Iowa Nice: We're not all fucking hillbillies

The article Observations of 20 Years of Life in Iowa is the talk of Iowa right now. Well, it is the talk right behind the caucuses. Stephen Bloom is a professor at the University of Iowa and the author of Postville, a book I have wanted to read for some time. This article is full of over generalizations and, well, bullshit... and some truth.

Meat packing plants have changed the face of Iowa for good and for bad. Young people have been leaving Iowa for years. Meth is an issue and has been for years. But to paint Iowa and Iowans with such broad strokes is shortsided. And, personally, I always found Iowa's "political schizophrenia" interesting and the reason the state is important both as the state where the caucus/primary season starts but also as a swing state--and it is a swing state. Let's look at some of the politicians who represent Iowa in Washington, DC:  Steve King, a right-wing, cringeworthy nutjob, and then there is Charles Grassley, whose record makes me role my eye so hard it hurts. But then there is Tom Harkin, who along with the late Paul Wellstone and Russ Feingold made up the triumvirate of midwestern farm-labor progressivism that made me proud to be a Midwesterner. Sadly, Harkin is the last of the three to be in office.

And some of the things he mentions as negative, well, I find endearing. A bag is a sack. I drank pop until I went to college and began drinking soda. I do call my 13-year old nephew "Bud" (and so does my brother). I never belonged to a church or went to church regularly, but it is a social outlet. (And to add to that, I never had anyone stop me in Hy-Vee to talk about religion. Ever. Religion was not discussed in public. Ever.) And you always go to the back door of a house (and the back door is usually on the side of the house, right next to the driveway). Why? Because if someone knocks on the front door, they are either trying to sell you something or they were pedaling a religion.

And let me add to the list: The small-town community that Bloom badmouths is where people will drop everything to help a neighbor. I spent my life split between a college town and one of those small rural towns Bloom looks down on. That small town has its problems, but the one thing that small town--and all small towns have--is an amazing sense of community and support. This is the community that will bring in the harvest of a farmer who is ill (and those who step up to help will do this on top of the work they put in on their own farms). Every small town has That Guy you can always go to when you need something, no questions asked. My dad was That Guy. There are 1500 people in his town and they estimated there were 2000 at his visitation. There were close to 400 at his funeral. A good portion of the downtown closed up shop during his funeral by putting up signs in their windows that simply said: "At [My last name] Funeral." That kind of community is the norm in Iowa. I don't think that is a bad thing.

So let me say this: Professor Bloom, get off your fucking high horse and realize you are working at a top-notch university in a town that many people hold dear. You are in the same town as one of the top medical research facilities in the country. And your students are from a state with one of the best educational systems in the country. You touched on some things about Iowa that are worth discussion, but you buried them in over-generalizations and stereotypes. You claim that this is journalism. I call it lazy.

In the end, it obvious, Bloom, that you have nothing but contempt for the state of Iowa, your students, and the university where you work. You are an embarrassment.

In short: Fuck you.

I think this video sums up my feelings nicely:



Kyle Munson, Iowa Columnist at the Des Moines Register put together a list of rebuttals that are well worth a read. And... Iowa even made CNN.