immediate bodily danger. In pro-NRA areas violence feels a lot more like a live option, though I don’t have any statistics so that may be a faulty impression.
Anyway, I’m sorry for unnecessarily politicizing part of the original post. But hopefully this comment has explained what I was trying to point at with that sentence.
For all of the faults of the Bay Area’s liberal culture, it does promote a sort of radical acceptance of weirdness, which means people don’t have to hide the fact that they’re trans, poly, or whatever else they may be.
There seems to be a radical acceptance of weidness that’s politically correct. From the outside it appears to me that there’s less acceptance of contrarian weirdness.
The show Silicon Valley joked that the Bay Area is more totalitarian then China in enforcing it’s orthodoxies.
I suspect that the confederate flags and guns were a poorly specified way to say “Republican.” Obviously there are some Republicans who are part of the community, and even more conservatives in general, but a significant portion of the community is gay and trans, two groups that are often discriminated against in more conservative areas of the USA. That portion of the group seems to be even more prevalent in the Bay Area community. The concern, to me at least, is not difference of thought, but rather being discriminated against.
Thanks for this comment! Yeah, the worry was not that we would be against being around our outgroup, but that they would be against having us there. I’m Asian, and I’ve heard from family members who live in smaller cities in the US that they feel increasingly unsafe traveling in more rural areas—there are increasing numbers of Confederate flags, even in the Midwest. Even when I was a kid we got funny looks, standoffishness, and frequent attempts to convert us to Christianity (and we’re only half-Asian, which may well be the easiest type of non-white to be!). Sounds like it’s worse now. This may be just a matter of perception, but I think it’s important. I get nervous when my sister brings up being gay when we’re in a rural diner; I definitely wouldn’t want to bring a bunch of people who are trans, autistic, and/or talk openly about eugenics to an area like that.
Also, uncontroversial opinion: it seems generally bad to be around people who might perpetrate violence against you. For all of the faults of the Bay Area’s liberal culture, it does promote a sort of radical acceptance of weirdness, which means people don’t have to hide the fact that they’re trans, poly, or whatever else they may be. And while you may genuinely have to worry about backlash for political opinions here (e.g. the 2017 Milo Yiannopoulos debacle on Berkeley campus), protestors generally prefer to cultivate an image of nonviolence, which means you are at least probably not in immediate bodily danger. In pro-NRA areas violence feels a lot more like a live option, though I don’t have any statistics so that may be a faulty impression.
Anyway, I’m sorry for unnecessarily politicizing part of the original post. But hopefully this comment has explained what I was trying to point at with that sentence.
There seems to be a radical acceptance of weidness that’s politically correct. From the outside it appears to me that there’s less acceptance of contrarian weirdness.
The show Silicon Valley joked that the Bay Area is more totalitarian then China in enforcing it’s orthodoxies.