With a glare, sneer and a shake of the head
San Jose is an interesting place to live - however, over the years, I've noticed something. The number of judgemental, self-indugent, self-entitled pricks seems to be increasing. Race, creed and religion don't matter. The only thing that does appears to be a common denominator is affluence.
With a glare, sneer and a shake of the head, these people have placed judgement upon thee. Why do I target affluence? I live in an area of East San Jose that is a paradox in and of itself. There are quite a few homes with multiple families, poverty in the public school system is high, and most of my community learned English as a second language. It's also an area with multi-million dollar homes where Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, highly paid high-tech works, executives, VPs and CEOs live (not to say that they all live in multi-million dollar homes). Then again, most of us in San Jose live in almost million dollar houses, even with the housing slump. We'll see how long that lasts.
Why do I feel this way? Well, it's simple. In an area with such diversity, everyone is exposed to everyone else. However, the only people I've ever seen place judgement on others are those with some level of affluence. When I walk into a tacqueria where no one but myself is fluent in English, I don't see anyone rolling their eyes at me when I butcher my pronounciation of "carne asada burrito".
Now imagin a typical tacqueria goer entering a 5 star restaurant, let's pick any of the decent ones in downtown San Jose. While some restaurants won't really care (this is underdressed Silicon Valley afterall), imagine all those restaurant patrons paying $25 for an American brasserie version of macaroni & cheese and chicken, or $40 for a nice piece of $15 stake after working hard around the house or the yard, or better yet, just roll out of bed and walk inton one of these restaurants. Yes -- it's about the atmosphere and the executive chef. Now think about all those patrons staring you down because you're not part of the club -- I'm not talking about the restaurant, I'm talking about the patrons... my point is that I have never seen someone with seemingly less affluence place judgement on others in their community, other maybe being impressed with someones affluence.
That's not to say that all affluent people are pricks -- just enough of them to make San Jose a less enjoyable place to live. Before you say that I'm just jealous, while I wont' consider myself wealthy, my household comes is within the top percentage of household incomes in San Jose. I'm definitely comfortable.
