Question for the Bakersfield haters (Fresno, Oildale: house, rent, lease)

[ReignDeer]

Originally Posted by PugLuv1

This is not good at all, i'm a black women with a child and seems kind of scary to heear something like this. I live in Phoenix and there is a lot of gangs here also. Actually i'm from Chicago, which people always talk bad about Chicago but i didn't have any problems at all there. So Bakersfield is that bad when it comes to black living there?

If you are a black person avoid small towns altogether. The racism will be off the scale. I lived in Bakersfield for four years as a black person not that long ago until I could get out. Things are bad for us everywhere, but in this city the whites would rather let the Hispanics have it all before they see us with anything or as anything except slaves and people who they used in the past and have no use for at all today. It will be more than depressing if you move there and are black to see what is being done to our race and what will be done to you whether you are a man or a woman. Keep praying because we have got to all get out of this country and away from these people one way or the other.

[ReignDeer]

Originally Posted by PugLuv1

This is not good at all, i'm a black women with a child and seems kind of scary to heear something like this. I live in Phoenix and there is a lot of gangs here also. Actually i'm from Chicago, which people always talk bad about Chicago but i didn't have any problems at all there. So Bakersfield is that bad when it comes to black living there?

If you are black steer cleer of small towns because the racism will be off the scale. I lived in Bakersfield as a black person not that long ago and it is as bad and worse than they say. It is like living in Sudan if you are black. All of this country is bad business for us and so just keep praying that something will happen so that we can get out of this land for good, but in a positive way with positive results.

[PugLuv1]

Well i know a lot of Blacks that live there...so it can't be that bad!!

Originally Posted by ReignDeer

If you are black steer cleer of small towns because the racism will be off the scale. I lived in Bakersfield as a black person not that long ago and it is as bad and worse than they say. It is like living in Sudan if you are black. All of this country is bad business for us and so just keep praying that something will happen so that we can get out of this land for good, but in a positive way with positive results.

[DawnW25]

I was born and raised in Bakersfield and got out as soon as I could (after college). Growing up, it wasn't that bad. There wasn't much to do, but we managed. I can even remember (this was the 70's-early 90's) thunderstorms and rain so hard it caused floods. Much more diversity in the weather, IOW.

Now, you couldn't pay me enough to get me back there. My family is still there, and they are indredibly xenophobic. I think something in the culture there breeds that. Everyone I know who didn't get out is very bitter, paranoid, and just like the other poster described. They're afraid of change, afraid to try new things, etc. I'm sure there are plenty of forward-thinking people there, but I don't know them.

The pollution is so bad all my nieces and nephews have asthma. It's not genetic, either. When we visit, no matter what time of year, we pop Advil like it's going out of style for our sinus headaches.

As far as racism goes, I'd say it's bad. Bakersfield has a history of being incredibly racist. I'm not proud to be from there. There used to be a sign in Oildale, a white part of town, that said something like "Don't let the sun set on your black a**." No kidding.

My overall feeling about Bakersfield, having lived there for more than half of my life so far, is that it's a backward, racist, polluted mess. I would never compare it to any other SoCal suburban town because it's got a weird vibe of its own. I'm really sad to see the only growth is building ridiculous, ornate, McMansions on dinky lots. The general mindset of the population has not changed and there is actually less culture there now than when I lived there.

Sorry to say all this, but that's my take on it. I'm sure plenty of people love it, but after getting out and living in four other states and many different cities, including SF and Austin, Bakersfield is not a place I'd recommend to anyone.

[elcapitan]

DawnW25-

It's as if I wrote your post myself. I have yet to figure it out. I think its something in the air there that turns the people into meatheads, but they would rather call it "family values." And why won't the people there eat at any restaurants that don't have pictures on the menus?

[intheseshoes]

I'm a professional classical musician in NYC whose parents unfortunately moved from Pasadena to Bakersfield when I was 8, and although at the time I was socially miserable, I'm glad now to say that I never had anything in common with my classmates. I did go to the 4 Bakersfield Symphony Concerts a year (one of which was usually a "pops" concert), and sometimes Bakersfield Community College or Cal State Bakersfield would produce an opera or a play and I would go. I had a few good teachers who pointed me to things such as when the Armand Hammer art collection came to town. My mom had a wonderful cousin who also "got out" and we are still in touch.

I was afraid of the world outside Bakersfield but I was more afraid of the religious conservatism, racism, and ignorance that surrounded me in Bakersfield, which is why once I went to college, after that first year or two of homesickness I found excuses to not come home for holidays and summers, and after I graduated I stayed in the college town instead of coming home.

My mother died in the year 2000. I went back for her funeral and that's it. I won't go back again.

I know there are probably people in Bakersfield who will read this and will reply with "good riddance!", and all I can say is, it does not exactly break my heart to be rejected by ignorant racists, xenophobes, fundamentalists, blind patriots, NASCAR enthusiasts with beer bellies, etc..

Originally Posted by puffle

Tell me what kind of museums,art and music does Bakersfield offer that produces well rounded kids and inspires them to learn more about the world around them? Most people I met when I lived there were terrified of the "outside world" and those that dared to move away, always came back because they needed the comfort of small town Bakersfield and couldn't handle the outside world. This is not to say the people there aren't nice because I never met anyone I didn't like...just wanted more than Bakersfield could offer. Sorry.

[mono#9]

wow
Well, there's ignorant racism and then there's narrow-visioned snobbery. Take your pick. I prefer to work hard at eschewing both.

[intheseshoes]

Most people feel good about having the values and attitudes that they have and on some level see these attitudes as superior to the opposing attitudes. Believe me, all the people I mentioned feel superior to me, thus making them snobs. Because I think that liking opera is more culturally advanced than liking NASCAR, and that being racist is a character flaw, and you consider yourself less judgmental than me, you're taking a superior attitude towards me -- which makes you every bit the snob that I am, and that everyone is.

[LDDiamondGirl]

Okay...someone was offended by the Messenger (me) who said I saw a show about incest and I quoted some statistics about Bakersfield being ranked up there as high on the list for reported cases. I wish I did remember the show, but I don't. I didnt' make it up.

Of course, I was kind of poking fun at that statistic as well. I don't live my life according to studies. My husband does....he's a doc. He believes in all those triple blind studies.......and double blind studies......and credentials....and which college someone went to, and what program they graduated from, to determine how good they are at something.

I'd have to say I don't judge things that way. I think education and studies are wonderful.....but I remember their limitations and subjectivity.

So I take stuff like that with a grain of salt.....just look at what happened with Women and HRT. That was the biggest fraud of all in the medical world. My husband refused to read anything about alternative medicine 7 years ago because most of it had no "studies" that he considered "credible" including Hormone Replacement Therapies. He claimed that HRT was completely safe, and credible, because, after all, it was approved by the AMA and all those agencies because it was "studied" properly.

Then the Bomb was dropped. What did they conclude back there a few years ago, ........that there was really only one study done at all before launching all those drugs, and that was of 20 Japanese women or something......and that is all it took to that form the basis of all Hormone replacement drugs?????? And then they started attributing those same drug therapies to the causes of breast cancer, heart attacks....etc., etc.....!

So there's your "study" credibility. Hey, Cleveland may have the most incidence of incest in America.......but nobody reports it because they can't get through to any personnel on the phone lines, since there are so many cutbacks in the social services agencies there!

So, ease up........

I'm sure Bakersfield, like everywhere else on this planet, is a place some people call home, and think is a wonderful place to live.

[LDDiamondGirl]

[quote=ReignDeer;1786792]If you are black steer cleer of small towns because the racism will be off the scale.

Unfortunately, I think you are right........and I think you can lump in Gays, Jews, and other Ethnicities and colors as well.......

Boy was I in for a surprise moving to a small town. I had romantic notions of it......probably from all those movies of those wonderful small town folks....."salt of the earth" types. So unpretentious, so happy with so little.....so "meek" and waiting "to inherit the earth," making pies, and having fund-raisers for people less fortunate than they.

Well, I also thought that religious people must be the best people in the world because they have those wonderful "values" that are instilled in Sunday school and bible study..................cough, cough, choke choke.

Yes, I was really naive. I can honestly say that I am more afraid of Small Town folks, and Religious folks now than I ever imagined I could/would be.

It's a shame....a dream gone awry. I'll never be able to watch another movie about having a baby in Walmart and enjoy it. Instead, I'll be going, "these actors must have never lived in one of these places...and their take on it is absolutely nowhere in the realm of reality."

I think it is absolutely true that the higher your:

1) intelligence
2) tolerance
3) creativity
4) independence
5) self esteem

the less likely you are to be happy in a small town anywhere.

Just my opinion...............