I want to write a follow up to Miguel’s last post.
I have talked about my past, where I grew up, where I lived. I mention it again in this post, in detail, because in today’s political climate, it is relevant.
I grew up in an upper middle class neighborhood in Miami, Florida, in the shadow of the University of Miami, where my dad went to law school. My mom’s side of the family is from the Philadelphia/Camden County New Jersey area. I spend my summers and Christmas breaks in high school in and around Philly. My only college co-op was in Philly at one of the many petrochemical refineries in that city. I moved to Terre Haute, Indiana for college, and lived there for five years. My wife is from Terre Haute, my in-laws still live there and we go back a few times a year. After college I moved to Rapid City, South Dakota for grad school and completed my Ph.D. My first job out of school was just outside of Chicago in the Southwestern Suburbs. From there I picked up and moved to Omaha, Nebraska for a short while. I then had a career change and hauled off to Huntsville, Alabama.
I have claimed residency in South Florida, the Northeast Megalopolis, the Midwest, the Great Plains, and the Deep South.
Going to a private college prep high school, there were people who didn’t understand why I wanted to go to rural Indiana for college. They were almost disappointing in me for not sticking to the East Coast or going all the way to California. I remember coming back to Miami or visiting family in New Jersey from South Dakota and people not knowing the state I lived in. I heard something to the effect of “North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana… one of those big flat states out west” from more than a few people. I had people ask if we had running water and if people in South Dakota really lived in Tipis. I’m not kidding.
Going to the Deep South was even worse. I had to justify why I would move to Alabama. “Why would you go to Alabama, can’t you find an engineering job somewhere else?” Then I have to explain that Huntsville is known as Rocket City, USA, there are more rocket scientists in Huntsville than anywhere else in the world, and everything the US government uses to launch objects into space, for war and peace, comes out of Huntsville.
None of that matters to the die hard anti-Southern bigot. I was in Pittsburgh airport, flying back to Huntsville, going home from a business trip. I’m in line talking to the person next to me, just chatting. She asked where I was going.
“Alabama.”
“Heading out or going home.”
“Heading back home.”
The guy in front of me looks at me, and says in a heavy NYC accent “You’re from Alabama, you don’t look like your parents are cousins” and laughs.
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One of the things that the Jews learned from the Holocaust is that we weren’t European. It didn’t matter how much we assimilated. If we adopted German or Polish or French last names and spoke German or Polish or French in our homes. We were Jews and were never really their countrymen.
The hysterical fallout of the 2016 election of Donald Trump has made it crystal clear to me that we may speak the same language, wave the same flag, use the same passport, but to the Blue strongholds of the Northeast and Pacific Coast Megalopolises, we aren’t their countrymen.
The Hill argues that the enlightened Liberal areas of the country are “held hostage by flyover states.”
The Daily Kos is celebrating the suffering of poor people in Appalachia.
The rest of the Liberal coasts have been doing nothing but calling the land in between racist, homophobic, misogynistic, and every other hateful thing they can.
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I don’t much care for New York City, it’s too crowded, too expensive, and smells like piss. But I’ve never hated people from NYC.
The open, naked hatred the Coastal Metropolises direct at the land between is shocking. It has been made quite clear that they think nothing but the worst of us and don’t want to even try to try to understand life outside of their bubble.
Miguel said “I have this nagging feeling that if they could tent & treat flyover country like a house full of termites, they would not think about it twice.”
I’d have to agree. From what I’ve seen in the last few weeks, I think the only reason Hillary supporters haven’t started to build a Dachau in Nebraska to start their final solution to the Trump supporter question is that they don’t know where to get any vegan kale and quinoa salads in Omaha to feed their workforce.
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