Chris Vaughn was wiping shaving cream off the tops of an older man’s ears when I arrived at his Oildale barbershop on Wednesday morning.
“Why don’t they spend time fixing our country?” Vaughn said. “This attempt to make people not like Trump is a waste. Mueller looks like he has Alzheimer’s.”The freshly shaven man paid Vaughn. “Y’all enjoy this crap!” he said cheerfully, gesturing to the TV as he walked outside into the already blistering heat.
Vaughn and I chatted about politics, and what it’s like to live in Oildale, an unincorporated community in Kern County just north of Bakersfield that is overwhelmingly white and pro-Trump in deep blue, increasingly diverse California.Oildale, with a population of about 32,000, is famous for being the birthplace of Merle Haggard and for the massive oil patch that drew Dust Bowl migrants west.
Turns out, an interest in cosmetology runs in his family; a handful of relatives do nails or style hair. “I didn’t realize how artistic I was until I started cutting hair,” he told me. “I am good at fixing really bad haircuts.” Like a lot of people, Vaughn uses his own lack of personal animus to ignore or deny the reality and effects of systemic racism. He welcomes all races to his shop, and recently hired a barber who also speaks Spanish. The Muslim man who runs the vape store next door is a friend.
AbcarianLAT NY Times covered this angle to death already, why would you
AbcarianLAT Delete this.
AbcarianLAT Try living in Mississippi.
AbcarianLAT No news and no surprise of the attitude of the Central Valley.
AbcarianLAT The point that I feel was missed is that the current President is a symptom, not the cause of the conservative wave. The liberal California bubble is very real, and not at all healthy because people living in believe they can wall themselves off from the people that they dislike.
AbcarianLAT Well then gtfo.
AbcarianLAT Only a traitor would treat an American flag like that.
AbcarianLAT “He's thinking about moving to Texas. California is too expensive.”. Riiiight! That’s the reason he would move to Texas.
AbcarianLAT Good then BEAT IT!
AbcarianLAT 2./ listening to the other or understanding their point, furthermore to convey a point in words that aren't repetition of what a pundit says.
AbcarianLAT 1./ Interesting. Until now my experience was that there are certain professions were there's a high level of discretion and trust, which carries customer and professional getting to know one another. Not seeing how that contrasts a contrarian nature that requires neither...
AbcarianLAT K bye, don’t let the door hit you on th...oh wait, he’s still here.
AbcarianLAT She wants to support a racist President, let her be known as a racist too.
AbcarianLAT Girl... bye
AbcarianLAT Does he need help packing?
AbcarianLAT Same shit. Different article.
AbcarianLAT Conservative like the wall, the Mother of all bomb's, the fourth of July... Conservatives are liar's.
AbcarianLAT Great article-Oildale is among the most impoverished areas of the United States
AbcarianLAT He should sue you for this terribly biased and racist article
AbcarianLAT Still a pointless article 😂 AbcarianLAT
AbcarianLAT
AbcarianLAT I grew up in Bakersfield. Oildale has always been the butt of jokes. It's a shit hole town full of racist, backward-ass white trash. That's a fact. Nothing- and I mean NOTHING of fun or value comes out of 'the Dale.' Just racism, crime and drugs. Dust bowl Degenerates.
AbcarianLAT The writer ought to take a look around that bubble of hers. 60,000 homeless in LA and Newsom is offering free health care to illegal aliens.
AbcarianLAT When I was growing up in Bakersfield, there were John Birch Society billboards “Get the U.S. out of the U.N.” over the Kern River bridge entering Oildale. It’s also local legend that prior to that there “sundowner” signs posted by the KKK. Racism, meth and MAGA.
AbcarianLAT
AbcarianLAT So nice to depend on L.A. Times... Media gave Trump free publicity in the 2016 election. And now the country is crumbling and they continue to run his narrative. It's going to backfire. Watch.
AbcarianLAT No body 'hates trump' most of the people in the country and the world are AFRAID of the consequences of his ignorance and his need for secrecy in matters pertaining to Putin.
AbcarianLAT all the people that make big money are leaving this state. There will soon be nothing but climate zombies and homeless people,lol.
AbcarianLAT So let me get this straight... Tiny Oildale Is 86.7% White and known for its intractable poverty and drug problems? Sounds like White people are the problem.
AbcarianLAT Very cool to see her go out with such an open mind and print such an out if the box article for the Times.
AbcarianLAT He’s had It with CA? What was it that Donnie said, something about hating where you live?
AbcarianLAT Ask Chris what is his ethnicity.
AbcarianLAT
AbcarianLAT Hard pass on this one. We’re out here fighting for the soul of the country. Besides, if I wanted to venture into the MAGA sewer I’d dial up one of my relatives.
AbcarianLAT Lol...take it easy with the “good riddance “ & “don’t let the door...” comments. “She wanted to spend time”. Let’s NOT devolve to tRumpery. Get out, AMERICA is beautiful all over.
AbcarianLAT Hell yeah, we dont get enough stories about fox news poisoned Trump supporters who preach about morality while they defened one of the most immoral people ever to hold office. Very useful stuff!
AbcarianLAT So move to Alabama. You’ll be happy there with those idiots. BTW, that flag apron should be Russian
AbcarianLAT How many articles do we need, all saying the same thing?
AbcarianLAT The Big Sort.
AbcarianLAT 🤢
AbcarianLAT Thanks for going to Bakersfield so that I never have to.
AbcarianLAT So, is this a celebratory piece?
AbcarianLAT It will be a ghost town in a few years. Fuck em.
AbcarianLAT Sodom and Gonorrhea- Cali and NYC
AbcarianLAT It seems so wrong to have dander fall on an American flag 😲
AbcarianLAT It is fun reading the liberal commentators to this story. All the liberals seem like hateful and angry people. No one talked about moving to a white area—other than the LA Times reporter.
AbcarianLAT Nobody in the other 49 gives a rats ass about California
AbcarianLAT The city’s name pretty much fits it all.
Davidlaz AbcarianLAT
AbcarianLAT If you don’t like it, you can leave (California) or send them back to nazy Germany
AbcarianLAT Nothing says patriot like using the flag to catch beard trimmings.
AbcarianLAT You drove 2 hrs each way to speak with *one* Trump supporter?
AbcarianLAT If this knucklehead thinks Arizona doesn't have stupid laws, he's in for a rude awakening. Like the AZ law that effectively blocks people from installing solar panels in one of the sunniest states in America. Thanks to laws put forth by the Koch Brothers.
AbcarianLAT How is this news? “City named after OIL is full of conservative people. They don’t like living in a liberal state. Some of them move to conservative states because they want to be with people like them.” Shocker.
AbcarianLAT If Bakersfield is California's butthole, Oildale is its anal fissure.
AbcarianLAT Nobody gives a singular fuck
AbcarianLAT Oildale is a tragedy
AbcarianLAT One less racist in LA.
AbcarianLAT Doesn't show much respect for the flag. 👎
AbcarianLAT Sounds like if they don’t like California, they are free to leave.
the LAT opinion section consists almost solely of aloof bigots who despise the city they live in
AbcarianLAT WTF
AbcarianLAT who gives a flying fuck?
AbcarianLAT Please don’t do a skewed inaccurate hatchet job on where I live to push a political agenda. Also, stop busing your homeless to Bakersfield. We have enough of a homeless problem as it is.
AbcarianLAT Why not move to siberia? Putin will lovingly take her in, lol
AbcarianLAT
AbcarianLAT Rotten to the core. The whole lot!
AbcarianLAT Systemic racism is the source of blacks not getting ahead? 😂😂😂😂 wouldn’t be the 80% out of marriage birt rate? Sorry, my bad. No one cared much for Jews, Asians or Arabs when they came. They too suffered “systemic racism” but got ahead as a group; why?
AbcarianLAT Oil Dale?!? it's Predominantly Poor Drug addict white ppl one of MANY Bakersfield's Getto's.. the Joke in Bakersfield for OilDale is 'You know your in oil Dale when you see ppl walking BARE FEET and NO TEETH!' Very PREJUDICED there🤷
AbcarianLAT What a pointless article AbcarianLAT 😂😂
AbcarianLAT If the barber has had it with California he can leave
AbcarianLAT You never got out of that liberal bubble, AbcarianLAT , you took it with you to lecture a guy who sounds like he’s had none of the advantages you’ve had about his whiteness.
AbcarianLAT Moral hypocrisy land.
AbcarianLAT What is it Trump said? Oh yeah, if you don’t like it, leave. And way to desecrate the flag there, use it for catching hair.
AbcarianLAT How is white Oildale not a bubble?
AbcarianLAT People think that Mueller seems old and out-of-it, but trump and McConnell are fine Pure blindness.
AbcarianLAT Idiot.
AbcarianLAT BREAKING: Journalist interviews white Trump supporters in small towns!! FINALLY!!!
AbcarianLAT Who cares? Spare us the racists.
AbcarianLAT errrrr... I think that this doofus went into a bubble rather than leaving one.
AbcarianLAT I do like the way the guy thinks, I just don't like TRUMP. It's funny he speaks about morality, order, peace and quiet, but then supports a man who is as inmoral as the worst kind he might have encountered in California and that encourages violence like any thug would.
AbcarianLAT Nice Cleatus safari. Why tho?
AbcarianLAT So wait. His generation is the Beastie Boys generation. That puts him in his....40s? My age, in other words. Hate to tell him, but my grandparents didn't own slaves either. BECAUSE THEY WERE BORN IN THE 1920S.
AbcarianLAT Haha we go! Let’s go
AbcarianLAT And all the hateful comments here is why trump will ...eeeeek, win in 2020. dnc has nothing but anti trump, I’ve heard nothing but virtuesignaling from candidates and the tired old jokes from all the lemmings, it would be amazing to have a candidate that understands that.
AbcarianLAT So he stepped into a conservative bubble. Got it.
AbcarianLAT Only a traitor would use an American flag like that.
AbcarianLAT And she can stay there, along with her disrespectfulness of the flag.
AbcarianLAT We have all been yearning for a Trump supporter piece! Finally!!!
AbcarianLAT The Trump voters in Oildale are mostly descended from climate refugees. Their ancestors competed with African-Americans for jobs in the cotton fields. They learned their bigotry early. Their progeny have no compassion for refugees now.
AbcarianLAT Trump will eventually be gone but she’ll still be living in Oildale. To each their own but it’s not that serious.
AbcarianLAT Perfect example of a rabid Trumpanzee
AbcarianLAT Laguna Beach might tone down the American flag graphic on its police cars
AbcarianLAT He lives next to a meth lab.... I mean double wide
AbcarianLAT Feels like asking 'what is the point of this piece?' is one of those things you should have learned in J-school
AbcarianLAT He looks like a vacant between the ears Trump supporter. I don't approve of wearing the flag like that, but does prove what a DS he is.
AbcarianLAT Putting hair clippings on the American flag to own the libs
AbcarianLAT They’re a sell-parody.
“”Either you are moral or you are not.” He hesitated. “Moral — meaning what you do in office. Personally, I don’t care about Donald Trump’s personal life.”” Fuck’s sake. Enjoy Arizona. What on earth was the point of this.
AbcarianLAT Better them molesting the flag like Trump
AbcarianLAT Hopefully she got there before the book burning and the Bund meeting...
AbcarianLAT Kern County is a toilet and he’s still in CA.
Davidlaz AbcarianLAT So she left.
AbcarianLAT Making People Hate Anyone Is A Waste Of Time Even If It's Successful! BlackLivesMatter Indivisible
AbcarianLAT “Moral — meaning what you do in office. Personally, I don’t care about Donald Trump’s personal life.” Someone should tell him that's not what morality is. It's bigger than what you do at work.
AbcarianLAT I wish they’d all go to their own small plan. It’s a statement to how they can only stand to be around people like them. Not sure they cry democracy when they can’t stand diversity in the first place. Stay in your small minded small town. Did us a favor.
AbcarianLAT I’m so tired of these people desecrating the American flag. traitors
AbcarianLAT Move to Ohio
AbcarianLAT
AbcarianLAT man, it doesn't take much thought, scrupels, ideals or effort to dislike mr. trump.
AbcarianLAT Lol. One bubble to another bubble? Lol. I guess the right bubble would be the political-agnostic? The left-right moderate? The erudite?
AbcarianLAT Don’t use the America flag to catch hair clippings.
AbcarianLAT Yes, Kern Co. sucks.
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