Had to get out of there. Socially the dynamics were too different than back home, yet Berkeley isnt different enough from back home to be somethng I could get used to.
Poor whites have even less power in Cal than in MA. Street blacks would practically demand to be interacted with and if you quietly told fellow travelers that you only deal with other travelers the native homebum would give you this glare as you walked away. It was worse than possible violence...it was intrusion. And being burdened with someone simply expecting something from you. It was domineering male tactics. Not happy with any of it. African American males around the Bay area not only demand attention and simply expect to dominate the psychic space. As bus drivers for instance they simply expect to be heard, understood and heeded even if communication required more effort due to a patron being from out of town. It was a sort of slow moving, sloppy arrogance they were far to comfortable with.
Back east a driver may have a bad attitude but then its expected that the public of all races would possibly think he is a jerk and say so or deflect his bad attitude with one of not caring, due to ultimately he being a service person, the only thing buying him any power in Boston at all is his ties to the black community but especially he being part of a union. However, any sign of such a person being unprofessional without him covering his ass to get away with it would be fair game and a sign of a vulnerable spot.
Here, they simply expect that people will put up with laziness, rudeness, moodiness etc. In Berkeley and surrounding areas like Hayward and Richmond. Even this attitude comes up out north and east like Lodi. San Fran proper seemed more attuned to providing a service as to be taken seriously.
There was no place i felt comfortable and safe from other classes or ethnic friction other than around Telegraph, the main little area for travelers and hippies, street kids etc.
This is the down side of forced diversity, political correctness etc. The very idea that one has to divise a system to basically re arrange society to seem more fair and just shows there is something wrong to begin with. Human beings can develop along their own lines and free association produces communities and groups of like minded people.
No race, class, religious group etc should be forced through intimidation to claim to like another group. This is also unrealistic becuz not everyone of one 'race' is going to be like minded. Also much within these ethnic groups that is negative is being ignored as well as the fact that the racial measurements are grossly inaccurate. We would all need DNA testing to actually prove what DNA is within everyone of us.
These systems that run society now, of dividing people on lines of 'race' or class have actually created more racism and division as well as practically wiped out the culture of poor to middle class peoples of European origin.
What they have done simply is re arranged society to now cheat a demographic they feel is expendable to help another rise to power. Yet notice thst its never at the expense of the designers of these changes in society, who go home at night to nice neighborhoods where they dont deal with the consequences of their actions in any way.
