Wow! Tragic, but wtf?
I know I'm sure not throwing the first rock in that particular glass house.
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
"Let's do it. Let's be bad, Georgie."
BOOM CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY'D
This is why no one in my family has a garage. It's just safer this way.
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
You can't make that shit up. I see Kentucky is making it way up into that state down there.
Briars.
Where have you been the last 60 or 70 years?
This may say it all....
Yeah, he was like a traffic reporter. Nothing new here. Same old, same old.
You can actually see the black reporter starting fearing for his life while she's talking.
Roll Tide!
TV news is garbage. I don't know anyone who watches it anymore. For low IQ sheep.
dafuq
Despite the amazingly professional demeanor, which I am not sure I would be able to keep, this reporter probably went from "Wow, you know? Do tell" to "Wow, I am sorry I spoke..." in just a few seconds on the inside. I wonder how that played out once he got back to the studio and realized that would probably run a couple times throughout the morning. Twenty years from now, I have this feeling he will still be haunted by memories of covering an arson fueled by revenge over a refusal to engage in an incestuous relationship.
but then I realize that this is what poverty or near poverty in America looks like. Michigan has plenty who live like these folks and so does every state.
It's especially sad considering that they have probably always lived like this. This is multi-generational poverty.
We laugh at the hicks because they are safe. It isn't racist to mock the barefooted, incest-practicing(or at least that is the perception, ignorant hick who plays the banjo and burns crosses in his spare time.
There is something wrong with thinking that. Sure, there are probably some who fit that description, but how many?
I pity these people.The country long ago forgot about them.
I've taught a bunch of students who come from a similar background to what Salvatore is talking about. Salvatore has a very good point. I've often thought that instead of 'multicultural' trips abroad, etc., the ritzy schools should just visit the less-than-ritzy (to put it mildly) schools. To be fair, some do.
Also, it must be noted, many of the people (certainly not all) that Salvatore is talking about choose to live that way. I've had plenty of students who live in single-wide trailer homes with yards full of junk, but also have very nice, new F350s, multiple Polaris sleds with a toyhauler, $200 sneakers, and, especially galling to me, college scholarships and options that they never choose to pursue despite people (say, yours truly) practically filling out the applications and paperwork for them.
People really should see the doc "The Wonderful Whites of West Virginia". Despite it's focus being on a family it still gives some insight to how poor rural whites live in America.
I know plenty of people from WV and they WANT to live the way they do. My great grandmother rode a donkey across the smokies to get to WV to live the life she wanted. Are you saying you know better so they should change their enjoyment expectations and life outlook? Not everyone wants to make the same decisions you did or sacrifice the same things you did in hopes of having the same things you do. I guarantee you that the stress level and quality of life of many of those people is far better than what yours is. So while you're busy pittying them, realize they are likely pittying you and having a ball doing it.
That's not to say we shouldn't address income gap/poverty, but don't think that because you see something you don't like that the people you see aren't completely content with it.
I live in SE Ohio and have seen, and frankly live next to, the kind of people that many of you are describing in this thread. I've seen documentaries by grad students in my Geography of Appalachia class that give a lot of insight into why people in this area live the way we do. I've come to this conclusion. We have enough programs in place to help people who really want help. There are a lot of people who have figured out a way to use these systems to live comfortable lives. There are many people who are happy with a lifestyle that many of us do not and will never understand. I try not to judge people or their situations unless I know them because there are so many different reasons they are the way they are. Not everyone has the same expectations and goals in life, and that's ok.
Exactly. Like the saying goes, "not everyone wants to be saved". I personally like the life I have but it's nothing like what coal miners and backwoods WV people live. I couldn't do their life but I'm ok with that and they seem perfectly ok with not living mine.
Some of it is. But there are also many families that live this sort of lifestyle who get their money from legal sources. There are two main ways they do this. The first is from part-time spot or seasonal work. This is carefully calculated to not interfere with the second source: government assistance. I mean, a lot of people know exactly how much income they can get on the books before they lose their benefits, and they quit their jobs, stop working for the season, or switch to a cash job once they hit that point.
And just in case it wasn't clear, I wasn't 'equating material goods with access to a better life.'
I'm just saying that many people who live in dilapidated trailer homes with trash blighting their yards, an uncle in jail, another uncle passed out on the couch, with chickens loose on the property and peas and milk for dinner and Cheetos and two tubs of ice cream and six beers for dessert, wearing Salvation Army clothes and owning more vehicles that don't run than do are doing that because they choose to live that way, not because they are in any way deprived of better opportunities.
I'm not saying it isn't a problem but the house they showed looked decent at least before the fire. We also know absolutely nothing about the cousin's situation. What it shows more is the lack of mental health help available.
Crazy hits at all economic levels.
90 percent of Ohio is rolling farm lands. It's no surprise that they are what they are without another college team and such a big state.
So famers equate to incest and shitty lifestyles?! Big city boy, you've got a lot to learn about rural life.
yesterday.
but did any of you catch her LAST quote? she adds a word in there that could really explain it all, that word being 'BACK'. as in, she went from her first on camera quote about her cousin ('he wants to get with me') to the last quote, 'he wants to get BACK with me'. that would presuppose an initial time 'with' her.
oh for the love of DNA, get out of ohio while you still can!
This all could have been avoided if the single cousin had an Internet connection
