You have written a brilliant piece that EXACTLY reflects my upbringing in a lily-white town on the edge of a reservation. I, too, have been tainted and it has taken me the better part of my life to finally shake off the lies and embrace truth.
Yes, we had “Indian” kids at school, but we whites really didn’t understand the context of our environs. We looked down on them for living in tarpaper shacks. And I was raised a Catholic. Never got into the weeds about the history/circumstances that created this situation - we did not talk about those things.
I agree that elites in this country do not understand the crushing reality for so many that have lived the lie their entire lives. Fortunately, I was curious and learned where and when to ask the right questions - certainly not in the house I grew up in. Truth will set one free and it comes with a terrible cost in rural America.
Seems to me the fundamental mistake in rural America is that their white skin and nominal Christianity puts them on the same ‘side’ as their Capitalist masters. It takes courage to realize you were wrong and to stand up to economic bullies. Can they find that courage?
I'm starting this note at subheading four, whilst the ideas are still swirling: there's a lot in here, and I'd first like to thank you. I see here an essay to the Self, to which I, as a subscriber am privileged to be granted insight. Thank you.
I grew up in Leeds and there weren't any blacks there, either. The blacks were in Bradford. After it got sandblasted, there was an old joke that a true Bradfordian is someone who could remember when the town hall was black and the population was ... Clever. I was at school in Bradford and back about five years ago, I got into a group of old schoolfriends on Facebook When I quit Facebook, we stayed in contact for a while - a short while - via a WhatsApp channel. These are men my age, within a year or two. I was frankly ... disappointed ... when the same kinds of jokes started to be exchanged, and far worse, on that channel. Like the town hall one. So, I quit the group.
Do you think that rural attitudes have to do with being rural, or do they have to do with who Walter Rhein is? Would Walter Rhein be someone else if he came from somewhere else? Would you be different if you were in a teenage gang in Gilbert AZ? Would you be as surprised at being prosecuted by the Vatican as I was to read that a property valuer in London was prosecuted by the Vatican? Is Christianity just for Sunday mornings, then? If it is, should we at least be grateful for that much?
Is a mob something we run towards? Or from?
I'll read on from subheading five now. Lots to think about. Not about rural folksy folk, but about you. And, by extension, about me. You don't think I'm reading this to read about other people, do you? We're far more interesting than they are.
I think I could have done without some of the absurd obstacles I've overcome. It would have been nice to have more encouragement along the way. Unfortunately, this is the fight of our time. Thanks for your thoughtful comment!
At the risk of seeming presumptuous, and with greatest respect, absurd obstacles are not in our path for nothing. Some say that conscription is valuable, because it builds character in a young man. But anything that befalls a young man as a young man will go to building his character. Youth is the time of character building.
The esoteric, by lacking substantive proof, is the easiest dismissed of all human attributes, so that whatever character is built by whatever experience in whomever can be ascribed to nascent qualities, innate characteristics or conditioned training, as one will. But, if I might, I believe that man's recognition of the distinction between that which is right and that which is wrong and his ability and will to act consequentially upon his own recognition of that distinction is sooner innate than learned. Not until it is tested can it be recognised, however.
I don't agree that this is depressing, Marco and Sabrina, but this is a topic that is hardly suited to a ping-pong of comment exchanges. If you care to sign up for my blog (which, like Walter's, is free of charge), you can find more detailed exploration of the topic of finding oneself and realising the vast irrelevance of much else in defining who and what you are.
Politics is a game of strategy, whose machinations can secure gain or loss, but in which winning is frequently subjected to aleatory matters outside the player's control. However, finding yourself is not a game of strategy. The question relies on the subject's answering honestly to themselves: which of the two is the more important to them - the world out there, or the world in here?
“1492. As children we were taught to memorize this year with pride and joy as the year people began living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America. Actually, people had been living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America for thousands of years before that. 1492 was simply the year sea pirates began to rob, cheat, and kill them.” - Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
The urban, rural divergence is real but there is convergence in the upper ranks of the power elite as it relates to the powerless. This is clearly evident in foreign policy where billions are diverted away from tax payers to arms merchants and foreign criminal regimes.
Excellent piece. I recently read an article that represents exactly what the 'American Dream' represents. The author named it cruel optimism. In its distracting optimism is embedded the cruel fact that most people won't achieve it, what 'it' is.
I also recently read the afterword of the Three Body Problem in which the author Liu Cixin made a great point. He said (and I am paraphrasing), we are shackled to the time and place in which we grew up. No matter how far we travel from it, those shackles remain. I know after 70 years, some things just never go away.
"If one man is duped into doing the labor of two, then one man doesn’t have to endure the hardship of work. But why stop there? Why not divert the profits from ten people, or a hundred, or all people?"
"The pitiful self-delusion of stoicism."
-Walter Rein.
Beautifully said, patiently explained,
Your sentiments here resound so loudly:
"I watch the news and I see ill-conceived, self-righteous, and arrogant methods deployed to placate rural conservatives. There’s nothing more irritating than watching some pampered jerk who has had every advantage in life go on television and lecture me about what we have to do in order to “reach” those that oppose creating a society based on inclusivity, equality, diversity, and progress. "
-Walter Rein
I am not scared to walk among those protestors I could even have been one of them if my circumstances had been different,
"...I remain grateful for their occasional acts of kindness. Despite all that we disagreed on, I could sometimes make them laugh."
-Walter Rein
Beautifully said, It has encouraged me to write a similar piece, but as I am sure you can attest the phrasing and construction is important, so that others especially non-Canadians can understand the author's intention. You have broached a taboo topic, and done it justice.
One of the benefits of growing up and receiving early school education overseas, at the behest of the American government, Is having some distance between “reality” and what was learned. Though far from perfect—we were, after all, representing the American government, even as students, and we kids knew it—we also read stories and heard news about about the foreign countries in which we lived and learned. We were careful what was said, who said it, where it was said, and how we thought words we used could be misinterpreted.
At no time in my childhood was American exceptionalism ever discussed or defended. We were strong enough to accept responsibility and to exhibit honour, whether we liked or understood it or not. If more Americans were “loyal” to their government and not wannabe authoritarian dictators who admire dictators and strongmen because they have no strength of their own, my feed would be a lot more interesting to read.
Thank you for this Walter! I feel every single word of this so acutely. I was also raised by rural conservative assholes and it has created a web of bullshit around my entire life that I'm still working to untangle and probably will be for the rest of my existence. Only recently did I have a major epiphany about my upbringing. You see, I've known how screwed up they are for a long time, but I had internalized their opinions of me (weak literal, drama queen, exaggerator) and I recently realized that I've been letting that hold me back when I shouldn't even be giving their opinions any credence at all. And you are so correct. There are parts of who I am that are directly adjacent to the ignorant upbringing I experienced that still haunt my life today. Not to mention that the stoicism you talk about has been used to completely shut down my very real and very valid emotional responses my entire life. It's tough when you realize how fucked up of a situation you grew up in but you still have some affection for at least some of the people who are responsible for it. The struggle is real.
It takes a lot of energy to maintain willful ignorance. How much can be blamed on the churches? And who benefits from keeping us all separated? And the tragedy comes through in your voice: the "smart kid" who caught on and who can keep quiet or flee. Thank you for writing and recording this. The craving for superiority was on display in my house in Brooklyn and then when we moved to Long Island.. The thousands of houses were race restricted in good old LI NY.. But I went to an integrated high school, worked with black people and had a close lifelong friendship with a black girlfriend and her family. I could not reciprocate; I am glad I didn't buy the white supremacy bull. Why does no one talk about the Human Genome Project? ALL human beings are 99.9% identical.
Well written experiential observations! Thank you! And this helps me understand your writing style so much better Walter. I had to take a few breaks from you recently when I felt you had been painting with a rather broad brush. I grew up in rural Virginia, where my own mother never saw a black person until she was 13! I was raised Summers outside of Staunton, Virginia, in Lone Fountain, about 6 miles away from Churchville! And that was how I viewed the rural life back then in the 50s was that everything revolved around going to church. And then came my confusion about why so many different kinds of churches? My cousins were Catholic, my other cousins were Episcopalian, and one of my best friends was Southern Baptist. So very confusing.
Then there was living through integration of schools in 1965 through 1970! I witnessed a lot of horrible things said and done by my peers and elders against the “Colored Community” of North Merritt Island and West Cocoa, where “Coloreds” were relegated or banished to live! And in 1964 or so, I can remember myself disparaging “Colored” women, saying, maybe we wouldn’t be treating them so poorly if they wouldn’t wear their pink fuzzy slippers and pink sponge rollers in their hair out in public. Oh, the discrimination was coming from ME at that point! And deeper down, it did not feel right to me, even in the moment. (I have one of those kinds of memories from a PTSD episode in 1980 that has locked in every memory I’ve ever had.)
I’ve just returned to Northern California after living 9 years on the Southern Oregon Coast where it is quite rural; even though HWY 101 brings many travelers through, the tiny towns remain “clueless” about the real world. And they even talk about eschewing the contra claims of them living in a bubble. And I knew it was time for me to move away two years ago when the Dobbs decision dropped. I couldn’t go to the July 4 jubilee in Port Orford that year, as I was so sick to my stomach for weeks after that decision. In mid August, whilst braving a trip inside the Salty Dawg Pizza Dive Bar, I ended up being called a Cunt, a Karen and old by three different men. You should’ve seen me twirl around at the end of that transaction. I screamed, bellowed and howled, twirling around in circles 5 times, as I shouted “NEVER CALL A WOMAN A CUNT!” The dining room was full. It was 5:15pm on a Thursday. I think I got their attention! At the end, I screamed at the main guy who had called me the seaward, you’re an asshole! And at that precise moment, I looked behind the bar, and in the doorway to the kitchen stood the old owners son, David Brock Smith, congressman for the district. He never even came outside to see if there was something wrong with me to try to help me in my moment of distress. That motherfucking dickhead, who had called me a Cunt, also his hand down on top of my credit card that I had placed on top of the bar while paying. I was verbally and physically assaulted that day. And my rights were immediately stripped away from me. No one showed any kindness or compassion for the victim of their collective horribleness!
So I’m gonna come back and continue reading your very thoughtful exposés! Please forgive me for thinking poorly of you a couple of weeks ago.
Thanks Corinne! Most of what I write in notes is just to gauge a reaction and sort out my own thoughts. My true commentary is in my articles. I appreciate that you're giving me another chance.
You have written a brilliant piece that EXACTLY reflects my upbringing in a lily-white town on the edge of a reservation. I, too, have been tainted and it has taken me the better part of my life to finally shake off the lies and embrace truth.
Yes, we had “Indian” kids at school, but we whites really didn’t understand the context of our environs. We looked down on them for living in tarpaper shacks. And I was raised a Catholic. Never got into the weeds about the history/circumstances that created this situation - we did not talk about those things.
I agree that elites in this country do not understand the crushing reality for so many that have lived the lie their entire lives. Fortunately, I was curious and learned where and when to ask the right questions - certainly not in the house I grew up in. Truth will set one free and it comes with a terrible cost in rural America.
Thank you for this!
Thank you Peter!
Sad, but true. They are weak people desperate to signal the strength they don’t have. I fear the violence they are capable of unleashing.
Absolutely.
Seems to me the fundamental mistake in rural America is that their white skin and nominal Christianity puts them on the same ‘side’ as their Capitalist masters. It takes courage to realize you were wrong and to stand up to economic bullies. Can they find that courage?
I doubt it. Thanks for the comment!
Dear Walter
I'm starting this note at subheading four, whilst the ideas are still swirling: there's a lot in here, and I'd first like to thank you. I see here an essay to the Self, to which I, as a subscriber am privileged to be granted insight. Thank you.
I grew up in Leeds and there weren't any blacks there, either. The blacks were in Bradford. After it got sandblasted, there was an old joke that a true Bradfordian is someone who could remember when the town hall was black and the population was ... Clever. I was at school in Bradford and back about five years ago, I got into a group of old schoolfriends on Facebook When I quit Facebook, we stayed in contact for a while - a short while - via a WhatsApp channel. These are men my age, within a year or two. I was frankly ... disappointed ... when the same kinds of jokes started to be exchanged, and far worse, on that channel. Like the town hall one. So, I quit the group.
Do you think that rural attitudes have to do with being rural, or do they have to do with who Walter Rhein is? Would Walter Rhein be someone else if he came from somewhere else? Would you be different if you were in a teenage gang in Gilbert AZ? Would you be as surprised at being prosecuted by the Vatican as I was to read that a property valuer in London was prosecuted by the Vatican? Is Christianity just for Sunday mornings, then? If it is, should we at least be grateful for that much?
Is a mob something we run towards? Or from?
I'll read on from subheading five now. Lots to think about. Not about rural folksy folk, but about you. And, by extension, about me. You don't think I'm reading this to read about other people, do you? We're far more interesting than they are.
I think I could have done without some of the absurd obstacles I've overcome. It would have been nice to have more encouragement along the way. Unfortunately, this is the fight of our time. Thanks for your thoughtful comment!
At the risk of seeming presumptuous, and with greatest respect, absurd obstacles are not in our path for nothing. Some say that conscription is valuable, because it builds character in a young man. But anything that befalls a young man as a young man will go to building his character. Youth is the time of character building.
The esoteric, by lacking substantive proof, is the easiest dismissed of all human attributes, so that whatever character is built by whatever experience in whomever can be ascribed to nascent qualities, innate characteristics or conditioned training, as one will. But, if I might, I believe that man's recognition of the distinction between that which is right and that which is wrong and his ability and will to act consequentially upon his own recognition of that distinction is sooner innate than learned. Not until it is tested can it be recognised, however.
That's true, but I think there are some challenges that inflict too much pain for whatever lesson is learned.
This is as profoundly depressing as it is insightful. MAG vs MAGA- even if the G stands for 'Good'
I don't agree that this is depressing, Marco and Sabrina, but this is a topic that is hardly suited to a ping-pong of comment exchanges. If you care to sign up for my blog (which, like Walter's, is free of charge), you can find more detailed exploration of the topic of finding oneself and realising the vast irrelevance of much else in defining who and what you are.
Politics is a game of strategy, whose machinations can secure gain or loss, but in which winning is frequently subjected to aleatory matters outside the player's control. However, finding yourself is not a game of strategy. The question relies on the subject's answering honestly to themselves: which of the two is the more important to them - the world out there, or the world in here?
Try this for starters: https://endlesschain.substack.com/p/on-power.
“1492. As children we were taught to memorize this year with pride and joy as the year people began living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America. Actually, people had been living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America for thousands of years before that. 1492 was simply the year sea pirates began to rob, cheat, and kill them.” - Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died
Everybody talking to their pockets
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
And a long-stem rose
Everybody knows - Leonard Cohen & Sharon Robinson
The urban, rural divergence is real but there is convergence in the upper ranks of the power elite as it relates to the powerless. This is clearly evident in foreign policy where billions are diverted away from tax payers to arms merchants and foreign criminal regimes.
That's true. That's why i say both parties are conservative.
I apologize. I missed that! Great article, btw.😊
That's a general belief of mine though I can't remember if I stated it in this article
Excellent piece. I recently read an article that represents exactly what the 'American Dream' represents. The author named it cruel optimism. In its distracting optimism is embedded the cruel fact that most people won't achieve it, what 'it' is.
I also recently read the afterword of the Three Body Problem in which the author Liu Cixin made a great point. He said (and I am paraphrasing), we are shackled to the time and place in which we grew up. No matter how far we travel from it, those shackles remain. I know after 70 years, some things just never go away.
Anyway, well done and what you say is important.
I hadn't heard it described that way, but that's a very good way of putting it.
"If one man is duped into doing the labor of two, then one man doesn’t have to endure the hardship of work. But why stop there? Why not divert the profits from ten people, or a hundred, or all people?"
"The pitiful self-delusion of stoicism."
-Walter Rein.
Beautifully said, patiently explained,
Your sentiments here resound so loudly:
"I watch the news and I see ill-conceived, self-righteous, and arrogant methods deployed to placate rural conservatives. There’s nothing more irritating than watching some pampered jerk who has had every advantage in life go on television and lecture me about what we have to do in order to “reach” those that oppose creating a society based on inclusivity, equality, diversity, and progress. "
-Walter Rein
I am not scared to walk among those protestors I could even have been one of them if my circumstances had been different,
"...I remain grateful for their occasional acts of kindness. Despite all that we disagreed on, I could sometimes make them laugh."
-Walter Rein
Beautifully said, It has encouraged me to write a similar piece, but as I am sure you can attest the phrasing and construction is important, so that others especially non-Canadians can understand the author's intention. You have broached a taboo topic, and done it justice.
Outstanding, great share.
Thank you!
Wow. I was incredibly moved as I read this article. Thank you.
Thank you!
Here’s to curious children! They contribute as opposed to complaining. Thank you, Walter!
and I think they're the last line of defense against fascism.
One of the benefits of growing up and receiving early school education overseas, at the behest of the American government, Is having some distance between “reality” and what was learned. Though far from perfect—we were, after all, representing the American government, even as students, and we kids knew it—we also read stories and heard news about about the foreign countries in which we lived and learned. We were careful what was said, who said it, where it was said, and how we thought words we used could be misinterpreted.
At no time in my childhood was American exceptionalism ever discussed or defended. We were strong enough to accept responsibility and to exhibit honour, whether we liked or understood it or not. If more Americans were “loyal” to their government and not wannabe authoritarian dictators who admire dictators and strongmen because they have no strength of their own, my feed would be a lot more interesting to read.
Thank you for this Walter! I feel every single word of this so acutely. I was also raised by rural conservative assholes and it has created a web of bullshit around my entire life that I'm still working to untangle and probably will be for the rest of my existence. Only recently did I have a major epiphany about my upbringing. You see, I've known how screwed up they are for a long time, but I had internalized their opinions of me (weak literal, drama queen, exaggerator) and I recently realized that I've been letting that hold me back when I shouldn't even be giving their opinions any credence at all. And you are so correct. There are parts of who I am that are directly adjacent to the ignorant upbringing I experienced that still haunt my life today. Not to mention that the stoicism you talk about has been used to completely shut down my very real and very valid emotional responses my entire life. It's tough when you realize how fucked up of a situation you grew up in but you still have some affection for at least some of the people who are responsible for it. The struggle is real.
You're right. Even recognizing it's a problem, it's difficult to overcome. Thanks for the kind and thoughtful comment!
Dammit. I wish I'd written this. Brilliant and trenchant. Well done.
That's a very nice compliment, thank you!
WALTER RHEIN GRACIAS
It takes a lot of energy to maintain willful ignorance. How much can be blamed on the churches? And who benefits from keeping us all separated? And the tragedy comes through in your voice: the "smart kid" who caught on and who can keep quiet or flee. Thank you for writing and recording this. The craving for superiority was on display in my house in Brooklyn and then when we moved to Long Island.. The thousands of houses were race restricted in good old LI NY.. But I went to an integrated high school, worked with black people and had a close lifelong friendship with a black girlfriend and her family. I could not reciprocate; I am glad I didn't buy the white supremacy bull. Why does no one talk about the Human Genome Project? ALL human beings are 99.9% identical.
Well written experiential observations! Thank you! And this helps me understand your writing style so much better Walter. I had to take a few breaks from you recently when I felt you had been painting with a rather broad brush. I grew up in rural Virginia, where my own mother never saw a black person until she was 13! I was raised Summers outside of Staunton, Virginia, in Lone Fountain, about 6 miles away from Churchville! And that was how I viewed the rural life back then in the 50s was that everything revolved around going to church. And then came my confusion about why so many different kinds of churches? My cousins were Catholic, my other cousins were Episcopalian, and one of my best friends was Southern Baptist. So very confusing.
Then there was living through integration of schools in 1965 through 1970! I witnessed a lot of horrible things said and done by my peers and elders against the “Colored Community” of North Merritt Island and West Cocoa, where “Coloreds” were relegated or banished to live! And in 1964 or so, I can remember myself disparaging “Colored” women, saying, maybe we wouldn’t be treating them so poorly if they wouldn’t wear their pink fuzzy slippers and pink sponge rollers in their hair out in public. Oh, the discrimination was coming from ME at that point! And deeper down, it did not feel right to me, even in the moment. (I have one of those kinds of memories from a PTSD episode in 1980 that has locked in every memory I’ve ever had.)
I’ve just returned to Northern California after living 9 years on the Southern Oregon Coast where it is quite rural; even though HWY 101 brings many travelers through, the tiny towns remain “clueless” about the real world. And they even talk about eschewing the contra claims of them living in a bubble. And I knew it was time for me to move away two years ago when the Dobbs decision dropped. I couldn’t go to the July 4 jubilee in Port Orford that year, as I was so sick to my stomach for weeks after that decision. In mid August, whilst braving a trip inside the Salty Dawg Pizza Dive Bar, I ended up being called a Cunt, a Karen and old by three different men. You should’ve seen me twirl around at the end of that transaction. I screamed, bellowed and howled, twirling around in circles 5 times, as I shouted “NEVER CALL A WOMAN A CUNT!” The dining room was full. It was 5:15pm on a Thursday. I think I got their attention! At the end, I screamed at the main guy who had called me the seaward, you’re an asshole! And at that precise moment, I looked behind the bar, and in the doorway to the kitchen stood the old owners son, David Brock Smith, congressman for the district. He never even came outside to see if there was something wrong with me to try to help me in my moment of distress. That motherfucking dickhead, who had called me a Cunt, also his hand down on top of my credit card that I had placed on top of the bar while paying. I was verbally and physically assaulted that day. And my rights were immediately stripped away from me. No one showed any kindness or compassion for the victim of their collective horribleness!
So I’m gonna come back and continue reading your very thoughtful exposés! Please forgive me for thinking poorly of you a couple of weeks ago.
Thanks Corinne! Most of what I write in notes is just to gauge a reaction and sort out my own thoughts. My true commentary is in my articles. I appreciate that you're giving me another chance.