20/20 Documentary On Appalachia
 

Anyone else watch it?
http://abcnews.go.com/2020

Click Watch Full Episode and it's there...

It's really sad to watch that. I think some people don't realize the lack of education and poverty in that area.... You can go to the ghetto in a big city and see people struggling.. but seeing these trailers and the way these people are living makes me so sad.

I come from that area... but was a geek/nerd.. got out.. got a degree..


It's easy to feel sorry for the football player kid.. but then ya stop and realize.. when he turns down the scholarship to Marshall.. Maybe he's not so serious, ya know?

It's just all really sad.. and eye opening...

A few of you that spend a couple grand a month on hookers and blow, lol, need to watch this for a bit of a reality check sometimes, I think..

Makes me want some mountain dew. LOL.

Why don't they just move? It's not going to get better. They're horrible parents to have kids and raise them in the middle of forests.
Hopefully with tv and the internet the kids will see theres a whole world out there and they can leave and make something out of themselves.

Congrats for your persuasion. The sad thing is we see the lack of education everywhere,the saddest is most of the people do nothing about it

Wow I didn't get to watch it yet, I do not think it's far from where I live.

Haven't seen this one yet, but check out American Hollow if you can find it.

books, people... they're called books.

there are tons of hungry families within 10 miles of where you live, feed them and pay attention to them first.

we are so busy solving problems everywhere expect the problems that are close to home

and last but not least if your going to give charity do not give your money to charity organizations, put it in the hand directly of someone who can use it and in these days there are many who can

Check out youtube for videos on "mountain top mining" for other large and ignored impacts on Apalachian people.

You'd be amazed how many of the parents can't even read...
I did tutoring when I was in high school... and the Junior High Kids parents would come in and say stuff like, "I just can't understand that long division..."

Unreal stuff..

And they don't move because it's easiest just to stay and live off the welfare state.


More people in that area are on disability.. or drugs.. than not.

Great Documentary

I grew up in the big city up north and live now in a wealthy area of Florida but I now also have a home up here in the the Appalachian mountains. These are the people shopping next to me in Walmart.

Schools and socials service have very little here. Why don't people leave? They also are independent, very connected with one another and want to be left alone.

I can't get cable or DSL at any price and the trees on my property are protected and can't be cut so I can not get high speed satellite either. I have to use a cellular air card.

It snowed lightly today so I am about to climb up my mountain and it will take me 20 minutes or more before I see the first house. It is beautiful and peaceful and only because of the internet and my education could I ever live here with my standard of living which is far above the locals.

I spent less than 8 weeks last year in my big 3 bedroom house in a private community in S FL and spent all my time here is what can only be called peaceful.

It is really peaceful... when you can block out the riffraff around you.
I'd love to one day go back... but the ratio of educated v/s uneducated is nuts... and it's really hard to make friends/have conversations with people who aren't drunk all the time or high on some kind of pain medication...

I wish my parents would move down here with me.. but my Dad will be buried in those hills.. He's educated. My mom is. Both in the healthcare field... but grew up dirt, dirt, dirt poor... Like trading shoes each day of the week for school so one of the kids can go to school in shoes.. poor... And they didn't succumb to the pressure there... they worked their ass off.

That's probably where I get my ethic to work for 10-12 ours straight daily.. lol seeing them never quit..

But so many in the area just give up.

I don't think you live in the same area. Zoning laws aren't that strict to the point that you can't cut trees, etc.. :2 cents:

Agreed but I did end up finding a few intellectual elite here that have come to get away from it all. There are pockets around here - you just have to dig.

Problem for me is they are all older and retired. Can't find a women in my age range that doesn't male we want to run away screaming.

Just move? Sounds so simple, pack up, hit the road assuming you have a vehicle, and leave what small bit of security you do have albeit a hellhole for what? Most have no real education. They have very few skills. They sure in the hell do not have much money which would make it hard to even get into some rental house somewhere if they arrived - still without employment.

glad someone has some sense

We used to drive through these areas a LOT when I lived down south and we would take the "back way" to get to another city just for the scenic route

my favorite is seeing the broken down trailers, half of the trailer is folding from the damage and being held up by a 2x4, 1980 pinto in the driveway with rust all over it, kids playing in the yard with ripped up nasty clothing, sometimes you see an outhouse in the backyard....and here is the kicker...fun stuff.....sometimes you see a directv dish on the roof, and once I saw a huge dell box in the trash...LOL

A big part of the problem... is that the ones who don't go into the mines... end up going into drugs...
Then you have the Layer Cake effect..

The mayors... and representatives of those little ass towns... are the distributors.

Why else would a small ass town like Hazard or Logan have airports that have big black range rovers at them at midnight?

It's disgusting... There's hardly a middle class... your middle class there are your teachers and nurses... and that's it... You've got your elite/rich/corrupt... who are either car dealership owners or owners of other service companies or coal companies... OR pastors...

Then you have your extreme poor.

I can remember growing up and driving by this one house on the way to school.. and seeing the mom pimping out her 13 and 14 year old daughters... I remember asking my mother why that trailer always had strange men out front...
And babies.. TONS of babies... the little teenage girls were ALWAYS pregnant to pad their welfare checks... and dropped out of school by like 8th grade...

totally. my dad used to sell insurance to coal miners back in the 90's and we would take monthly or bi-monthly trips down to those areas and it was so friggin weird...you have mansions on top of mountains with nice cars and pools and shit, but getting to those houses was surreal because you have to curve up a mountain side that was full of trailers and houses that were crooked and some didn't even have windows with people living there....crazy shit

Yeah.
That's "holler" living.
IF I ever go to a show.. I'll promise to talk WVian for you all ;)
I still fuck up and call the movie "Sleepy Holler" instead of hollow.. hah.

It's just a different world.

To get to my parents house... you have to drive by like 4-5 houses that are guaranteed meth houses... then like twice a year.. the copters drop toilet paper in the mountains.. to mark all the pot plants...

Again, just a different, wild world.

And people say "redneck" here in TX... but I try to explain to them.. you do not KNOW redneck or hillbilly until you've spent a few days in appalachia... I mean I still have some of these people on my myspace... and you see girls who are 25 like me.. with 5 kids already...and their wood paneling trailers and pit bulls...

THEN... you'll see their jailbroke iphone that they no doubt stole from WALMART... and their new baby daddy's vette that he drives...

We have a part of town back home that is strictly where the black community lives... and it is like trailers missing walls... or houses with foundation falling.. then you've got an irridescent Escalada parked out front.. with the doors that flip up...

And the owner is the same kid that got held back 4 times in high school...

The ghettos of your big cities have NOTHING on these holler dwelling people.

Ugh and in that documentary.. the one loser says,
"The closer the kin, the deeper in..."
Ugh.

Can't say I know any real life incest stories though.. maybe I was in the civilized area, hah.

Just a bunch of uneducated and lazy people. Of course, all of them aren't, but a lot are.

As expected, many of the posts on this thread show a significant level of ignorance and bigotry. Don't worry, it happens just about every time there's a thread about anywhere in the South.

I'd rather live in Appalachia than the ghetto of any major city in the world.

Sure but its not much different in some respects, both are dooming generation after generation to a lifetime of poverty.

damn, thats fucked

i didint know there were places like that in america

In Appalachia, one can at least live off the land.

Sorry, if I came across a little rough. I spent 10 years in Wisconsin among some incredibly anti-Southern bigots. My ancestors came across the mountains into Tennessee with Daniel Boone and helped defeat the British at Kings Mountain.

ghettos and trailer parks of canada look the same. man one i walked through looked like it every house and had been pounded with a million hammers, windows smashed out, open doors showing the piss and blood stained mattresses and empty listerine bottles inside, burnt out flat tire vehicles, people laying in the streets, the ambulance taking their time because their lives are worth less. it's everywhere.

And yet crime levels are a fraction of those in n1gger areas, and kids do vastly better in school.

California is 49th in education. I wonder if it's below that place.

btw, those teen girls would make awesome sex slaves.

I love how they put subtitles on that football player. Yeah, he has an accent, but you can totally understand him and he's obviously more intelligent than the average n1gger.

:1orglaugh

i'm not reading this whole thread... i suggest people read the history of the Scots-Irish before having a pity party for them. they have a long history of devout ignorance, rebellion against any and all authority and isolation - the product today of this is a bunch of inbred hillbillies.

people can move to the USA from all over the world, get jobs, work, save money, bring family and work more, save more, start businesses etc. Fuck a bunch of inbred idiots that can't even come down off a fucking hillside and join the world to improve their lives.

:2 cents: