Great post. Having been caught in anti- time in Elkins, I vowed never to bring my wife into the state so that she wouldn't experienced the Mississippi-style racism.

The only "industry" left in Elkins is government supported health care. The home care "professionals" include former convicts who steal from the dying.

Did I mention that a college education in Elkins doesn't mean the the holder of the degree won't openly bring up the "Jewish question."

But the country is some of the most beautiful I've seen. The better natured folks, descended from old Anglo-Celtic stock, and singing variants of songs that reach back some four centuries (though they don't know it) --can offer blessings, till
the Jewish thing comes up.

Obama could come to West Virginia with Christ and only get a bump of two points in today's election.

Correction: Native Americans do not outnumber Asian Americans in WV. I misread the statistic. They're both slightly more than half of one percent, though.

Lovely post, Akbar. I have a fondness for this State, as well. Spent my freshman year of college at WVU - well, spent most of it hiking around, caving, partying in the woods...and then went home to actually attend college. But, I loved this State - it's natural beauty left an indelible impression on me.

Some of us old coots left that country to head west. We'd killed off enough Indians, won that fight, and still wanted more.

We were the first trappers into the Northwest. In the early days we made friends with the Indians, often marrying into a tribe. Then we lead wagon trains to the west, and fought in wars to obliterate Native American people and their cultures. We did that pretty damn well.

Robert Redford got to play me before he realized that scalping
Indians wasn't going to help him at Sundance.

But some us were interesting people --killers, but interesting.

Yep. That's about the size of it. As I'm sure you know, Akbar, East Kentucky (where my roots are) is barely distinguishable from West Virginia except that the unmined parts of West Virginia are a bit prettier. The cultural and economic dynamic that caused mountaineers to hate both slaveowners and slaves alike is alive and well in the mountains of Kentucky, West Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee and we're seeing it play out in this election.

Akbar didn't mention to y'all that there's a real taboo about talking about our problems, or in any way running down our culture, in front of "outsiders" so I know it was a little hard for him to write this. And I dare say that if somebody who wasn't from there said this about us, we'd both have our backs up abuout it. Few things piss off a mountaineer worse than being studied by sociologists from the lowlands.

But, hey, while we're airing the laundry, let's not forget the horrendous schools caused by the equally horrendous tax bases, and the virulent anti-intellectualism that seems to be such a uniquely American attitude among the poor, both rural and urban.

The hard fact is that Appalachia is the whitest region left in a rapidly browning country, is rapidly aging and is becoming progressively less educated as people like Akbar and trickle away to places like North Carolina. Been going on for decades but the process has been accelerating like glacial melting as environmental standards shut down the high-sulfer coal mines and the continuous miner and mountain top removal wiped out jobs in the low-sulfter coal mines. The end result is a UMWA that's a shadow of its former self, lot of unemployment.

The idea that this makes them some sort of bellweather for the nation would be horrifying if it wasn't so facially ridiculous.

Tough to think of the UMWA in the present day as you suggest, considering the momentous role it played in American history. Too sad, even for the blue guy.

Akbar,

Added thanks from an adopted daughter of Kentucky for a gentle and lucid explanation of what's happening in the hills.

From years of slowly making friends in the eastern part of the state, I'd add that I think there's a systematic wariness of strangers.

A justified wariness, given the way folks from other places have been known to cheat and exploit both the people and the land.

And a wariness that lasts longer because of the educational barriers and, until recently, the substantial difficulties of communication and travel.

And a wariness that may be getting more concentrated as the folks with options and confidence move away to escape the economic depression that gets deeper year by year, and the local community becomes more and more those who could not find a a way to leave.

The wariness is, I think, not mainly about race.

It's about anyone from elsewhere, and about whether one count on respect from strangers who seem to have had some type of social advantage. An Anglo-Saxon with Obama's resume and rhetoric would also have a problem--not as big a problem, but a serious one all the same.

Building trust takes more work than in other places, because people have been burned so often. Sadly, Obama does not have that time this month.

More happily, he's going to have eight years to work on it from the Oval Office.

I've seen several old union halls, abandoned, with broken windows. It's sad.

A great, poetic diary. This passage reminds me so much of the end of Season 2 of The Wire. Different state - same result.

The supreme irony is the unwavering support for the same corporate Republicans who have methodically and cold-bloodedly broken the back of West Virginia.

Rec'd, both the post and the discussion. Thank you for opening up and spending the time and the effort typing to make aliens like myself understand your fascinating world.

Bush carried WV by pretty decent margins. This state may have been part of Roosevelt's coalition when unions were strong, but they aren't any more. The Clinton's did little to help unions when they were in power. It has only gotten worse with Bush. Before we can bring WV and the rest of Appalachia back into the Democratic fold, we need to reinvigorate the labor laws and let people organize. WV will vote for McCain no matter whom we nominate.

We have some lovely memories of camping and driving in WV. Wow, what winding roads! People were kind. But then we were campers, so I suppose we didn't stick out as effete snobs. (which we aren't)

Thanks for your great post! Very educational.

Akbar, thank you. Your analysis and the responses it elicited helped me understand to some degree where West Virginian's are coming from with this overwhelming support for Hillary Clinton and why it will produce the most skewed results, to date, in her favor. Not a pretty picture.

Interesting perspective:

So if OBAMA becomes president would states like WV and KT secede from the UNION because of this historical reality.

What direction would HRC going, after this, if she stays in the race.
This is just WIERD.

I just went to a closing event for my husband's academic year. In years past, there's often been a student performance, either classical or barbershop. This year, for the very first time, there were fiddles. Strong ones and a strong voices that led off with "Blue Moon of Kentucky."

I don't think anyone saw me wipe my eyes, but I surely did.

Eventually, when people and place become part of you, they stay part of you even when you disagree. That's what home means, and it's something that doesn't need explaining to most folks here in the Bluegrass state.

I won't say my Kentucky neighbors are right, but I will say they're mine.

Thank you Akbar, this is excellent historical analysis. I liked this part:

I've always been proud of West Virginia's motto, "Montani semper liberi" -- Mountaineers are always free! -- and I wish it were true.

Nicely put, given that what you're implying in your post is that while the whites in that area do say and act in racist ways, it's not quite fair to say they ARE racists. They've basically been pushed into a situation and setting that teaches them to be racist.

I think of racial identities as learned forms of training. White people learn to perform their whiteness. So if they act racist, we should do less blaming of them as individuals and more blaming and analysis of what forces led them to be racist.

thanks again,

macon d

Give a listen to, or a read of, the lyrics to Bob Dylan's "Only a Pawn in Their Game".

It's a bit more "eastern" than the above, but it gives another relevant facet to the picture.

Akbar and others: what a good little discussion here. You all have been articulating what I've not been able to articulate since Obama lost so big to Hillary in my native county of Virginia.

I became an Obama supporter because I saw how much his candidacy meant to people in my new home for the last seven years, South Carolina. Never had I seen people be so excited for a candidate -- people waving, holding signs at major intersections throughout the state. A solitary black man stood holding a large Obama sign on the corner of the State House grounds in Columbia, right under the statue of Tillman: "Change You Can Believe In."

I really think the issue in Appalachia with Obama is about Hope, really. My grandfather told me to "never be beholden to anyone." That's about independence and self-reliance, sure. But it's also a rejection of help and grace, and ultimately, hope. It's a fear of outsiders -- especially from coal companies from Pittsburgh -- historically, legitimately felt. But it's a crazy way to live. It bothers me.

Now is that why Clinton beat Obama so badly in Appalachia? Don't know.

This has been a beautiful thread. My father's family was in Western Pennsylvania from before the Revolution, my mother's was there from a couple of generations back, I was born there, and those hills are home to me still like nowhere else on Earth. Can't say that we had any of the mountain music. Had a fierce dedication to education, though. That was partly from the Scots in us, but it was certainly because an education was the only way not to have to go down in the mines. My children all have that fierceness for learning even to this day, though come to think of it they know nothing of their great-great uncle disabled by pneumoconiosis. Remarkable how these traits can persist. So thanks, Akbar, and thanks to everyone who has posted. I learned a lot and am glad of it.

And your vast knowledge of Appalachia comes from having lived there for how long, exactly?

A guy comes (several of us actually) and tells the harsh truth about the place where they were born and raised and explains the sociology and the demographics of the region but you know better because you are in possession of, indeed, one might even say possessed by, the received wisdom spewed by Hillary's spin machine.

Sorry guys. I know its embarassing to you to only be winning in the places where the demographics are disproportionately white, old and uneducated. I know you want to believe your Dear Leader when she tells you that West Virginia is a microcosm of America and that this great victory has nothing to do with Appalachia being the last bastion of unabashed, unashamed racism in America. I get that. Just like you want to believe that she still has a path to the nomination that doesn't end in abject defeat in November, that Gerry Ferraro was totally misconstrued and martyred, that Obama is the one who "played the race card" and Bill and Hill are being smeared by those who say they did it, that none of the opposition to Obama is based on racism but all of the opposition to Hillary is based on sexism, and that Obama's entire success is based entirely upon the support of starry-eyed political virgins who just don't understand the real world like you guys do.

But, see, here's the thing. One major party that thinks its entitled to its own facts is one too many. Two parties that think they're entitled to their own facts would pretty much be the end of our ability to govern ourselves in this country for good. So, please, either accept the embarassing and unpleasant facts with the good ones or go join the Republicans with Lieberman.