Cities have people. A lot of them. Super close to one another. They also have a lot of coffee, which I’m sure contributes to the frenetic energy. Cities have historically been diverse places with respect to class, which means an educated and/or wealthy elite coexists in awful living conditions of underprivileged communities. All this to say, it’s very easy for a wealthy-ish benevolent white person to see communities of color getting FUCKED.
The reason I’m saying all this is because I’m “curious” (a word which I suspect is beginning to mean “afraid to admit guilty”) about poor white children. I was a poor white child in an inner-city and was able to benefit from some of the programs from the benevolent white people: free breakfast, free books, suburban “pen pals”. I also saw how necessary these programs were.
Now, when I imagine an “uneducated voter”, I imagine a “poor white”, of which I could have been if not for the programs and resources for “urban children” I benefited from that weren’t really for me in the first place. I think of Incels and Neo-Nazis and Florida. I must be honest here; if not, I’m part of the problem. In that vein, I cannot imagine a solution that ignores kindness towards the children of these communities.
White people make me uncomfortable for all kinds of reasons. I’m definitely in my comfortable zone in urban settings and certainly so aiding children from these communities. I’m uncomfortable, though, imagining volunteering in a rural community. If I said it’s because they scare me, I’d be lying. Or, at least, misleading.