"Small-town America – which is often code for conservative white America – is routinely treated as the 'real America' by politicians, pundits, writers and culture-makers. Nearly all of those people choose to live in urban America. …"
Or, more contemporary, read Silas House, Southernmost, on how a small town in Tennessee deals with a gay man who risks his life to save a person drowning in a flood and is then defended by a preacher of an evangelical church.
Novels like this are legion. They depict what small-town US is REALLY like and has long really been like — from the eyes of outsiders like Silas House (gay), Bette Greene and Arthur Miller (Jewish), Shirley Jackson (uppity intellectual woman).
To anyone — all Republicans, for starters — who thinks, along with Jason Aldean, that small-town USA is the realization of God's kingdom on earth, a place where the milk of human kindness flows free (exceptions apply, of course!), I suggest a course in American literature spanning, oh, centuries.
Perhaps they can start by reading Shirley Jackson's The Lottery, a glimpse at how small towns can institutionalize blood-curdling lethal cruelty, just because.
Because the impulse to violence and scapegoating are always there, so why not institutionalize it in a lottery?
And then they can move on to Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter, about how the first thing every small town in America does is build a church and a jail — before it moves on to minding the morals of everyone in the town, but especially of independent-minded woman.
Then the student of small-town-as-utopia can read Arthur Miller's "The Crucible," about how loving small towns in New England was in the 17th century to some of their citizens — above all, to "witches."
Or turn to Arkansas native Bette Greene's young adult novel (no doubt on someone's book-ban list now) about how a small town in the Arkansas hills deals a gay couple whose secret gets exposed. Spoiler: this novel does NOT have a happy ending.
And this list doesn't even touch on the extremely important and salient body of American literature written by people of color recounting their experiences with small-town USA — e.g., Maya Angelou's depiction of her experiences growing up in small-town south Arkansas, in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
Or the small-town Georgia we encounter in Alice Walker's Color Purple….
As Tori Otten writes, "The intended effect [of Jason Aldean's music video praising violen, repressive small towns] is to encourage violence against people protesting racial injustice."
So of course Republicans are eating the music video up.
Maryann reviews "Everything’s Better With You" by R.L. Merrill:
"A heartwarming story of family, friends, fun and love, filled with happiness, sadness, and drama. ... I highly recommend this, a story told from the heart."
And.... I just googled a bunch of history about it for the picture descriptions and learned new stuffs
1st: Our Town Hall, which just reopened last month after a multi-year restoration project, was built in 1909 and had been closed for the last 20 years (!) due to disrepair.
2nd: The statue in the middle of our commons is of Major Caleb Stark, who was born right here in Dunbarton in 1759 and served in the American War for Independence, including the Battle of Bunker Hill.
3rd: Caleb Stark was ALSO the son of General John Stark who appears to be the one from whom our state's motto, "Live Free or Die", originated.
Recently, on a cloudy day: a pseudo #work trip that became a food trip with friends to a #smalltown called #TanjungSepat on peninsular #Malaysia's west #coast—the sky, sea & #beach blending right into one another...