Appalachia is not a monolith https://twitter.com/appalachia100/status/1336322358550777857

One day I’m gonna have a Salvadoran Appalachian child and I’m not sure if I’ll be able to handle them

Appalachia is one of the regions becoming most diverse in the US and one where LGBTQIA+ rights is most fought. But y'all keep thinking the South is full of hillbillies and rednecks

Another interesting note: the words hillbilly and redneck came from the labor rights movement in coal country. Literal communists having armed resistance. Lots of y'all would be surprised how much more radical white Appalachians can be compared to y'alls white Salvi parientes

What most don't realize is that WVA didn't want to succeed from VA bc it would leave them poor & without resources. All bc they didn't agree w chattel slavery. BUT also be they were helping Black folks escape into the mountains.

Its impossible to make plantations on mountains, so most of the rich white landowners lived in VA where there is less mountain range. The rest were made to live in the mountains where they married into indigenous or Black communities. Its why you see such diverse ancestry

By succeeding with WVA, VA landowners didn't have to worry about part of the pop being against slavery. Plus it left them WVA bankrupt! you know what else helped their cause later on? putting stereotypes on WVA to make them seem less credible and unimportant

There is a reason that part of the US culture is to hate WVA and really it has to do with the fact that WVA spoke up to VA plantation/land owners

Its definitely a complex history. Black people still had to face racism from white & indigenous folks in Appalachia, but it's important to not fall into tropes that were made to further marginalize BIPOC people. See another important thread here: https://twitter.com/ChoctawFreedmen/status/1336051881777487874