Do We Disrespect Rural America?

[smirkymonkey]

64. I wouldn't say so much dumb as I would say ignorant.

I grew up in a very small town outside a small city in Upstate NY. However most people I grew up with were fairly well educated and open to different ways of life. For instance we had a lot of foreign exchange students in our little town which exposed us to different cultures.

Once I graduated from college I have only lived in large coastal, liberal cities. I remember going on a business trip to Tennessee, just outside Knoxville. The people I was visiting took me out to lunch and in the middle of lunch one person asked me what kind of last name I had (it has a vowel at the end of it). I told them it was Italian and even thought I look about as Nordic as one can get, they continued to grill me w/ questions like "What kind of holidays do you celebrate?", etc. It was clear they were very uncomfortable with me, even though I looked just as "American", if not more so, than they did. I think they assumed I was Catholic, which I wasn't - I'm only 1/2 Italian and English and Dutch on the other side - but still, the fact that I had an Italian last name condemned me in their eyes.

I was just stunned with that kind of ignorance. I have also had Jewish and Latin friends report similar experiences in the south and midwest. They are just so insular and unexposed to anyone who is outside of their racial, religious, political group. They are not interested in getting to know us, they are just threatened and afraid of us. Why should we try to understand them when they are so unwilling to understand us? I never would have judged them as a group until I found out how prejudiced they were.