The New Seattle Manifesto

In earlier posts I've talked about the infamous "Seattle freeze" that every transplant to the area seems to experience and then starts bitching about to anyone who'll listen. You've heard the mantra before: Seattleites are tirelessly "polite" and "nice" to new people on the surface level, but instantly shut down and reject social advances the second you try to actually "befriend" one of us. We're a collection of people who move here to escape wherever it is that we're from, so we isolate ourselves from genuine social interaction as much as possible. Seattle is a place full of awkward only-children, who don't quite get how to branch out and meet new people in non-ironic ways. We're a city of the mind, a city of nerdy blogger-types who sit in Starbucks silently plugging away because we're just...that....edgy, man :) 


Well, in celebration of our city's reputation for bitchy cold-shoulderness, I dedicate this post to a very funny, very spot-on op-ed from Crosscut. I think this manifesto just about covers it!

Since I believe one good manifesto deserves another, I hereby offer my own:
David Guterson and other figures on Bainbridge Island like to talk about the countryside as being the only real place to live. We know better. These are our values:

• We value diverse workplaces and gatherings. Upscale white men alongside upscale white women — and even upscale white gays.

• Yet we also admire African-Americans, preferably if they are both musical and dead.

• We champion the institution of public education, as long as our own kids can get into a private school.

• We celebrate people's expressions of sexuality, provided they're not too, you know, sexual.

• We strive toward progressive, inclusive laws and policies except when they would inconvenience business.

• We take pride in our urban identity, as we build more huge edifices and monuments to desperately prove how world class we are.

• We support the arts, particularly when that support doesn't stick us in the same room with unkempt artists.

• We value regional planning and cooperation, even with those mouth-breathing hicks out there.

• We protect and enhance the environment, particularly those environments we drive 40 miles or more to hike in.

• We love a strong, vital music scene that's in someone else's neighborhood.

• We appreciate our heritage. We moan about how everything in this town sucks; then, years later, we claim it was great back then but all sucks now.

• We value a strong, independent news media, regularly alerting us to the city's 103 Best Podiatrists.

• We admire innovation and original ideas, especially if they're just like something from New York or San Francisco.

• We support locally based businesses, until they get too big.

President Barack Obama has advocated "the fierce urgency of now." Mr. President, the people of Seattle will get around to it once they've finished playing "Halo: Reach."

Via: Crosscut