Diane Sawyer's 20/20 special on Appalachia, "Children of the Mountain"
On Friday night I stumbled upon one of the more fascinating and heartbreaking pieces of television I'd seen in some time, if ever, in the form of Diane Sawyer's 20/20 special, "Children of the Mountains." It was about modern life in the Appalachian mountains of Eastern Kentucky and, as the title suggests, it's told through the lives of a few of the area's children, children that Sawyer and ABC have been monitoring for a few years now.
Watching this show brought out a range of feelings within me, not the least of which were anger, indignation, and sadness, but the one I feeling that outweighed all the others was plain disbelief. Growing up on the bayous of the south Louisiana, I really thought that I'd seen it all in regards to poverty in America, but this blew me away, I suppose because most Cajuns are blissfully happy poor people, whereas this sort of poor life seems so much more harsh and tragic, if that even makes any sense at all. Anyway, I still can't wrap my brain around how this could all be happening in 2009 in the United States of America.
I found where someone had uploaded all six parts of the one hour program onto YouTube, and I've embedded part one of the show below. Under it I've linked to the other five parts. You can also view the entire program in better quality on ABC's 20/20 website. I'd embed their video here but the player sometimes takes a long time to load, and that just annoys the piss out of me. Anyway, here's part one of "Children of the Mountains." For the rest of your life you'll never drink a Mountain Dew without thinking of these people...
Part two is here.
Part three is here.
Part four is here.
Part five is here.
Part six is here.
26 comments:
Jesus. This is heart breaking. I'm going to quit bitching about my job and go hug my kids.
I hear you about the disbelief. I spent some time years ago in the North East Tennessee Mountains and am still sickened by the depth of poverty we allow others to live in.
Americans will swarm into other countries to help during disasters and famine but who is storming in to help people right here in our own backyards?
I love my country - the U.S. - but this is (one of) our deepest shame.
For the rest of the evening after I watched that show, I tried to think of how I could work out taking the high school football player into our home. His story just broke my heart. Poor kid.
If I hadn't seen mountains and it hadn't been labeled, I would have sworn Diane Sawyer was close to my Georgia stomping grounds. I didn't even need the subtitles to understand the speech.
Atkinson County, Georgia could easily pass for parts one and two of the piece.
@karin...me too. seriously. if i could afford to, i'd adopt him or something.
@silver salmon...i didn't either. i recall thinking to myself, "is their speech really that bad," and then i remembered how not everyone speaks fluent redneck.
MonkeyButter,
That's what gets me about Oprah and all these celebrities. Oprah builds a huge school in Africa and other donate left and right for Darfur and other causes.
I'm not saying that these aren't important, but we have a whole bunch of people trapped all over the country in poverty.
I worked in the public school system in the local county. Our per capita income is $22,000. We're a world better than the towns highlighted in Appalachia, but I couldn't help but know that there was no breaking the cycle for our poor kids.
As stated, we consider ourselves a decent place to be, but I know there are a few homes in the county without running water or electricity.
We're not going to get any relief. The pine barrens of south Georgia have no major non-majority ethnic group, they are less likely to have weather disasters, don't have major crime. There is nothing to make anyone stop and notice.
Even if Diane Sawyer manages to secure a little money for Appalachia, it won't help them.
I've been reading Sinclair Lewis' Main Street, which is pretty accurate I think. No outsider can permanently change a town. It has to want to itself. And in these cases, poverty and its lifestyle are so ingrained, it may not ever be changeable.
I am from Harlan County Yes, there is poverty and yes, those children are sad. But those sorry ass people laying around cannot be helped. It is generational. I am embarrassed that they chose not to show the multimillion dollar high school recently build, stae of the art. Then theres the new convention center, the new justice center, and wonderful communities that are well kept and clean. And I never heard of mountain dew mouth. What you saw was soooo onesided. You can see poverty and laziness in every corner of the nation. I learned from a friend of that highschool boys family that he is already back in school. They didnt add that, did they This is for ratings.
Caj,
I come from your area and thought I'd seen it all as well. My heart broke completely. I mean, how do we help though? Where do we go from here? I just want to kick my lawyer employees out of their house and fill it with all those babies!
Thanks for posting this. I grew up in a small town in Virginia where there were still "holler people" closeby living in much this same condition. Now that I'm here in Alaska we have a native population that has much the same problem. So sad. Let's hope that some of the stimulus package can go to helping folks who want to work and do better have the opportunity to succeed.
That was well done and kept me glued to the screen. While I have witnessed the poverty in my local area especially while interning at the local health department, this really drove it home.
Thanks for the recommendation, CB.
i'm from carter county ky not far from where the the peice was done rasied by a addicted mother with no one to help her, her daddy and mother were the most abusive people i'd ever come across.. don't pity those sorry adult's who won't even pick up dirty diaper's out of the yard we had burn pile's poor doesn't mean you have to live in filth...some thing's are choice..my mother was a alcoholic and addicted to valium i understood her addiction's there was no work no hope she cleaned house's and who know's what else i would never say,BUT you could eat off her floor's we were clean that kind of filth there is no excuse for...the pity is for the childern there the child like faith and hope we have as children soon fade's and at 13 and up all there is is the drug's burnt out parent's on and on..the thing that really stuck out to me is a sentence the young man uttered about the fighting within his family it is a place where famlies and commumity have turned on themselve's i know i was rasied there you take any group of people who respect and help one another like the amish they are self suffiecent provideing for their own without goverment hand out's they eat quite well the problem there is a lack of love ,mercy and compassion for our own.........if you love me you WOULD!!!!....talk is cheap, you saw the childern strugle to do better..the parent's had givien up..
I saw this as well and felt so sorry for the little girls with mothers facing addiction who seem to be grown up beyond their years. My heart just breaks for the lost innocence of those children and the struggles they face daily. The most amazing thing about it was the positivity and hope they have. Totally amazing and inspiring. It makes me feel absurdly lucky and blessed.
jacob mansfield,
to whom ever anonymous is I would just like to say your ignorant, and that your an ass with no heart. No matter if there is another side to the story, this is the side we saw and it's sad enough. NO matter what we didn't see we saw that there's a life being lived by many that we could never imagine, and for you to say what you did makes me sick to my stomach.. Please realize what you said
dear jacob,
anon has a very good point. Its not that we dont care, we do and it is very sad. but, the fact is that if you look hard enough anywhere you are going to find this in every state and in everytown. Being from east ky it is a humiliation what diane sawyer did, she pulled a few kids out of the woodwork who are in a sad and pitiful situation and turned it into everybody from eky is toothless drug addicts. The problem is as real as daylight, but to put a generalization out there and say that every body from ky is like this was wrong of abc 20/20 and expecially diane sawyer. I honestly think miss sawyer owes us a huge apology for defemation of character, since thats what she did. She took a few bad cases and turning it into an apalachian wide problem. WHICH IS NOT TRUE FOR EVERYONE
hey thanks for posting. i missed this the other night and have been scouring the net for uploads. apparently a lot of folks in eastern kentucky are offended by the documentary and think that it only perpetuates incorrect stereotypes about their region. it just seems like those who have made it would rather focus on the progress than the stark poverty in the area. sad.
i grew up in Inez, Ky. I have not lived there in 30 years, but growing up I never saw poverty that was shown on 20/20. I dare to say that if you go into any inner city in america you would find the same poverty, drugs and lack of education, its at our door step. we choose to ignore it and think it is only in eastern Ky....stop and look around
I live in Kentucky,and both sides of my family are from some of the poorest counties in the U.S.-Clay,Owsley,and Estill. From 1981 to 1994, I spent every other weekend,and most vacations at my grandparent's place outside Manchester, Ky. They were getting some age on them, but didn't want to move into town,so I alternated weekends going there with my mom and one uncle,to take them into town,get groceries,do home/car repair,and just visit. This let them live where they always had-they didn't want to move into town.
Poverty? yes, it's there. Substance abuse? That,too..as if they don't have these things in other states or urban areas? In all the time I spent there, I met a lot of wonderful people,and never had a moment's trouble. It's a beautiful part of Kentucky(Fall, especially). My grandparent's place was an older tarpaper house that didn't look like much from the road,but was clean and comfortable on the inside.There wasn't garbage strewn everywhere-that's just lazy-a little ingenuity goes a long way.
Toothlessness? Well, some of Eastern Kentucky has an average yearly income of $10,000 or less-if it costs $1500 to fix a single tooth(not too unusual),the tooth gets pulled.Money makes most decisions.
There's truth to the Mountain Dew bit-it's a very popular drink,as is Ale-8-One,a local brand of pop like ginger ale. My guess is that it's a green,fizzy coffee substitute.Supposedly, both have a lot of caffeine.
It's not as bad as portrayed-nowhere near it..
I, too, grew up in Eastern Kentucky and now live in the southwestern part of the state. I have been taken aback at some of the reaction to the 20/20 special. Of course not everyone who lives in that region is toothless, addicted and poor -- that wasn't my experience, but I went to school with kids who lived in this kind of povery. BUT -- stereotypes exist for a reason and I believe that's because they are based in truth. The special reported that more than half the population in the region lives in poverty. These were not isolated cases, sought out for maximum effect for the cameras. I believe the negative reaction from within the state stems from embarrassment, embarrassment that people live like this and we're not doing anything about it. It's easier not to feel responsible when it's poor black kids in Kenya, rather than people who live in the same state who look just like you.
I don't know what the answer is. I know I left, and I don't want to live there.
I am from E Ky and I can tell you that being poor does not mean you have to be dirty. That there are plenty of people that would rather get a hand out than do for themselves. The one thing that most people know how to do back home is raise a garden. My family was really extremely poor growing up, we lived in a small house that was always clean, we got out every summer and planted a garden so we can have someting to eat. we saved seeds for the next year. My parents worked hard and saved as much as they could for us kids. I had plenty and was never w/o as a child. I had plenty of friends who lived in those types of houses and had very little to live on. Those are the same friends my father would try to help out when things got tough. He would offer them part of our harvest if they would help him come while we were in school to help plant seeds and help take care of the garden. He worked very hard all his life up until he broke his back on a job when a his truck flipped over on him. After that he had certain jobs he couldn't do and he would save money during the year to have the big jobs done that we couldn't do as a family. Like paint the house or a repair job, he would offer these jobs to our neighbors who told him they were in need of money. Instead of "Hey Joe loan me 50$ til my next hceck comes in Becky needs diapers and we don't have no groceries". My father would respond "sure thing bill I got a fence that needs repair and if you come over tomorrow and fix it for me I'll pay you 50$" they would either say sure thing and never show up or say "ah I can't do that I gotta do x thing". So if you feel like some of these people are poor and disadvantaged then think again majority would rather get a check or a hand out. Companies move in there but mostly leave because they can't keep a consistent staff because people quit after a while. So what you are seeing on this special is nothing special at all.. it is people trying to exploit a place where they know they can get some person to play the victim on camera. Why? Because they know that person will do it for the freebies. Do you know that I personally ....PERSONALLY...witnessed people who had full time jobs who would dress up in slum clothes and go to places where they would hand out commodities (government cheese and other gov't food) to people and pretend they were poor. Then they would go home and split it up among the rest of thier family who weren't poor. They had better houses and cars and clothes than what my family had. There are people who fall on hard times everywhere but don't assume that one whole region is poor and disadvantaged. Take this from someone who grew up there and lived there and still goes home and sees family. Majority of them would rather have it handed to them than work for it.
Also, I know we weren't a perfect family but the few times my father and mother couldn't make ends meet and needed additional help for groceries duirng the winter months. Instead of standing in line for free food they showed up early and volunteered to help hand out things to people and wherever the office staff needed help. At the end of the day the would get a bag of groceries but not until after all of the work was done.
So if you want to feel sorry for those people go ahead and send them your money so they can sit around all day in their homes and you work like a dog every day.... see how long your sympathy lasts when people won't eventake care of themselves.
I am from E Ky and I can tell you that being poor does not mean you have to be dirty. That there are plenty of people that would rather get a hand out than do for themselves. The one thing that most people know how to do back home is raise a garden. My family was really extremely poor growing up, we lived in a small house that was always clean, we got out every summer and planted a garden so we can have someting to eat. we saved seeds for the next year. My parents worked hard and saved as much as they could for us kids. I had plenty and was never w/o as a child. I had plenty of friends who lived in those types of houses and had very little to live on. Those are the same friends my father would try to help out when things got tough. He would offer them part of our harvest if they would help him come while we were in school to help plant seeds and help take care of the garden. He worked very hard all his life up until he broke his back on a job when a his truck flipped over on him. After that he had certain jobs he couldn't do and he would save money during the year to have the big jobs done that we couldn't do as a family. Like paint the house or a repair job, he would offer these jobs to our neighbors who told him they were in need of money. Instead of "Hey Joe loan me 50$ til my next hceck comes in Becky needs diapers and we don't have no groceries". My father would respond "sure thing bill I got a fence that needs repair and if you come over tomorrow and fix it for me I'll pay you 50$" they would either say sure thing and never show up or say "ah I can't do that I gotta do x thing". So if you feel like some of these people are poor and disadvantaged then think again majority would rather get a check or a hand out. Companies move in there but mostly leave because they can't keep a consistent staff because people quit after a while. So what you are seeing on this special is nothing special at all.. it is people trying to exploit a place where they know they can get some person to play the victim on camera. Why? Because they know that person will do it for the freebies. Do you know that I personally ....PERSONALLY...witnessed people who had full time jobs who would dress up in slum clothes and go to places where they would hand out commodities (government cheese and other gov't food) to people and pretend they were poor. Then they would go home and split it up among the rest of thier family who weren't poor. They had better houses and cars and clothes than what my family had. There are people who fall on hard times everywhere but don't assume that one whole region is poor and disadvantaged. Take this from someone who grew up there and lived there and still goes home and sees family. Majority of them would rather have it handed to them than work for it.
Also, I know we weren't a perfect family but the few times my father and mother couldn't make ends meet and needed additional help for groceries duirng the winter months. Instead of standing in line for free food they showed up early and volunteered to help hand out things to people and wherever the office staff needed help. At the end of the day the would get a bag of groceries but not until after all of the work was done.
So if you want to feel sorry for those people go ahead and send them your money so they can sit around all day in their homes and you work like a dog every day.... see how long your sympathy lasts when people won't eventake care of themselves.
I am from Harlan County and am acquainted with one of the women in the piece. I can tell you that they made sure that they filmed the worst parts of the county and the city of Cumberland. In fact, at one point you see the little blond girl walking down a trash strewn street; that is actually a back alley. If you went to the other side of the building she was walking by, you would see a typical small town America street. It disgusts me how they've manipulated the images to make the rest of the US think that we all live in desperate squalor. Yes, there is poverty. Yes, some people do actually live like the show reports, but it is not as common or pervasive as they claim.
Also, concerning the football player. I honestly do not believe that he is living in his truck. I've known kids in similar situations and always there is a relative or friend that will take them in and give them a home. For one of the most like members of the team to be ignored like this is very dubious. I've even seen where teachers and coaches have taken students into their family (with the blessing of the schools and child services).
Once again, Appalachia is shown as a place where the people are to dumb and pathetic to help themselves and its up to everyone else to sweep in and save them. We are a proud people, but we also want to be able to do things on our own. The report never mentioned that most of the money made by the coal industry goes to the large cities in the state in the form of coal severance money ( money paid to offset the resource loss). If the mining counties got a proper percentage of these monies, we would have much better resources to fund new businesses, create better schools, and improve the overall living conditions of the residents. Instead, greed and corruption at all levels of local and state government have left us with little to show for the millions of tons of coal that leave our area every year.
Interesting comments from people who live in the area where the Diane Sawyer piece was shot. I noticed the healthy stands of weeds growing around the mobile homes and wondered why these people weren't buying seeds and garden tools with some of the money they'd been putting into booze, drugs, sodas, and chips. The soil was obviously decent, and it looked as though they have abundant rainfall.
I feel sorry for the kids, but I have very little sympathy for the trashy drug addicted parents.
i live in the same town some of this was filmed about 10% of this is true the rest is bull or self made by hiw you live and take care of what you have. if any bleeding hearts would like to see the other side of this story email me doekiller1964@yahoo
Does anyone know what has happened to any of the children in those videos. I am from KY myself and most of the people here are just slow as hell. And do not want better for themselves.Also most of everybody here draws a check. Finally, there are no jobs here.I attend sectc thats college for the people who dont know.Anyway I have looked for a job now for 3weeks and have had no luck. So fpr the people who dont live here in KY,TN,orVR. What do you suspose I do to make money.
The State of Kentucky will never progress until the coal is gone. If you give them better education, better jobs and better pay...they won't work the coal mines. That's just the way it is. Tn? WV? Etc....mentally they are still in the Dark Ages also, but they have no excuses....they choose to be defensive and ignorant.
I have lived and worked amongst the people of E. Tn for over 10 yrs now. They have paved roads, Electric traffic signals, Internet, Telephones, Cell phones, Microwave ovens....even Indoor Plumbing,but, sadly, nothing much--mentally--has changed here in the last 500 yrs. It's disgusting.
I saw this and had to reply. You say it's "heartbreaking," what you are not seeing is the truth. The mother of the 4 kids eating butter and ranch is nothing but a low life pill whore, always has been, she has everyone feeling sorry for her and wrapped around her finger to get whatever she wants. You need to go see where she is right now, she left her children once again for another man. She is constantly in and out of their lives and care nothing about them.
There is poverty in the Appalachia, but there is poverty in every state, no worse than it is here. I am smart, educated, and doing the best to my abilities and came from a poverty stricken family. I helped myself to get out, and the rest need to do the same.
I can't speak for the other families but for one, you can't sit around feeling sorry for yourself waiting for everything to be handed to you.
Post a Comment