Beneath The Snow of a Charming Mountainous Community

The Kern River Valley (KRV) invites you to explore its enchanting snow-dusted mountains in the Sequoia National Forest, where a meandering 165-mile white-water river cuts through the picturesque town of Kernville.

Walking into this winter wonderland, you may feel like you are in a Norman Rockwell painting. Kids frolic in the snow, pitching snowballs at each other at the riverside park adjacent to an old, greasy diner and western saloon with bat-winged doors. You may encounter an elderly couple walking along the riverbank, feeding mallard ducks nibbles of day-old bread. Or, you may see lovers snuggling underneath the park’s white gazebo, muzzling their noses blissfully together to warm their chills.

Hometowns like this still exist in the United States, where you are transported to bygone days. The way it used to be. An America, Great Again.

But amid the grandeur of the forest and the veneer of a charming whistle-stop village, the dirt of intolerance exudes from the KRV, wafting over it like a toxic, invisible gas, tainting even Mother Nature.

If you are a person of color, non-binary, prefer the same sex, or fall outside the rigid lines of patriotism, purity, and politics, you have undoubtedly inhaled KRV’s noxious fumes of racism, bigotry, and misogyny. For those that don’t fit within the homogenous culture, it may feel like you are slogging through the painting of Edvard Munch’s The Scream rather than gleefully skipping through a Rockwell scene.

Consider yourself privileged if you have not experienced the underbelly of the KRV.

We are The Others, a legion of everyday folks living in the KRV who are mocked, stalked, ridiculed, and harassed for being ourselves. We are marginalized through micro-aggressions or direct acts of hate in misguided attempts to control the fabric of the community. To contain its diversity.

If this post seems like a pile of garbage, scroll on. Our goal is not to convince, persuade, or convert but to illuminate the truth. Here are the facts of events witnessed and experienced by The Others, onlookers and visiting tourists.

Fueled by bigotry and a false sense of superiority, dominant members of the KRV community have felt entitled to harm others by:

• Spitting on the window of a local restaurant where a rainbow flag proudly hung.

• Shaming participants for taking part in a non-traditional Christmas celebration that coalesced the community’s creative spirit.

• Physically attacking a group of courageous women who wore pink, cat-eared “pussyhats” as a symbol of resistance and solidarity. The women were stoned with rocks from drive-by assailants while they marched in Lake Isabella to support women’s rights.

• Spreading malice. This has frequently been witnessed at KRV stores where retail clerks (and alleged Christians) regularly invited customers and tourists to join in hate speech, making malicious comments about people from different cultures or back stabbing their own neighbors with mean-spirited gossip for all customers to hear.

• Threatening Mexican families picnicking at the river that cops would be called if they didn’t turn down their Ranchero music.

• Publicly yelling and humiliating a woman at work to the extent that outsiders witnessing the verbal assault lodged a complaint against the man. It took visitors to recognize the workplace violence since many KRV members had ignored the frequent angry outbursts for months, assuming a white male was entitled to belittle a woman of color.

• Continuously being monitored by a gym owner who kept a watchful eye on a Brown Other, tracking their every move (you know, just in case the dark native got out of hand while doing squats).

• Hostilely responding to Rainbow Others, letting them know their kind was not welcomed in their Kernville retail stores.

• Endorsing racism and violence by allowing a Whiskey Flat parade participant to drag a fake body in chains behind his jalopy.

And this is just the tip of the snowflake. The most egregious violations of human rights have not been disclosed to protect The Others from retaliatory acts.

These incidents demonstrate the intolerance embraced and cultivated in the KRV, earning the region its well-deserved nickname, McCarthy Country. Juxtaposed with the countless rural churches dotting open pastures and Confederate flags waving along weed-patch country roads, it’s a place where people are harmed, and parochialism is sanctioned. It’s a community that is as pristine as its white-capped mountains --- until the snow melts to reveal what lies beneath.

It’s a community that is as pristine as its white-capped mountains --- until the snow melts to reveal what lies beneath.

But now that it’s spring and the blanket of white has been covered by yellow poppies and purple lupines, the Others are striving to cultivate a new landscape where diversity blooms. Against all odds, the Others have coalesced to bring unity, equity, and inclusiveness into the KRV by trailblazing the First Annual Rainbow Rapids Pride Event. This celebration of diversity will be splashing down in Kernville on June 8, bringing together locals, visitors, and allies for a one-of-a-kind outdoor experience to celebrate Pride, create connections & build community.

You can help us transform the KRV’s frozen, rigid cultural landscape by supporting our event through attendance or sponsorship contributions. Join us as co-gardeners in our bold, unprecedented efforts to plant seeds of hope.

San Joaquin Valley Has a History of Being Inhospitable to Racial Liberties and Civil Rights Causes

With the implosion of Democracy upon us, many causes are asking for support. Yet there is no greater theater of war in the fight for social justice than the Southern San Joaquin Valley, considered California’s ground zero for bigotry and intolerance. In a Los Angeles Times article, “UC Berkeley historian James Gregory says racial superiority was a source of pride among farm, oil field and railroad workers who migrated to Kern County in the 1930s. Racism, he says, helped unite the migrants. Gregory, who has written a book on the westward Dust Bowl migration, says the southern San Joaquin Valley has a history of being ‘inhospitable to racial liberties and civil rights causes.’ ”

Your contribution will have maximum impact, devoting resources to a courageous grassroots organization that is fighting the good fight at California’s epicenter of intolerance. And if we can plant a seed here, just imagine the garden we can grow.

“The Man Who Removes a Mountain Begins by Carrying Away Small Stones.”

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