I've frequently said my family was lucky because we escaped from Eastern Kentucky before the sociologists found us. Now, the poor folks who live there are more likely to be stalked by news crews earnestly trying to show the "hidden poverty" in America. ABC's Diane Sawyer is doing an hour-special on Friday night it, and they teased it on "Good Morning America" today. The Associated Press even did a feature on her special:
Born in southern Kentucky, raised in Louisville, Sawyer is certain her ancestors once made it over the hills of central Appalachia. She tells the often harrowing stories of families in that region trying to make it in "A Hidden America: Children of the Mountains." It airs Friday at 10 p.m. EST on ABC.
"It's the accent I love," she said. "It's the music that I grew up with. It's part of home to me."
In the first place, Louisville is Almost Kentucky, not Really Kentucky. It's no more representative of the state than Chicago is of Illinois. In the second, you can't do a story about a whole group of people, even if you think you know them and are sympathetic to them, without sounding a little condescending and robbing them of their individual dignity. I know. I did a series of articles for the Wabash Plain Dealer about people who grew up two counties over from me and ended up in that Indiana town. I read them a few years later and was embarrassed about how aloof and arrogant they sounded.
But I'll watch the special, if I think I can stand it, and judge it on its merts. My main quibble with Sawyer today was her pronunciation of Appalachia -- "App uh LATCH uh," instead of the way I've always heard it -- "App uh LAY shuh" or, sometimes, "App uh LAY she uh." My problem wasn't so much that she said it that way -- though it did grate on my ears -- but that she insisted that it was the "right" way. There is no right way, only the way most people pronounce it, and I think that varies from place to place. Typical damn nawtherner.
