Please shut up

I was scrolling through Bluesky recently, and found this gem reposted by someone I follow. Look at this shit:

Christ almighty. Shut up. SHUT. UP.

I am so sick of this disingenuous horseshit about what a nightmare hellscape the cities are from people who are a) too stupid to know better; b) are actively pandering to people too stupid to know better and part them with their money c) too clouded by their own racism and misplaced fear to ever spend any time in one; or d) some combination of the above. These people act like any city bigger than (and less white than), say, Fort Collins, resembles Death Wish 3 or The Warriors.

I mean, what do you expect when no less than the United States Secretary of goddamn Transportation is afraid to ride the New York subway? Of course, it’s not difficult to recognize that “the big city” is a dull stand-in for “liberals” here, and virtually 100% of modern Conservatism is animated by a simple othering and demonizing of people they disagree with, so I get, from a very cynical point of view, trying to raise money on the back of that vulgar principle. It’s craven but effective, I guess.

It’s a simple extension of the current guiding ethos of so much of modern reactionary discourse which amounts to “if it’s different than who I am exactly, it’s not only bad, but it’s an affront to my own way of life and we must destroy it!” This applies to the idiotic war on what I believe are fundamentally good words like diversity, equity and inclusion. It applies the needless and cruel attacks on transgender people and the LGBTQ+ community writ large. It applies to the hijacking by assholes of education curriculum that might make the dumbest and most fragile of us feel even a little bit bad about this country’s abundant, obvious and continuing history of atrocities. And in this case, it applies to the audacity of people who flock to population centers to experience the beautiful mosaic of different personalities, experiences, cultures, and viewpoints.

This vile fundraising email throws into sharp relief something I read while visiting the Molly Brown House Museum with my family recently. Here’s a quote from Ms. Brown from 1899:

If you can’t read that, here’s what it says: “Americans must become cosmopolitan [including people from other cultures] in learning, else they will take narrow, prejudicial misunder-standing into their discussions and judgments of foreign questions.”

The belief in absolute racial, cultural, or any other inherent demographic superiority is flatly idiotic and betrays not only a boring intellectual incuriosity, but a willful and extremely myopic solipsism, and a deep-seated insecurity about the wonderful vastness of the world and our relatively tiny place within it. Long story short: Get the fuck over yourself. And experience more of the world!

The divisions between urban and rural, whites and non-whites, straight people and seemingly everyone else are distracting us from what really matters here. And what’s that? The fact that a small handful of billionaires fucking hate the rest of us, want everything for themselves, and are working to make us stupid, poor, and fully dependent upon them to live a meager existence of subservience. Don’t let them.

And to those of you who fear the city – please shut up. Keep my city’s name out of your fucking mouth until you can actually make a lucid point based on real experience. All you have to do is drive your candyass into the city for a show, a game, a dinner, a lunch, a shopping excursion – anything! – and see for yourselves. Cities have something for everyone, even you! That’s why cities exist! You don’t even have to go to your city’s downtown if that’s too big a scary leap for you. Just pick a neighborhood with cool shit in it, and experience it. Find a city friend to guide you. We’d be happy to if it means we don’t have to keep reading about how our cities are “rat and feces infested gang headquarters for illegal immigrants.”

Which – GOD – go fuck yourself with a rusty railroad spike, shitty campaign email. Cities have their problems, sure. I’m not some dipshit Pollyanna who thinks everything about a city is a utopia. But that? That’s just blatantly dishonest, fearmongering gutter racism.

You don’t hear me ranting about farmers or rural America, do you? You know why? Because I don’t know the first fucking thing about what it’s like to work on a farm or live in a small rural town. What I do believe is that the vast, vast majority of people are inherently good and doing the best they can with whatever they have and whatever they know. Please grant those of us in the city the same courtesy.

And if you can’t even do that? Then do us all a favor, and please shut up.