Dorothy opens the cellar door, not in Kansas anymore.
I’ll begin by making readers two promises about all content. 1) I am no expert on any of the events, issues, or ideologies I discuss. My interpretation of all these topics is influenced by light research, “the mainstream media” (ha), my own experiences and views, and minor discussions I may have had with friends or family. In other words, please do not take these words as any source of reliable, sound information, and above all please do not take them as an assumption of absolute truth. This blog is primarily to provoke thought, and not necessarily to inform. 2) I promise not to overdo the Wizard of Oz metaphor and its tributary parallels. Evidently, the Wizard of Oz is a literary work whose purpose was not to tell the coming-of-age story of a Kanas girl in a strange new world. Though I hate to suggest it with the title of this blog, I simply couldn’t resist after all the Wizard of Oz jokes thrown at me after my move to LA. In my defense, a girl can really get to feeling like Dorothy after the 1,000.000th rendition of “You’re not in Kansas anymore!” at the slightest expression of difference. Nevertheless, I promise to keep the Oz references to a minimum. My Kansas context is admittedly nothing like Dorothy’s, though I will say, LA bears some striking resemblances to Oz. But I’ll leave that bit its own post. For now, back to my Kansas context. Mon Kansas á moi.
Maybe it’s unfair to label me a bona fide, born & raised Kansas girl—it’s simply not the case. I grew up neither on a farm nor in a small town, but rather a safe, moderately elitist WASPish suburb of Kansas City. For those familiar with the hubs of middle America, it goes without saying that eastern Kansas is entirely different from its western counterpart, the one coast dwellers are quick to draw from at the mention of *completely illogical southern accent* “Kansas.” If I had to generalize my hometown politically (though I don’t want to give the impression that it is by any means homogenous), I’d classify Johnson County as only moderately conservative. Most Republicans in our district still believe in things like our prestigious public education (one of the most reputable in the nation), and are relatively more open to progressive social issues. The western portion of the state, however, can’t wrap its mind around funding for things like public school orchestra programs, Latin classes, and non-homophobic labor laws. It’s a divide more complex than outsiders may care to see, and I think it represents a slowly growing schism in the Republican Party. Yet, in the eyes of the rest of the country, there’s no escaping our red-state status.