I think the chemo part of their troubles is more on Supreme Court and the government of Nebraska than Auburn itself.
Which I've never been to. But I have enough experience with towns that size to know that if you stand out, you'll have a miserable time of it.
I'm glad the daughter is doing well at my old alma mater.
Auburn is near a nuclear power plant, if you want more reasons to visit.
failing to pay the trash
It's not nice to call the rural white people names.
Jacobin has been on fire this "Struggle" month, in their own inimitable classy way
Race to Nowhere ...history of a "turn" in the late 19th
Black elites had sought to assure whites in both the South and the North that black political participation was consistent with the idea of rule by the "best" men of society. In principle then, if not always in fact, the stance of black political elites placed them at odds with the idea that relatively uneducated laborers could wield political power effectively. Thus, in novel after novel produced by the black political class, writers inserted scenes where unschooled black laborers pleaded for the leadership and guidance of their black genteel betters.
How the Ruling Class Remade New Orleans ...charter schools
The black NOLA leader of Back Lives Matter, DeRay McKesson, is also on the forefront of local privatization efforts. This is no surprise to me, both are neoliberalism.
Indeed, what appears to be a motley group with every conceivable background and ascriptive subjectivity is, upon closer inspection, a class.
So I have been told, that BLM is mostly composed of young UMC black women informed by social media.
What's that got to do with the price of provolone in Auburn?
Oh, man, that was a lousy bit of the story to read. I mean, argh, the guy was right about what's a better sandwich, but don't go arguing about how things are getting done the first day your boss is letting you do the part of your job you want to do.
I had to pass off a guy who kept arguing that with me about the right way to do stuff. The next person who got him was more abrasive than me and got him to knock it off.
Amusing game of telephone seems to be going on, transforming "he was in TFA" to "he's all about charter schools".
But rural Nebraska does love its cheese food product.
7: Focusing on individual narratives at the expense of structural or collective analysis is also...neoliberalism. It tends to devolve into examinations of behavior and character. See 9. See OP.
Nobody has written a structural analysis of Auburn since Durkheim did.
For me, probably unsurprisingly, I'm interested in what it felt like from the other side, what made the people of Auburn decide to stop helping once they weren't getting what they wanted out if the scenario. I find it's easy to come up with excuses to disengage and of course sometimes that is the right call. (I declined a call from prison as I was writing this comment, because real-life metaphors don't have to be non-cheesy.)
The trick is to come up with excuses before you start helping.
Oh, as an ex-Nebraskan, the shame! It always feels extra crappy when the state doesn't comport itself appropriately--either in the case of the Medicaid expansion or just acting like typical small, town NEans--we love you (only if you act just like us; if you act different or weird, we'll just freeze you out).
Anyway, with my vast experience of small Nebraska towns, I'd bet that it isn't so much that the people of Auburn decided to stop helping but that the people in Auburn who really didn't want to help at all felt that they couldn't say anything at the start without being considered assholes.
16: Where, if I may ask and if it isn't so small as to be identifying?
Feel free to ignore my personal question. It's been a long term goal of mine to have a Nebraska meet-up, but I'll manage regardless.
what made the people of Auburn decide to stop helping once they weren't getting what they wanted out if the scenario
From the daughter's account is seems pretty clear they never stopped helping, they just gave up on the parents but still did a lot for the kids. Poverty is part of it, but the parents are also bog standard self sabotaging substance abusers. The dad is a walking stereotype. Four DUI's, showing up drunk to the kids sporting events, staying for days going to clubs, etc. Jesus.
we love you (only if you act just like us; if you act different or weird, we'll just freeze you out).
Come on, read the daughters side. This isn't some culture clash, Dad is a legit classic irresponsible drunk.
This isn't some culture clash, Dad is a legit classic irresponsible drunk.
That's probably true. Being a classic, irresponsible drunk who shows up drunk at high school sports events and has multiple DUIs would give him a ready-made peer group in almost every small town. It's just not a peer group that can provide much help.
I dunno, Gswift. This is the cousin:
He'd been fired from his first job at a car dealership for what he remembered the manager describing as "cultural differences," and then from a downtown cafe for flirting with the waitresses, and then from a barbecue restaurant for "aggressively talking back." Now he was starting his fourth job, at Casey's General, where he had applied to work in food prep but was instead being trained to wash floors and unload delivery trucks.
"They're acting like I can't wrap a sandwich," he said now. "I keep telling them I went to culinary school, but they don't listen."
"See, that right there is why we don't associate," Troy said. "The more you try to explain and interact in this town, the worse it gets.
That sounds like a culture clash.
OT: In an email to which I was cc'ed, somebody wrote "Moby's a big boy." Now I hate them, but I think that if I tell them to fuck off, I'd be the asshole. Is that right? Especially since I agree with them on merits of the email. I just don't want this person to act all chummy with me.
23: Have you been to a Casey's? I can't think of a a single place that serves food where saying, "I went to culinary school" would be less appropriate than there. It's not even close to Sheetz standards.
I guess that could be taken as a culture clash, but if you try to tell your manager at Casey's how to make the food taste better, I think they don't have a choice but to fire you. Tasting good isn't their market niche.
23: See 8. Four times is a pattern. It's not his culture, it's that he insists on being the new guy who refuses to STFU and build some cred.
Nobody wants to know what teenagers think.
Nobody except for other teenagers and the sorts of adults that have to register their address with the police.
I'm just saying that it's much harder to be down on your luck in a place where you stick out like a sore thumb. In NOLA, perhaps the employer would have known the kid since he was ten, and yelled at the kid without firing him. And in Auburn, perhaps any of the employers would have done that with a more familiar face.
27 is great, but I have no idea what 29 and 30 are responding to.
31 is probably right. Also the dad would probably only have two DUIs instead of four.
If I was a New Orleans resident in 2005 faced with the possibility of moving to small-town Nebraska to make flat-bread pizza in a "Casey's General Store," I think I would just move into the swamp and see what the alligators had to offer.
24: Reply to all saying "Where it counts." That should keep it from happening again.
Don't order the breakfast pizza. Just looking at it made me sick. Watching my friend throw it down with obvious glee was even worse.
and yelled at the kid without firing him
He's 27 and on his fifth job in that town. Certainly old enough to recognize maybe no one wants to hear culinary school guy tell them how backwards they are in the context of assembling a truck stop sandwich.
What even more frightening is that they now deliver. It was one thing when you could pretend that people were only eating those pizzas when everything else was closed or they were already there to get gas.
Big Boy in the streets, Denny's in the sheets. (I'm not sure what that means, but probably something disturbing about fried potatoes.)
Then I guess 29 and 30 were even more beside the point than before.
Historical note: Auburn is in the county immediately to the north of the county of Boys Don't Cry. It's basically Missouri down at that end of the state.
OT: In an email to which I was cc'ed, somebody wrote "Moby's a big boy." Now I hate them, but I think that if I tell them to fuck off, I'd be the asshole.
This is nosy, but I can't even figure out what that means - was the guy advocating something you might possibly object to, but saying that you were too sensible and mature to object? Something like "He's a big boy, he can take it"? Because that's a really weird turn of phrase in a conversation where you're present.
18--I'm from Omaha, which is big enough not to be identifying, but I have relatives in Lincoln and Deshler. And while the parents may have their issues, the towns poor behavior started weeks after they got there, and the drunk driving seemed to happen after that. Also, I've got enough alcoholic relatives to know that in a small town, you get all kinds of passes because everyone knows you/your dad/ your grandpa/ and all the totally legit reasons you have to drink, while strangers get no slack at all. I'm not saying the parents couldn't do more to succeed in this town, but it means playing a particular kind of game, and it's clear they don't want to play. And really, although it is the way of the world, I'm not sure people should have to.
43: Subtextually, what it means is "Don't listen what the women are emailing about as I'm sure Moby has already taken care of things as he sees fit and that should satisfy us men."
Which is true so far me having already done all I intend to do. But also deeply annoying and not the kind of thing I want him to feel free to point out for several reasons (feminism, cans of worms being opened, general crankiness, etc.).
Omaha is great. Lincoln is hard to fine nice places to eat, but that's where my close relatives are these days.
46: I recall having pretty decent food in Lincoln. Of course, I like steaks and good ones were crazy cheap.
45: I was guessing some sort of elaborate Bob's Big Boy reference. Apparently I was wrong.
Steak is good. But Lincoln only manages to keep one decent Italian place open at a time. It's doing pretty good for cheap Mexican these days. I haven't tried the Chinese places.
My recollection of Lincoln and ethnic food was that there were good places, but generally only one of each, e.g., one good Indian place, one good Italian place & etc.
If there were sufficient Syrians there would for sure be at least one place with excellent lentil soup.
He's 27 and on his fifth job in that town.
Your underlying point may be right, but your logic is totally circular. The fact that he got fired from four jobs in a row serves as evidence for culture clash or the kid is a PITA, and the truth is probably in the middle. But you can't use the fact that the kid must be a PITA, as evidenced by the 4 jobs thing, to argue that there must not be a culture clash.
Re: culture clashes, I can definitely imagine the culture clash possible in auto sales and flirting with the waitress. I suspect what happened was that the guy was outgoing/jokey/touchy/loud in a way that made the locals seriously uncomfortable. I know what midwest friendly looks like, and I know what NOLA friendly looks like. I think it would be very lonely to go from being a well-liked, respected, financially precarious family with a large peer group to being outsiders who never quite got it right. It must be incredibly wearing. And yeah, I think carving racial epithets into pumpkins eight weeks after they arrived makes it pretty clear that the family was going to struggle no matter how carefully they behaved.
I bet the daughter who received the help and mentoring happened to be smart, quiet, likeable, and adept at fitting in.
49: But in Omaha, Italian isn't really an ethnic food. It's just food.
Having read it, I don't know that I'd agree with calling it a culture clash, exactly. Maybe some of it, but doing your own thing when making sandwiches isn't really a big cultural marker. I think more it's a difference in how much slack an outsider is given versus someone whose family has been in the town for years, plus a likely dose of racism.
E.g., dad is a drunken shouty loon at high school football games; tolerated if he's old so-and-so who's been here for a while, not tolerated if he's the newcomer charity case.
51: It's not just the number of jobs. He's pretty up front about how he doesn't stop arguing with everyone and insisting he's right. That's not cultural, that's PITA.
Yes, I don't think his own comments make his case very well.
how he doesn't stop arguing with everyone and insisting he's right.
Maybe he could be employed at an eclectic web magazine.
I thought including Tierra's side of things made the article a lot more interesting and more human. I agree with 54, and I would guess that the "how much slack" question is influenced both by race and a surprisingly widespread inchoate expectation that the beneficiaries of help like this be saintly.
Nebraska's most distinctive slang word is a trademarked fast food restaurant.
Isn't that because the restaurant is named after some local specialty food or sandwich or something?
I'm not sure it counts as slang, though, if it's just a name for a kind of sandwich local to the area.
Screw the Volga Germans. It's a trademark now.
Speaking of food, I guess, this guy is my hero.
You should try a Runza. It's like a hamburger, but the bun is hermetically sealed.
62: I was just watching that! God I love how hard he's trying to not drop some profanity in there.
That slang thing is bullshit. Graupel isn't slang, it's the normal work for that particular thing.
I assume that Sausagely or [insert other clever nickname for one of our professional online commenter betters] has tweeted this as an example of why it is more effective and efficient to give poor people money, rather than eclectic and unpredictable potlucks o' whatever old junk one happens to have lying around stuff, but in this case he and/or she is probably closer to right than usual.
65: The warning is right in the URL.
She inherited the office from her mother and her son already works there? Somebody check for the original coverup of who stole the town.
I'm uptalking, even in threads. No one I get condescending emails from people who don't know me.
Kentucky's word seems like it should be referring to an infamously stupid frat boy stunt.