As a rural American, I can tell you that you are right. Negative stereotyping backfires. Those you stereotype will turn on you, the first chance they get.
Unfortunately, urban Americans honestly think that all rural Americans are like some character from the Beverly Hillbillies, Hee Haw, or Deliverance. By the by, the Deliverance stereotype was particularly bad. Imagine how you would feel if the first time someone met you, you knew they were thinking about a man squealing like a pig whilst being raped from behind, by another man with black teeth rotting in his mouth.
Cain, I get your comparison to the OJ jury, because I feel all the feelings that all negatively stereotyped people feel. Personally, I do not act on these feelings, but I feel them intensely. I feel the resentment, the anger, and the hunger for the kind of justice that only revenge can provide. I feel the defensiveness so strongly, I have to resist the urge to list my own credentials, just to prove to you, that I am not, what urban Americans insist that I am – (stupid, ignorant, backwards). I want to shout in urban faces, “I have children you moron, so shut your filthy mouth”.
Trump is rural revenge. With the whole world watching, rural Americans seized both, national and international power – so much for our ignorant, backward country ways – right? If that is not redemption, it sure feels like it to me. It feels that way to urban Americans as well; how else would you explain the urban reaction to being outmaneuvered by country bumpkins? Instead of saying “I’m sorry for stereotyping you rural folks,” urban Americans doubled down and slathered us with even uglier, more insulting, and demeaning stereotyping.
The urban mind is fixed in concrete – there is no changing it, no breaking through, and no hope at all. Just like everywhere else these days, several times a week, I read Medium writers repeating the rural American stereotype. Nonetheless, I keep trying.
I keep trying because I am so far left, I belong to no party at all. Be careful. If you live in urban America, you have absolutely no idea what far left means out here, in rural America. If you did, you would be on our side – not against us. If you did, Trump never would have been president, let alone a candidate again in 2024.
Cain, I hope you don’t mind my reporting a few honest emotions. Sometimes, telling people how you feel communicates far better than reason.
