Living in Appalachia It’s impossible to not see the confederate flag on a semi regular basis anytime you leave your home. Whether it’s your neighbors garage or a bumper sticker, it’s impossible not to see it. To me, this is a great shame that haunts Appalachia and is a virus of an ideology that has taken root like a parasite despite not even being a real part of our history. Appalachia is an ancient place that predates even the trees that cover it like a warm blanket, it held a diverse and rich history of native peoples that made my ancestors’ time in the mountains seem like a fresh faced babe. And while I would love to learn more about this time before our families set their roots in Appalachia’s ancient bones; the issue I’m speaking of is very recent and is a dangerous blanket that not only covers our home but is also at risk to smother us in our sleep. Appalachia, in my opinion, has always been a place of poverty and hardships. These hardships have made a culture of community and support that has dated back for centuries, the struggles of life here makes all of us brothers and sisters of the mountains. And what do we do when our brother or sister is in trouble? We stop what we are doing and help them. WE help our neighbors, WE help the man on the side of the road, WE help the fallen person, WE help the lost traveler, WE help because this struggle in the mountains has made us family.
But for the last 162 years there has been a cancer from the south that has driven a wedge in the family and turned our brothers and sisters into hate filled creatures that stalk the mountains. These creatures hide who they are from us, they shake your hand while thinking OUR family is lesser than. They hate our family because it holds wonderfully unique people that struggle right beside us. These same creatures that will claim that its heritage not hate that has them waving a flag that didn’t last long enough to leave elementary school, but anyone who has ever interacted with them knows different. These creatures were once men, like you and me, but the struggles of the mountain have worn them to the point of looking for blame in all the wrong places. From a young age their heads are filled with hate and spite like an infection that refuses to be cut out, and this infection is destroying us.
The worst part is that those waving the flag truly think that these four years are OUR history. What do we, the people who struggled day to day and fed our families with the sweat of our brow, have in common with rich fat cats of the south that sipped tea in the hot sun while others did the work? Those four years were rich landowners fighting to stay fat and lazy, so they would never have to be like us. We fought for fair wages from the mine owners that took our lives with slow and painful death, yet these people wave a flag that idolizes those same people that have always abused us and say its THEIR history. The confederacy was four years of southerners hating those they seen as lesser and fighting to keep them so they could stay in their rich homes and profit from those that actually work.
Now I don’t know about you, but I think the people of Appalachia have more in common with those the flag suppressed than those that waved it.
