Dear Me! You Are a Bigot and Didn't Know?

Dear Bigots!

Think! Think! Think!

Vulgar language alert! The words aren't so interesting that you should read this just because it's vulgar, though. Sadly, I am not very creative at cursing and vulgar language. I have actually tried to improve my skills, but I couldn't find any good articles. Well, that's another post, for sure!

I may have past the "I gotta go" line this week. Wisconsin is just too damned cold for me. Emotionally. Not the weather, you blowhard weather cowards. If I ever hear anyone bragging again about how Southerners cannot drive in snow, I will blow. See all those cars and trucks by the sides of the road in Wisconsin? Ever wonder what that means? Think!

Anyway...

I would like to remind my dear friends that there are many things you might not know about your friends -- or the person you are sitting next to at dinner, for God's sake! 

I am a Southerner. And, a Hillbilly. (Look "Hillbilly" up in a dictionary, for Jesus' sake!) According to many that makes me White Trash. Do my friends know that I lived in a trailer? Oh, yeah. Trailer Trash.

Not a week goes by that someone doesn't tell me that they, "...hate Southerners and the South" and make derogatory comments about Hillbillies, White Trash (which, according to Wisconsinites, includes all Southerners), and Trailer Trash. 

Yes, they say this right to my face and continue right after I have told them 3 times that I am a piece of Southern Hillbilly White Trash. Hmmm?

Yes, the kind and compassionate people of Wisconsin make fun of the impoverished people of Appalachia who have their teeth pulled because they cannot afford to have a $1,000 crown. This "makes my ass crave buttermilk." That's a Hillbilly saying. No idea what it means. Spent my childhood confused about that.

I have my teeth if you count crowns. What? I went to college. NO! I have a Master's Degree. Are you confused, yet? I have lived on both coasts and 4 states. I have traveled to... maybe 18 countries and 3 continents. I am an atheist. I have had a career. 

Yes, I am a Southern White Hillbilly White Trash Trailer Trash Liberal Cannot Be Defined White Woman. Just like everyone you know:  Cannot be defined by a label. There is no place and no person that can completely be defined by stereotypes...

And, there are always things you don't know about the people you are talking to.

Unless...?

 I have lived in WI 35 years. Here are my prejudices about Wisconsin.

Wisconsin: most prejudiced state in the USA. I thought I had died and gone to hell when I moved here. One thing I fucking hate about WI is the stinking prejudice and the gross generalizations that I face every fucking stinking day of my life here is this open-minded progressive state.

Oh, yeah, folks here are polite sometimes, but not warm.  And, I do have some wonderful friends. Maybe they are the exceptions to the rule. Because Wisconsinites are not open minded, not welcoming, not easy going, and not socially adventuresome (unless it involves guns and fishing rods or snow-mobiles). 

I was a nice person when I came here. Look what you did to me.

Well, I won't even bother you with what I think of uptight, cold, unfriendly Germans -  but, half my family is Jewish and you have NEVER heard me engaging in the same stereotyping. Wisconsin is frosty and it ain't the weather.

Ever tried to get a Wisconsinite to try something new? Not an adventuresome people. Unless it involves wearing guns to the mall.

WI is full of white trash, drunks and pedophile priests. WI has the Posse Comitatius, Scott Walker, Paul Ryan and is home to the likes of Joe McCarthy. 

Wisconsin has parents who take sports far more seriously than education and get into fist fights at high school sporting events. Not a very progressive state. Where did that rumor come from.

My Southern Hillbilly parents were Democrats & union supporters in Appalachia. My mother had a Master's Degree. We belonged to a church that was pretty damned liberal. My father was born in Harlan County, USA -- home of some of the most violent union battles in the country. He was a heavy equipment operator and wore his IUOE button every day. We had medical care and dental care. Are you sitting down? We had teeth. Blows yer mind, don't it?

My mother tried mightily to establish a teacher's union in our home county. She worked until she had that retirement plan. She advocated for sex education -- back when it was controversial the first time. She believed in family planning and contraception -- and, choice. I never heard a racist word in my home.

Contraception was available in my home county in the twenties and thirties from physicians. My grandparents practiced family planning while... never mind. 

My father believed that all women should go to college; have a career; get a retirement plan; and, work until they were able to retire or died -- whichever came first. He just hated seeing women sitting at home. I just love redneck Hillbillies, don't you!?!

When I turned 18, my parents ordered me to go register as a Democrat "OR ELSE."

I mean this with all love! Prejudice and stereotyping are just that. No matter whether it is aimed at a white 60 year old white Southern aging hippy, impoverished Southerners, working class Midwesterners or an impoverished black 20 year old.

♥ Oh, if you don't like the South and Southerns, go F yourself in a snowbank. Prejudice is prejudice.

After all, you people have elected Scott Walker twice so far and Paul Ryan owns you. Posse Comitatus. Just sayin'.

So, I'm havin' a William Faulkner party soon. Hope y'all will come. 

Hope I didn't hurt yer feelin's! If ya cain't take the heat, then get out of the kitchen you bunch of prejudiced Krauts. Oh... is Kraut a derogatory word? I didn't know that. You mean... kinda like "cracker, white trash, trailer trash, Hillbilly...?"

Buck up!