Corn, conformity and conservatives? Lazy stereotypes aren’t Cincinnati

Back in July, Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval appeared on The Daily Show for an interview with Ronny Chieng. That was several months ago, and I’m still kind of mad about it. 

Chieng is one of the comedians on the show, and I generally think he’s funny. But he was trying to be funny and run a serious interview at the same time, and it got a little combative. The two pointed out they were two Asian guys on national television. But Chieng wasn’t at all interested in Pureval’s family immigration story. He had one question he wanted answered and got a bit frustrated that Pureval wasn’t answering it. “You’re not white, and you’re a Democratic Asian mayor in a super-red city. How did you do that, how did you get those white people to vote for you?”

What the heck? Of course Pureval couldn’t answer that, because it’s a question based on a completely incorrect assumption. 

Cincinnati is bright blue, as Pureval was able to tell him. Also, duh, Cincinnati’s population is about 48% white. He also could have asked how he got all those Black people to vote for him. 

But Chieng was simply assuming that a city in the middle of the country must be racist enough to find an Indian-Tibetan mayor a bridge too far. I’m not saying there’s no racism here, but if you’re going by who’s been mayor, we have had several Black mayors starting in 1972. I don’t recall Pureval’s ethnicity ever being an overt issue. When Cincinnati doesn’t vote for Vivek Ramaswamy in the upcoming governor’s race, it won’t be because of his ethnicity. 

I hope Chieng has been schooled on these points and remembers the interview with embarrassment. It should be embarrassing to conform so clearly to a stereotype: the East Coaster who has NO IDEA what the rest of the country is like. A quick Google search ought to be a prerequisite to an interview on national TV, even if you are a comedian. 

This relates to something else that has been bugging me. I notice in movies and TV shows that it’s enough to say a character is from Ohio to firmly fix them as a certain kind of person. Just Ohio. Not even one particular part of Ohio, as if Shaker Heights is the same as East Akron or Piketon or Norwood. If the movie isn’t actually set in Ohio, “I’m from Ohio” just means “I escaped the dreary white-bread conformity of my upbringing to live in New York or Los Angeles, because no one else in my home state has dreams.” 

What’s most amazing is when I’m in some other part of the country and tell people I’m from Cincinnati, they don’t even bother to hide their reactions. “Oh, I’m sorry,” they’ll say. Or “How can you live in a place like that?” 

Whatever.

I’m actually kind of smug about Cincinnati. I know its worth, I know what it has and doesn’t have. It’s not the same as New York or Chicago. Why would it be? I have no need to try to convince anyone of our city’s charms. When an outsider celebrity or magazine pats us on the head for something, we don’t have to wag our tail (“Surprisingly nice,” said Chieng. “Clean. Super nice people. Clean.”) I always dragged my feet when I was at the Enquirer and was asked to write something about a national poll or magazine article that mentioned us positively. 

Looking down on Cincinnati is a long-time tradition, but I think there’s something new that I feel a whiff of in these kinds of comments. It’s a reflection of the country’s political divisions, which have become, you may have noticed, sharper and a lot more mean. We don’t just understand that people are different around the country, we are encouraged to hate those other people. So no one is interested in nuance. It’s easier to think Ohio is a bunch of white people drinking six-packs after a long day of growing corn, and then dismiss and forget them. You can look at a map of how Ohio voted, and it’s either all red, or largely red because it’s based on the less-populated rural counties that take up the visual space. But there are people who voted both ways in every county in the state. 

I’m describing prejudice and stereotyping, and that’s nothing new, obviously. No one likes being judged on assumptions, no one wants to be denigrated for belonging to a category. I have some opinions about Cincinnati West Siders, say, or New York City Upper East Siders, or about Mississippi or Berkeley, California. I have laughed at jokes about the supposed differences between all those people. But if I met someone from Mississippi, I think I’d take some time to have a conversation before I committed to an opinion. I think I might be curious. ν