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New York, 9:45 PM
Fri Nov 27
29 posts in the last 24 hours
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07/02/09
I went to a fantastic panel on this once, and just for example a lady from the local food bank said that to change the peanut butter they put in the food boxes from high-sugar-bad-for-you-peanut-butter to natural peanut butter would cost $300,000. There's something very wrong with that.
07/02/09
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The folks that live there don't have much hope of improving their situation without massive statewide investment in the infrastructure, education, and social programs in the area. Unfortunately, the "haves" in South Dakota tend to be the farmer/rancher types who believe in the whole "PULL YOURSELVES UP BY YOUR BOOTSTRAPS" God-and-country type, who are convinced that social services are for ungrateful welfare queens. They will clamor the loudest against any increase in taxes, because they honestly don't have much exposure to people who are not Just Like Them.
Are the people in Pine Ridge stupid? No. Given half a chance and an incentive to try, they'd probably want to improve their situation just as much as you or I. They're just poor and stuck there. Are the farmers/ranchers stupid? No, they just live in the middle of nowhere and they live in a cultural environment that discourages social liberalism. My dad can't leave his ranch to see how "enlightened" his librul NJ daughter is, because he has to tend to the damn thing 24/7. I'm the first person in my family to vote Democrat since...God knows how long.
I honestly believe that most people don't WANT to continue to live in ignorance and poverty. But there are people who are socialized to believe that higher education, libraries, and social services are for wimps. Grandma and Grandpa and mom and dad and their teachers and their friends told them so, and they don't have much contact with anyone else. I think we need to figure out ways to challenge these perceptions without alienating people.
I don't think that the average person, even if they're in a very poor rural environment, is "stupid". I think that most people, given a chance and a reason to try, will want to do what's best for their own betterment and the betterment of their families. The problem is, how do we give these folks a chance and a reason to try? I don't know any of the answers.
07/02/09
Anyway, I thought your points were very well made and much more elegant than my attempts. I live in the South, among people taught to believe this - and I live in a college town! It takes a crisis for people to realize the boundaries of economic growth will be delineated by how we approach poverty and education for all.
07/02/09
I promise, A/C folks, if you get out of the car, walk a bit and bring some cool water with you, after a while you start getting used to heat and humidity and realize that sweating is something that your body is supposed to do and isn't bad, and a crazy thing happens - your body starts adjusting to the weather! Just be sure to shower afterward.
(I'm pretty well adjusted at this point. Our air con at the house went out a couple weeks back, and we got some fans going, kept the shade constant, and it felt tolerable enough to sleep in the house. Only once the repair man got there did we find out that it was actually 93 degrees inside the house. I would have pinned it at low-80s, tops.)
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07/02/09
Perhaps it comes from wanderlust and too much Patsy Cline, Old Crow Medicine Show, and blues, but I want to know if there are some interesting cultural bits still remaining. I hear there are...
I hear good things about Ashville, NC (and little Pittsboro), not sure where else is good.
Honestly, even if some of the crazy stereotypes are true, I just want to go South, because I bet it will feel different from where I am. (And if I don't like it, I'll just give in and embrace my Montana urges.)
07/02/09
I want to go the every state in the US eventually.
07/31/09
07/02/09
I lost several inches of waistline when my income increased by 18%. Why? Because I could afford all the salad and fresh berries I could cram in my face, and stopped having to live off of peanut butter and wonderbread. Boxes of pasta were 4/$1 when I grew up (now they're $1 each on sale) but a head of lettuce is $1.99 and doesn't fill you up. And that's if you're living near a supermarket where they're sold. (I had to go dozens of blocks out of my way -- on foot and with public transit -- to get halfway affordable produce when I lived in Manhattan.)
Everyone knows this. So why are we all still so surprised?
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Rural areas also have much less diversity of food (and access to healthy food) so you tend to eat what grandma ate: fried food. The difference is that grandma probably had to walk and work with her hands much more, thereby getting lots of exercise whether it was too damn hot or not, while we sit by the AC or get in the car.
@Cole23: Yes, cornbread and fried okra are yummy in the extreme but try living on it every day! When I moved to the South I thought I had gone to food heaven but luckily I wised up and started eating just a bit more salad.
07/02/09
Now obesity is bad, is that what we're saying? I thought it was, yk, all about the fucked up BMI and about HEALTH, not WEIGHT.
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...Of course, when you toggle to the map showing childhood obesity, we don't rate nearly as well. This is in line with othe reports I've heard of CO having relatively healthy adults, and overweight children.
In short, Colorado is a state full of active, selfish bastard adults who plunk the kiddies in front of the TV to play video games while they go biking or rafting during the day. At least that's my amateur theory.
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@toastandlove: So we basically have a whole geographical area full of people too stupid to know what's best for them, and trying to screw everyone else over with their stupid voting patterns? Hm.
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Say you can't afford to go to college. You have never visited a city with population larger than 50,000. You don't have access to a large public library or social services. You may not have even finished high school.
Your parents, grandparents, cousins, etc all make a living in this rural area, where they've all been for decades (or even centuries.) If you even HAVE a computer, which you might not, you don't have high speed Internet access, because the only telecommunication lines are 80-year-old copper phone lines.
Where are you going to learn that there are better ways for treating your fellow human beings? Your family may be uneducated, but they probably have some pride in themselves. They may have started their own farming businesses, for instance, and believe strongly in social conservatism because they "pulled themselves up by their bootstraps."
Yes, people do have to make their own decisions to leave or stay in situations like that. And many people do leave very poor, rural areas and learn a lot about the world and come to view their fellow humans with compassion. It's possible, but it's not easy. The odds are stacked against you if you're from a rural area with little access to education or social services. If you were born into a rabidly Republican, ignorant environment, and you have pretty much no access, encouragement, or inclination to pursue other modes of thought, how are you going to start voting more progressively?? How are you going to start advocating social services and compassion?
I don't think the majority of people in these situations are intentionally "stupid". I think they're probably ignorant. It's been ingrained in them through their upbringing and socialization that liberal "fancy" whatever is to be avoided. Calling them "stupid" doesn't really help, and it's kind of reductive--it ignores the factors that are making them ignorant in the first place.
07/02/09
Oddly enough, we don't all like being lumped under the same ignorant and deliberately obtuse rock.
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@Chamalla, now gainfully employed: Was I claiming they were all that way? Look at an election map. Look at an obesity map. Look at a poverty map. If you have a problem, go bitch at the numbers.
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Also, do you own a home? If not, why the fuck aren't you buying one so YOU can pay property taxes, hmm?
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They may not have computers or reliable Internet connections. They have a deep distrust of liberal thought because their moms and dads and grandparents were the same way. I don't think this is a question of "OH hee hee look at the stupids THEY'RE TOO STUPID." I think there are a lot of people living in difficult situations, without access to information or education--and how are you going to implement those services for them if they're barely above the poverty line? Even if they wanted to pay for fiberoptic internet connections and fantastic libraries and the best schools, the money simply isn't there.
07/02/09
Really, it is easy to be manipulated into thinking the government is just out to steal your money to give it to the undeserving poor, so by god, don't raise my taxes. It takes a few more steps to realize you use those tax dollars too. And a lot of people don't have the time, inclination, education or whatever to take those extra steps. Wasn't Thomas Frank's "What's the Matter with Kansas" all about people voting against their own economic self-interest because they were easily led by political interests?
In the South, too, issues of poverty and justice are linked to religion. And it is easy for those in public office to manipulate people that way. I think a lot of people down here read the Old Testament a whole lot more than they do the New. They tend to forget Jesus didn't hang out with the rich people, he hung with the criminals and poor and sick.
07/02/09
I've looked at plenty of maps, not one of them said republican = stupid, obese = stupid or poor = stupid.
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I wasn't the one who pointed out the poverty/obesity correlation, I did however wonder why the states that are poor/obese vote republican. If your poor and voting republican, then yeah, you don't know what you're doing.
07/02/09
i can, will, and often do sniff out the "southern generalization pretension" in these threads, as i live here in the asshole of the south, but really i don't think greengrey meant anything offensive by her question. somehow i can't help but think that a lot of folks read her comments in a skewed manner and always end up putting words in her mouth that she just didn't say.
all in all, this sparked a fairly good conversation though.
i think we can all agree that the south is a place like no other, that's for sure.