Why We All Should Be Environmentalists…

This meeting has raised lots of interesting questions for me and other issues that need more consideration.  However, here is one I feel like I have a pretty good handle on for the sake of a blog post.

Back home, in southern West Virginia, we all shy away from the terms environmentalist and environmentalism.  In a region where “tree hugger” is hurled as a derogatory slur, the local population associats the notion of caring for the environment as something that only privileged outsiders have the time or means to do.  Outsiders of the region and the motivation for their interest in our region is always viewed with skepticism and environmentalists or “tree huggers” are viewed in a negative light.  This issue was discussed in a session regarding a book Our Roots Run as Deep as Ironweed about female activists in Appalachia.  The work was built on a number of interviews with Appalachian women who have found their way to the front lines of the battle to protect their communities from the numerous threats posed to them my mountaintop removal mines and associated environmental degradation.

Despite the fact that these women are fighting to protect the quality of the air and water that their children breathe and drink, many, if not all, would not classify themselves as environmentalists.  I understand why they feel this way, at least in my gut, because I know how I felt about the so-called tree huggers when I was growing up in McDowell County.  So even while these women are fighting the same fight as their tree-hugging, outsider counterparts, probably working hand-in-hand with those that would readily identify themselves as environmentalists, they hesitate to call themselves environmentalists or even to see themselves as such.

Should there be such a stigma in central Appalachia associated with protecting the environment?  Are there ways to get beyond this stigma so that locals can take pride in protecting their environment, including themselves?  This stigma did not simply materialize out of thin air.  The corporate interests in this part of the state (coal, natural gas, and timber industries) have always sought to weaken environmental regulation or even the prospect of regulation in the region.  One of the corporation’s most effective campaigns has been to portray the environmental groups that would come to the region as “hippie” outsiders who were actually more concerned with themselves and the trees than the people living in Appalachia.  In other words, environmentalism was more of the same cultural exploitation that descended on the region during the war on poverty, when outside journalists exported picture after picture of impoverished, backwards, inbred, toothless hillbillies.  It was an effective tactic on the part of the corporations.  Environmentalism or having a general concern for the environment was largely associated with protecting animals and trees at the expense of the people.  Thus, a tree hugger cared more for about the trees and squirrels than they did for people.  Since they were all hippie outsiders who were likely to be communists that probably smoked a lot of weed and hated “america,” the term “tree hugger” became a term to be avoided.  Since I believe that many consider an environmentalist to be synonymous with tree hugger, anyone from back home would reasonably be hesitant to call themselves an environmentalist.

I think this is unfortunate that the powerful external corporations have been allowed to determine whether we think of ourselves as protectors of our environment.  We distance ourselves from environmental struggles at our peril and to our own misfortune.  We should not make the distinction between caring for the trees, fish, deer, birds, and salamanders and caring for people.  A basic understanding of ecology informs us that we, human beings, all require a healthy environment with clean air, clean water, and unadulterated food supplies to thrive.  An environmentalist or one who seeks to preserve and protect the environment is working to protect people equally as much as they are working to protect the trees and animals due to this interconnectedness.

As a culture that once entirely subsisted on the land, Appalachians should understand better than most the dependence of the health of people on the health of the land as it should be ingrained in our DNA.  Just as we do not want to let outsiders to tell us how to fight for our environment, we should be equally resistant to allowing external corporate interests remove us from our environment, causing us to see ourselves and our well-being as distinct from health of our streams, our fish, and our forests.  I suggest we take back the terms environmentalism, environmentalist, even tree hugger.  Because we are all environmentalists.

Last May, during a visit to Charleston, I saw a bumper sticker on a pickup truck that read Coal Hugger.  I guess a Coal Hugger is supposed to be the opposite of a Tree Hugger.  Since I am arguing that being a “tree hugger” is just as much about protecting people as it is protecting trees, I suggest Hillbilly Hugger as the counter sentiment to the misguided Coal Hugger sticker.  Why use the term Hillbilly?  Because that’s obviously another term we need to take back!

 

Swimming (perhaps drowning) in All Things Appalachia!!!

I arrived at Chuck Yeager Airport (Chuck not only had the “right stuff,” he was from WV) around 2pm yesterday. By 2:15pm, I was in a hip little coffee shop called Moxy, in downtown Charleston. Within 30 minutes, one of my best childhood friends met me, even though I had only let her know that I would be in town, by e-mail, earlier yesterday morning. My friend, who grew up in a “holler” in McDowell County, is now an insanely successful pediatric dentist in Charleston.

After getting to catch up over a bite to eat, I was back on the road to The Holiday Inn in Barboursville, a small town that happens to boast the largest shopping mall in the state.  After settling to the hotel, I ran out for some meds to battle my cold that continues to persist.  Later, I had dinner at the hotel bar and watched Stanford get sent home from the tourney.

After dinner, I met my first ASA conference attendees, a couple from Union College in Kentucky.

The conference started in earnest at 11am.  There were too many concurrent sessions.  I had no clue how to choose which  to attend.  I started with the Appalachian Law Center session, which included a discussion about black lung and whistle blower protections for miners concerned about the safety in the mines.  The woman sitting next to me was a professor at the Appalachian School of Law in Grundy, VA.  My brother received his law degree from there as a member of the first graduating class in 2000.  However, she didn’t start teaching there until 2001.

I left that session a little early to go see the end of the Doc Watson Family Story book session presented by Roy Andrade from East Tennessee State University.  I’m glad I caught the end of his presentation, if for no other reason than to know that this storybook exists.

From there I headed to the coal camp documentary organized by the University of Kentucky.  However, it was not exactly what I had in mind, plus all of the content is online and I can view it whenever I choose.  Barbara Kingsolver’s sister, Ann, and her students were responsible for the content.  From there I stopped by a session about Rising Appalachia, a musical/performance art duo (as far as I could tell) and a paper picking apart all of the symbolism in one of their music videos.  That was also a little too specific for me.

I ran out of that session to one about movie representations of the hillbilly stereotype.  The paper I arrived for was about Wrong Turn I and Wrong Turn II, both about upper-middle class out-of-towners passing through West Virginia when they take a “wrong turn” and end up in a remote area of the hills where the local in-bred mutant cannibals (Wrong Turn I) or the local toxic waste produced mutants (Wrong Turn II) hunt the college-age prepsters.  The paper specifically looked at reviews of the movies to see how this media representation of the “hillbilly” was perceived.  What I found most interesting is that the social commentary in the film was, for the most part, lost on most that reviewed it.  A very nice commentary on the papers presented in this session was given by an English professor from Hobart and William Smith College, just right down the road from Colgate.

My last session of the day was a plenary session led by a percussive dancer and a musicologist-turned-storyteller from Shepherd University.  Their presentation was more of a discussion as they addressed the hillbilly stereotype.  They introduced a new “super Appalachian” stereotype or what I would call the wanna-be-hillbillies.  These are folks steeped in the old traditions (and proud of it) more so than people that would have lived in Appalachia when these traditions were more a part of life.

The conversation included a discussion of preservation of traditions and Appalachian heritage and the potential for the evolution of these traditions, sometimes as part of the preservation.  Are such evolutions allowed?  Would changes to folk dances be welcomed or considered to lack authenticity?  And, as far as nostalgia goes, why are so many folks nostalgic for the “good ole days?”

My thought about this has to do with the loss of the mountaineer lifestyle/culture.  The freedom of the wilderness and subsistence on the land shifted as the mineral companies entered the scene and sent the men into the mines.  As mountaineers were sold on consumerism, their older simpler lifestyles gave way to ones in which money bought things that were once unnecessary or undesirable.  Add in a flood of immigrants with their own cultural traditions and the local culture would at least be watered down as all groups would move in even the smallest of ways towards assimilation.

In the end, I think this assimilation is the key to the nostalgia we all feel for the old traditions.  A cultural heritage was lost not because of a truly conscious choice, but because the economy and influence of the coal companies would have forced a drastic change in lifestyle for many.  And this would have been for the “good times” when employment was easy to come by (ignore whether the terms of that employment were fair or beneficial to the workers and their families).  Later, as the mines required fewer and fewer workers and the merciless wave of poverty rolled through the hills and valleys of Appalachia, media representations of the poor, backwards, downtrodden hillbilly created or imposed an identity on the region.  An identity many would seek to distance themselves from.  I would argue that this distancing due to external forces, is part of the loss of cultural traditions in the mountains.  And, it is responsible for the extreme nostalgia for this place held by many of its displaced children.

The war on poverty and the images of Appalachia disseminated around the globe helped the region to move away from its traditions.  Since this cultural loss is, in a sense, imposed by the views of outsiders, the reaction of the locals to distance themselves from their traditions is an act of assimilation.  It is this act of assimilation and, perhaps, the regret associated with it, that explains some of the strong desire many have for recapturing the “lost” traditions.  Traditions that shouldn’t have been lost in the first place.  And, I think this is why so many long for the truest, purest representation of the culture.  It has to be authentic!!

Ready for Day Two!

Eric Taylor in Concert 5/3/14

As some of you who may end up reading this blog from time to time know, we have been hosting house concerts for the last four years or so.  It all began with a couple of our friends and favorite people from Charlottesville:  Morwenna Lasko and Jay Pun.  They blew everyone away, we decided to continue to host house concerts as a way to connect members of our community, but also to feed my own need for live music.  Having spent a few years in Nashville as a graduate student with a schedule that permitted my rather frequent attendance at music venues like The Station Inn and Robert’s Western World, I miss being saturated with energy of live performances.

Our next house concert is scheduled for May 3rd.  We scheduled this one after being contacted by the singer/songwriter’s wife.  As with many extremely talented artists, I had never heard of Eric Taylor.  But I listened to some of his latest work and decided that we would love to have him in for a show.  We’d be crazy not to.

I just discovered that he penned a song on Lyle Lovett’s double CD set called Step Inside This House, a collection of covers of Lyle’s favorite Texas singer/songwriters.  The CD includes covers of Guy Clark, Townes Van Zant, Robert Earl Keene, and Walter Hyatt.  One of my favorite songs on the compilation has always been Memphis Midnight/Memphis Morning…  written by Eric Taylor!  How cool is that?

If you are in the area and want to hear some good music, drop me a line and I’ll send you the info about the show!!!

Getting Back into the Swing…

I am back in the states after a nearly two-week long excursion through France and Italy to meet with French collaborators and visit family in the Abruzzo region of the boot.  My jetlag is getting a little better, but the sore throat I started with almost immediately upon getting home is not making settling back in any easier.

Last week was spring break at Colgate U.  While the only thing that seems to have obeyed the change of the seasons is the length of the day, the outside temperatures and weather in general is more like early February than late March.  I won’t be here long to enjoy the extended winter since I will be leaving town for my third trip in the month of March on Thursday.

My next trip will take me south (sweet Jesus) to Huntington, WV for the annual Appalachian Studies Association meeting.  It will be my first.  I am used to science conferences with thousands of astronomers running around talking about discovering the secrets of the universe, not humanities or social science style conferences with people giving “papers,” instead of oral presentations.  Thankfully, there will be poster sessions to help me get my bearings.

Despite being a fish out of water, academically speaking, I am going to feel right at home at this meeting.  With sessions like the Doc Watson Family Storybook, Moonshine and Music, and Community and Legal Issues with the Changing Coal Industry, there is going to be plenty of stuff going on that I am going to find interesting.

I plan to blog about the meeting and how I find my way in a completely new environment.  My goal is to learn about common themes that appear in standard Appalachian studies courses to help my thinking about such a course a Colgate that I imagine being one of our four Core Liberal Arts classes known as “Communities and Identities.”

I hope to write frequently, so I am not going to try to make every post perfect.