[Red Boots]

I'd rewite this line:Perhaps one day the critics of Middle America will begin to recognize the humanity they share with people they so quickly label as culturally backwards. Perhaps one day they might even begin to listen to them, and to learn from them, the way I did so many years ago, while eavesdropping on the waitresses at Woolworth's.

The cultural elite are far from sharing this humanity with the people they so quickly label as culturally backward, they are so far from the self-honestly required to have that humanity that they don't even understand it, let alone share it.

[GOPJ]

BINGO:

...they are so far from the self-honestly required to have that humanity that they don't even understand it, let alone share it.