About Wisconsin, pt 1

For the next two months, I am taking time away from New York and spending time in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to focus on prep for grad school applications and tests. This is the first time I have spent a considerable amount of time in the Midwest in the past two years. I have thoroughly enjoyed myself on the East coast, living mostly in Brooklyn and some time in Washington, DC. Oddly enough, I realized that my regional proximity has kept me ignorantly, and possibly naively, happy. Basically, I feel as if I am in my own perfect bubble of intellectual and political conversation; possibly, even my own intellectual circle jerk. Every time I attempt to get one of my friends or colleagues to come visit Milwaukee, I get the expected eye roll, and the following “really Sabrina?” I would like to hope this mostly has to do with the fact that there is ostensibly nothing to do here, especially from the perspective of a New Yorker. But I fear that the disdain of visiting Milwaukee has more to do with the perceived lack of a diverse culture, be it racially or ethnically. Furthermore, I fear that in the upcoming general election in 2020, the political consequences may be greater than we can imagine. If we still continue to ignore middle America because of the perceived lack of culture, are we only further separating and hurting ourselves?

This fear is not unfounded; as many of us know, since 2016 dozens of journalists have sought the endeavor to “understand” the mindset of the White, working class, Trump-voting Midwesterner (I’m looking at you New York Times!). Often times, from the perspective of a Black Midwesterner, these stories feel half-baked and overly sympathetic to a person apathetic to white supremacy and pervasive misogyny. The duality of these two narratives for the Midwest, that being 1) a society lacking in culture, and 2) full of White, working class Trump voters make the Midwest seem pretty bleak. It’s easy to buy into these narratives; hell, I even did it myself and I grew up here! But instead, what I will try to do is bring a true narrative of the Midwest to light.

I want to learn more about culture, in all its many racial and political demographics, has evolved to necessitate evolved Midwestern values. Are we truly just a group of extremely nice people that drinks a lot of beer, and does not care about politics? Admittedly, this is what I shallowly believe of Midwesterner culture broadly; join me in unlearning this possibly detrimental perception. New Yorkers aren’t coming to the Midwest, so I want to bring the Midwest to them. Bring to light what matters to Midwesterners, black and white, progressive and conservative. What are the consequences of our seemingly pretentious actions to think ourselves so highly as to deny an appreciation for an unknown culture? Over the next six weeks, I will scurry to find and write about what is valuable to different groups of Milwaukeeans. My absolute dream is to generate a dynamic intellectual conversation across geographic culturally different regions, not in the hope of healing, but in the hope of basic understanding.