City Hicks

By our previous definition of a hick, it stands to reason that people from urban areas might be just as likely to qualify.  Especially in the boorish category.  I was introduced to this fact, though I didn't know how to articulate it at the time, when I went to basic training.  I grew up in a rural area where there was almost no diversity but the school system (in my school) was fairly progressive and certainly had an open minded staff.  However, when I went to basic training at Fort Jackson, SC, I was not prepared for people who were products of urban school systems where racism was a daily issue and a fact of life and was not addressed by school staff or parents.  "I'm black, I can't be racist." was one of the brilliant quotes I heard from one of these mental midgets produced by the so called sophisticated city.

These people were almost completely uneducated, barely literate, devoid of the powers of reason attributable to an adult.  But, because of their sheer confidence, they were put in positions of leadership.  They had no real idea of the concepts of leadership.  They just knew how to be loud and overbearing.  In this, they were genius.  Of course, it wasn't important to the real people in charge that these blithering idiots were stifling any chance for real leaders to shine.  They were placed in charge because of their quickness to get physical.  Drill sergeants were not allowed to use physical means of discipline so they left it up to their goons from the inner cities who played football in high school and were itching to test their skills in a new environment.  But of course, like all bullies, they were all talk and no courage so before the end of the two month ordeal, most of them had fallen into disrepute and some had even been discharged for reasons such as disrespect and insubordination as well as outright assault.  The law, it seems, exists even in the isolation of boot camp and will be enforced if a person with real bearing and persistence insists on justice being upheld.

That was an extreme and vague example, I know.  It was a long time ago and a lot of the details have slipped my mind.  A more recent example would be person from Boston with whom I had a brief conversation.  It consisted of the usual questions and answers:  Where you from?  What do you do?  Now, I have what you might call a mid-western accent, which is to say, almost no accent, like a news anchor.  Most of the people I was exposed to as a child had no accent either.  However, a few had what I would call the country twang in their speech, but I always believed they did it for effect because it seemed to disappear when they were serious.  But the Bostonian seemed to think that my mid-western non-accent betrayed my ignorance and he mocked my speech in an exaggerated manner, sounding more like someone from say, Georgia or Alabama.  That's when I realized I was dealing with a city hick.  In his limited mind, anyone not sounding just like him and his Bostonian cronies had a southern accent and was automatically worthy of ridicule.  But the conversation continued and revealed some interesting points.  First, his answer to the "What do you do?" question was vague, as if he didn't want to reveal his profession, but it turned out, as the conversation progressed and I gained his trust, that he didn't really do anything other than sit in this diner all day and wait for the world to come to him.  I'd like to think he left with a different impression of people outside of Boston that day but I doubt it.  To be ignorant, you have to ignore.