Mother Jones on SWVA
Brian November 9th, 2006
I cannot remember who it was that first turned me on to Mother Jones, but for the last few years I have enjoyed reading and considered it one of the better sources of progressive news.
This article, though, entitled “Operation: Take Back Virginia” is one of the most disparaging and condescending articles I have ever read.
The author, JoAnn Wypijewski, accompanied Jim Webb (and apparently George Allen too) to several of his stops in Southwest Virginia this past weekend.
I am sure Ms. Wypijewski is generally good at what she does, however, it appears she really blew it on this article. Not only did she get several of the facts incorrect, but one can only assume that she was more interested in taking cracks at our beautiful area – Southwest Virginia – and its citizenry than writing about Jim Webb’s excellent chance to “take back Virginia.”
For example, here is how she described the enthusiastic crowd that gathered in Clintwood to see Virginia’s next U.S. Senator.
Webb ended the weekend at another potluck, this one in the mining town of Clintwood. The fare at the table, baked beans and cheese sandwiches, cucumbers in oil and vinegar and egg salad sandwiches, told something about how the people of Dickenson County are faring. This is hard coal country, and the low stools at the Clintwood elementary school cafeteria were filled, a crowd of about 200, the men in worn jackets and baseball caps with foamy fronts and webbed plastic sides. There were coal widows with diamonds but more women with bad teeth and dull hair.
Certainly she would realize how offensive statements like that are to folks in Clintwood. I guess it is possible she thinks that the lowly-citizens of Dickenson County are too illiterate to read Mother Jones.
I personally invite Ms. Wypijewski to visit Clintwood and Southwest Virginia again. She will be pleased to know that most of the ladies who live here do not have “bad teeth and dull hair.” It appears to me she has painted a very poor picture of the fiercely-independent residents of this great region.
Sometimes the truth hurts. Sharp contrast to how George Allen described SWVA as the “Real Virginia,” isn’t it?
haing roots in dickenson county on my mother’s side (she was a Patton from Clinchco,) it is infuriating to read about the Mother Jones article. the author ought to apologize for her prejudice. if someone wrote something like this about any other ethnic or social group in America, mother jones would be raising hell. it is time for people to stop thinking that “Hillbillies” can be degraded and made fun of. The author certainly has a superficial view of the world if she judges people by the cucumbers they eat and the hats they wear. Really sad.
Did she bring up we talk funny also?
Why wasn’t my first comment posted?
It’s particularly a problem because Mother Jones — the historical figure — was a labor organizer who would never have disrespected working folks that way. And Mother Jones the magazine has always stood for and with the working people of this country.
I got the impression that Allen had little respect for SWVA or he would have not thought his use of \”Macaca\” would be appreciated by us.
It was kind of like pandering or something, so no, I don\’t think there was a sharp contrast.
Not sure, but I fished them out of my spam filter.
Thank you for emailing me. Otherwise I would have never know you attempted a comment. I wonder how many other comments have been lost in the blackhole that is spam.
Sorry for the problem.
Ha. Suprisingly no. Maybe she is saving the accent jokes for her follow-up article.
I suspect that is a different set of Pattons. I am not related to the Bill Patton from Clinchco, although everyone assumes I am because he is a Democrat on the School Board here.
Anyway, thanks for agreeing with me. I was about to think I was upset for nothing.
I just noticed this on the Mother Jones website:
Am I just jumping the gun on this or should I send a letter? I hate assuming the role of the victim, but crap like this really makes me mad.
Appalachia - the region (and the town too) - catches enough crap the way it is. Should we just ignore it when it comes from a friendly source like Mother Jones? I am inclined to think we should be even more upset.
So, I need to hear some more opinions on this. Should I just let it go or keep making a fuss?
I left (the first) comment after only having read your snippet of Ms. Wypijewski’s piece. Now that I’ve read the whole thing, I think it’s apparent how out of touch SHE is. I have so many thoughts about what she said that I think I’ll blog about it instead of leaving a three page comment!
Regardless of “macaca,” he was right about SWVA being the REAL VA.
You should see what the Washington Post does…every year they go to some random town in Southwestern Virginia. I think they do it for kicks. Then, usually on the twelfth Sunday of every year, you see a huge five page spread on some town. Usually, they can be a little more derogatory than what we see in Mother Jones. Just dig through the archives.
Ok, good. I am glad I was not just overreacting.
Please send your original comments to Mother Jones. They must be made aware that this article is not journalism, it is ridicule. There is a major difference. Thank you for bringing it to our attention.
Are you people kidding? The mother jones person was being kind. All the hicks from SWVA do is make fun of everyone else in the world who is not from SWVA. Then, when someone states the simple, obvious, however painful, truth about this terrible, awful place they meet with a tantrum. Come on, this place sucks, the people stink, they DO talk funny, and most of them are illiterate, even the rich people. I have lived all over the country and this place is, objectively and dispassionately speaking, the worst place I have ever seen. And, it has the rudest, most arrogant people I have ever seen. Beauty? How can one find beauty in an abandoned strip mine? The cornpone has taken away your reason. What is there to do except visit the super wal-mart again? How bout a “xanex”? How bout an “oxy”? WAKE UP!!!
Oh Lord, just hurl yourself in front of a coal train and put us all out of our misery.
More coal talk huh? Thats my point Goober. Thanks for proving it for me. Now, go take a bath.
Then make it an Amtrak!
Outta my way! I’m off to the washtub!
I agree with CJFM.
Since SWVA is running over with jobs, let\’s get rid of anything related to coal mining. I am sure CJFM is getting ready to explain to us how we can replace those coal related jobs with others that will be so much better.
Are you really that big of an idiot?
I guess I had better start wearing shoes, taking baths, and brushing my teeth now. Thank you CJFM for saving SWVA!
Down with coal, Down with coal, Down with coal….
er… Down with CJFM,Down with CJFM, Down with CJFM, Down with CJFM ….
RalphB, I guess I would jump in front of an Amtrack train for you, but since this hickville is a thousand miles from civilization, cell phone coverage and Amtrack, I guess I will be deprived of that privilege. Mr. Closet, you miss the point, I simply don’t care about the dump that is SWVA and its coal and its oxycontin needles and pill snorting. I certainly don’t care about jobs here when they are in a criminal industry like coal mining. I definitely cannot support an industry which rapes the land with strip mining, routinely falsifies dust samples by always bribing the workers who collect them (I know many of them personally and they are well paid for this). A corrupt industry that destroys people’s homes, sometimes killing babies when huge rocks fall on defenseless people’s homes. Drunken Federal mine inspectors on the take, going to jail when they don’t go below ground to do required inspections. Toxic waste dumped all over the place. People found dead in coke ovens. Politicians taking kickbacks in order to pass absurdly permissive environmental regulations for corrupt, murderous coal mine owners. The bought and paid for Division of Mines, Minerals and Energy which falsifies blasting data and files false reports denying clearly legitimate claims when homeowners complain to them, as required by law, about their homes being destroyed by blasting. All so that a few rich people can ride around in fancy cars with a “friends of coal” sticker on their car. Sure, you have a class of workers making money off this criminal enterprise, but they are part of the criminal enterprise itself, whether they are saintly, angelic hillbillies beyond all reproach or not. All I really ask is that these criminals who make their money by killing babies and blowing people’s houses up with impunity is that they take a bath and wash that nasty dust off their stinking bodies before they go to the grocery store to buy their beer so that I don’t have to smell them at the store and worry that they may have touched the food I just bought. SWVA=Drug Capital. Regarding the fact that you MUST support the coal industry, thats like saying that if you live in Colombia you must support the growing of coca leaves and the cocaine trade because it is the sole source of income for Colombians. Regarding SWVA’s “beauty”, go to the Shenendoah mountains, go to Charlottesville, go to Staunton, go to Afton Mountain, the most scenic place in Virginia. Pulllease!!! John Denver did not sing about the Appalachian mountains did he? For a reason, all you have here is bald, brown mountains gutted by your righteous strip mining. Save the illiterate holier than though ad hominems, insinuating gayness with your name “go back in the closet”, that is just another illiterate SWVA tactic because you can’t respond in an intellectually compelling fashion. Idiot you say, I think not. Try again, hayseeds, you’re boring me.
Also, let me say that what I see, and what I can PROVE is a blatant and unfounded bias against anyone from any region other than the sainted SWVA. The pontificating and holier than thou tirades about how only SWVA matters, and that the other NINETY-FIVE PERCENT OF THE POPULATION of this state do not matter and are not “real Virginians” is hillbilly horsedung. I guess George Washington and Thomas Jefferson do not matter because they are not from Pound or Big Stone Gap. They are not “real Virginians.” Save the cries of victimhood, you’re not innocent. (Ever hear a group, almost any group, of SWVA people discuss their opinions of blacks?) What about the slander in the election, which nearly 70% of SWVA bought into at the polls, regaring Tim Kaine being a “midwesterner” and a “Kansas City” liberal educated at that evil “eastern school” in Cambridge, Mass. (Harvard, in deference to the “UVA” Wise graduates).
Wail, Shazaaam, we shuddint vote fore heahm coz he ainte frum arowyund hear! He mayuks fuhn a howe wea tawk round heer! Well, the other NINETY-FIVE percent of the population of the state may ask why the whole state should be run by a corrupt crew of bohunks from an abandoned strip job.
I agree. In spite of all the pervasive and epidemic racial and social bigotry clearly expressed by many SWVA people, your cries of victimhood about being made fun of for your accent and being the only real virginians are just a feeble attempt to claim the protected status enjoyed by the minority groups you profess to hate, but won’t admit to hating outside your borders or this website. (Democrats excused, I’m talking to the confederate flag crowd here). A group where its okay to make fun of other people simply because they are not in the protected class, in this case the class representative being a self righteous hick with coal dust all over his face and a cellophane of xanax in his pocket used to date rape willing pill whores from Big Stone Gap, maybe even Lee county if he’s really lucky. Congrats to CJFM for speaking the truth. Love your user name, very original. Though you are clearly correct in your controversial views, you seem to feed on the bad guy role. You remind me of Bobby the Brain Heenan or Ric Flair when he was a bad guy, so you’re probably gonna be mad for me agreeing with you though. If so, go hurl yourself in front of a coal train. Keep up the good work!
Ever notice how people who disparage SWVa always claim to “have lived all over the country,” yet seem completely incapable of extracting themselves from here? Poor li’l CJFM. Stuck here ’cause you can’t bear to give up those conjugal visits to the supermax.
And by the way, Pythagoras, 52% of SWVa voted against Kaine in 2005. Not 70%. Then again, I guess you’d never let the facts get in the way of a good rant.
Goober says “Hey!”
Thanks for sharing