In the February issue of Vanity Fair Buzz Bissinger, a Pulitzer prize-winning author has written an article about our home town in Oklahoma, and the dreadful murder which happened here last summer. (See my post here). It's puzzling that Vanity Fair should suddenly bring the topic to the fore once more. Perhaps it's because the three young men accused of the murder will be in court again soon.
Mr Bissinger's article didn't impress me one little bit, Pulitzer prize or not. I felt the article wasn't well-written, and was grossly unfair. He concentrates too much on the town rather than on the crime - as though the town itself were to blame. He trots out the old saw about there being "2 sides of the track" in Duncan. In every town I've lived in, in England, (many, and in all regions) there were equivalent areas to the 2-sides of the track metaphor. In our town it just so happens that much of the poorer area is actually located on one side of the rail tracks.
I get the feeling that Buzz Bissinger, from Pennsylvania - Wikipedia states: "He divides his time between homes in Philadelphia and the Pacific Northwest," obviously suffers from the "fly-over" syndrome, and has little knowledge, and a low opinion of, anything in between. Wiki also says: "In a column published in GQ, Bissinger states he is a shopaholic with an obsession for expensive designer clothes, spending $638,412.97 between 2010 and 2012. " Hmm.
Disclaimer. I have no great love for this town myself. When I'd been here for a month or two I came to the conclusion I'd stepped back in time to the 1950s, wrote to friends in that vein telling them that here, "there's a church on every corner instead of a pub!" The town's (and state's) politics are a complete anathema to me, as would be Buzz Bissinger's. Wikipedia states that he endorsed Mitt Romney in 2012. The town itself, though, is no worse than dozens of others in Oklahoma, and other states. In some ways it is better than many. There is certainly a lot of poor, run-down housing here which does contrast sharply with some huge mansion-type houses in a treed-in area on the north side of town. There's old oil money here, obviously. Haliburton used to be based here. None of that has any bearing on the horrendous random cold-blooded murder of a visiting student out on a quiet road, running, one day last summer.
Even the photograph accompanying Bissinger's piece is misleading. It's supposed to be Main Street, it is, but right at the end of quite a thriving true Main Street, with many non-chain businesses. The street, in reality is far from the description he gives:
"The city had just glossed up its Web site, using as its backdrop a picture of downtown Main Street glittering in the twilight. The image looked warm and inviting, something plucked from a stage set. But in reality downtown had died as a center of commerce long ago."In every town in Oklahoma and in every other state we've visited, there is an older downtown area, equivalent to Main Street. These were once the hubs of commerce and retail, back in the 1940s, 50s, 60s. Now, in some towns these areas are completely derelict. In some other towns, like Duncan, they have been refurbished; private businesss owners have brought the area back to life. The now inevitable corporate chain businesses continue to grow up elsewhere in every town, almost like a secondary town in some cases.
That dreadful murder of last summer wasn't brought about by location, in my view. It was brought about by many things: ease of access to guns, constant de-sensitisation through depictions of violence in movies, TV, video games; maybe drugs, plus one sociopathic ringleader. Racism? No more here than anywhere else - less if anything, I'd say.
Buzz Bissinger was quite the wrong guy to send on a mission here. He might write a decent novel, but he doesn't seem to understand what I've come to realise. This is "the real USA".....this!. I see it, even though a foreigner here, as well as a US citizen and, shock horror, a socialist!
