What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia

by Elizabeth Catte

Vance appears to take particular relish in using inaccurate constructions of Appalachian whiteness to complicate universal notions of white privilege. As he told Ezra Klein from Vox, “The problem, as I see it, is that we haven’t necessarily developed a great vocabulary to describe disadvantage in a newer, much more culturally diverse country…it’s not just that talking to that kid [a young person from West Virginia] about white privilege is not an especially useful way to understand his real disadvantage. It’s that it actually makes it harder for him to see the disadvantages that other people face.” The idea that confronting racism risks irrevocably alienating individuals of all races is both a common and predictable strain of thought among conservatives, but it becomes more sinister when it is propped up by the belief that the white individuals in question represent a disadvantaged race unto themselves.