03-23-2017, 08:29 AM
(03-22-2017, 06:45 PM)Odin Wrote: Liberal shaming of Appalachia: Inside the media elite’s obsession with the “hillbilly problem”
The article talks about Appalachia in particular, but ever since the election I've been seeing a nauseating amount of offensive shit from my fellow progressives about rural and small town Americans, some of it bordering on outright Social Darwinism ("They voted against their own healthcare coverage, let them die and decrease the surplus population!" and similar BS). I'm sick of hearing about how everyone out here is stupid, backwards, and inbred.
I'd suggest, if you already haven't, that you read Hillbilly Eulogy. Their cultural differences are real. On the other hand, "stupid, backwards and inbred" counts as a vile stereotype to me. Any group with an agenda is apt to demonize opposing groups. It is easy to take a reasonable and understandable cultural difference and exaggerate it into pure ugliness. I don't approve.
There is a rural tendency to see the government as inefficient, corrupt and autocratic. This too can be taken to the point of a vile stereotype. Can I daydream about a world where neither the hillbillies nor the government are demonized? While it isn't in the Bill of Rights, I'll argue for a right to daydream. I'm not about to confuse the daydream with reality, though. There's an awful lot of pre judgement and hatred flowing around.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.