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Commentary: In His Tales of Appalachian Life, JD Vance Ignores People Like Me
This story was originally published by the Lexington Herald-Leader. I was born in 1946 and raised in a Black coal mining family at the foot of Black Mountain, Kentucky’s highest peak, in Harlan County. From its summit, during my frequent hikes as a teenager, I could see — looking to the northwest — the ridges of Breathitt County, the ancestral homeland of JD Vance. Vance came to my attention with his 2016-published best seller, “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis,” the most derogatory and uncomplimentary stereotype of people from the Appalachian region that I ever read.
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