4 ms·

I'm going to come off as cynical in this comment, but I'm a little qualified on this topic - my parents met while attending App State, my mom was raised in Wata

I'm going to come off as cynical in this comment, but I'm a little qualified on this topic - my parents met while attending App State, my mom was raised in Watauga county, I still have family there. I'm from Charlotte myself, but still have some defensiveness on this subject (thanks no doubt to the frequent experience ofbeing "corrected" on the pronounciation of my family's home region by random transplants) But this article, and others like it, make me cringe like nothing else. A well-off academic type from the north reads "Hillbilly Elegy", decides to take a temp job / vacation in Boone and then writes about how much he learned about "America's divide" from a bunch of 18 year olds at a school for teachers and liberal arts students. Spare me please. It's a tired trope. A well-heeled, educated outsider who comes down to teach the poor, ignorant working-class mountain folks the ways of civilization , but leaves having learned something heartwarming that money just doesn't buy. Dudes like this need to stop using Appalachians as pawns for their narratives. The discussions he outlined could have happened anywhere. He just wants to get social credit for trying to "reach out", when all he really did was take a working vacation.

skybrian 7y ago
Well, sure, the point of view of a teacher of a college ethics class is fairly limited and he wasn't there for very long. But I'm decades out of college and have never been anywhere near App State, so it's still a point of view I wouldn't have had if he didn't write it up. Meanwhile, you were hoping for a better article written from a more original perspective, and were disappointed. Maybe the writer of that article is out there somewhere, but how do we find them?
- sudosteph 7y ago
  It's fine to appreciate it from a general "teaching college kids ethics" perspective, but you didn't actually learn anything meaningful from or about Appalachia - and neither did the author. My point is that there is a whole genre of content that uses "Appalachia" and "Appalachians" as a stand in for the lower class other America. It's the one underprivileged group that white liberals can safely stereotype and exoticize without fear of repurcussions. And it's always outsiders with a pre-determined narrative who get to decide what Appalachia is like in the minds of non-appalachians, through books, movies, articles like this. My point is more for anyone who thinks spending a few months in Appalachia gives them something worth writing about. It doesn't.

skybrian 7y ago

Well, sure, the point of view of a teacher of a college ethics class is fairly limited and he wasn't there for very long. But I'm decades out of college and have never been anywhere near App State, so it's still a point of view I wouldn't have had if he didn't write it up. Meanwhile, you were hoping for a better article written from a more original perspective, and were disappointed. Maybe the writer of that article is out there somewhere, but how do we find them?

sudosteph 7y ago
It's fine to appreciate it from a general "teaching college kids ethics" perspective, but you didn't actually learn anything meaningful from or about Appalachia - and neither did the author. My point is that there is a whole genre of content that uses "Appalachia" and "Appalachians" as a stand in for the lower class other America. It's the one underprivileged group that white liberals can safely stereotype and exoticize without fear of repurcussions. And it's always outsiders with a pre-determined narrative who get to decide what Appalachia is like in the minds of non-appalachians, through books, movies, articles like this. My point is more for anyone who thinks spending a few months in Appalachia gives them something worth writing about. It doesn't.