TEXAS: IT AIN'T ALL BAD
A Yankee visits the Lone Star state

By Hannah Selinger | RAW STORY COLUMNIST

Last Thursday, I took my life in my hands, boarded a plane in Newark, NJ, and flew straight into the eye of the storm. Okay, I’m exaggerating. Meteorologists had predicted that Hurricane Rita would make landfall in Houston and I was going to Austin. But those reliable weathermen also predicted torrential downpours, and I was on my way to a 3-day music festival. Outdoors.

Such began my trip to Texas. Perhaps trepidation is too light a word to use to describe my feelings upon entering the South. I wasn’t only entering Hurricane Central, but I was also entering Texas, which no doubt instilled in me more fear than the actual storm. I don’t think I was alone in pledging, after last year’s election, that I would never visit the state of Texas.

A short flight later and I was in the thick of it, accents and all. I saw a lot of Longhorn paraphernalia. I ate chopped beef. I sweltered in the Texas autumn. I stifled sighs at the “Don’t Mess With Texas” slogans and, most notably, the sign above an East Austin car lot that read, “We Shoot to Kill. Feeling Lucky?” (Not here, I thought.) But here was what surprised me most, even more than the fact that the state’s interior received not one solitary drop of rain: Texas wasn’t actually that bad.

Rest assured I won’t be moving to the Lone Star state any time soon, but it wasn’t all Stetson-wearing corporate cowboys, nor was it overtly political, even at Houston’s aptly named George Bush Intercontinental Airport, where I connected on my way home. For the most part, it was inherently Texas, and being inherently anything is not necessarily bad. Houston oil fields aside, the state had flavor.

The problem is, we northerners are born with distaste for the south. I was raised with cold weather, New England mispronunciation, a penchant for American League baseball and, of course, hatred for the Old Confederacy. Emily Saliers, one half of the musical duo The Indigo Girls, once wrote, “When God made me born a Yankee, he was teasing.” It may not be that clever a line, but it points to a divide that Americans have never figured out how to broach. There is Yankeeland and Dixieland, and never the two shall meet.

That being said, it is always surprising when a place isn’t as bad as we expect it to be. I knew Austin was the small blue oasis in a very large red state, but still, I expected an inundation of right-wing politics as soon as my plane touched ground. Instead, I had a lost cell phone returned, saw only one What Would Jesus Do? bracelet, and was offered only one pamphlet on following Jesus’ path. (I told her I was a Democrat.) Beyond that, it was a civil and lovely weekend, despite the heat.

Of course, my expectations were part of the problem. It is impossible to unite an entire nation and to fight the massive problems of poverty, healthcare, and—perhaps even more pressing in light of recent events—global warming when our entire nation refuses to unite. Regionally, Americans are tied to traditions of dislike that began from the Civil War and refused to end with the 2004 Presidential Election. It seems we never stopped fighting the secession.

It is so clichéd to talk about uniting rather than dividing. The United States is a large and disparate country, full of state identity, regional identity, and national identity. To pigeonhole an American is to deny the fact that we all relate to very specific parts of the country in very specific ways. Even Hellmann’s mayonnaise goes by a different name in the west than it does in the east. How can a country full of so many confusions and contradictions expect to converge?

Under no circumstances would it be beneficial for Americans to give up their regional identities in favor of a stronger national one. Somewhere in the middle is where we must meet. If the rumors are true, and the country is growing redder, those of us who live in the coastal blue carry with us a tremendous amount of responsibility. We can still applaud Texans for their quirky accents, exemplary barbecue, and massive oil industry, even as we try to change their political ways.

I’ve decided to stop hating Texas, even if I still hate the President. Because what I love about this country is that there are regions. What I love about this country is that one hour on the highway yields different landscapes, different accents, different cuisine. What I love about this country is that the American story is varied, comes from different populations and different cultures, and provides, for the outsider, an indefinable experience. From baked beans to barbecue, it’s our story, and who would want it any other way?

Hannah Selinger is a weekly contributor to Raw Story .