i’m lucky in the fact that I grew up with pretty progressive parents but in the 6th grade we moved from our diverse/urban home to the middle of the bible belt. In 08 I entered high school and oh my god, the racism and homophobia was absolutely insane. These are teenagers of course, so you could tell they’re just regurgitating their parents opinions (who in turn are just spouting fox news propaganda) but it was generally counter culture as fuck to not want to murder the newly elected president. they had prayer circles outside the school every morning that I had to walk through (this was a public school, too).

I remember a friend of mine had a pentecostal family and one wednesday night he begged me to go to the service with him because he hated it so much and wanted a friend to hang out with. there I saw classmates of mine jumping up and speaking in tongues, absolute madness. I really hated moving from my beautiful home city (fuck it, i’ll just say it: i’m from new orleans, we moved there after katrina) to this backwards ass hick town. I was very angsty about it. louisiana history class was me debating human fucking rights for minorities/queer people with my teacher and the entire class against me. biology teacher didn’t believe in evolution (told my mom and she want to the school and gave them so much shit lol).

it sucked being there as a teen but it also had a profound effect on me and it’s obvious i’d be a completely different person without that experience. I also learned to empathize with these cretins which in turn led me down the path of marxism as opposed to becoming a coastal elite shitlib. feel free to ask any other questions about their culture/vibe if you want.