NIMBYs say the darndest things. It seems that every week, an anti-housing character makes another outrageous comment. Almost never constructive, almost always dripping with racism and classism. It’s their way.
We’ve had our fair share directed at our posts and sometimes at ourselves. There was the person who called us faggots. The woman who believes all low-income and unhoused people are criminals. The man who looks out his window in Torrance, sees a non-white neighbor, and concludes adamandly that segregation in LA is a thing of the past. These are real things said by real people inhabiting the same spaces that we do.
So, what are we supposed to do with it all? Reshare it? Report it? Scrub it away? Some would argue that the responsible thing would be to ignore it, and in the most egregious cases, report it.
But that response would ignore the fact that we too are real people with real reactions. This is a grassroots movement, not a corporate endeavor. We, clearly, have not shied away from sharing the horrors of the NIMBYsphere as we’ve observed them (willingly or not). This video offers up some of our most recent favorites. It’s a compilation of the best (worst) comments made by a NIMBY we met with a few weeks ago.
Our guest insists her son “doesn’t mind” living in a community of color. She whines that she’s growing bored with the overreliance on “the race card.” She thinks we have a “Soviet” mindset. Good stuff, right?
These comments may cause momentary shock, but the shock quickly fades. This isn’t new, and it isn’t stopping any time soon. Shouldn’t anything posted online be fair game?
That question has yet to produce a universally agreed-upon answer. So we’ll do our best to balance wanting to share a good laugh with the desire to avoid the ire of the NIMBYs involved (and deny them further attention). We will continue to redact any identifying information when resharing the things they say to us. And we will continue to find humor in the impassioned retorts of a reactionary, disconnected crowd. We are here to do our job of ending this housing crisis, come what may. We just hope whatever does come along offers up an opportunity for a hearty laugh.
