In addition to their imposing size and protective shells, SUVs also offer a useful aspect of social camouflage, enabling the well-to-do to ‘pass’ as regular working folk in urban settings. For example, an MTV executive who travels to ‘fringe neighborhoods’ in search of new talent admits that ‘he feels less conspicuous in a Jeep than in a Mercedes’ (Kuntz,1985: 266). In Hollywood, the early 1990s trend toward ‘downscale’ vehicles is reflected in the popularity of SUVs. Some entertainment executives cite the personal hazard of driving luxury cars, especially flashy sports cars, in ‘crime-vulnerable Los Angeles’ as an explanation for Hollywood’s attraction to Range Rovers with headlight ‘rhino-guards’
Come to think of it, this kind of thinking can come in handy if we're doing any organizing out in rural America, assuming one is not rural.
As a leftist growing up in the middle of nowhere in a red state, I'll admit that I almost felt ashamed of being...a rural American and I stopped doing the shit that I really liked growing up doing. I don't dislike the US because I have a strange aversion to cowboys and peach cobblers, I just want the US to stop blowing up brown kids with my healthcare money and to be nicer to the rainbow people and women. No matter what the Bible says. I tend to get along with people better if I just embrace what I do growing up instead of trying to LARP as a Californian as I did growing up.
"social camouflage"
https://mypages.unh.edu/sites/default/files/jlauer/files/lauer_2005_driven_to_extremes.pdf (page 12)
Come to think of it, this kind of thinking can come in handy if we're doing any organizing out in rural America, assuming one is not rural.
As a leftist growing up in the middle of nowhere in a red state, I'll admit that I almost felt ashamed of being...a rural American and I stopped doing the shit that I really liked growing up doing. I don't dislike the US because I have a strange aversion to cowboys and peach cobblers, I just want the US to stop blowing up brown kids with my healthcare money and to be nicer to the rainbow people and women. No matter what the Bible says. I tend to get along with people better if I just embrace what I do growing up instead of trying to LARP as a Californian as I did growing up.