Tube City Almanac

April 22, 2008

Perhaps the Last Hardscrabble Watch

Category: Hardscrabble Mon Valley Watch || By

Finally, the presidential candidates found their way into the Mon Valley.

And finally, the national media have obliged us with the kind of stories we've been waiting for --- we're a bunch of beer-swilling, redneck rubes who live for the past in "crumbling ghost towns."

Yeah, there's an element of truth in these stories. I'm not blind. I know what our towns look like. But these reports don't do us any favors.

Then again, we don't do ourselves any favors, either.

This story from Dana Milbank of the Washington Post kind of sums up how the world sees Our Fair City, rightly or wrongly.

It's headlined, "In This Forgotten Town, Obama Can Forget About It":

This town was bitter before bitter was fashionable.

The Monongahela River Valley lost its steel mills in the '80s and, a quarter-century later, this sad town in the heart of the Mon Valley still hasn't recovered. Its downtown is a collage of crumbling buildings, and its once-proud landmark, the 102-year-old People's Union Bank Building, has signs in the window: Bank Repo Sale. Excellent Deal. Eight stories. Priced to sell!

It is, in short, just the sort of place Barack Obama was talking about when he said he wasn't getting the support of blue-collar workers of the industrial heartland because they "cling" to guns and religion out of economic bitterness. It is also the place Obama chose to visit on Monday night, on the eve of Tuesday's primary -- and the reception here explains why Obama, the national front-runner, is expected to lose Pennsylvania.

And it goes on like that, getting worse and worse and worse.

Make sure to read the comment that Obama just wants to be president "because he's black," and about the guy who plans to vote for McCain if Obama gets the nomination.

Like I said, we don't do ourselves any favors.

. . .

I noted last week that a reporter for the U.K.'s Telegraph was in Clairton. His story has finally appeared:
In Clairton, a once-thriving community, where The Deer Hunter was filmed in the mid-1970s, the population has shrunk by two thirds in the past 30 years.

Jobs at the huge steel mill beside the Monongahela River have steadily disappeared.


And blah, blah, blah.

Actually, The Deer Hunter wasn't filmed in Clairton. It was filmed in Cleveland and Mingo Junction, Ohio. But --- whatever.

. . .

After the Pennsylvania Primary, will the national media stick around to tell any good stories about the Mon Valley?

Will they look for any positive signs of life?

Will they interview the people who have turned the old YWCA on Ninth Avenue into The Common Ground?

Will they talk to the volunteers at the Carnegie Library of McKeesport or the McKeesport Symphony Orchestra or the McKeesport Heritage Center or the Bethlehem Baptist Church or any of the other organizations who are invested in our community?

Will they talk to any of the bright students at McKeesport or Serra or South Allegheny or East Allegheny or Steel Center Vo-Tech or West Mifflin?

Of course not. The Washington Post, the New York Times and all the rest don't care.

It's easier to make us a punchline. And we in the "forgotten towns" will be forgotten again by the national media.

At least until the fall.

Hey, what do you know? I guess I am bitter!

. . .

Update: Here are some sympathetic words about McKeesport from --- of all places --- the National Review:

At the Clinton rally in California, and also one across the state in Bethlehem, I asked a lot of people, all of them white, whether they would vote for Obama if he wins the Democratic nomination. More than half of them said no. One man told me he would move to Canada. At this Obama rally, I ask ten people, most of them black, the flip-side question -- If Clinton were the nominee, would you vote for her? Everyone says yes, they would vote for Clinton. "She's a Democrat, I'm a Democrat, and I support the party," a man named Mark tells me. It's a striking difference from the Clinton crowd.

Then there's the "bitter" question. Of course everyone here has heard about Obama's statement that people in places like this are bitter over the loss of jobs in the area, and as a result cling to religion, or guns, or bigotry. People at the Clinton rallies generally took exception to that, or at least thought that Obama drew the wrong conclusion. With Obama, everyone here pretty much agrees with him.

"I am bitter because of the loss of jobs," an unemployed man named Dana tells me. "Right now, it seems like nobody's fighting for the small communities like McKeesport. I felt like he was speaking for me."

"It's the truth, you know what I mean?" a man named Clarence says. "It was just telling the truth. If you go around McKeesport, you'll see. There's nothing here. Everything's being torn down. What do people have to get from here? Everybody's on their own, basically. So it's either go to drugs, religion -- whatever they can do."

"I thought he could have said it a little better," a woman named Lois tells me. "But I understood what he meant, and I agreed with him, because people are angry bitter, disappointed, frustrated -- so I absolutely agreed with what he said."






Your Comments are Welcome!

Actually, The Deer Hunter wasn’t filmed in Clairton. It was filmed in Cleveland and Mingo Junction, Ohio.

In re: In Duquesne, too. The cemetery scene (at the end of the movie) looking towards the blast furnaces.
At the time, I was working in the mill, wondering what was going on, looking at their lighting, didn’t know until I saw the movie that I was watching them filming. I tell everybody that I was in that movie. Smaller than an ant, but I’m there.
terry - April 22, 2008



I’m voting for a chaotic convention! Maybe we’ll get a real party platform with some teeth!
Alycia - April 22, 2008



Jason,

I’ve been reading your work from my self-imposed Mon Valley exile location here in Virginia. Excellent, excellent writing and analysis. It’s a heck of a lot easy for media types like Dana Milbank to make a joke about bitterness than it is to examine the very complicated history and present day realities on the Mon Valley. Thank goodness the primary is over and folks in the valley can go about living their lives without the “hardscrabble” attention and make the positive incremental changes required to move forward.
Dan - April 23, 2008



I loved the snow-capped mountains that were featured in “The Deer Hunter.” Those parts were filmed in Washington state. It’s a good film, but anyone familar with western Pennsylvania finds the deer hunting scenes laughable.
Jonathan Potts (URL) - April 23, 2008



An internet search for the filming location of the cemetery scene in The Deer Hunter points to the lawn of the McKeesport and Versailles Cemetery along Fifth Avenue.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=vX8bCp6qsSE&feature=related

Filming Location Detectives got it wrong. Terry is correct. The funeral procession was filmed along Route 837, with the USS Duquesne Works blast furnaces setting the scene. The cemetery was created on an empty lot on Cedar Street, overlooking the furnaces where Terry worked. Now, over 30 years later, if you stand in that lot facing the highway and look back over your left shoulder, you will see the ruin of what was Holy Trinity Church. Less than 2 months ago, that empty building was a location for filming of the post-apocalyptic story, The Road.
http://tubecityonline.com/almanac/entry_910.php

The Deer Hunter and The Road stand as bookends for Duquesne’s journey from hardscrabble to near-dystopian.

One journalist who did a well-rounded story on the Pittsburgh area is Ray Suarez of the PBS program, the NewsHour.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/jan-june08/pittsburgh_04-21.html

Stories like Dana Milbank’s can be written for every metropolitan area of the country. It’s too bad that some reporters characterize communities with anecdotes.
Strisi (URL) - April 23, 2008



I note with interest that the comments thus far, with one notable exception (and I refrained from posting for a day to make sure they were all visible) are far more concerned with a mistake about a thirty year old movie than they were with the appallingly racist attitudes shown in Mr. Milbank’s article.

“I don’t even think he’s American.” “He just wants to be president because he’s black.” “A lot of black people are voting for him.”

Aren’t you ashamed to be identified with these people, identified by those quotes? Is this the heritage you want to be proud of? This article called Mon Valley residents a bunch of poorly educated, superstitious, redneck racists, and didn’t even mince words to do so (read it carefully), and you can’t rise up screaming in protest? Is it because it’s very possibly TRUE? “We have met the enemy, and he is us?”

It is 2008. It is far past time to stop blaming the black man (or the women, or the “Mexicans”, or the liberals, or the “elites”, or whatever other scapegoats can be found) for the loss of the jobs a generation ago. The people who stole your (general your, in the sense of the Mon Valley populace) jobs were other white men, higher on the food chain, engaging in the time honored tradition of making sure they got theirs. It wasn’t fair then and it isn’t fair now, but nothing is going to be solved by playing into the worst preconceptions the media and the politicians have about you. Surprise the media. Shock the pundits. They will be back, because regardless of who the democratic nominee will be, your votes are very important in the very tight race come November. Make your voices ones worth hearing.
Aynthem - April 23, 2008



From someone who went to McKeesport schools for 12 years, whose parents and grandparents were from McKeesport,(I live close by in Westmoreland County) my heart sank as I read the Washington Post article that cast the region in such a negative light. However, after working for the Obama campaign these past few weeks with phone banks and canvassing, I sadly have come to the same conclusion. I was shocked at how much racism still exists here, and how people are willing to vote against their own interests. Yes, this city has seen better times, and we should all be working to see that it prospers once again. Are you willing to let go of the prejudices for that outcome?
Lauren - April 24, 2008



After having an unfortunate encounter with Mr. Milibank, I’m left questioning who’s really bitter. As he typed this story at Penn State McKeesport during the Obama event, he became outraged by the fact that a few volunteers and staff, myself included, were sitting in the largely vacant “press section” of the bleachers. The event was very crowded and we’d been told to sit there by campaign officials. When someone proceeded to take a seat next to him, he stormed away and then tried to have us removed from the event! When this failed, he simply charged off with his blazer and laptop. Perhaps we rubbed off on him..?
Steve - April 24, 2008



Steve, you cur! How dare you take a seat that is reserved for one of the MEMBERS OF THE WHITE HOUSE PRESS! You’re lucky he didn’t beat you with his cane! They’re allowed to do that, y’know.

Someday, maybe I’ll tell about a few of my run-ins with THE PRESS during my mediocre journalism career —- particularly with TV “news” people. There are some very nice ones, of course, but there are also a few major-league s—t heads.
Webmaster - April 24, 2008



Aynthem: I empathize with your frustration, but to repeat my closing paragraph, “Stories like Dana Milbank’s can be written for every metropolitan area of the country. It’s too bad that some reporters characterize communities with anecdotes.”

Jason states that “The Washington Post, The New York Times, and all the rest don’t care.” Aynthem, have you ever hired a professional to do a task that they specialize in, only to be dissatisfied with the outcome? Journalism is like any craft. Some reporters excel, some are mediocre, and all can have a bad day.

McKeesport favored Clinton over Obama, 54% to 46%. In the more prosperous community of Upper St. Clair, voters backed Clinton by 53.5% to Obama’s 46.5%. Where is that story?

Some of the attitudes expressed in the article are appalling, but are we a bunch of “poorly educated, superstitious, redneck racists?” Is there truth in Dana Milbank’s writing? There are bigots here, but if you ask me to grade his portrayal of McKeesport, I’ll rate it as incomplete. Maria Norgren said her older white neighbors “won’t vote for a woman or a black man.” Which issue will we confront, racism or misogyny? Are we ready to eradicate either or both? Are they more prevalent here than elsewhere? The Obama “bitter” remark was a clue, not a story. These Democratic candidates are holding up a mirror. Dana Milbank’s limited focus reflects a tabloid style more suited to the New York Post.

Bleak assessments of people’s character don’t reveal the only reasons folks vote against their own self-interest. Take a look at “What’s the Matter with Kansas?”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What’s_the_Matter_with_Kansas

I’m not concerned about being “identified with these people, identified by those quotes.” Anyone who makes that sort of generalization is as shallow as Milbank’s article. There is a complex story here. Some of it is ugly. The Washington Post missed it.
Strisi - April 25, 2008



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