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I’ve just watched “Hillbilly Elegy” on Netflix. I’ve got a lot of thoughts and opinions, especially since so many Conservative media personalities are commenting on it, asserting that critics don’t like it because it portrays poor whites in a “sympathetic” light.
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It’s a good story. It’s well-acted. Glenn Close deserves every acting award that you can hand out or give to a person. That being said, I want to say this:
I empathize with the pain & suffering of all people. It was heartbreaking to watch the cycle of poverty & abuse. However...
I empathize with the pain & suffering of all people. It was heartbreaking to watch the cycle of poverty & abuse. However...
Poverty & abuse extends to all communities, but for minorities, they lack the privilege of having white skin too. Would these white conservative lauding the film feel the same about Bev & JD had they been black or Hispanic immigrants?
Would Bev have been a “junkie ho” & JD a thug who lucked out by having Yale & white people at a sympathetic law firm save him? (If you didn’t notice, there wasn’t a person of color at that law firm dinner table. Just saying.)
I commend JD for lifting himself out of poverty & for following his dreams, but the ability for whites to assimilate into the upper echelons of American society is a great deal easier than that of minority counterparts.
To pretend that JD’s experience is anyone’s, is to gloss over very real shortcomings in America’s treatment of race, poverty, substance abuse, & mental health. Acknowledging this doesn’t make one a racist, anti-capitalist, or a malcontent. It makes one cognizant of larger issues.
The struggle of poor, addicted whites should be empathized with & talked about, but only if we are willing to extend the same courtesy to black & brown Americans who are struggling the same or a great deal more. White pain should no longer be valued more than the pain of others.
So, yes. Let’s humanize the people of Appalachia. But not without humanizing every other black, brown, poor &/or addicted community in America as well.
Period.
Period.
