Why Didn't You Leave Your Horrific Rural Town Earlier?
Maybe there's something to be learned from the fact that it's not that easy to escape
Hello Friends,
I grew up in a red rural area that essentially believed in white supremacy and punishment. They didn't actually say they believed in these things, but you should judge people on their actions rather than their words.
It was a town that banned books. It was a town that didn't allow the Ojibwe people to attend public schools. It was a town that spent the money from the school referendum on an indoor hockey rink that quickly fell into disrepair.
The people in that community worked against us. I worked hard, got good grades, and then had a sit down with the guidance counselor who discouraged me from going to college.
“People from our town who go to college,” he said, “tend to fail out. It will be a waste of money. You don't have what it takes to make it.”
When I think of that place, I think of mud.
I think of abandoned cars rusting in a field.
I think of video stores that wouldn't carry a movie unless it starred either John Wayne or Clint Eastwood. To be honest, they weren't even completely sold on Eastwood.
So, why didn't I leave earlier?
Why didn't I leave?
Ha!
What was I going to do, go skipping down the highway? Should I have jumped on the first freight train that came through? Should I have clambered into the cab of a long-haul trucker?
“You probably can't afford to help with gas, but I'm sure we can work something out.”
One of my friends signed up for the military. He did basic training in the summer between his Junior and Senior year. He was already checked out when he came back to finish high school. He showed up to class on the first day in full military fatigues.
Why didn't he just leave earlier?
The answer is that these places have a gravitational pull. They are black holes. Thought can't escape. Light can't escape. People sure as hell can't escape.
If you're born in a place like that, you're likely going to die there.
Perhaps once we recognize that fact and do something about it, our country will have fewer problems.
Is it possible to get out? Well, sure, it's possible. The question is why we subject our young people to that level of abuse.
I take great pride in the effort I've made as a father. I have two daughters. They're both brilliant and that makes me proud. But even more than their brilliance, I'm delighted by the fact that they are happy girls.
They come home from school happy. They walk through the doors to our home and it's a safe place for them. They aren't pressured and beaten down. They aren't losing weight and grinding their teeth and regarding the world with a thousand yard stare.
More than half of the girls that I grew up with looked like that. As hard as it was for me, I think it must have been a million times worse for them.
At what age did creepy men start pawing at them? At what age did they attempt to appeal to another adult for help, only to be ignored?
Red rural areas are inclined to refer to preteens as “seductresses” while married, middle aged men are given pass after pass after pass.
Our laws are not fair. The people in small towns are on a perpetual quest to find the next scapegoat to punish. The scapegoats are made up of innocent girls and young boys and random strangers who happen to be passing through.
When I write about red rural areas, I get two reactions. Some people say, “Oh my God, that's just like my experience! Thank you so much for finally having the courage to tell the truth.”
Other people say, “Your generalizations are disgusting and untrue. I grew up in a small town and it was wonderful.”
Apparently the people who write that second comment never scroll through to see how many people wrote the first.
It's not just me.
It's not just me.
It's not just me.
The problem with red rural areas in the United States of America is that we're all indoctrinated with a code of silence. Nobody's supposed to talk about the preacher who gets a little too free with his hands. Nobody's supposed to talk about the father who regularly cheats on his wife. Nobody's supposed to talk about the sheriff who pulls teen girls over and allows them to get out of a ticket for a favor.
The people who accuse me of writing “unfair generalizations” have their blinders on because these things happen in every single goddamned red rural area in the country.
Every. Single. One.
“Why didn't you leave sooner?”
Yeah, that's an easy question to ask. I'm a fairly intelligent person. I earned a degree. I taught myself how to speak Spanish. I'm a published novelist. I've raised two kind and well-adjusted daughters. I've done a fair number of things.
In my lifetime absolutely nothing was as difficult as escaping the life-sucking pull of the red rural area where I grew up.
Absolutely nothing was even close to that.
It took more effort and luck than you can possibly imagine and even now at age 50, I still bear the trauma of that experience.
This is the reality that the United States of America has to accept. Red rural areas are toxic. There is no escape from red rural areas.
Most importantly, red rural areas are why this nation elects criminals and sex offenders to seats of power.
So, instead of asking, “Why didn't you leave sooner?” You should be asking, “What can we do to help?”
I'm just as frustrated as anyone by the state of things. I'm disgusted with my former friends and family members who voted in favor of pain for my immigrant family. I'm enraged by all the prosperity that the ignorant decisions of red rural areas have cost us.
But I also remember the faces of my classmates before they were burdened with abuses that they simply couldn't overcome. All of them were once hopeful. All of them were once kind. All of them were abandoned by a nation that disregards the abuses and injustices that happen in plain sight.
Even now, as you read this, children are being marched into the meat grinder. They'll emerge indoctrinated, radicalized, hopeless, and angry. All that was needed to prevent this was a little change of scenery, a chance at a better life.
“Why didn't you leave sooner?”
The answer is they can't.
The real question is, “Why aren't you helping them?”
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White people and Black people are equally as oppressed. The power strategist are successful when they ghettoize us and poison our communities: the white community with ignorance and hate; the black communities with drugs and predatory discrimination. Both communities with disease through unhealthy food and environmental conditions. We are all seeing it clearly now because the same strategy is now being played on the whole country. The US is being formed into the ghetto of the world.
Walter, not all rural communities are like yours. Children in many rural communities left home for college and when they graduated they came back home determined to make their home towns a better place. My mountain town was one of those places. We joined a national program, so I know we were not alone.
Thanks to the leadership of our well educated youth, our town went from a boarded up town, to a wealthy town with cutting edge businesses in a short few years. As our farmers, ranchers, and small businesses grew they hired more and more local high school graduates and trained them on the job. It was like a snowball, it kept getting bigger and better all the time.
Once our young people with vision and know-how were in control, our beloved mountain environment, and community spirit were well protected. We've built large affordable housing projects, including developments with financing programs for first time home buyers. We have high tech training schools and educational programs attended by people from all around the world. Our hotel industry houses these students, and so many tourists, 3 new hotels were built. Our farmers and ranchers grow such high value products they attracted companies from Europe to our valleys thereby assuring us a sustainable organic ag industry and the preservation of our high quality groundwater supplies.
That said, I honestly think the success of rural communities stems from a really, really deep love of the land. And that's not something people in all rural communities possess, and its certainly not something a city person could even begin to comprehend.
Walter, I could be wrong, and if I am please tell me, but I've never gotten the impression that you loved the land where you grew up. By love, I mean the falling in love kind of love that your writing suggests you feel for your wife.
When I left my town in California, it nearly broke my heart. I still long for those mountains. I will never know the land here in Kentucky as well as I knew those mountains. But, to my surprise, right here in Kentucky, I found a little rural town as progressive as my own. When I arrived the town was in the process of updating their general plan, and using the same process we'd used back home. It took twenty effing years to get that process legalized at home, so this was a truly wonderful surprise.
It takes a village to raise a child, and it takes children to raise a village.