The Oak Ridger carried a story today reprinted from yesterday’s (Memphis) Commercial Appeal; perhaps predictably, it began with noting that the City recently rejected a proposed skateboard park, while approving a radioactive storage facility in the same meeting… something that probably paints us as elitist and nutty in most parts of the state.
The gist of the article is that Anderson County (including most of Oak Ridge) is one of 12 counties in Tennessee that have a record of voting for the winner in statewide and national elections, dating back 20 years or so. In the article, Memphis reporter David Waters paints a picture of the County’s economic and cultural diversity as an explanation for the phenomenon.
It was an interesting piece; I’m happy that the ‘Ridger reprinted it for us, as I don’t always read the CA in its entirety, although I do read at least some of it, most days. However, I do wonder how hard they looked to find Mary Harris, County Historian, who would happily perpetuate some myths that need to be slain once and for all.
“People in Oak Ridge tend to think they’re better than the rest of us,” said county historian Mary Harris, whose great-great-great grandfather was one of Anderson County’s first settlers.
“That naturally creates some tension between Oak Ridge and the rest of the county.”
I’d be glad to hear what Ms. Harris thinks, but I bristle at reading her interpretation of what I — an Oak Ridger — think, since we’ve never met and she’s never asked. I bet there are about 27,000 others out there who’ve never given her any slight, either.
Reading that article on top of GAC’s weird dream was a bit much. Now, I surely hope that GAC doesn’t find us snobby, given that we all had a good time hanging out on Daco’s porch the other day. We all like beer. We all like food. We all like kids. We all think education is important, and as best best I could tell, we all want something more for our children as we’ve achieved for ourselves.
Some of us were born here, some were not. I doubt that a stranger to the group (from anywhere) could tell who was native and who wasn’t.
Doubtless, Ms. Harris’ credentials run back 50 or 60 years, and there likely was some resentment among the East Tennessee folk who were booted off their land by the feds to make way for the wartime project. There may have been some assimilation difficulties in the 1940s, but that was a long time ago.
In the early 1980’s, I dated a fellow from Clinton whose mother told him that every Oak Ridge teenager got a brand new car and a credit card for their 16th birthday (WHOA — how did I miss out on that one?).
I think that the kids of today have less of a stereotype in mind, as my daughter has made friends with a number of Clinton kids that she met through the swim team and other activities. None of them seem to have the assumption that one or the other thinks themselves superior or inferior to the other.
So, what’s wrong with the grownups, and why does a “furriner” from Memphis highlight such a negative perception?
Although I’ve been in Knoxville too long to consider myself a foreigner, I’m from Memphis. I never thought of ANYONE in East TN as a snob compared to West TN’s Germantown.
No, Netmom, obviously I didn’t think you folks were snobby. But there has been a certain contingent of ‘Ridger that I’ve delt with that completely fits the description I gave you…
And no, it’s not just relegated to Oak Ridge. There are snobs everywhere.
Yes it was an interesting article and there were a few jewels to contemplate.
As for the difference in zoning, I’m not sure it was elitest or nutty as my first reaction was they(Oak Ridger’s)feel more at ease around things that most people would rather not think about, than they are about skateboarders which may project a less than desirable image of Oak Ridge.
But there was a couple of other things in the article that was thought provoking too.
““People in Oak Ridge tend to think they’re better than the rest of us,†said county historian Mary Harris, whose great-great-great grandfather was one of Anderson County’s first settlers.”
Projecting much, Ms. Harris?
I don’t know if I have the same concerns regarding Oak Ridge that GAC does. Growing up in Chattanooga, as you’ve pointed out, you get a real defined sense of class, and I’m still pretty sensitive to this (despite myself). A lot of the problem we had with Oak Ridge stems from the fact that while attending Glenwood, the PTO and other parents were Farragut style “soccer moms”, who didn’t necessarily work, had plenty of disposable income, were a decade or two older than us (with kids the same age) and lived a lifestyle that GAC and I don’t.
We got the feeling (maybe justified, maybe not) that they looked down their noses at us.
Now, the fact that they were all Oak Ridge natives, and probably carrying on the same kind of pecking order they had as highschool freshmen, may have had something to do with the perspective.
That said, we lived in the county before we lived in Oak Ridge (GAC grew up in Andersonville), so, yeah, theres a bit of a chip there. The folks in the county quite often feel that Ridgers are haughtier, BUT, I think its just a resurgence of that whole classism, which is the great -ism of the 21st century in America.
Like racism, tho, the people on the happy side of the class divide often don’t realize it.
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