Don't Believe Everything You Hear

This library computer keeps giving me ten additional minutes before my time expires, so I will try to squeeze in another somewhat lengthy post.

When I was camping west of Touchet, Washington I met a very nice couple who had both grown up in Walla Walla. They were enthusasitic about my trip, and were giving me lots of advice about things to see and do. When I mentioned I would be going through Dayton, Washington, the wife said something to the effect that "Oh! Dayton is a very pretty town. And the people will be very friendly to you, because you're white." I asked what she meant by that comment. She said that the people in Dayton were not friendly to non-whites. I asked why, and she said they were just prejudiced. I asked how it happened that the people in Dayton were prejudiced and she said "I don't know. They're just a bunch of Aryians." End of conversation.

As I approached Dayton, her comments had left me with a bad feeling for the town. But I was curious, and wanted to understand what caused the town to be so hateful.

The motel I checked into was owned by an Indian (Asian, not native American) family, as most motels out here seemed to be. (Note to my Indian friends: she was a Patel, from Gudjarat [sorry about that spelling], and her family had come to eastern Washington State by way of Clifton, NJ.) We chatted a bit about the contrast between NYC and Dayton, Washington. She said that her children didn't like it in Dayton, because there was nothing to do. But she gave no indication that her family was treated as "outsiders," and I didn't feel comfortable prying too much.

As mentioned in a prior posting, I had a fairly long conversation with the editor of the town's paper. I asked him, pointblank, about the comment that Dayton is a racist town. He was surprised and somewhat bemused. He said he had lived in Dayton for almost 30 years, and had never heard of such a thing. He said that the town (which only had about 1,700 residents, as I recall) was mainly white, that about one-third of the people had Hispanic roots, and that there were only a few blacks in town. But he said the only kind of racial incident that he had ever been aware of was the typical high-school fight that might involve name-calling. I began to think that maybe I had been mis-informed.

Next, I was having dinner at the Manilla Bay Cafe. There were a couple of locals there, and I thought they might be the rednecks behind what I had heard. One guy was a cowboy stereotype: tall and lean; a weathered, bearded face; a big cowboy hat, boots, and dirty jeans. He initiated a conversation with me, and he soon brought up politics. He said the whole county was fed-up with the current administration and that even though the county was mainly Republican, it was tilting heavily toward Obama. And he said that he was half-seriously considering setting up a "Cowboys for Obama" support group!

So much for that woman's claims of a biased town. She must have been aware of one ugly incident, and this tainted not only her view of Dayton, but had tainted mine as well.