Our neighbors don’t know us
All right, most of you know that I’m a proud product of East St. Louis. What you may not know is that one of my biggest annoyances in being from both East Boogie and the Land of Lincoln is the misconception (primarily from our neighbors on the other side of the Mississippi) that Illinois is some sort of undeveloped territory and that ESL is hell personified.
Admittedly, I’ve written about enough devils who happen to wickedly manipulate ESL government, education and leadership to partially have fostered that perception.
However, my problem stems from the other 99 percent of ESL residents being stereotyped and routinely lumped into the same general category as these heathens.
Oh, I hear your arrogance, St. Louis. When I’m out and about the St. Louis area, St. Louisians (black, white, rich and poor) have their widely accepted perceptions and stereotypes about “us.”
It’s as if we’re the constant punchline in a Rodney Dangerfield monologue. As Rodney would say, “We don’t get no respect at all!”
Recently, while sitting in a St. Louis barbershop, I painfully listened to a verbal tag-team attack on East St. Louis by a clique of brothers (who were oblivious to who I was or where I was from).
They swore that they “wouldn’t be caught dead on the East Side” after dark. Yet they proceeded to name a string of “dangerous” night clubs, strip clubs, juke joints and other places that I’ve never even heard of – and I LIVE in East St. Louis! Go figure.
Then these poor, pitiful, uninformed brothers went on to refer to the entire state of Illinois as a “country cow pasture.” Enough.
That’s when I was forced to blow my cover. “Excuse me, I happen to BE from East St. Louis, and I‘ve been listening to you brothers for the past hour,” I said.
“It seems that you know an awful lot about all the ‘dangerous’ spots in East Boogie – especially for folks who wouldn’t be ‘caught dead’ there.”
As they picked their broken faces up from the hairy barbershop floor, I went on to explain that if I used that same logic, then I “wouldn’t be caught dead in St. Louis” after a recent string of shootings and murders on St. Louis’ North Side.
I then went on to ask them if they thought St. Louis or Kansas City were more sophisticated or better-known than a little place called Chicago, Illinois. Strangely enough, not one of these characters had ever even been to Chicago.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t surprised by these brothers’ collective ignorance. After all, ignorance is the root of stereotypes, typecasting and prejudice. And these guys have to feel superior to someone or someplace (even if they’ve never left their own city), right?
This ignorance is certainly not limited to my brothers and sisters from the Show me State. I don’t believe I’ve ever been on a job interview in St. Louis where a white interviewer didn’t ask, “Well, how in the world did you go from East St. Louis Senior High to Boston University?” It’s almost as if they’re implying that I escaped from slavery or that they were unaware that we even have schools in ESL!
I remember during my employment with a local university that a white, one-armed, security guard made a two-hour daily commute from his trailer home in Ironton, MO. That’s a rough commute.
Yet, he constantly stated that he’d never even consider living in Illinois because there were “no decent places” to live, shop, eat, etc.
Check that out. My first thought (though I wouldn’t insult him by saying it aloud) was: does a trailer look any different if it’s parked in Illinois versus Missouri?
I always joked with this guy that, contrary to popular belief, he wouldn’t fall off the edge of the Earth if he crossed over to the East Side and that I would be willing to bet that there were more Missouri license plates than Illinois plates on the lot of the Casino Queen.
Then I went on about how the suburbs of Shiloh, O’Fallon and Fairview Heights were to Illinois what West County was to St. Louis, that we don’t pay personal property tax (like those in St. Louis) and that suburban homes on the East Side were far cheaper than those in Missouri.
He looked at me as if I were lying. I stopped making my case. Why would I want someone that irrational and ignorant living near me, anyway? After all, we’ve got our own problems to deal with.
Email: jtingram_1960@yahoo.com.
