For almost four hundred years, my family lived in western Virginia and West Virginia. We are a state so beautiful that if any place finds a spot that looks like West Virginia, they put a fence around it and call it a state park. When Mr. Lincoln was President and Virginia seceded from the Union, we had the courage to secede from Virginia and fight (both sides of the family) for Union and liberty.
I have a bust of Mr. Lincoln made from West Virginia coal.
Mountaineers are always free . . . or so I was told as a little boy. I think of myself as a hillbilly and am proud of the fact, though I have been in exile from home most of my life.* Most irritating were the folks from Christian colleges that would come to “help” us and study our ways. As a little boy I discovered such students thought that we were “sociologically deprived” . . . and when Dad moved us to Upstate New York, the local school teacher suggested that being from West Virginia made us “culturally deprived.”
My deprivation was so great that I did not understand what to do in my new neighborhood in suburban Rochester in regards to property crime. When I left my bike in the garage with the door open (in West Virginia I would have left it in the yard), my bike was stolen. My culture had not prepared me for thievery in a nice neighborhood. Maybe if I had not been baptized in a river, and instead had a fancy baptistery I would have been less deprived.
I thought it was cool that a fish jumped over me as I went under for the Lord, but then I was culturally deprived.
Clendenin Elementary School had prayer . . . though it was not “constitutional” marking more social and cultural deprivation. We were urged to go to the church or synagogue of our choice. How shocking! While in Clendenin, I had loving teachers, one of whom took so much interest in my theater “buzz” that she bought me a book of plays (Scholastic!) with her own money and let me put them on over lunch. Despite all this cultural and sociological deprivation, I survived. When I got to New York, my public school teacher said that I should have the lead in a class play because with my accent it would be “twice as funny.” My cultural deprivation was so great that I failed to see this as helpful. When kids in school decided I was a “rebel,” I pointed out we fought with the Yankees in my family and the nickname “Yankee” stuck for several grades.
Of course, none of this is particularly serious. I never liked the fact that jokes start the minute you mention West Virginia, but that is just the way it is. We certainly don’t need any new political correctness about Appalachia. If you are foolish enough not to appreciate mountain culture, it is your loss. When my home state was talked about in classes outside of West Virginia, the descriptions never fit my experience, but this was a good lesson. I learned textbooks were not always accurate at an early age. Why were pictures of my state always black and white when my memory of the rolling hills was all that green?
A good dose of the Andy Griffith Show growing up combined with my experiences left me convinced that our “elites” were not always right. Sometimes they were just snobs. The establishment forgets the folks outside the “important” places to their peril. Education is a very, very good thing (something drilled into me in Clendenin Elementary), but you can be as big a fool with credentials as without them.
I knew some very wise and brilliant people who did not go to much school.
This is all true, but let me make a harder point: there is another kind of bigotry, the weirdly positive kind. I have met people who thought the “poor” or the folks had some unique holiness or insight. If the novel 1984 insists the “prols” are always right, some of our educated bigots presume that those of us that love mountain culture have some special wisdom.
Bull.
The folks I knew growing up were educated and uneducated. I knew very, very poor people and very, very rich people. All were from West Virginia and all were . . . people. Some poor people were nasty and foolish. Some educated people were boors and less intellectually interesting (if you listened) than the plain folks. On the other hand, often “uneducated” people were also boors and rude.
We are people.
The majority can be wrong. The poor can be greedy. The rich can be giving. West Virginians can be wise, West Virginians (it pains me to say it) can be bigots. There is no special magic in any external status. A man or a woman is a soul created in the image of God and in the worst of external circumstances this can produce greatness. Some of the best conversations I have ever had have been with those with no formal education and those with massive amounts. It was the person and not the credential.
I refuse the snobbery that says that people like my family and I am are culturally deprived: bull. I also reject that we have some magical exemption from all the evils of our age. We all have problems.
Dare I say we all need Jesus? A drug habit if you are wealthy like Prince kills you as surely as hillbilly heroin. The educated man who will not get in the car with someone of lower social caste (I have seen this) is no less a bigot than the Klansman, he just wears better suits. Lately I have met conservatives who act as if the votes of the majority sanctify a bad thing . . . as if the majority cannot be a mob and do foolish things.
Sometimes “We the People” accumulate our vices into a bad choice.
Equally, the idea that there is some elite with magical insights, earned at the very best schools from the very best people, is noxious.
I am opposed to the establishment, but I have met many people in it who are the finest I know.
I am opposed to the “masses,” but I have met many people in it who are the finest I know.
The bigot dismisses all of my folks. The bigot sanctifies our every opinion.
Treat us please as individuals.
Mountaineers are always people.
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*I have been lucky enough to live in New York, California, and Texas for extended lengths of time and spent short times in lots of other places. I spent most of my growing up in New York in a wonderful church and Christian school and my early professional life in California. All were great. But as Mitt Romney said of Michigan, the trees are never the right height any place other than the first place you explored as a kid. . . and I love mountains (the West Virginia kind) and miss them always.
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