My first cultural identity was in 1948.
I was born a baby boomer.
My first self-identity was in the mid-1950s.
I wanted to be like Davy Crockett.
I wore a coonskin cap and made knives and tomahawks out of wood.
That lasted several years.
Then it was Elvis Presley.
I would roll my T-shirt sleeves to my shoulders, put grease in my hair and try to comb it like Elvis.
When I was 14, no more grease.
I wore Pendleton shirts, white Levi’s and huarache sandals.
I became a surfer.
My last self-identity was in 1969.
I became a hippie.
That lasted until 1972.
In 1972, I switched my beads for a Bible.
The culturists called me a born-again Christian.
The years past, the culturists became more political.
They now called me a right-wing Christian conservative.
After the culturists leaned more left and became “conservaphobes” and “Christaphobes,” they gave me a new identity.
I was now an extreme right-wing Christian conservative with intolerant, bigoted and homophobic views.
The liberal culturists have further added to the definition of me and millions who either voted for a conservative platform or Donald Trump.
We are now ultra-right neo-Nazis, haters, suppressors of women’s rights, divisive Ku Klux Klan supporters, deplorable and much more.
It will be interesting to see what new false, judgmental, redefined words they will title conservatives with.
I pray that the far-left, social-progressive propagandists could be more tolerant, diverse, inclusive and just call me a proud, born-again Christian conservative.
Darryl Wood,
Port Angeles