Loree Thomas wrote:
>
> --- Olga Bourlin <fauxever@sprynet.com> wrote:
> > A few days ago Lee Corbin asked me for an example of
> > racism in Seattle.
>
> <snip url>
>
> > Astonishing, no?
>
> Not to me. I grew up in Renton.
>
> Olga, when we first met I was living in the heart of
> the Cental District (26th and Cherry). I saw police
> harrass back individuals on almost a daily basis.
>
> And Seattle is one of the better cities in the US.
Actually, no, it's not, or maybe it is for large cities. In my
experience, big city people are far more polite in face to face
situations, but also far more bigoted when in more homogenous
situations. While Seattle area people are generally polite to a fault,
and freindly, they are far less gracious about others when among trusted
confidants. Among the Laurelhurst crowd I knew when I lived there, the
Rainier Valley, for instance, was commonly referred to as 'brown town',
while at the same time exhibiting any sort of racial bias in public was
considered very outre. The Mercer Island crowd was much the same, and
breathed sighs of relief every day that the trip over the bridge was a
long haul across the lake.
At the same time, it was quite popular, and publicly acceptable, to poke
fun at the working class Norwiegian folk that populate Ballard (a North
Seattle neighborhood). The local tv comedy show, Almost Live, featured a
frequent skit called "The Ballard Driving School", which required you to
drive a Dodge Dart, with the seat belt dragging on the ground, the
muffler dragging and smoking, while wearing a cheap eskimo jacket and
Toq, and the 'Uff Da' bumper sticker was mandatory. This was apparently
the stereotypical Norwiegian Ballardite driver.
This show also stereotyped the camaro-driving Renton white redneck, with
his long hair in back and buzzcut on top, snorting coke while
complaining about crack gangs, etc...
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:40:05 MDT