{"id":4850,"date":"2017-03-29T15:03:14","date_gmt":"2017-03-29T22:03:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/irreverin\/?p=4850"},"modified":"2017-03-29T15:14:58","modified_gmt":"2017-03-29T22:14:58","slug":"coal-not-coming-back-nostalgia-may-kill-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/irreverin\/2017\/03\/coal-not-coming-back-nostalgia-may-kill-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Coal is Not Coming Back: And Nostalgia May Kill Us"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I could hear the trains from my bedroom. All hours of the day or night.\u00a0The sound was such a part of the backdrop of my childhood, I feel a little disoriented now if I find myself too far from the tracks.<\/p>\n

Any tracks will do. Luckily, in America, trains are everywhere.<\/p>\n

My dad worked for the coal company for the better part of my first 20 years. He worked in the office, not underground, so I won\u2019t try to pretend I\u2019m\u00a0Loretta Lynn. But I do watch that movie whenever I\u2019m homesick\u2026 because she talks like my home people. And the fact remains that\u00a0coal money fed me and housed me and, for the most part, sent me to college. From my window,\u00a0I couldn\u2019t quite see the coal shoot, or the tower, or the shower of black that cascaded down into a heap below. I could, however, see\u00a0the mountain it all came from. The natural source of\u00a0this shimmering dark bounty that fed us all for so long.<\/p>\n

I get the attachment, is what I\u2019m saying. It was life and livelihood. It was regional pride and mobility and a buzzing hive of life itself.\u00a0But like so many other eras of industry come and gone, that coal song is over. Those jobs aren\u2019t coming back. And whatever bill of goods a demagogue politician might try and sell us\u2013we don\u2019t really want them to.\u00a0Coal is\u00a0bad for the air, bad for the earth; and worst of all for those who must\u00a0breathe it in to bring it out.<\/p>\n

Thing is, those politicians promising to bring back coal, know nothing about the region or its people. If they were to go and tour my hometown these days,\u00a0here\u2019s what they\u2019d see: a park with a fitness trail, skating course and bike run; and epic, state of the art public\u00a0library; and a community college campus; all of which have been built around the old tracks and tipples.<\/p>\n

Look at this. It\u2019s\u00a0a Leslie Knope dream come true. A literal pit in the ground<\/em> transformed into a vital hub of community life. I mean Come. On.<\/p>\n

\"The
The new community park on the old grounds of Interstate Coal. London, Kentucky<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"I
I love how they kept the old structure, for nostalgia\u2019s sake\u2026 While transforming everything around it into something new and life-giving.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The
The sun does occasionally shine here\u2026<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When politicians promise to bring these places \u201cback to life,\u201d they invoke cinematic images of shuttered mines, decaying row houses, and crumbling company stores deep in the hills and hollers.\u00a0Those places exist\u2026 but they aren\u2019t the norm, nor are they the whole story.<\/p>\n

The new recreation and literacy programs in my hometown, planted on the actual grave of a once-thriving coal business,\u00a0offer a powerful image\u00a0of the\u00a0resurrection that can happen\u00a0when an old story is allowed to die. Other towns have not been so lucky\u2026 But the last thing that any of these communities need is a fairy tale about how things used to be. What they need is innovation. Opportunity. Creative solutions to complex social realities.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, Trump signed an\u00a0Executive Order<\/a>\u00a0repealing\u00a0environmental protections. He signed it symbolically surrounded by coal miners<\/a>\u00a0(nice photo opp), promising that this legislation would\u00a0put them back to work.\u00a0\u00a0But all the order really does\u2013besides destroy the environment\u2013is open up a portal to the past. It is the way back into the belly of the mountain, stripping all that\u2019s beautiful from the surface, while breathing in all that is toxic beneath.<\/p>\n

For what it\u2019s worth: even if those jobs did come back, they would provide a low living wage for miners, while creating unspeakable wealth for industry leaders. Who fund the campaigns of politicians who sell the pretty nostalgic mountain story; who then roll back regulations and\u00a0push these policies\u00a0through, so their invisible backers can make a fortune on the backs of poor people.<\/p>\n

You see how this works? It\u2019s gross.<\/p>\n

Nostalgia is deadly, and not just because of black lung. The southeastern mountain region has been victimized\u00a0for far too long\u2013by conservative politicians who promise coal jobs;\u00a0and also by elitist liberals who refuse to learn\u00a0the language, and who don\u2019t understand what real growth could look like here.\u00a0Folks on both ends of the political spectrum continue to paint this area as blighted, backward and illiterate. That is a farce, a caricature\u2026 And if there is to be any real movement forward in regional development\u2013and in our broader national conversation about energy\u2013the narrative of hillbilly ignorance needs to die right alongside the coal industry.<\/p>\n

A recent article from Salon explores the\u00a0Liberal Shaming of Appalachia<\/a>. This is real, and it\u2019s a problem. But also problematic are\u00a0those who capitalize on the real need for development by promising a way\u00a0back to a better, simpler time. That time was not perfect when it existed\u2013and certainly offers no way forward now.<\/p>\n

People from my part of the world are resilient. Before we were coal people, my family were tobacco people. When we learned that tobacco was killing us, we learned to farm other stuff instead. So coal will not be the death of us\u2026 but the people who want to get\u00a0their hands on it\u2013at any cost to human life and the environment\u2013they will be our death for sure.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s time we measure the true cost of further plundering the mountains, and figure out where else those trains might carry us instead. I live in the Kansas suburbs now. Nowhere near a mine or a mountain, and sadly, far from anyone who talks like Loretta. But I bought a house within ear shot of the tracks, because I need that sound to sleep at night. I don\u2019t know where those tracks need to take us next. But\u00a0I know for sure that the only to go from here, is forward.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I could hear the trains from my bedroom. All hours of the day or night.\u00a0The sound was such a part of the backdrop of my childhood, I feel a little disoriented now if I find myself too far from the tracks. Any tracks will do. Luckily, in America, trains are everywhere. My dad worked for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1154,"featured_media":4856,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[204,1467,1469,1468,1472,1470,1419,1471,9],"class_list":["post-4850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-appalachia","tag-coal","tag-coal-country","tag-coal-jobs","tag-energy","tag-epa","tag-executive-order","tag-industry","tag-progressive-christianity"],"yoast_head":"\nCoal is Not Coming Back: And Nostalgia May Kill Us<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Coal jobs aren't coming back, nor should we want them too. 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