I was watching Neighborhood Wars, which is a program in a “list format” that documents interpersonal stuff that happens in different communities. It seems in every episode there’s at least one thing about the community coming together for some cause, such as everyone coming together to defend an immigrant whose lemonade stand got attacked, or everyone coming together to investigate whether a boy actually committed a certain act of assault that he was accused of (haven’t a number of us been in that situation). Think back to the original Spiderman movie when the citizens of New York City started throwing stuff at the Green Goblin and saying “you mess with Spidey, you mess with New York!”
While this was on, a Québécois acquaintance that was visiting my home for some casual time lamented “hélas, cela n’arriverait jamais ici” (roughly “if only that happened here”), probably unaware that the community once drove someone out of town who was trying to incite sentiment and came by to give me a hard time personally (someone I am known here as having talked both about and toward before; their clique was last seen giving a “final awareness message” about me). All despite the fact the only reason I myself barely escape having a “weird flatlander” reputation to this very exclusive community is due to my home once belonging to my grandfather, not helped by being a French Polynesian descendant.
Does your hometown community have any moments like this?
During the era where the Westboro Baptist Church was protesting soldiers funerals, they weren’t allowed to enter private property, but they could be on public property.
One of the guys I went to school with died and we got word that WBC was going to be protesting his funeral. Everyone who could parked on the street that day and took up every public parking area, stores and churches closed their parking lots so they could “repaint” or “resurface”, the local national guard, ems, firefighters, and police, had a coordinated “community outreach” where they shuttled people to the graveyard because we had done such a good job of blocking every parking spot that you would have had to walk for about 6 miles to get to the graveyard. Finally the local biker gang escorted in the hearse and parked at the entrance so when the protesters showed up they just revved their bikes until the protesters left.
We never heard the protesters but we did have to pause the funeral for about 15 minutes until the protesters realized the biker gang wasn’t going to let them be heard.
Why would they protest against the funerals of soldiers? That sounds like the most non-right-wing activity I can think of such a klan-esque group doing.
I’m not sure.
But I do think that if a nazi came into my city wearing a swastica armband and doing salutes, they would probably get their ass beaten. (Philly btw, I highly doubt my fellow Philadelphians are gonna let an open nazi walk around, especially considering at least 40% of the population is Black, who definitely aren’t fans of nazis)
I have literally never seen someone being openly nazi in Philly for the 10+ years I’ve been living here.
I mean, has anyone ever seen someone being openly Nazi?
Depends on how popular with the town. My town in the Midwest US (and many small towns) were incredibly clique-y. I watched a kid break his leg who was on the football team and he got praise, special seats at school events, and the town donated to his family.
The same month one of our schoolmates lost a parent. No one did anything except for “our prayers are with you” and “we’re so sorry”. No one donated to their family, the newly single parent, or made meals or anything.
My own mother was shamed out of the her church mostly because people thought she was annoying, which she is, but fuck all that forgiveness stuff right? Sorry she’s not fun at the Bible study, so we’ll just start excluding you from our events.
People preach that there’s small town nice. I have never seen it. I’ve seen judgemental and selfish assholes banding together. They say they’re nice while scorning people actually in need. I moved to the city and I am happy to be away. No one gives a fuck about me, so that’s the same, but it’s a uniform no one gives a fuck.
I can’t say I don’t relate in a way. It was unusual that people ever banded in my favor, and they still technically see me as the odd one out, just in a way where I’m at least good enough to defend under those circumstances (perhaps they were defending more than me, though I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth here, and I’m not saying any of this to throw shade). Before I lived where I do, I was in another area with a similar “town” environment but which was very openly selective, once literally caring enough about the school janitor to announce his retirement on the announcements but then do nothing when one of us had our life changed forever due to a car accident. I tend to find myself on the bad side of cliques because of how different I come across and could typically never count on community support. But then circumstances end up surprising everyone, and hard.
My own mother was shamed out of the her church mostly because people thought she was annoying
What church was this?
