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zdashamberI've seen a lot of Katrina-inspired rants, and many of them have been brilliant. But I haven't yet seen anyone saying this: You shouldn't have to be looking into the gutter to see the faces of your fellow Americans down South.
I am sick of the people of the East and West Coasts dismissing all the rest of the country. I'm sick of the icons that show all the "blue" states without any of the "red". I'm sick of people telling me how the South should have been left to secede, we'd be better off without those ignorant racist rednecks. I'm sick of people talking about how California doesn't have anything to gain from the rest of the country.
I'm from Colorado. It's part of the West—not one of the parts of America that matters, y'know, but hey, at least it's not quite the South. I'm a Californian now; maybe people here don't know my origins when to my face they blow off the entire middle of the US as "flyover country." With a laugh, as if we're naturally united in dissing all those plebes.
Oh, but now, now that they're bathed in shit, with no place to call home, with their jobs and businesses destroyed, now it seems to me that the people on the coasts are willing to gather all those Southerners to their bosoms.
I want you to pause and think about whether you've gained any feeling that Southerners (and Westerners, and Midwesterners) are your brothers, fellow Americans whose persons and lives and opinions are worth every bit as much as your own... Or if you're just seizing another opportunity to feel superior. I hope it's the former, because I am sick of putting on a nice smile as I walk through your coastal country club.
If you've pointed out in the past how the red states suck up more than their share of your tax dollars: do you still begrudge them that? Do you still feel that helping them isn't helping you? I don't much care for Anne Rice, but we're together in this: "And though we may seem the most exotic, the most atmospheric and, at times, the most downtrodden part of this land, we are still part of it. We are Americans. We are you."
I am sick of the people of the East and West Coasts dismissing all the rest of the country. I'm sick of the icons that show all the "blue" states without any of the "red". I'm sick of people telling me how the South should have been left to secede, we'd be better off without those ignorant racist rednecks. I'm sick of people talking about how California doesn't have anything to gain from the rest of the country.
I'm from Colorado. It's part of the West—not one of the parts of America that matters, y'know, but hey, at least it's not quite the South. I'm a Californian now; maybe people here don't know my origins when to my face they blow off the entire middle of the US as "flyover country." With a laugh, as if we're naturally united in dissing all those plebes.
Oh, but now, now that they're bathed in shit, with no place to call home, with their jobs and businesses destroyed, now it seems to me that the people on the coasts are willing to gather all those Southerners to their bosoms.
I want you to pause and think about whether you've gained any feeling that Southerners (and Westerners, and Midwesterners) are your brothers, fellow Americans whose persons and lives and opinions are worth every bit as much as your own... Or if you're just seizing another opportunity to feel superior. I hope it's the former, because I am sick of putting on a nice smile as I walk through your coastal country club.
If you've pointed out in the past how the red states suck up more than their share of your tax dollars: do you still begrudge them that? Do you still feel that helping them isn't helping you? I don't much care for Anne Rice, but we're together in this: "And though we may seem the most exotic, the most atmospheric and, at times, the most downtrodden part of this land, we are still part of it. We are Americans. We are you."