REDNICK REDUX: DENSE CHARACTERIZATION

Just before he left Missouri to re-establish his residence in Boston, a St. Louis lawyer wrote an angry letter to the Post-Dispatch condemning the city and its residents. It was not the kind of letter an extremely intelligent person would write since it was principally devoted to thoughtless name calling, parochial slurs and regional put-downs.

The attorney, a man named Paul Johnson, characterized St. Louisans as "hateful, ignorant, racist prejudiced and uneducated white trash." And those were some of his nicer words for the city he had sought out to obtain his law degree. Mr. Johnson had only words of praise for his native Boston, a city that has been characterized by others as having the same qualities as St. Louis. As we said, it was not a letter that displayed great intelligence or even a modicum of understanding.

As might be expected, the letter drew scores, perhaps even hundreds that couldn't be published, of answers from angry St. Louisans. Their anger was understandable, given the negative tone of Mr. Johnson's observations about their home town. Most of the writers wondered why Johnson had chosen to attack their city and why he should have arrived at his negative conclusions.

The incident reminded us of a few ill-chosen words that were uttered during the Democratic primary campaign earlier this year. We refer to the labeling of Lt. Gov. Mel Carnahan as a "redneck from Rolla," a phrase that had a certain alliterative ring to it but which, like Paul Johnson's words, had little basis of fact. The candidate who chose to utter the phrase was no doubt only using a description he had heard many times in his St. Louis neighborhood and from his political friends in the metropolitan area.

It could only be assumed in such quarters that anyone who lived in Rolla, also make that outstate Missouri, was automatically a redneck, a term that instantly conjures up someone who is "hateful, ignorant, racist prejudiced and uneducated white trash."

Isn't it regrettable that our society does not hesitate to use descriptions that, if tested by logic, are totally false and equally destructive and dehumanizing? Isn't it sad that society employs words that unfairly characterize others and are so often far from accurate?

Many of the same St. Louisans who objected to Paul Johnson's letter have used similarly distasteful and tasteless words to describe those who live in Rolla, Hannibal, Lamar, Farmington, Maryville, Owensville and Cape Girardeau. When the same newspaper that published Johnson's letter sends a reporter to some outstate area, the usual focus is on the "hateful, ignorant, racist prejudiced and uneducated white trash" who are supposed to exist in small communities. Certainly most of the letters condemning the Johnson denunciation denied that any resided in the state's largest metropolitan area.

Long ago we abandoned any hope of convincing urban residents that there was any intellectual, cultural or social life in rural sections of Missouri. The bias against anyone choosing to live in a community that is relatively free of crime and drugs, where neighbors not only know each other's names but care about their lives, appears to be a permanent part of urban folklore. As if where one lives determines one's intellect, social skills or cultural appreciation.

The problem with this parochial prejudice is that it influences the way Missourians in public service respond to state programs, initiatives and government in general. There is no more powerful division in the General Assembly than between urban and outstate. Measures that seemingly favor one area of Missouri are immediately viewed as suspect by other members; some lawmakers automatically vote against bills that are introduced by members from a different area.

This division is not new. Unfortunately, it has been around a long time, only it has grown worse in recent years as the parochialism has been passed from one generation to the next. The urban-outstate distrust is so pervasive that recent legislative sessions have been unable to agree on writing an equitable formula to distribute state school funds to children, a generation which has become the victim of ancestral antipathy and dislike. Lawmakers are still struggling to overcome this parochialism as they seek a formula agreeable to everyone.

It has often been said there are several separate and distinct sections in our state. Geographically, this is no doubt true, and perhaps it is even reasonably accurate when one listens to the way Missourians speak and pronounce certain telltale words. There are drawls and twangs that are indigenous to certain areas, but they only identify the speaker. They only characterize the way they speak, not their mental capacity nor the depth of their souls. It is a truth we must not ignore.