Appalachia Archives | Jordan Dotson

Magical realism in Appalachia

August 21, 2015 By Jordan

Hurley’s population is estimated a bit above 3,000. On game nights, it can feel as if all of them are at The Cliff, a one-of-a-kind stadium where Smiley Ratliff Field is blasted out of rock. Behind one end zone, and behind most of one sideline, is sheer stone. You can get a stiff neck peering up to the tree-topped summit.

…from USA Today: At Hurley High, Confederate battle flag is everywhere and means everything

This is a good article. A good, accurate, respectful, aware and thoughtful piece of journalism. It involves Appalachia, coal miners, blacks with confederate flag tattoos and high schools with the same painted on their doors, and it’s decent. Not click-bait. Just right and accurate and true. It doesn’t point fingers, doesn’t moralize, doesn’t try to polarize the world or poke fun or turn anyone into a villain.

Amazing. I’m utterly shocked.

Poverty porn

May 21, 2015 By Jordan

“Looking at Appalachia Anew,” says the New York Times, before immediately posting pictures of kids swimming in a river and herding goats. Unbelievable. That’s like saying “The new face of black America!” then posting pictures of Neon and Butch McRae.

Thoughtful and honest journalism from America’s most stalwart news source, folks.

App-a-latch-an

March 16, 2015 By Jordan

In 1922, New York Evening Post columnist Ray Torrey wrote an article under a headline “A Great Trail from Maine to Georgia.” In August 1937, the longest hiking-only footpath in the world stretching from Katahdin, Maine to Springer Mountain, Georgia was completed. This is where the modern mispronunciation of the word originated. “App-a-latch-an” worked its way south and emerged as “App-a-lay-shan” -a linguistic note that would soon become symbolic to America.

In 1964, Appalachia was thrown on the world stage when President Lyndon Johnson stood on a front porch in Inez, Kentucky and declared a war on poverty in the region. Johnson’s war was to stem the outward migration to urban areas and create economic opportunity. The reporters traveling with him on the campaign trail unloaded on the southern mountains depicting them as the most impoverished place in the nation. “App-a-lay-sha” suddenly became a whirlwind of photographs of coal mining, cultural ignorance and backwoods misery that shocked America.

…from “Appalachia by Any Other Name,” by Ed Hooper for Huffington Post

Appalachia is the fourth oldest European place name in America, and I reserve the right to punch anyone who refuses to say it correctly.