I’m anxious about writing this post about the couple of days we spent in Hot Springs, Arkansas. I’m anxious because I can imagine how infuriating it must be to hear a liberal resident of a coastal state (who is likely reacting at least in part to the fact that she feels incredibly out-of-place in a state with such a dramatically different culture) making anything even approaching a judgment.
But I’m a writer, and part of what I write about is my experiences and adventures – and the fact is that this was not an entirely positive one. I want to be clear: there are great things about the area. It is beautiful out there in the country. The food is incredible (oh my goodness, the peel-and-eat shrimp). There is a Star Wars Museum with a full-size replica of Han Solo in carbonite. And. And! We found Zoltar.
Most importantly: we had wonderful conversations with wonderful, kind people who practically treated us and our children like family.
Where we were visiting was, in theory, a resort town – the primary attraction is “Bathhouse Row,” where you can pay thirty or forty bucks to sit in a communal mineral spring-fed bath, and get massages and such. I understand the tradition behind the bathhouses and I understand the appeal of the place – I saw plenty of families having a genuinely good time there – but to me there was so much going on beneath the surface that I felt like it wasn’t even responsible of me to relax into it, to take a bath and enjoy a massage and pick up a Made In India bracelet that might have been pretty, but couldn’t have possibly been less representative of the place that I was visiting.
There is so much poverty. There is so much decay. And god, is there ever a lot of racial tension; you can practically feel it in the air.
The hotel we stayed in – which was the second-nicest one in town, from what I gathered – had cockroaches on the floor, chipped walls in the elevators, trash on the mattresses, a two-foot-wide pool of water in the carpet from a leaky air conditioner, and burned-out lightbulbs. Outside the hotel sat a woman in a wheelchair wearing a Confederate flag t-shirt, smoking alternately from the long cigarettes she held, one in each hand.
The hotel received two visits from police officers within twelve hours (two that we knew of, at least): the first time, an officer was standing a few feet away from an African-American guest of the hotel who was explaining to his family in hushed tones that “some old lady called the cops to tell her a bunch of n-ggers were hanging out in the lobby. So that’s what we’re dealing with. Everyone be cool.” The second time, we stepped into an elevator at 8AM and immediately began coughing – all four of us – and when we got down to the front desk I told the clerk that I thought there was smoke in the elevator, and was informed “oh no, ma’am; that’s just pepper spray. It was used to defuse an altercation about fifteen minutes ago. It’s all good.”
I started writing this post about the tradition of the bathhouses and that peel-and-eat shrimp, and then I realized: I can’t feel good about having gone to this place, and failing to show you what I really saw. Because there was a dark and ugly undercurrent hiding behind the facade of leisure, and when it came down to it it wasn’t much of an undercurrent at all: it was just there, a living, breathing part of the place.
I’m glad we went. This trip isn’t about going to all the places in the country we think we’ll like best – I mean that’s part of it, but it’s also about just seeing our country. Showing it to our children, and showing it to you.
So here is a piece of what we saw.
UPDATE: I think it’s pretty clear that I upset a lot of people by writing this. I was trying to post about what I personally saw and felt in an honest way, but my intention is never to cause harm – to a person, to a business, to a place – or to make anyone feel attacked or misunderstood. Thank you to everyone who posted their thoughts, both positive and negative; it’s all in the service of learning. I am closing comments on this post because this is an important time for my family – we’re in the midst of traveling across the country together and starting a new life in a new state – and it’s very important to me to focus on them. I really appreciate your understanding. Love, J.
