'The White Ghetto'
Several years ago, our niece, a girl who grew up in the lap of luxury took a trip to Appalachia as a student helper and returned dumbfounded. In my liberal head I was trying to make sense of how people come to live this way. She marveled over how the students worked while the locals sat and smoked. I think she missed the part that after she left life would be the same. Not everyone can be Honey Boo Boo with a TV show and a family that seems somewhat glued together as a social unit. As a back-road traveler and cyclist I often find the poor people of America the most friendly, but the lives they lead are odd to those of us who operate in the so called rat race even when we pretend it's not a race. When people look at the inner city ghettos they forget, or is that neglect, the more remote, scenic ghettos. See book noted below. 'In Appalachia the country is beautiful and the society is broken.' By Kevin D. Williamson "Thinking about the future here and its bleak ...