Book Review
Bones Bones
By Sarah Smarsh
Scribner: 352 pages, $29.99
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To bring down the walls that divide America, we must first understand. In the essay “Bone of the Bone,” the reporter Sarah Smarsh combines memoir with political analysis and journalistic criticism to reverse-engineer cultural divides.
The descriptors “red state” and “blue state” are certainly inaccurate, he said. Worse, calling large swaths of the nation “Trump country” suppresses voices of resistance, especially those in the white working class.
What’s missing from most of the news coverage, Smarsh said, is the tradition of journalism that he has been gifted with and that made him admire President Obama. “A real story consists of two strands, a spiral: the specific and the universal,” he wrote. Her story uncovers the truth about economic structures and political decisions behind the stories of affected individuals.
Much reporting on working-class America has failed miserably in recent years, including in coverage of Donald Trump’s 2015-16 campaign: National reporters did not understand the terms of being labeled a follower of the billionaire. As Smarsh writes: “The problem starts with language: elite pundits often misrepresent ‘working class’ as shorthand for right-wing white men in tool belts.”
As many local newspapers have gone out of business in the internet age, most countries lack reporting from journalists who know their local communities. Instead, we get national publications such as the New York Times sending correspondents for a day or a week, parachuting into the community and – very often – mostly reporting on people whose views fit the established narrative.
During the 2016 presidential election, when national reporters were constantly reporting from some Ohio restaurant full of disaffected whites, an ethnically diverse working-class coalition. 26,450 Kansans overwhelmingly support it Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) became the Democratic nominee – far more votes than Donald Trump received in the Republican race (17,062). Two years later, Kansans elected a Democratic governor. So why has the national media and the Democratic Party failed to focus on Kansas and various states alike? Because it represents the working class as a monolith, important stories and organizational opportunities are ignored.
The failure to understand Kansas politics continues: In 2022, when Kansas voters overwhelmingly turned out to vote to protect the right to abortion, many in the national press were surprised, then quickly pivoted to examine how women’s anger at the loss of bodily autonomy has influenced even such a “conservative” place.
Smarsh, who lives in Kansas, knows better, writing that “it was never a Trump state” but, “like many ‘red states,’ Kansas is a dark, dark place where the election results may have to do with who voted and who who is chosen rather than with the character of the place. Tapping local expertise and including stories from individuals helps to inoculate journalism against such mischaracterizations.
Smarsh’s ability to interweave stories – including aspects of life – places him in the tradition of working-class journalism exemplified by Studs Terkel, Barbara Ehrenreich and others. Writing about people whose work is important but whose humanity is ignored has allowed Smarsh to expose America’s internal class prejudices and fears.
This is why “Bone of the Bone” resonated for me. As a working-class kid, I grew up close to many of the issues Smarsh describes. As an adult today and a writer, I see that many journalists covering the working class lack relevant life experience and do not do the work to understand other people’s lives.
The deep empathy that animates Smarsh’s prose is combined with a powerful intellect committed to uncovering and elucidating the structural causes of our current cultural moment. His 2014 essay “Poor Teeth” thoughtfully separates the convenient elitist myth from the painful reality of the American people.
In America today, “bad teeth” often lead to a lack of access to dentistry, which is not covered by health insurance; malnutrition in young children; lack of access to fluoridated water; and the consumption of low-calorie or junk food, which Smarsh said as a child “reduced dopamine production in a difficult home.” Paying for orthodontia is unimaginable for many Americans. Smarsh writes that he is lucky to have straight teeth, despite years of tooth and jaw pain that his family could not treat.
In contrast to the abbreviation of many media depictions, which “toothless” is seen as a symptom of moral turpitude, lack of self-care, possible addiction to meth. It’s one of those fun narratives where the “haves” tell each other about the “have-nots” – like when pretending Type 2 diabetes is due to bad choices, or imagining that poor nutrition is the result of impulsiveness rather than affordability, or assuming that health is available to anyone who will be able to get it. Smarsh essay (one of them my quotes) told me he was fed up with shallow and lazy dismissals of inequality.
Smarsh was the first in his family to graduate from college, and his experience contradicted right-wing propaganda that a college education brainwashes students into liberal views. For him, it was the extreme inequality during and after college that changed his politics and made him socially unjust. He felt it was unfair that he “does well on campus while paying for his own schooling and then graduates poor because he has no social capital” while “underprivileged kids walk into prestigious internships and lucrative jobs.”
In “How Is Arguing With Trump Voters Working Out for You,” Smarsh shares the story of Megan Phelps-Roper, granddaughter of Kansas-based founder Fred Phelps. hate group Westboro Baptist Church. Phelps-Roper was raised in a community dominated by his grandfather, whose hatred of LGTBQ+ people fueled the group. repulsive protest and attracted national attention. Smarsh writes that Phelps-Roper’s childhood and limited education meant that her ability “to assess information was misrepresented.” In an interview, Phelps-Roper recounted the kind strangers who “showed kindness to me when I didn’t seem to deserve it,” people who were willing to “suspend judgment long enough to talk to me completely changed my life. ” He then left the hate group.
In the “write them dead” tenor in the argument of national division, reaching out to people like Phelps-Roper would appear as hope. But people can be reached, Smarsh said.
He said a combination of factors had destroyed the opportunity for Americans to understand each other. Millions live in the country’s working areas under economic inequality, state-imposed educational restrictions and electoral interference. The elected officials from there do not reflect the opinions or interests of the constituents. But when outsiders attach labels such as “Trump country” or “red country,” they ignore the solidarity that exists and the possibility of developing empathy.
Ascribing monolithic characteristics to various individuals provokes anger on both sides. The smugness of those who live in privilege alienates those who do not and furthers the right wing aiming to divide and conquer the country.
Blaming the citizens of “red states” for the challenge is just a modern iteration of “Let’s eat cake.” After such rhetoric, revolution tends to follow.
Lorraine Berry is a writer and critic living in Oregon.