By Anne Trubek
I regularly read Slate. I regularly read a raft of publications that are based in D.C., New York, San Francisco and other coastal cities. I have written for Slate and many national publications as well. But sometimes when I read these publications, I think: the writers and editors assume I do not read publications like theirs. I am not their intended audience.
Why? Because I live in the Rust Belt. And there is a discomforting post-colonial angle to many pieces written about the Rust Belt. The latest case in point is Alex MacGillis’ The Rust Belt Theory of Low-Cost High Culture, in which MacGillis explains to his readers that many cities in America have quality, affordable art museums and orchestras.
MacGillis is right, of course: there are many such cultural resources in the Rust Belt. A recent transplant from D.C. to Baltimore, MacGillis is delighted with these offerings, and it is to his credit that he takes advantage of them. It is also to Baltimore’s benefit that he purchases subscriptions and tickets and spends money at the restaurants near the concert halls and museums.
But MacGillis’ assumes he is explaining these cities’ offerings to his readers. That he has “discovered” something, and, by implication, that the Rust Belt is a land to be explored, full of people who do not themselves read publications like Slate (because you don’t explain something to the ‘natives’—you explain it to the tourists).
Here is the conclusion to his article about the cheap tickets you can buy to high-culture venues in the Rust Belt:
“Some day, the bargains may vanish, once more people here in town realize what they’re missing out on, or once more people from overpriced and oversaturated cities like Washington discover what’s up the road. But for now, the deals are there for the taking, and we’ll be first in line, making the most of our happy singularity.”
“Discover”? “Our happy singularity?”
MacGillis and his wife are not the only patrons at the events they enjoy: the orchestras are not playing to empty seats; the galleries are not walked by them alone. Others in Baltimore—and Detroit, Milwaukee, Buffalo and Cleveland—buy tickets, too. So why this odd ending? Either because MacGillis does not see—or just elides the presence of—the “natives” joining him, or because he assumes the only people reading his article are those who live in the “creative-class capitals such as New York and Boston, where theaters and concert halls can fill seats with deep-pocketed local elites and high-spending tourists,” as he writes earlier in the piece.
But of course, there are over 50 million people living in the Rust Belt. Almost all are fluent in English, and many read Slate. Like me.
The rhetorical assumptions here, as in many other similar pieces, are post-colonial. They position those living in the Rust Belt as the simple locals (“once more people here in town realize what they’re missing out on”), and the Rust Belt a new territory to be “discovered.”
All the pieces are there: the delightful natives, the elite who discovers them, and, also, the hint of profit down the line: “some day, the bargains may vanish.” So not only can coastal elites trek off to exploit the cheap charms of the Rust Belt (and feel a bit of white—or coastal—guilt, as MacGillis says he feels about paying so little for such riches), but there is an assumed narrative of progress at work here. Presumably, “once more people from overpriced and oversaturated cities like Washington discover what’s up the road,” prices will rise. The implied message? Get in early while it’s still cheap, and you can profit later on.
And we all know how well things usually turn out when a group of outsiders with money decide a place might be worth more than it is currently valued and starts buying things.
I do not think MacGillis has any such nefarious motive, and it is true I am using his piece to make a point I have long been thinking about. Which is that what MacGillis and Slate—and other writers in other publications— forget is that people in Baltimore (which, by the way, is a city few would agree is part of the Rust Belt)—and Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, etc.—read national publications, too. We read them the morning after we have gone to a concert, and before we are off to the museum. We also read them while we struggle with our bills, and worry about the decaying infrastructure and continued loss of jobs. Because we are part of the nation, and part of the conversation about the troubled economy and cultural resources of this sizable portion of the United States.
To forget this fact is to continue the unintended “happy, ignorant native” narrative being built about the Rust Belt by national publications today. Imagine a British writer publishing an account in a London newspaper describing his sojourn to India in 1920. Okay, I exaggerate—but you get the point.
Sometimes I joke that I should to pitch Slate or The Boston Globe a piece that goes something like this: “I live in Cleveland and I visited New York last month, and I was amazed to discover all these ethnic grocery stores and cool small museums! Would you like a travel piece on the gems of New York City?”
It would never fly. But such stories about the Rust Belt do. They make great “look what I discovered” fodder. The millions of us who read these articles while living here in the territories are not surprised to learn basics about our cities—though many are often very excited to have the coastal elites “discover” our charms (the Uncle Toms of the Rust Belt?).
Me? It makes me queasy and uneasy. The Rust Belt is not a continent to be explored—a diamond in the rough to be mined—and people who live or relocate here are not “pioneers,” with all the Manifest Destiny that implies. When the coastal media forget that we who live here are their audience too, they are at best depriving themselves of 50 million readers, and at worst perpetuating a dynamic long-ago proven disastrous.
Hey Ann, I agree with you. I think that the approach of “Hey! I found something neato! You might like it too!” is the mark of a beginner. Certainly it’s something I used, inadvertently, as a young reporter. Also, I thought this article in The Atlantic about Pittsburgh’s art scene was much better: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/12/how-the-cultural-arts-drove-pittsburghs-revitalization/383627/
Hear hear! And by the way let’s encourage banishing the phrase “Rust Belt” entirely. Can the NYT (or other coastal media) EVER refer to a city like Cleveland without use of the phrase “Rust Belt,” as if no one knows where the city is located? At worst it’s condescending; at best it’s tiresome. The national media, as I opined in my own simple way, is need of a geographical consciousness-raising.:
http://jimsulecki.com/2013/10/26/that-place-is-a-hole-why-journalism-needs-a-big-geographic-consciousness-raising/
Thank you for helping to address this maddening issue. Condescending and tiresome are fantastic adjectives to capture much of the underlying tone of coastal (and increasingly sunbelt). We’re either rotting, discarded carcasses or backwards places filled with simple, quaint people. How nice to see that we are becoming someplace for more sophisticated, accomplished people from other regions to “discover”. Pathetic.
Well said! I cringe at the term “flyover states” and often wonder why publications aimed at a global audience publish such short sighted stories. Are they really surprised that we actually have culture and intelligence here? A brief glimpse of cultural history would reveal many influential figures who called the Midwest home.
Slate would be lucky to have your byline, Anne. I think you could have put a finer point on your argument with a line you once uttered to me: “People in Cleveland have a sort of ‘fuck the coasts’ attitude.” When a blind spot comes into full view, writers ensconced in their insular world tend to respond as if they were Lewis and Clark. Pity on them (the writers, not the famed explorers) for failing to realize that no corner of this nation lacks for a distinctive identity, an enlightened and impassioned local constituency, and many important stories to be told. When I landed in Missouri as a cub reporter after having lived In New York, London, and Paris, I was at first angry and depressed because I fancied myself above the Midwestern mindset and way of life. Boy, was I wrong. My arrogance and self-involvement was soon battered and eroded by the cast of characters whose lives I was lucky enough to enter. The stories I wrote in my mind, uncharitable and bemused, became on the page matter-of-fact and strangely (for me) lacking in overt opinion and emotion. When I saw my first byline, Joseph I. Bargmann, an affectation caused by a steady diet of the NYT, New Yorker, International Herald Tribune, and other lofty publications, I blanched and switched to Joe Bargmann with subsequent stories. Moral of the story, for me, at least, is that a journalist should never consider him- or herself a stranger in a strange land. We are who we are, as writers. We bring the wealth of our experience, our distinctive point of view, and our powers of observation to our work. We ought never to allow prejudice, provincialism, or self-righteousness to influence our point of view. So, screw the Slate writer’s narrow field of view and poorly developed filter. MacGillis is the most dangerous kind of snob: one who does not realize he is a snob. Arrogance and ignorance are a very dangerous combination!!
A lot of interesting and valid points in this article, but the racial/colonial metaphor makes me feel queasy and uneasy myself. I’m not a fan of using race as a metaphor for anything, which you do here implicitly throughout and explicitly with the references to Uncle Tom and British colonialism in India. It feels too much as if you’re suggesting that being from the Rust Belt makes you part of a new oppressed minority subjugated by the coastal elites, regardless of actual race of the people involved. To be fair, racial dynamics cannot be ignored here, and the issues you bring up here are very relevant to the gentrification of Rust Belt cities, not to mention that you’re doing the ever-necessary work of calling out people who “discover” things that have existed for ages. Still, (post-)colonialism, racism, and Manifest Destiny are all separate things from current coast vs. interior dynamics, and I’d argue that it’s very important not to lose the nuance. Given the title, I would’ve liked to see something more along the lines of exploring racial dynamics within the Rust Belt (which both insiders and outsiders contribute to) in a way that doesn’t seek to construct new, spurious oppressed identities.
I love the move to think critically about our region, and with important and sophisticated theoretical tools–I jumped in delight when I saw the title of the article. But Kevin is correct–and it seems what you mean here is colonial, not post-colonial. It is an interesting comparison indeed, and the warning to not rediscover what is already there and vibrant as your own. Your critique then is really, on a theoretical level, pre-colonial: warning against a colonial move on the Rust Belt. And although there is some strong theoretical resonance there, Kevin is right to insist on a larger contextual analysis for the multi-valence of this kind of critique and terminology in this already colonized and colonizing place.
“It feels too much as if you’re suggesting that being from the Rust Belt makes you part of a new oppressed minority subjugated by the coastal elites, regardless of actual race of the people involved.”
I would absolutely argue that the Rust Belt, in many ways, is oppressed as a region–though perhaps not solely by the “coastal elites.” The thing that’s so problematic about this sort of cultural exploitation (it was as though MacGillis wrote about Baltimore “Look, it’s almost like a real city!”) is that the region is seeing a definite economic exploitation as well. It can be definitely rewarding for a large corporation to take advantage and profit from the poverty created by rampant job loss and economic uncertainty, which this region definitely faces. It’s a phenomenon faced nationally, as the recession rages on, but I do think that it’s productive to note the Rust Belt’s vulnerability to cyclical poverty and, thus, oppression.
Just an observation from a kid who was born in Southern California, did most of my coming-of-age in Madison, Wisconsin, have lived in Indiana for the last several years, and am planning a move to Seattle–with lots of travel time in between. 😀
Yes,yes and again yes. I am tired of being demeaned,marginalized and generally insulted by these types of writings and writers. Please send your piece to the author of that article.
St. Louis is glaringly absent from this article!
I tend to agree with Kevin and S’s revision of the term to colonial (or neocolonial or pre-colonial). However, I didn’t want to put too broad a point on this–I am not really arguing that East Coast publications see Rust Belters are “happy savages” with all the racial and other issues involved–I am saying that the rhetorical choices the writers and publications use when writing about the Rust Belt often echo such approaches. In other words the point was and stays rhetorical.
This entire article could be about the South as much as the Rust Belt….I love NYC cultural coverage by the major institutions like the NYTimes, NYer, Slate, Atlantic, NYRB, etc…. but the South is definitely treated this way but with condescension instead of pity.
I would disagree that Baltimore is not part of the Rust Belt. Home to the largest steel plant in the world for over 100 years (http://www.hsobc.org/bethlehem-steels-rail-mill/) and the birthplace of continental rail (the Baltimore & Ohio), Baltimore was a titan of American industry through the 1970s until it hit the same systematic decline as Detroit, Cleveland, and Buffalo. It is now considered the flyover country of the east coast, a train stop between D.C. and Philadelphia. While slightly geographically disconnected from the heart of the Rust Belt, it is very much of the same spiritual cloth.