Chris
Stigall is a radio talk show host. He wrote a piece for Delaware
Valley Journal “Can
We Just Be Honest About The Philly Suburbs?” (May 8, 2010).
5/16/2020: I had a chance to listen to Stigall's show on Thursday, May 14th. I wrote the piece below on my blog, Defending Chester County, on 5/9/2020. A friend emailed me the article and I posted it to one of my Facebook group's pages, All about Chester County. I posted Stigall's piece there because he speaks directly about Chester County. I made no comments on Stigall's piece; I just posted it. Subsequently, I was banned from commenting or posting on the group's pages for 24 hours. I messaged the moderator but got no response. I have since left the group.
My wife and I were driving up 322 into Lancaster County. I listened to Stigall until Radio 990 faded out. The station's signal became weaker the farther west we went. After listening for about an hour I thought to myself Stigall does not portray himself very well in the Journal piece. If you read the piece out of the context of Stigall himself, you might think he is a freaking Nazi. He isn't. He is a Christian and he talks Christian values, authentic Christian values, during his show. For one thing, he mentioned going to church. That's a giveaway right there. I still disagree with Stigall and I, as a writer, regret the allusions that he uses. I think they are out of character. By posting the absurd comments of a caller, Stigall is identified with the caller just as I posting Stigall am identified with Stigall.
5/16/2020: I had a chance to listen to Stigall's show on Thursday, May 14th. I wrote the piece below on my blog, Defending Chester County, on 5/9/2020. A friend emailed me the article and I posted it to one of my Facebook group's pages, All about Chester County. I posted Stigall's piece there because he speaks directly about Chester County. I made no comments on Stigall's piece; I just posted it. Subsequently, I was banned from commenting or posting on the group's pages for 24 hours. I messaged the moderator but got no response. I have since left the group.
My wife and I were driving up 322 into Lancaster County. I listened to Stigall until Radio 990 faded out. The station's signal became weaker the farther west we went. After listening for about an hour I thought to myself Stigall does not portray himself very well in the Journal piece. If you read the piece out of the context of Stigall himself, you might think he is a freaking Nazi. He isn't. He is a Christian and he talks Christian values, authentic Christian values, during his show. For one thing, he mentioned going to church. That's a giveaway right there. I still disagree with Stigall and I, as a writer, regret the allusions that he uses. I think they are out of character. By posting the absurd comments of a caller, Stigall is identified with the caller just as I posting Stigall am identified with Stigall.
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A
caller into Stigall's radio show inspired him to write the
article for the Journal. Stigall's bias leaning to the Right is evident in the article. Stigall says that the caller expressed the "disconnect
between working class Philadelphians and their suburban, upper-middle
class expatriate peers." What Stigall calls "working class Philadelphians" are White guys from South Philly; what he means by "suburban, upper-middle class expatriate peers" are the same White guys who left South Philly (and their South Philly brogue) for West Chester after college educations at Drexel, Villanova, or St. Joe's. I say West Chester because Stigall goes on the attack against Chester County and West Chester, today, is the heart of Chester County.
I say "today" because I'm from Coatesville. Coatesville is literally the heart of Chester County set logistically in the middle of one of the most affluent counties in the United States. But being from Coatesville I would never dream of moving to West Chester. I would be a fish out of water. Why would I escape to a place I have been trying to escape from all my life. That's a real working class attitude. We make no excuses about how much our working class surroundings have oppressed us but we certainly don't feel that being ostentatious makes us any better. And that's the difference between a South Philly White guy who moves to West Chester and a Coatesville White guy who stays home.
I say "today" because I'm from Coatesville. Coatesville is literally the heart of Chester County set logistically in the middle of one of the most affluent counties in the United States. But being from Coatesville I would never dream of moving to West Chester. I would be a fish out of water. Why would I escape to a place I have been trying to escape from all my life. That's a real working class attitude. We make no excuses about how much our working class surroundings have oppressed us but we certainly don't feel that being ostentatious makes us any better. And that's the difference between a South Philly White guy who moves to West Chester and a Coatesville White guy who stays home.
The
caller to Stigall's radio show said, “There’s no
greater tyrant than the white, suburban soccer mom. They move out of
the cities, and as long as they’ve got bike paths, Whole Foods, and
SUVs — everyone else can burn in Hell.”
A
proud South Philly friend of Stigall's told him that suburbanites"are
the people who allow politicians like Wolf to tear us apart.”
Stigall
finds it difficult to disagree with his caller. I guess he would since he obviously is anti-Wolf. I find
the comparison between White, suburban soccer moms and tyrants
absurd; and it isn't Wolf who is tearing apart the working class
and the upper middle class. That was begun forty years ago by Ronald Reagan, Maga the First, with his attack on unions. The Republicans gave the blue collar union guy a choice; his pocketbook or his country. This is how unselfish and patriotic that guy was. He chose his country but on the Republican Party's terms. The working man hasn't had an increase in real wages for forty years.
White,
suburban soccer moms aren't tyrants. The greatest tyranny we face
today are the lost generation young people who feel a
nonchalant, violent and aggressive contempt and derision for anybody
outside their friendship circle who is not one of their associates in the drug
trade, sexual proclivities, binge playing video games, guns, and antisocial music. They are the condition that
underscores the narrative in the city, the suburbs, and rural
areas of Pennsylvania when it comes to revitalization,
education, and real estate. And who is to blame for the tyranny
of youth...for one, the Left, who ever since the mid-sixties has patronized
delinquent, miscreant youth by legitimizing popular culture and elevating it to the same level as high culture and creating a cult for every identity group who spews
an anti-western vitriol. On the other hand you have the Right, who promulgate living the American Dream that greed is good. When everything is seen through the lens of the business model nothing is as important as money. The result is young, entrepreneurial Black males killing each other in their communities to gain a greater market share of turf and young White males touting AR-15's, tattooing their foreheads, and seig heiling statues of dead Confederate soldiers in hopes that out of the granite, the manufacturing job that their father had will magically be conjured up; a job that was exported to China when he was still a toddler.
So
you see...I am no friend of either Left or Right.
Stigall
then takes the opportunity to attack Governor Wolf for not restoring
our constitutional liberties: life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness. I didn't know they had to be restored because I don't feel
like they have ever been taken away. But just let me note that the
fist constitutional right is life; the second is liberty. My life
matters more than all the money in the world and if that isn't true
then nobody's life matters. As the poet Dylan Thomas writes about
counting the innocent dead
during the London Blitz, "After the first death there is no
other." And John Donne: "any man's death diminishes me."
Stigall
describes suburbanites as “detached, graduate school, educated
elites who have a disdain for the very society and culture
that allowed them to succeed and thrive in the
first place." Wow! What a grand generalization. Perhaps, those South Philly White guys do disdain South Philly. Something must stink there for so many to leave and for Stigall to pay so much attention to their leaving. Shouldn't Stigall be more interested in the diaspora than soccer moms? I will grant that Lukens Steel Company was the backdrop of my success but on the other hand that blue collar, mill-rat mentality did its best to hold on to me. It was due to my own volition that I broke away. Likewise, shouldn't those who escaped South Philly to the suburbs get some modicum of respect?
Why
is it that Mr. Stigall feels that because of the decisions
I have made in my life that have helped me live a “better life”
than somebody else that now I somehow have to feel his pain and feel
guilty because I don't have to worry as much as he does?
The
key is to accept responsibility for the decisions you've made that
have put you in your present position and not to criticize me for
being better off than you are. That working class South Philadelphian,
friend of Stigall, ignored opportunities in his past. He
made his choices. I made my choices. I was no genius Southie like Will Hunting who could drink and fight all night and then ace an impossible math equation. I stayed at home Sunday
afternoon before my final exam on Monday morning at 7:45 and studied
while that proud South Philadelphian watched the Eagles,
drank beer, and tried to score with the girl up the block. Does this make him a
hero? In his neighborhood, maybe, but not in mine. As Will would ask, "Do you have anything original to say or if you have a problem with that, we could take it outside?"
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