tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15557109.post-1159876321057542612006-10-03T07:51:00.000-04:002006-10-09T13:58:39.193-04:00<em>Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2006 12:59:35 -0400<br />From: Katha Pollitt <katha.pollitt@GMAIL.COM><br />Subject: Re: invisibility<br /><br />I'm interested that you see 'regionalism" as comparable to racism. <br />Do<br />Dakotans have trouble getting served in restaurants? Do cabs not stop<br />for them? Do they get longer sentences than other Americans for the<br />same crimes? As a New Yorker, and thus hopelessly prejudiced, I really<br />have trouble seeing the upper Middle West as invisible -- I feel I am<br />constantly getting the message that that's the heartland, where the<br />real Americans live, and that my NYCculture and values are alien and<br />immoral. What strikes me as especially unfair is that because of<br />the electoral college and the fact that every state has two<br />senators,regardless of size, citizens of small rural states like ND<br />have fantastically greater political clout than big states like NY. A<br />voter in Wyoming has 71 times the weight of one in California. Who's<br />invisible there?<br /> Taken together, small rural states control 44 senate seats, while<br />having 11 percent of the population. Black people have about the same<br />percentage of the population -- there is currently one black senator.<br />Women, of course, are more than half the population, and are grossly<br />underrepresented too.<br /> If we're going to talk about regionalism and invisibility these are<br />facts that belong in the mix.<br /><br />Katha Pollitt</em><br /><br />I don't have the will, friends.ELhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04104158886383606608noreply@blogger.com