Is there an acceptable form of bigotry?
Race, sex, religion, nationality – all these are frowned upon.
Not frowned upon.
These types of bigotry are not tolerated in any form whatsoever.
Wait.
Isn’t that bigotry too?
I digress.
The only acceptable form of bigotry that exists today is the mutual intolerance and disdain between people that live in “the city” and people that live in “the country.”
I encounter this all the time, but it was not until Jim Goad pointed it out that I began to see it everywhere.
“It is one of the most enduring yet ignored forms of bigotry not only in America, but across the globe—this seemingly irreparable divide between urban and rural culture. The two groups might as well be different races.”
–Jim Goad, Potatoes On The Moon
Go ahead.
Give it a try sometime.
Ask someone born and raised in New York City, Chicago, or San Francisco what they think about people from rural Mississippi.
Then go ask someone born and raised in rural Kansas, Arkansas, or West Texas what they think about people from New York City.
They may agree on nearly everything important about life, but that is almost never immediately taken into account.
The gut reaction is always to see the other as a brute.
So, let’s just all step back and take account.
Take account, and try not to stoop to the only flavor of bigotry that still gets a pass.
Rural people don’t get urban humor; they really don’t. You just stay out of folks’ business out here, unless you know them.
-Donald Miller, Through Painted Deserts
