On one hand, Appalachia is my home. Shitty, rocky mountain soil is in my bones and the smell of the mill mingles with woods after rain in my lungs. It is a beautiful place, and in their way, the people there are kind.
But their kindness extends only so far as giving good food to their children and holding get togethers with their neighbors.
The idea of helping a stranger is alien. The idea that their own kin might be something different to themselves is impossible to conceive.
The notion that they are holding knives to their children’s throats is invisible to them, even while they laugh at how “well behaved” a toddler is because she flinches and hides when her mother raises her hand, and at how sensitive a grown adult is for flinching at the selfsame gesture instead of joining in the entertainment.
The worst things I’ve experienced in my life have come out of those mountains, beautiful and isolating. The smoke hides stills and weed, and just as readily, it hides blood and sweat and tears and things impossible to speak of.
People joke about marrying your cousin when you’re from the mountains. About rotten teeth and dropped terminal G’s.
They make cruel jokes and so many of us get so wrapped up in defending ourselves, victims of poverty and limited choice and generations of exploitation, that we somehow forget to hold ourselves accountable.
But I’ve been beaten, I’ve had my body stolen, I’ve been starved and strangled and kept diseased and broken for decades because of the way Appalachia holds itself.
The outsiders, slick as oil or coated in coal and rust, might be wrong in their cruelty, but y'all ain’t right in your defenses either.
Those mountains eat up anyone who isn’t white or well or straighter than any softwood grows.
And until y'all’re prepared to defend the rest of us from that, then you’ve no right to talk about how the mountains Actually Are, about southern hospitality and charm. Your defenses of our culture fall flat.
Not for the reasons people on TV like to claim, not entirely, but you still ought to be ashamed.
And I’ll shame you if I must, because that place is my home and I’ve been run out, and out, and told I’m a traitor for deciding I’ve got the right to live too.
andulkaphoto
2087
yousharknotpass
izzy806
origamiaround
jacobvanloon
