University of Iowa professor Stephen Bloom’s interview on NBC’s Rock Center Monday night reignited my disdain for his recent article in The Atlantic, in which he calls Iowa “schizophrenic” and made more than a few negative assertions about the Hawkeye state.

The former Los Angeles Times reporter missed the mark and proceeded to offend people all over Iowa, including myself.

When I first read the article, I was confused.

How can one of my former professors, someone who has lived in Iowa for as long as I have, think of Iowa only as a place where people wait to die, as he said in his article:

“Those who stay in rural Iowa are often the elderly waiting to die, those too timid (or lacking in education) to peer around the bend for better opportunities, an assortment of waste-toids and meth addicts with pale skin and rotted teeth, or those who quixotically believe, like Little Orphan Annie, that ‘The sun’ll come out tomorrow.’”

I was born and raised in a small, central Iowa town.

I am not a “waste-toid,” whatever that is, nor a meth addict.

I am not afraid to leave my home state and have taken advantage of many opportunities, both at home and across the country.

Despite what Bloom may have written in his article, “Observations From 20 years of Iowa Life,” Iowans take advantage of what is handed to them. We are hard working. We play a pivotal role in who becomes the president of the United States every four years. We are not closed-minded, drug-addicted hillbillies.

“I raised some unspeakable truths,” Bloom said in the interview with Willie Geist, adding that he is surprised Iowans took offense to his claims. He says what he wrote was “satire” and “parody”.

However, he made several false claims and buried the good points he had with unnecessary jabs at Iowans.

The people of Iowa are loyal, smart, aware and fair people. Bloom’s article looks down on Iowans and tries to use his false observations as a way to place doubt in the minds of other Americans.

While Bloom may have created a stir with his negative prose about Iowans, perhaps the reason I was most offended is that he was my professor for Reporting and Writing — a basic journalism class at the University of Iowa. For someone who is supposed to train future journalists, I was appalled that he could write an article that contained so many lies.

Bloom is spending the year teaching in Michigan, but said he will return to Iowa to continue his tenure at the UI.
Needless to say, I will not be taking any more of his classes.

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