Coming into this class, I wanted to fall in love with a place that was not my own. I wanted to love a place through the eyes of another, to connect with another’s unlikely love for a place. Bettisville seemed like the perfect space for me to explore this. I wanted to explore what made Bob fall in love with his own home enough to name it after himself, and what compelled his adoration for a politician with ideas I felt strongly opposed to. I wanted to do this through understanding my place in relation to his in the world. Bob and Judy were sweet and empathetic; they were human. But I think my piece says more than “Trump supporters are not all bad people.” I hope my piece reflects the internal struggle I felt when writing this piece, about how difficult it is to place words or categories onto humans. That the only alternative is to describe the facts, because, as Erica Heilman says, the truth “has this resounding, amazing sound.”
I was inspired by “The Act of Killing,” and how the filmmaker managed to evoke an extension of my empathy to these men who had committed horrible acts. Writing about Bettisville has a lot less at stake than that film, but misunderstanding is something that plagues our world as much as anything else.