Thread by @JessicaHuseman

Y’all blame rural America for things white politicians who represent suburbs do and it’s becoming clear no one knows what “rural” means.

For a lot of people “rural america” has just become a catch all term for white politicians mostly in the south, but rural America isn’t just a bunch of white republicans. There are rural communities in every state, with diverse populations (even if not always well integrated).

These places are culturally, economically and certainly racially diverse, and like all things people don’t see with their own eyes, it has become a verbal meme we throw around. It’s ignorant, and it makes me mad.

My “rural” town is 35 percent black and has a population of 510. It is requiring masks and enforcing social distancing at an upcoming city hearing. People there are respectful of others, and they don’t eat horse paste.

They are more conservative, sure, but a lot of this has to do with the lack of economic opportunities in rural America that have been exacerbated by federal refusal to provide equivalent services, such as broadband access. journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.11…

If you are young and you want more, you have to leave. We have ignored rural Americans as the rest of the country has modernized, and now we have the absolute gall to blame them for our problems.

You go try and start a business in rural America with no reliable internet access. There’s a reason I to split my time between there and Dallas, and It’s not because I prefer Dallas. It’s because I literally cannot do my job or manage my training program in Oakwood.

My tax dollars could be going to rural America, and I could run my non profit from there. But the same politicians now demonizing this part of the country for stupidity and irresponsibility have ignored them. So, anyway, don’t contribute to that bullshit.

Don’t blame a massive swath of the country that has been serially ignored and whose hospitals have closed and who genuinely do not have access to the same information you do because they don’t have broadband for these problems. Like are you fkn kidding me?

Like literally any measure of empathy would be appropriate here. You don’t have to understand why people prefer to live in rural areas. But you do have to understand who lives there and what access they have before you call them stupid. My word.

There are few hospitals. There is no public transportation. I burn my trash because there is no trash collection, and if I want my road fixed that’s on me. Rural America has to deal with problems that no one else does, don’t make them deal with problems that aren’t theirs.

And after a year of virtual schooling where their kids didn’t have consistent access to education at all because of Internet issues, I just really don’t wanna hear your shit. I don’t wanna hear it.

Take urban poverty, and layer lack of public transportation access, lack of Internet access, lack of access to medical care, and lack of any city infrastructure whatsoever on top of that. That is who you are calling stupid. That is who you are blaming. Real people.

Not rich white ranchers. Black farmers, Hispanic farmers, immigrant workers, children with access to educational materials that are completely inferior to suburban and urban areas. These are people. Actual people.

The closest grocery store that sells consistently fresh produce to my land in Oakwood it’s about a 25 minute drive. Within that 25 minute radius, there are two dollar stores.

Do not sit here and blame people who work hard, do well, participate in society and live the way they prefer to live because you haven’t given two minutes of thought to how much that population has been ignored. We have failed rural Americans repeatedly.

This has been my daily grievance.

Anyway. There are reporters who live in rural America. Fucking hire them instead of sending your assholes there to parachute in and look at them like zoo animals.

If you need recommendations, I’ve got them. Good lord.

We have known for years that hospitals in rural America are closing. That there are no grocery stores in rural America. That schools can’t use the technology they need. That mom and pop shops are being eaten by gigantic companies like Dollar General. And we have done nothing.

The government has done nothing for rural America, and some wonder why being ignored might lead to political apathy or the baseline assumption government doesn’t work. Well, it doesn’t for them, so maybe try for a single second to sit in their place.

In Oakwood, I fix my own road and burn my own trash and have lay my own water piping. In Dallas, they collect garbage, and my power just turned on when I bought my house. There is water. I see government here, I don’t see it there. It’s not hard to figure this out.

These feelings are exacerbated because young people have to leave in order to make something of themselves. And when they do that, their political opinions often change on the efficacy of government. But they don’t come back. There’s nothing there for them.

Ok. Im done. Leave rural Americans alone, that’s what they prefer.

The responses I’ve gotten to this thread tell me that you don’t think critically about the impacts of gerrymandering in federal races. Take a good look at these rural communities. You will be shocked at the number of democratic local officials and state representatives.

Anyway, just say white people if you mean white people. And just so people who live on farms if you mean people who live on farms. It is out of touch and factually incorrect to assume that we’re all Americans are white farmers.

Like I guess it’s just not shocking to me that rural communities have become more politically conservative overtime when we’ve created conditions were young people must leave in order to be successful and where we have made government as ineffective as possible.

This frankly seems like a pretty straight line to me. And it seems like a pretty solvable thing, if anyone would give a shit about the people who live in these communities. But they don’t. And here we are, degrading them and pretending all of them are eating horse paste.

Anyway, this is the longest tweet thread ever. Apologies. Unfollow me if you want. Go rural America.

There are a lot of typos in this and I don’t care. My point has been made. Good day to you all.