First, I'll clarify that I'm not from West Virginia. I grew up in the hills of Tennessee, and much of my family lives throughout the mountains of Tennessee, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Ohio. I've spent a lot of time in those mountains with my family, and the culture of the small town where I grew up is much like those places.
If you want hillbilly, Song of the South, backwoods redneck credentials. I've got them.
I grew up in a county with a 20% illiteracy rate. When I graduated high school, my hometown high school was graduating kids at a 5th grade level. My great-grandfather died in what I'm told was the worst mining accident in the history of the country -- my grandmother claims 500+ men died that day. My father believes only Christians should be elected to any office. I have a (crazy) aunt who once told me that letting gay people get married is no different than letting people marry animals. My hometown didn't start having proms until the early 80s because dancing is a sin. When I started voting, my issues were guns and abortion. Now I vote for more important things, like economic and social justice, but I will still stand with my people when you people look down your noses at them.
I know that we cannot win West Virginia on Tuesday. We cannot win Kentucky next week. We cannot win Appalachia in November. But that does not mean we should give up on them or work less hard for them. It does not make the 50 state strategy less important -- it makes the 50 state strategy more important. It means we should work even harder. Call it bridging the ignorance gap, if you will.
Progress is not something that you just order on the Internet and pickup at Sears in twenty minutes -- we have to work for it in every corner of America. It's important that we whittle Clinton down to 65% on Tuesday, and that means we have to work for it.
First, let's talk about ignorance.
I've seen a lot of frustration expressed lately about what many kossacks consider to be willfully ignorant people. Some of you believe that information is as readily available to everyone as it is to you. Some of you believe that the cost of accessing available information is the same for everyone as it is for you. I've even seen comments from people exclaiming, "But golly gee, everyone has access to the Intertoobs!" I guess some of you have never heard of the digital divide.
Not everyone has access to the Internet. There is a huge gap between the have and have-nots when it comes to Internet access, and the divide is down economic lines. I hate to point out the obvious, but Appalachia ain't exactly well-to-do.
Among those who have access to the Internet, there is also a skills divide. In order to use the Internet effectively, you must have not just a minimum level of technical competency but also a minimum level of information competency.
A person can learn to use a web browser and an email client and still not have the information competencies needed to obtain and process information from reliable sources on the Internet. This is why substantial numbers of people get most of their online political information from the chain emails that the rest of us filter into the Trash folder. It's easy to gain enough technical competence to send, receive, and even forward emails, but it's harder to learn how to distinguish between good and bad sources of information. If you don't believe that, just ask anyone who's ever taught a class that requires students to write research papers.
Many, many people don't know the difference between MSM and propaganda machines. Most people can't tell the difference between a website for a grassroots organization and an astroturf organization. Far too many people will believe any email that Aunt Sally sends them just because she's one smart cookie.
How many times have you heard someone say that something won't come up in a Google search when you know darn well that particular search yields thousands of related web pages. Many people with low-level literacy can work a web browser but don't have the vocabulary to perform effective web searches. According to the state of West Virginia (link to PDF):
"20% of the adult population in West Virginia are low-level readers. Percentages represent county residents who have difficulty reading beyond a fourth grader level. These adults find it difficult to read basic information like road signs, job applications, newspapers articles, and food and medicine labels."
Not everyone has time to learn about the political process, the candidates, or the issues. The less resources (e.g., time, money) you have, the less likely you are to have the ability to understand the political process or the people involved.
These are not willfully ignorant people. These are hardworking Americans who are doing the best they can with the hand they were dealt. These are people who are proud to put a union bumper sticker on their car. They hear the word solidarity, and they think brotherhood, not commie bastard. These people bled for progress. If they are ignorant now, it's because we left them behind. If we believe in the 50 state strategy, then it's time for us to stop leaving these people behind.
Progress happens in the most unexpected places.
My best friend's little sister was the first person to "come out" at my hometown high school. Before her bravery, gay and lesbian kids were afraid to come out for fear of violence against them. I am so proud of her. She opened the door for so many other kids in that little Christian town. The same town that only started having proms in the 80s because dancing is a sin now has gay and lesbian students attending prom as same-sex couples. She and her high school sweetheart were the first. Against all odds, against everyone's best advice, she prevailed in our small-minded little town.
Let's talk about race.
One of my high school friends dated a black guy throughout high school. She was so afraid of what would happen if people found out that she kept it a secret for years. A couple of years after we graduated, a mixed race couple married. It was a little shocking to the people there, but almost no one objected. The attitude of many was, "Well, I wouldn't do it, but so be it." It sounds bigoted, but it was progress. The next year, my friend married the love of her life. Her two children are in junior high now, and they are part of the popular crowd.
I still remember the first time I saw an Asian person. It was in an airport in California (I am too embarrassed to tell you how old I was). I pointed and said out loud, "Wow! They look just like they do in the movies!" Yeah, I said that. Out loud. When I was 17, I spent a summer working at Disneyland, and that was my first real exposure to people of other cultures and races. It was quite an experience. Changed my life forever (and definitely for the better). And those influences on my life also influenced my friends and family.
Although the youngest generation is always our best hope, each generation has progressed. When we make calls to West Virginia, Kentucky, and other rural areas where you think no hope for progress exists, don't forget that you are planting seeds, and you never know where or when one will sprout.
Many of the people who aren't ready to accept a black president don't want to think of themselves as racist. These people are reachable. They don't want to think of themselves as racist because that's now how they want to be. With encouragement, many (not all) of those folks will come around.
If you make calls to Appalachia, sometimes, when you hang up, you may think there's no way that you got through to that person. You may think they are too close-minded or too ignorant. But the people you talk to will talk to their kids and grandkids around the dinner table about your call, and you never know how the seeds of your conversation may be harvested.
Many of us who have roots in these places have already seen it happen. It's usually unexpected. A call from a parent or grandparent or aunt or uncle, a dinner table conversation, a few words over coffee... someone we love who has views that we cannot understand or condone lets us know that they are ready. These are the people who give me hope because the only way that we can change this country is to change the people.
Let's talk about broad brushes.
I want to talk about stereotypes because so far in this diary, I've talked about the ignorant because that's the stereotype that many kossacks have of Appalachians. But West Virginia and other places like it are not as monolithic as many believe. Sure, they are more skewed to the conservative, but you will find a wide range of people.
You will find people like my best friend's little sister who has fought for LGBT issues in my little Christian town. You will find people like me who are agnostic, somewhat progressive, and educated. You will find people in mixed race marriages, and you will find mixed race children.
Just because we put gunracks in our pickup trucks doesn't mean we're violent. It doesn't mean we get drunk and shoot each other (though, a lot of folk get drunk and screw). When you live 20-30 minutes (or more) from the nearest police station, you need a gun. If someone wants to do you harm, you cannot wait half an hour or more for Barney Fife to arrive. That's why we don't want our guns taken away.
The issue is also not as simple as race. My people are suspicious of anyone who's not from around our parts. It's more about outsiders. You're a lot more likely to be disliked if you're from New York City or San Francisco (sorry folks) than if you're black. These are people that weren't just left behind, they were beaten down and then left behind by the man.
In 1972, one of the worst coal mining disasters in our country struck a little place in West Virginia called Buffalo Creek. I'll give you just a little excerpt of what this mining company did to those people:
"A coal company's massive coal-waste refuse pile, which dammed a stream in Middle Fork Hollow in the mountains of West Virginia, collapsed without warning to the people in the long, narrow Buffalo Creek Valley below. This failure unleashed more than 130 million gallons of water and waste materials -- stream water from recent rains as well as black coal-waste water and sludge from a coal-washing operation. This 20-to-30-foot tidal wave of rampaging water and sludge, sometimes traveling at speeds up to 30 miles per hour, devastated Buffalo Creek's sixteen small communities."
"Over 125 people perished immediately. Most were women and children unable to struggle out from under the thick black water choked with crushed and splintered homes, cars, telephone poles, railroad tracks, and all manner of other debris. There were over 4,000 survivors, but their 1,000 homes were destroyed as well as most of their possessions."
Government representatives immediately closed ranks to protect the mining company. They called it "an act of god" -- these people were told they would get nothing, or next to nothing from the mining company. When a couple of pro bono lawyers arrived from far away to help them, they were so suspicious of them that it took weeks for the attorneys to build enough trust just to get their stories.
West Virginians coined the term wildcat strike. They know what it's like to risk your life for your cause only to see outsiders come and take everything. These people may not have much, but they're proud people who have lived hard for what they have, and they don't trust any newcomer, and they're wary of any change. And understanding their history, I don't blame them.
Now, let's make progress happen.
You don't need to share their religion to make a difference with them. They are looking for people who talk to them as equals, with respect, that's all. They often feel that the rest of the country and the political players are looking down their noses at them. That's one of the reasons that they vote for god and guns -- they feel that's the only common ground they've got with the people running this country.
They're proud of their blue-collar jobs and their unions. They don't like yankees and college kids talking down to them. But they love anyone who treats them as equals. They look out for their neighbors, and they love their country, and they believe that the flag does not stand for the government, it stands for the common folk who stand up to government and the freedom we have to do just that. These people are the heart of America, they are populists who have bled for our country, for our unions, for our Constitutional rights. They are tough, rugged people that you want on your side in a fight.
Appalachia may have been insulated from development, but it is not 1950 Tupelo. When you talk about unifying the country, don't leave my people behind. If you do, you leave behind an important part of America. Progress will not be made overnight in these areas, but more progress has already been made than they are given credit for, and even more progress will be made if we help it along.
As Obama says:
"In the end, that's what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism, or do we participate in a politics of hope? Hope in the face of difficulty, hope in the face of uncertainty, the audacity of hope: In the end, that is God's greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation, a belief in things not seen, a belief that there are better days ahead. I believe that we have a righteous wind at our backs, and that as we stand on the crossroads of history, we can make the right choices and meet the challenges that face us."
You don't have to understand the ignorance. You don't have to be one of us. You don't even have to be anything like us. Just stand with us to change it. Facing the last vestiges of racism and homophobia and the worst illiteracy and poverty and all that we hoped was in the America's past may be hard for urban progressives, but those of us who call rural America home will stand with you, if you will only stand with us.
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