I live in two worlds: Appalachia and not-Appalachia. I lean left in Appalachia, and it’s an extremely challenging double consciousness. 1/10

WEB DuBois described double consciousness in terms of black folks’ experience—awareness of self and awareness of how the self is seen by white people. THAT double consciousness is a million times harder than mine. 2/10

And if I’m exhausted, I can hardly fathom the exhaustion of BIPOC folk. Things here are even more complicated still, because Appalachia is deeply divided. 3/10

There are conservative and progressive people here. There are bigots and allies. There are white people and BIPOC. There are people whose livelihoods come from coal and coal-related industry and those who are concerned about the environmental damage from coal mining. 4/10

Sometimes these people are in the same family; they’re almost always neighbors.

I can’t truthfully say that I see both sides of these issues. But I have to live amongst the tensions. One of the contradictory gifts of rural life is learning how to live in community, or... 5/10

at least peacefully, with people who believe very differently than one does.

Meanwhile, there are people who blame Appalachia for where we are right now. Despite evidence that insurrection came from people hailing from all over the US. 6/10

Some, perhaps many, who are wealthy or at least comfortable. Some educated by Ivy League schools, some serving as political or community leaders. And some from Appalachia. Racism is endemic; it’s not particular to this region. 7/10

Similarly, poverty is not peculiarly Appalachian (I’m looking at you, JD Vance). Appalachians are no better and no worse than people anywhere in the US, though they may be less better OFF. 8/10

This is a complicated, heartbreaking place. The land is gorgeous, and people here can be amazingly kind and generous and deeply funny. It’s also a difficult place with big wealth disparities, rural/urban disparities, hope and despair, all tangled up. 9/10

Anyway. This explainer is sponsored by my heart and mind, the place I love, and the very weird week we all just had. 10/10

Bonus edutweet: Rural kids aren’t dumb. Once socioeconomic status is accounted for, rural kids’ achievement is on par with non-rural kids’. In case anyone was wondering if rural App kids were maybe dim.

Bonus historitweet: Appalachia had enslaved people, but not on the South’s plantation scale. (Still, is very bad. “Owning” PEOPLE is wrong.) Appalachia had a long labor history, but has generally moved to the right politically over maybe the last 20 years.

We might need to rename this region Contradictistan. #Appalachia