Roll Call: The Real Bubble Is Rural America, For Not Understanding the Many Challenged Faced By Hipsters in Brooklyn

The hotness of this #HotTake rivals that of the Fires of Creation.

I'm from the rural midwest. I now live in Washington, D.C. All of this talk about coastal elites needing to understand more of America has it backwards.

My home county in Ohio is 97 percent white. It, like a lot of other very unrepresentative counties, went heavily to Donald Trump.

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In many of these areas the only Muslims you see are in movies like American Sniper (I knew zero Muslims before going to college in another state). You never see gay couples or even interracial ones. Much of rural and exurban American is a time capsule to America's past.

And on Tuesday, November 8, 2016 they dug it up.

The first gay person I knew personally was my college roommate -- a great man that made me a better person. But that's an experience I would have never had if I didn’t go to college and instead decided to live the rest of my life in my hometown.

That was when I realized that not supporting gay marriage meant to actively deny rights to someone I knew personally. I wouldn't be denying marriage rights to other people; I would be denying marriage rights to Dave. I would have to look Dave in the eye and say, "Dave, you deserve less rights than me. You deserve a lesser human experience."

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I have some extended family in rural New Jersey. Some of them had never been to D.C. before visiting me. They had never made the two hour and fifteen minute drive to see the Constitution in person. They had not seen the Apollo moon lander, nor George Washington's Revolutionary War uniform.

And they certainly have not seen the new African American Museum. They've never seen the extent of American greatness or its messiness.

And you know what they certainly wound not have seen at the new African American Museum? Supreme Court Justice Thomas.

To pin this election on the coastal elite is a cop out. It’s intellectually dishonest, and it’s beneath us.

We, as a culture, have to stop infantilizing and deifying rural and white working class Americans. Their experience is not more of a real American experience than anyone else's, but when we say that it is, we give people a pass from seeing and understanding more of their country. More Americans need to see more of the United States. They need to shake a Muslim's hand, or talk soccer with a middle age lesbian, or attend a lecture by a female business executive.

We must start asking all Americans to be their better selves. We must all understand that America is a melting pot and that none of us has a more authentic American experience.

This #HotTake grabbed my brain by the pussy and made it all swollen with knowledge.

By the way, this pencil-neck Mouse-clicker is the "director of User Experience" at Roll Call.

posted by Ace at 01:25 PM

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