I took the photo above one morning when I was out jogging around the school's campus, and as you can see, I live in a beautiful place. It's so lovely, in fact, that lots of people who have a lot more money and resources than I do also choose to reside in the area. So many wealthy people want homes nearby that the housing prices are exorbitant and people who don't have oodles of dough can't afford to buy or rent in the area. It's not great.
There is a push toward creating affordable housing and laws that support the construction to enact said laws, but the townspeople can't always agree on where to put the low-income housing. A couple of years ago, I attended a town meeting to discuss several locations for new buildings, and I learned the term that people use when they think they are good people who want to help others but don't actually want poor people living nearby. They say, "I'm all for this plan, but I have a site-specific objection to that location." It's really the same as NIMBY (not in my backyard) from days past.
More recently, there have been movements in various states to remove certain categories of books from the shelves of libraries and bookstores. The people who want to make certain books unavailable say that they're not trying to ban books, but they have specific objections to particular categories of literature.
These are the same arguments, at their core, given by people who want to be able to look at themselves and believe they're on the side of love and progress but are actually regressive and limiting.
Am I being too harsh? You tell me. I look forward to reading your comments.
To me “site specific” always refers to the type of immersive theater that developed in the 90s: productions that were specific to their site, such as a play about the Stonewall riots performed outside the Stonewall Inn. But that’s not what you are taking about so I’ll shut up now.
No need to shut up. It’s good for me to remember/note that one term can have multiple meanings. A site-specific show about Stonewall (which happened the same summer I was born) seems like a worthy way to do something site-specific…as long as the people nearby don’t say that they don’t want the show for some homophobic or other icky reason, claiming that the content isn’t the problem; it’s the location.