White California RIP

The past is never dead. It's not even past. Except for maybe this scene here.
The end of an era. The past is never dead. It’s not even past. Except for maybe this scene here.

I was born three years after this photo was taken, but the California of my youth was not a lot different from this. Everybody likes to ridicule this era as being too White or too conservative or too racist or too homophobic or too this or that, but it sure was a nice place to grow up.

I hung with this rockabilly crowd 35 years ago. They were ok, but their motto seemed to be, “Yeah! Let’s all go back in the 1950’s!” I laughed about it then and I laughed about it now. It was better in some ways but worse in a lot of others, and anyway, you can never go home again.

Nevertheless, we now have an overcrowded, poverty-infested, drought-striken, politically bizarre, UN Freakshow with Banana Republic demographics and collapsing ecosystems.

The rich on the hills above with their military base-like guarded perimeters. Spreading out down below are the festering slums, often as far as the eye can see.

In the morning, you see the dark-skinned California poor marching up the hills to work as low-skilled laborers in the white-skinned California lands of the rich. At the end of the, the dark poor march back down the hill in the growing darkness to their homes in the slums.

It could be San Salvador. It could be Lima. It could be take your pick. It’s Latin America Reprised. Extreme wealth next to serious poverty and a shrinking middle class in between. Yep, California, the grooviest, hippest most leftwing progressive state in the Union, has decided to copy banana republics as its development model.

What does this mean? How about this? California at least has finally de facto separated from North America to become a part of the Americas, just another Latin American country. Got to wonder when the caudillos, the death squads and the guerilla priests are going to show up. It can only be a matter of time.

Sure from our perspective, the 50’s blew, at least to the extent that we don’t want to go back there.

But there’s a strong popular suggestion today that the California of 2015, this surreal Banana Republic Circus, is better than those uptight Wonder Bread Eisenhower years we all love to ridicule. Of course it’s different. As different as two different planets. But better? Really?

I don’t know man, I just don’t know.

One thing’s for sure. See that White California 1954 in that photo? It’s gone. And it ain’t never coming back.

RIP White California.

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52 thoughts on “White California RIP”

  1. To have the white 1950s America you long for, you need to recreate the infrastructure and economic devastation of WW2 in Europe and Asia. To be the only economic engine with no competition, lots of untapped natural resources and have the menace of USSR scaring your allies straight. This way, even white people from the left side of the bell curve can get high paying jobs, a house and 2 cars. Sustainable? I don’t think so. The American economy is normalizing to what it should be.

    1. Rubbish.

      American economic strength in the fifties, sixties, and seventies had practically nothing to do with the state of the worlds economy.

      American manufacturing emerged to meet the rising demand of middle class Americans, not post war Europeans and Asians. Very soon after the war the Europeans powers had their manufacturing back and were making the first generations of household goods and machines under familiar brand names we all know today.

      If the rest of the world weren’t so heavily set back by WWII our industries would just have had more buyers overseas even if we adjusted for foreign competition.

      What did the underdeveloped world give us that we needed to economically and industrially boom?

      We mostly used our own oil, coal, timber, iron, rare earths, and cement.

      Our inventions and industrial methods were mostly created and patented here. Just what were we missing out on? Ultra cheap labor? How many American economists will tell how great shipping all our jobs overseas was for the U.S?

      You sound like people who say we should be grateful to illegal aliens because without them we couldn’t pick our own lettuce without bankrupting the middle class!

      When white teenagers picked fruit and veggies the relative cost of produce and perishable goods was certainly low enough that middle Americans were having a hard time cooking.

      American industry and the economy succeeded because of the spending and jobs the government engaged in at the end the depression.

      If that spending was used to create more roads and bridges rather ships to get sunk in the pacific it would have been even more effective.

  2. Bill Bryon remembers his childhood in Des Moines, Iowa in the 50’s as idyllic and America as seeming like a perfect society. You can read about it in the life and times of the thunderbolt kid.

  3. There are around 35 million Mexicans in the united states. That means that America has taken in 1/4 of Mexico’s population. That’s just amazing. And yet time keeps on marching forward. I wonder what this country will be like in 200 years.

    1. That 35 million stat sounds like a bit of B.S. number. Not that it’s inaccurate just that a large portion of the U.S. was once part of Mexico so those States entered the union with a fairly significant Mexican population in tow.

      1. I think he means 35 million Hispanics/Latinos, a very broad misnomer of an cultural/ethnic grouping that can include a white native born Spaniard(Martin Sheen is actually 1 of those) all the way to a recent Mexican immigrant of pure Amerindian decent.

        1. Using the term “taken in” makes it sound as if 1/4 of Mexico’s population just up and left for the U.S.
          I’m saying it isn’t as simple as that because parts of what were once Mexico being annexed by the U.S. after the Mexican-American war and the War of Texas Independence.

        1. Bingo! And look what they did to their own country. Take a drink of the Rio Grande!

          Now the invading parasites are sucking California dry–literally! Population growth by TENS OF MILLIONS is not sustainable economically or ecologically! We need to kick the bastards back to their own country, let them fuck it up or clean it up, but either way, make it not our problem anymore!

          We can’t let them fuck our country up the way they did Mexico, because we have nowhere to run. We can’t invade Canada like Mexico invades us, and we don’t have a home country to retreat to. No fallback position=no retreat. “Victory Or Death” is horribly cliche, hearkening back to Patrick Henry, or maybe the more recent “THIS IS SPARTA”, but it’s not wrong!

      1. Swank I am banning you. You are not supposed to be a hostile commenter on here. That is what you are. You can’t just sit here and have a bad attitude towards and be confrontational. You can’t disagree with everything I say. If you want to be a commenter on here, you have to be my friend. If you want to disagree with me, you have to do so as a friend.

      2. That’s a lie. According to this list, the 17th largest economy in the world is the Netherlands, at around $865 billion.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)

        According to this list, the entire GDP of the Atlanta metro area is only $307 billion.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._metropolitan_areas_by_GDP

        The city proper, which is majority black, is only a portion of that $307 billion.

        You PC liberals really just make up your own facts.

  4. Common, your killing my excitement of wanting to party in California one day. I thought the Valley Guys are some of the coolest people on earth. And you’re telling me it’s like just another Latin American shithole? What a disappointment, everytime the aliens want to destroy Earth, California is like Ground Zero.

    I’m listening to California Love by 2Pack :

    California… knows how to party
    California… knows how to party
    In the citaaay of L.A.
    In the citaaay of good ol’ Watts
    In the citaaay, the city of Compton
    We keep it rockin! We keep it rockin!

    1. I think Robert is a being a bit hyperbolic. There are some beautiful part of LA, and yes, some shitholes as well. And you can always visit Orange and San Diego counties to get a feel for what I imagine LA county must have been like some time ago (with the added bonus of enlarged fake breasts everywhere). The Valley is ok and also has its nice parts.

      1. I agree. Robert is exaggerating even though he’s right in a way. I no longer live in California but recently went back and visited my home state and drove all over enjoying the mountains, beaches, deserts and fun things to do in Los Angeles. It’s a great place overall if you can isolate yourself from the bad aspects. Unfortunately, the population increase and growing population of poor means that the cost of having a middle class life is much higher than it is in other states. When huge swathes of Los Angeles are barrios and ghettos it pushes the price of any nice area higher than it otherwise would be since so many are competing to live there and have half-decent schools. At this point, California is an awesome place to visit, but a difficult place to live in. That quality it now shares in common with its southern neighbor, Mexico.

        1. Lol. I’ve encountered no racism here to speak of. I find the white people actually way friendlier than the ones in California. I have been seeing confederate flags in the last couple months due to the SC controversy but prior to that I rarely saw one. And I don’t even think they are trying to be racist, I think it’s more of a fuck you statement to the government trying to uproot what they feel is their regional identity. I don’t agree with flying the confederate flag anywhere except for maybe a civil war museum. But I also understand that it doesn’t necessarily mean “lynch niggers!” to everyone flying one. Though I’m sure many people who fly it are racists in one way or another.

        2. What about getting rid of the Black Panthers/Black Nationalists flag in Chicago? You know, the place where Black Nationalists have caused more death than most wars?

  5. I’m too young to remember the 50’s, but I note most of the people who make snarky comments about “wanting to take us back to the 50’s” (As if it were a negative) didn’t live during that time either.

    I honestly have no idea whether that period of Americas (or Australias) history was a better time to live, but a few hints tell me it was.

    Firstly, it generally is people who are too young to remember it, who denigrate it.

    Secondly, while I understand that issues were covered up more, society just seemed more functional. The economy grew. Wages grew. My grandparents were able to buy a nice house with a yard while still working class (impossible in Australia today, even if you’re an educated skilled professional). Sure, they had less, but things were improving. Better to be lower down, heading up, than They could hope to see, and DID see, their children having a better life with more opportunities. I don’t see the same for my children.

    Thirdly, people dressed better. Call me strange, but I think that dress, the lack of body modification, tattoos and self mutilation says a LOT about a civilisation.

    1. It’s so strange to me that housing would be so unaffordable in Australia when the damn country is like 99% uninhabited. There’s more space there than you guys know what to do with. It has around the same land mass as all of the USA yet with a total population of just the NYC metro area. What the hell is up with Australian housing prices? Why aren’t enough units being built to keep prices reasonable? You guys are hardly running out of space.

        1. Yes I’m a photographer in my spare time, I don’t recall exactly when the very first image was recorded onto a light sensitive negative but photography as we know it has only been around for roughly the last 150 years, the American civil war was the very first war to be documented with photography, the principle of the camera though is much older, many painters used the camera obscura to get a rough framing of their to be painted subject.

  6. The 50s were a great time in American history. But is important to remember how much of an outlier they were in comparison to every era before and since. As one of the first posters notes, the circumstances of the world economy at the time were highly unusual, not destined to last, and certainly not beneficial to most of the rest of the world’s population. The “traditional” nuclear family of the time was not traditional at all, and was if anything a byproduct of the stellar economy and freakishly cheap energy costs. Most people prior to this lived in extended families which, while they did have fairly distinct divisions of labor according to gender, etc., did not include anyone sitting around watching soap operas and eating bonbons.

    Also, the mentality of people was quite different. As “conservative” as the 50s are supposed to have been, if anyone had broken out with that hyper-libertarian, anti government rhetoric that is so mainstream right now, People would have thought they were insane. And indeed they did, if you examine what regular white Americans thought of the John Birch Society and others of that sort at the time. People believed in the public good, and to a certain extent achieved it.

    I would love to go back to at least some aspects of the 50s, but it just ain’t gonna happen in my lifetime or anyone else’s.

    1. The top tax rate in the 50s was over 90%. Something that golden age nostalgists often forget about this “conservative” era.

      1. Yes, but why do Blacks keep saying how horrible the 1950s were?
        Black crime was at its lowest EVER!
        And the public good was more than just a saying, it was achieved.

        However, like Jynxi said, people didn’t LIKE a safe Heaven, and tried to rule in Hell rather than live in Heaven!
        Ironically, the hated John Birch Society was trying to keep the good times rolling — the real, economic and social good times, not “whatever feels good”!

  7. If the 50’s were so great then why did we get the Hippies of the 60’s. Projecting backwards from the future is dangerous business.

    1. True, the 60s were a rebellion against the 50s, and then later people got sick of hippies, and shows like Happy Days became popular.

  8. Bringing in this many Lations is not a good idea. Some immigration is fine, say a few Chinese wanting to build a Chinese restaurant or something. It’s no big deal, and that’s why ideally the 1965 law was a good thing. However, the greed of people has abused the law.

  9. Well if what you say is true then I think it will be an odd Latin-American “country”, in which intelligence, humility, and common sense are rare. The majority will be Hispanic but they will not even know anything about Latin America and will probably not know how to speak Spanish properly. Guerilla priests, well that would imply an actual mass movement of people that have the balls and intelligence to actually want to change their condition(as well as many other things); that is something many Mexican Americans lack. I guess Mexican Americans are the least Latin American of all Latin Americans is what I’m trying to say, but they also hate identifying with that Anglo American culture which they have adopted; and so they are always in this sort of state of confusion as to their identity. Oh man what the future will bring, if that is the case then fuck it I might as well move to an actual Latin American country, yeah it may be shit but at least people will have that old Hispanic mentality(lost among Mexican Americans).
    Best regards.

    1. It’ll just be drug-fueled violence where only the rich who can afford private armies are safe, and poor whites get massacred by the Hispanic invaders!

  10. The picture supplied here Robert is very beautiful. Even though I was born in 1971 I’ve always liked anything from the 1950’s, and that era has become more and more of an obsession/fascination as I’ve grown older, yeah sure some things sucked back then but hey just about everything sucks today! Back then people had more manners, were more civilized, dressed better, men where men and women where women, and women looked so God damn gorgeous and feminine, the effects of pollution and global warming were so very far from being felt as they are today, architecture,cars,Marilyn Monroe, you name it! It was the best era in Jazz music and the middle class was having it so well. I enjoy watching films that take place in that period and films of that period, I also use photography as a means to visit that era and other places in time, a lot of my work is vintage inspired, I occaisionally shoot with vintage/rockabilly models and Burlesque performers, and I even use an antique medium format camera from that period to make photos that actually look like they’re from the past. There are many things to cherish and admire from that time and things to be influenced by, if I had a time machine I would for sure spend a lot of time there, though I really don’t know if I would want to get stuck there, who knows? Does “be careful what you wish for” come to mind? The 1950’s was a golden era for anyone living in the western world, ok maybe not for many blacks living in the US(Jim Crow) but hey the perfect utopia doesn’t exist, well almost.

  11. Lol. I’ve encountered no racism here to speak of. I find the white people actually way friendlier than the ones in California. I have been seeing confederate flags in the last couple months due to the SC controversy but prior to that I rarely saw one. And I don’t even think they are trying to be racist, I think it’s more of a fuck you statement to the government trying to uproot what they feel is their regional identity. I don’t agree with flying the confederate flag anywhere except for maybe a civil war museum. But I also understand that it doesn’t necessarily mean “lynch niggers!” to everyone flying one. Though I’m sure many people who fly it are racists in one way or another.

    I sort of agree with this statement, but I sorta don’t. If southern people aren’t racist, then why viscous chink lover attacks just for teaching ESL in South Korea? Why was a black family driven out of my valley? What was the big deal over my sister’s curly hair in the 60s and 70s?

    Yeah, tulio gets a long well with southern whites, cause he isn’t crossing taboo lines.

    Of course,the rebel flag thing is a “fuck you” to the federal government, but somebody needs to tell these WNs fuck you 😆 , and the reasons are stated above. Be sure your armed though, cause WNs tend to be that way, and trigger happy.

    1. QUOTE from Epgah,

      What about getting rid of the Black Panthers/Black Nationalists flag in Chicago? You know, the place where Black Nationalists have caused more death than most wars?

      Are u sure that’s not just drug dealers doing all the violence? Anyhow, it has nothing to do with southern racism.

    2. Of course, southern people have thier reasons why they’re racist. One being massive violence from blacks. But really, it’s just an excuse to start trouble with people that are different. If they really feel blacks are a problem, then get in a car, go to some place where blacks are at their worst, and do something about it.

      1. And get arrested and jailed for Hate Crime, in our backwards laws? No thank you!
        Zimmerman nearly got imprisoned for defending HIS OWN neighborhood, what would happen to someone non-Black brave/stupid enough to go to ANOTHER neighborhood and try to clean it up?

        Someone actually DID try that here in Missouri, got the Death Penalty for it!

        There was even a Black guy who tried that, killing Black criminals, doing society a favor, and he got labeled a “serial killer”.

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