Third World Native America
![Image](http://web.archive.org./web/20210912123801im_/http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_MA6TSuti-Y8/TRmL0o7rW1I/AAAAAAAAEwU/Jh4EfNsqW2A/s400/zotomsketchbookplainsindian.jpg)
I want to write a longer post about how I detest the use of the "Third World" trope to try to call attention to how unfortunate or wrong things are in the United States. One of the reasons why I loathe it is because so much of that complaint is secret exceptionalist strain, an assumption that of all the places in the world where bad things should happen, none of it should be in the United States. Whether natural disasters, shootings and violence, social breakdown, government corruption, whenever something which tests the cognitive limits of people in the United States, the Third World trope emerges to provide some sense of what happened. It is a way of letting a bit of chaos into the homeland, some nasty, brutish, dark slivers of discourse get to sneak in and give some color and some understanding to something which is supposed to be beyond the white-picket-fence-comprehension of Americans. The worst part about this citation of the Third World is how it can help to reinforce