Little Rock and Arkansas: They're Great But Don't Tell Anyone

Whether you're from around here or not, it's likely a couple of things have happened to you in Arkansas and probably in Little Rock. First, you've encountered the Inferiority Complex, aka the IC. Second, city and state have exceeded expectations


Hey, the IC may be inside you if you're a native or longtime resident or it may be in your neighbor. Let's deal with that first. Arkansas was carved out of land that neither Louisiana and Missouri wanted. It was just too far from St. Louis and too far from New Orleans. Almost certainly they looked at all those swamps in eastern Arkansas near the Mississippi and said, "Thanks, but no thanks." This state was defined from the beginning by its geographic isolation. — 1,500 miles from either ocean coast and good riverboat ride from the Gulf of Mexico. Despite all this, Arkansas boomed in the 1840s and 1850s with new plantations until hit by the freight train of the Civil War. It struggled with rural poverty, racism and a extremely unenlightened political elite. Successes occurred along the way, but Arkansas quickly became burdened with the negative and persistent mythologies of the hillbilly and the bigot.


As a capital city, Little Rock has fought that imagery and fed into it. The Little Rock Central High School Crisis helped give new life to the stereotype, despite such relatively progressive political voices as those coming from Sen. William J. Fulbright, Gov. Winthrop Rockefeller, Sens. David Pryor and Dale Bumpers, and finally, the Big Dog — President Bill Clinton. Still, even today, there is a part of nearly every Arkansawyer that believes every negative thing that has been said about us, every joke about inbreeding, every jibe about our rural culture.



I get the sense that Little Rock from time to time takes some pride in itself within the state but still has some insecurities about itself in regard to other cities outside it. Sure, it has a good art center, the Capitol, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and much more. At the same time it has shared in the state's overall sense of inferiority by recognizing it likely can't compete with museums in Dallas or the political heft of Texas. That's a fact. It just can't. The scale won't let it, at least not in a true one-on-one way.


If you recently moved here, then you may have had the experience, I hope you did, of finding things in Little Rock and in Arkansas better than you expected to. A few years ago, I attended a presentation from a company that analyzed the state's tourism sector. I remember the analyst stating that after decades in the industry he had never seen a state or region perform so low on expectations and so high on experience. He said, "Once you get them there, you blow their minds." After that, it's much easier to get them to come back. I've heard similar anecdotal information from people involved in physician recruitment. Little Rock, I think, shares in that image dynamic, too.


That's means the state and its capital must be genuinely better than thought by most. I suspect it's better than the people here think, too. The late Maria Haley of the Arkansas Economic Development Commission once said about Fort Smith that it could be a great city. It has all the elements needed to be one, but its people do not love themselves. As for Arkansas, almost anyone would get discouraged if you looked at some of the rankings. But, places are not metrics and numbers do not tell the whole story. Little Rock is a great city in a great state. Neither seems to know it or at least not yet fully believe it.


Here is where I'm going to get really bossy. We need to embrace the country boy con man, and we need to stop being what we're not. Little Rock has made a good start in the last several years of embracing itself and loving itself. The Clinton Presidential Center has helped. Stop thinking we can build institutions any time soon that equal the Met in New York or shopping in Houston. Let's take the ones we have and let them be Arkansawyer. Let's have the confidence to do that. If we can get there, then I don't think we should let anybody know right away. Every one of us probably has encountered the person or the stereotype of the country boy con man. He's the fellow who talks slow and acts a little slow in his thinking. Meanwhile, he stolen your wallet and is long gone before you realize he was in fact a lot smarter than you were. At the very least, he took advantage of your negative impression of him. Arkansas can do that to almost every other state if, like that country boy, we know in our hearts that we're smarter, if we believe it.


Don't worry though, newcomer. If you've planted yourself in Little Rock, you have nothing to fear. We won't pick your pocket. In fact, you can help. Introduce us to the Big Apple or L.A. Nudge them when they think we're not looking. Tell them about hillbillies. Pretend you share their perception. They might just turn around when we're done and say, "Holy crap! What's the Statue of Liberty doing on a sandbar in the Arkansas River?!"