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?
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.
What church was this?