Welcoming Community? Only if You Keep Your Politics to Yourself

By Cheryl Cook, As published in The Union

In the Jan. 23 column, “Are we a welcoming community?” Publisher Jim Hemig questions Jim Firth’s experience of political disenfranchisement in our community. Ironically, one only has to go to the sole comment to Firth’s article on The Union Web page to help find the answer.

“I guess you forgot that most people here are Republican and/or conservative. Both do not fit in your vocabulary. I myself moved here in 1981 with my family to rid ourselves of the agenda that San Francisco holds.”

Yes, most people who reside here are Republican and/or conservative. If a community and its newspaper are not attentive, that cozy conformity can easily breed intolerance, lack of perspective, and an incestuous provincialism.

Look around. Ask yourself why people of color do not make their home here. Where is the ethnic diversity that is reflected in California’s cosmopolitan population? Where is the spirit of inclusion?

When a prospective home buyer picks up the editorial page and reads the short rants at the bottom, do they feel this is a welcoming community? People who may want to move here in retirement are wanting to slow down their lives, not go backwards.

When a potential investor who wants to sink money into an area hits a bedrock of intolerance, unlike the liberal artist or writer who will turn the other cheek, the outsider will likely turn the car around.

Most community members make an effort to reach out in their neighborhoods and towns. They make friends, volunteer, and contribute in some way to the general welfare.

But if they should slap a bumper sticker on their car with the name of the president of the United States, they might consistently be harassed driving up and down Highway 49, repeatedly given the downward thumb sign, and even have the car spat on at the McKnight Road exit … until one day when a golfer mercifully rips the sticker off in the Alta Sierra Country Club parking lot. That man was probably white, probably conservative … and probably volunteers somewhere.

As a liberal, you quickly learn not to answer questions at dinner parties:

“Where was he born?”

“In the same hospital I was born, Kapiolani Maternity Hospital.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s documented.”

“But how do you know?”

You hear people at social gatherings whisper in your ear rather than openly discuss issues. You are told by a wife that her husband will not allow her to voice a political opinion because of the effect it will have on their relationship with conservative friends and neighbors. I understand.

You learn not to write editorials with a different political perspective. This community doesn’t want to hear it. There will certainly be telephone calls to the editor, a one-sided barrage of organized responses from political organizations, and sadly, from the same editorial board on which you sit.

Joe McCarthy himself could not do a better job at patriotic political repression using unfair allegations:

How long have you lived here?

How many hours do you volunteer?

How often do you fly the American flag?

Why do you want to dismantle our Constitution?

Why do you hate the United States and all it stands for?

Why would any liberal in their right mind run for local political office?

There is a cloud of intolerance in our community. To deny it is to bury your head in editorials about chocolate.

A Pollyanna publisher who denies that there is a voice of political intolerance in the community and on the Editorial Board, and even tilts the balance to the heaviest voices, does nothing to heal the rift and unite the community toward a more respectful and moderate voice.

Under Hemig’s watch, The Union broadened its policy to allow Editorial Board members to comment on local political races and candidates. The elections are over and those same board members have not continued writing. Where are those promised individual letters to the editor and op-eds?

We all enjoy a beautiful location here. People are mostly gracious and good. They are open-minded, intelligent, and kind. They believe in community and care about each other. But the Hard Right Blog underbelly here is as cruel, hateful and dark as anywhere in the entire United States.

Those bloggers say newspapers are practically extinct and they are the future. That is why we desperately need a newspaper that leads by example.

Somewhere in the middle of the voices on the left and the voices on the right, there is the truth. Isn’t it The Union’s role to protect and encourage those quiet whispers of the individual while broadcasting a mainstream conservative chorus?

Welcoming community? You are welcomed here if you keep your differing political opinions to yourself. No bumper stickers, no public discussions. Definitely no editorials. Or suffer the overwhelming inhospitable consequences.