What is Amherst, Ma?
1.
A small, self-professed liberal town in Western Massachusetts. Amherst has a population of about 35,000 and a median age of 21.8, thanks to UMass, Amherst College, and Hampshire College. A town that prides itself on believing strongly in diversity, 76.7% of the population is white, with only 6.2% hispanic and 5.1% Black. The government is a town meeting with select board members, which are overwhelmingly white.
The residents and parents in Amherst are so concerned about political correctness that they petitioned to prevent the high school from performing West Side Story, because the play portrayed Puerto Rico and hispanics in a negative light. Instead, the high school put on a production of Guys and Dolls, which is one of the most sexist musicals ever written.
If you attend a choral performance in Amherst, each of the following will probably be on the bill:
-at least one song from Africa
-at least one song in a different language, probably more than that, probably one in Yiddish (most of the performers will have no clue what they are singing)
-at least one song about loving each other and/or peace, and will most likely be related to diversity
-none of the songs will be overtly christian, in order to include everyone
Amherst once had a MaDonald's, but it went out of business, in part because it was next to Antonio's (which sells pizza by the slice until about 1:30am, with ANYTHING you could ever think of for a topping).
Amherst is a suburb of itself. Leave the city limits, and you find yourself surrounded by cornfields, cow farms, and tiny hill towns.
