Marin County Shows Its True Colors
John Rosenberg reports that Marin County has run afoul of HUD by not having enough non-Caucasian residents.
I lived in Marin for 18 years. I sublet to a young woman who was an American of Hispanic descent. (Legal: I did a background check before signing the tenant agreement.) She busily pursued the American Dream, working one full-time and 2 part-time jobs. Her brother helped her buy a foreclosed house for rental income.
San Anselmo was over 90% Caucasian. One day, she told me that while walking home, a white female resident watched her suspiciously.
I explained to her how people love to proclaim their concern about the mistreatment “those people” suffer at the hands of racist xenophobes in America. However, when “those people” move next door, these “caring” people fear for their property values.
That’s Marin. There are Hispanics, but they live in the Canal District in San Rafael. There are Blacks, but they live in the projects in Marin City.
As long as everybody’s in their place, white Marinites feel good talking about how much they “care” without disturbing their affluent lifestyle.
Marin performed a great service, by destroying my own liberalism.
I grew up in San Anselmo in the 70s before moving to Silicon Valley (Santa Clara County) for 27 years, I moved back last year and it was shocking how “white” Marin still is.
I have always said Marin liberals were most hypocritical of them all and if you brought a busload of brothers and sisters from Richmond (on the other side of the San Rafael-Richmond Bridge, but a world away) and plopped them down on San Anselmo Avenue, the good “progressive liberals” would poop a collective brick.
And yet liberals in Marin CLING to their hot tubs and peacock feathers, pretending that if everyone thought like they did, the entire country would be transformed into Tiburon.
Are you calling them “bitter clingers”?
Let’s not forget that if we get rid of all the guns, do a group hug and sing Kumbayah, all will be well in the world.
Ah, Marin! I grew up in Sonoma County and was (in the manner of H.L. Mencken) consistently amused according to my taste by the pretensions and vagaries of the denizens of Marin: from the soi-dissant hippies of Sausalito to the society matrons of Belvedere and the middle class strivers of the Mill Valley – Corte Madera – Larkspur – Kentfield – Ross – San Anselmo corridor, the mixed bags of San Rafael and (pre-software) Novato, and (more interestingly) the honest dairy farmers of Nicasio and most of inland Marin and the fascinating blend of characters along the Coast. I always thought of Marin County as something of Never Never Land. Hypocrisy, thy name is Marin!
I worked and lived in Marin for over 20 years. I’ve never met a bigger group of self-absorbed and self-described narcissistic “liberals” in my life, all of whom were jealously guarding their property values from encroachment by minorities who might reduce those property values and (gasp!) go to the same high schools and date their children! The “liberals” are hypocrites to the bone, and in denial about their own racism, their children’s drug problems, and their horrific mental health system which consisted largely of tossing people out onto the street and calling the cops if drunk, or homeless, or mentally ill, or people of color wandered into their neighborhoods. Good riddance. Normal people who have to live there refer to Marin as “The Bubble.” Time someone popped it.