And I note that New York City is a much safer, cleaner, more prosperous place than when I lived there in the late 80s, early 90s… New Yorkers cleaned out a lot of the riff-raff – including me.

I also want to thank Will Meyerhofer for allowing honest, critical comments about his views and for stepping back a bit and admitting that it isn’t completely fair to write off everyone and everything in the fly-over states from Manhattan to California.

I share with Will Meyerhofer the experience of working for a high level graduate degree from New York University (mine was an MBA) that I ultimately didn’t use. While Mr. Meyerhofer seems to think this degree and others puts him up in to a great high place to look down on all kinds of people, I look at my Stern New York University MBA degree as evidence that I – a high IQ elite person did something rather foolish that regular working folks in those fly over states would never do. My NYU MBA experience was humbling.

Maybe this experience here was a bit humbling for Will Meyerhofer – I hope so and hope that Will will be a bit more open minded and kind to other Americans from different regions, different classes. America has lots of problems, but on balance I think most folks should agree that life here is better than say in Taliban controlled parts of Afghanistan or Somalia.

Thanks again everyone – thanks Will, best of luck.

But that isn’t the reality. My hometown wasn’t perfect, but people who spoke in racist terms were always considered low-class, and either ignored or admonished. Pastors, teachers, community leaders all inveighed against racism. Whereas the rich white liberals I went to school with seemed to think that since they thought / voted the “right way,” they could say any bigoted thing with impunity. I had never heard some common stereotypes about various races (“Mexicans are lazy” / “Jews are cheap”) until I went off to college.

Thus, the equating of “flyover country” with bigotry while treating the coasts as some sort of progressive paradise irks me. Will still hasn’t explained how California (with its anti-gay marriage amendment passed by a large majority with lots of help from its large minorities) fits into the picture. And I’ve spent enough time in Queens (Astoria, family) and New Jersey to know that proximity to Greenwich Village doesn’t correlate to more of an open mind. If I was of the type to make wide generalizations and cast wider aspersions, I’d say it seems to be exactly the opposite. But I’ll leave that sort of work to Will.

Jim Webb, a Democratic Senator from Virginia, noted in an opinion piece that poor, rural whites face some of the greatest disadvantages in overcoming poverty and bettering themselves. In my observation, instead of receiving help and extra consideration, they are too often the target of jokes by the members of society who control the opportunities that could help them get ahead.

Not sure precisely what that means, but apparently some parabolic curves approximate the shape of a bell (at least according to Isaac Newton, a noted authority on these matters.)

Cici – I applaud your balanced perspective on the bar exam. I also prepared for CA while working, which isn’t much fun but is doable. Here’s a post about my approach, should it prove useful to you: http://thegirlsguidetolawschool.com/12/how-i-prepared-for-the-bar-exam/.

Best of luck!

Right now keeping my job is much more important than passing the first time because there are few opportunities to change jobs, and trying to manage the expectations and comments of the people who are trying to be supportive – “you’ll be fine” and “you’ll pass” is more stressful than preparing the exam. What is important in the end is keeping my own perspective, that is all I can control.

I live in Texas, in Austin to be specific. To you it may be a podunk little town in a fly-over state but to me it’s a dream come true. You ran away from Jersey as fast as you could to live in New York. I ran away from D.C. as fast as I could to live here. I love my city just as much as you love yours, I feel the same connection to Austin that you feel to New York, and I feel the same pride you do when I tell someone where I live. Like many Americans where I live is a personal choice; it’s part of my identity and it stings when someone craps all over that. I’m not reacting defensively because I’m insecure about where I live – I’m reacting because I LOVE where I live. It was my dream and I sacrificed a lot to get here. You don’t have to understand my choice but I’ll ask you to respect it.

My advice for clerks, from anywhere – not just NYC/LA – who are exiled to places they find geographically undesirable is to make the best of it. Do whatever you have to do to get by but try to avoid hunkering down with books and movies. Try new things – try football, try hiking – spend the year trying things you can’t easily find in the place to which you’re dying to get back. There’s a whole world out there that’s filled with people and experiences; it’s up to you to make the most of your time. Use the time as an opportunity to expand your worldview, become more informed, and absorb some regional charm. Give it a shot and even if you hate every second of it at least you’ll go home with an informed opinion.

I can’t speak for other places but Austin has a vibrant local culture and it would be hard to mistake it for anywhere else in the world. The “Keep Austin Weird” slogan is actually about supporting local businesses. If you want a Barnes & Noble or a Walmart be prepared to drive out toward the ‘burbs. But if you want culture go see some live music, swim in Barton Springs, bike Town Lake, try brisket, eat sushi out of an trailer, learn how to two-step, take an informal class at UT, and get your picture taken with a longhorn. We’ve got museums, operas, ballets, and an arts district too. Oh, and wine tasting; we’ve got lots of vineyards.

I didn’t like this column but it won’t keep me from reading your future efforts. I owe you a debt of gratitude for the free advice you’ve doled out through your series with ATL. Leaving the legal rat race was the best decision I have ever made but it was also a decision a lot of people didn’t understand. It helped a lot to be able to read your column during that time and it helps even now when I sometimes have doubts. Thank you.

With very few exceptions these people were lovely, interesting, open to the world and overall awesome (and trust me it’s hard to find people truly awesome when you spend over 2 weeks 24/7 with them and have to smile). However, a lot of these folks were telling me very similar stories to what Will (a tad excessively maybe) described.

I also got to see some incredible racism within groups. One incident in particular stayed in my mind when within a group of 50 pax I got two groups from Texas. One was an entire white religious young women group and the other a mixed (black/ white/ asian) group. The hatred from the white group towards the mixed group was actually shocking to the point I had to intervene. Other instances included chatting with black teachers and them telling me how bad racism was in their town and how discrimination meant that a lot of their black students had less chances of succeeding than their white peers.

All the people raging about this post seem to have conveniently ignored that a few posters from these “fly over countries”, have laughed and said “hey that’s true, that’s what I am experiencing/ have experienced”. It doesn’t mean it’s true for everyone, not even a minority but it means that some people recognise a few things and go “ha ha! That’s a good point”.

If I had to feel insulted every time someone made a joke about cheese-eating surrender monkeys, smell of garlic or how lazy we, as a country are supposed to be (we can find another hundreds of these people)… No, I just smile, shrug (which is something I can do merely from genetic heritage) and move on.

What you and some others are doing under the cover of righteous indignation, being openly antisemitic, homophobic and racist, thereby proving to the world that America still has an active number hateful morons. Congratulations!

And you might want to also add the truth that life for a gay, Jewish man is better in almost all parts of America than in some places like Saudi Arabia.

Take care and sorry about some of my stronger posts.

How about contacting Time Wise (Jewish anti racism writer/speaker that hates, despises White Americans – wants to see them die off, life support taken away from old White people in hospitals) – and maybe get together and watch a couple of episodes of the Andy Griffith TV show – Time Wise, hates the AGS – wants to see this world wiped away.

How is the original post supposed to be humorous? Thepeoplestherapist is comparing life in the 47 states as the same as being in Stalin’s Gulag Archipelago. He’s dismising all the poor and working class Whites in the US South, Midwest as worthless “trailer trash” – that’s about as hateful speech I’ve heard this year.

Most honest travellers from Europe, Asia or even Israel would admit that there are many nice, interesting places in the US South, Midwest where the locals are nice and there is authentic positive culture.

I went to college in Vanderbilt in Nashville TN in the 80s – Bob Marley’s best live music recordings were done in Nashville where there was a very strong Reggae fan base. And my experience was that Black – White relations were significantly better in Tennessee in the 1980s than in New York City in the 1990s when I lived in NYC.