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Worth reminding y’all why Elegy is such a dangerous book/story/movie… it’s not just that he hates his mother for her drug addiction and airs his family’s dirty laundry in a book. It’s that he theorizes about the whole of Appalachia in the process.
In fact, if it had strictly been a memoir about his basic ass life, it wouldn’t have ever been a NYT best seller. Hell, it might not have ever gotten published. It literally started as a term paper for one of his undergrad classes. And it SHOWS.
What got it published and made it successful was all his psuedo-sociological “analysis” of a place and time that white people love to lambast and typecast as other so they can feel better about their lot in life.
He intertwines his own bootstraps story with opinions and thoughts about why his life was like this, and blames his Appalachian roots for it. His mother was deficient because her Appalachian genes are deficient.
In the process, he finds half a dozen neo-liberal bullshit journal articles to support his claims that Appalachian people are poor because they chose to be. They’re lazy, feckless & incapable of doing good for themselves. It’s basically in their nature to be poor & drug addled.
He also gets pretty racist, misogynistic and heterosexist along the way, often calling up lack of family values as a reason why poor Appalachians are struggling.
He treats his mother like trash, blames her for everything bad in his life. He dismisses his beloved Mamaw as crazy often. His disdain for women without a strong male presence to guide them is clear and apparent.
He is a conservative shill who flys under the wing of Peter Thiel and Charles Murray, who made his millions selling the long con of personal responsibility and poverty as deficiency.
And he used one of the most exploited places in this country to do it. What a freaking coward.
So, when we get mad about his new multi-million-dollar false morality play of a movie coming out, it’s not just because he makes Appalachians look bad. It’s because he’s perpetuating a centuries-long lie that only serves to make rich people richer on the backs of Appalachians.
The fact that he’s still haunting us, & I can’t get his stupid name out of my mouth, even after dozens of scholars, thinkers & writers have called him on his shit, tells you a lot about who’s permitted to tell the stories of Appalachia on a national scale. Hint: It ain’t us.
You want to know Appalachia? Read/follow: @elizabethcatte, @Dr_JessieW, @Meredith_McC, @jessica_salfia, @cgoodwoman, @auntiebernice, @walkyourcamera @poem_thing @CrystalWilki @Kunkel4Congress @sydneyboles @scalawagmag @AppalachiaYouth @Appalachia100 @country_queers @denimfemme
And also: @hendersonaw0604 @onesarahjones @robert_gipe @HerecomesDrBob @cfbalestier @STAYproject @Appalshop @amythystkiah @makeconnectnews
Another!! @mistymarierae
