You would think I’m distraught over the Senate Judiciary Committee but nope! It’s the making of Hillbilly Elegy—the bane of my existence, my thorn in the flesh, the doctrine of Antichrist—into a movie.

Y’all I live in Appalachia. I am a mountain person. I am a proud and loud Hillbilly. Hillbilly Elegy does a *lot* of damage to Mountain Mama.

Hillbilly Elegy gives legitimacy to the claim that us mountain folk are simple, uncivilized, lazy, unintelligent, sexually promiscuous, and savages. The author (who I shan’t name) places all the blame on the destruction of Appalachia on the inhabitants of the mountains.

This creates a false doctrine of discovery where large corporations such as coal companies, timber companies, and Walmart can move into our land and destroy it. Appalachians, is the thinking goes, aren’t true persons.

With this logic our land can be exploited and robbed. It destroys our local economies and forces us to work in coal mines or at Walmart.

We are now locked into positions where we cannot get ahead financially or rise the corporate ladder.

This creates a spirit of hopelessness and helplessness in the region. We can’t rise above the fray and so we turn to things like opioids. The rampant drug abuse (and subsequent death) in the region is solely to blame on these new economic systems we are locked into.

Further, our politicians are in bed with the corporate leaders. They are bought out and therefore do not represent the will and needs of the people. As a result our people continue to die under the gaze of exploitative corporatism.

And Hillbilly Elegy justifies all of us.

So please, I’m begging you, don’t watch it. Don’t watch it for my sake. Don’t watch it for my people’s sake. Hillbilly Elegy is killing us.