By Brandon LaVoie
For the Carter County Times
They say we hate outsiders. But if you come here hungry and honest, we’ll feed you before we feed ourselves. Always have.
I’ve watched men with nothing split their last pack of smokes with a stranger; two days from payday, nothing in their pocket but callouses. I’ve seen women digging through laundry piles to find a spare hoodie for someone else’s kid. That’s the real Appalachia. That’s the real us.
My name’s Brandon LaVoie. I run Pactolus & Sons with my family, clearing land, restoring what’s been left behind, and trying to leave something solid for our kids. I wasn’t raised with much, and neither were most of the people around here. But we’ve got dignity. And we protect it like gold.
The people I know aren’t hateful. They’re hurt. They’re tired of being tricked, labeled, and used.
And when someone shows up who doesn’t talk like them or look like them, sometimes that pain comes out sideways. Sometimes it sounds like anger. Sometimes it is anger.
But deep down? It’s fear. Not fear of difference, but fear of being played again. Of watching one more outsider sneak past the line of trust and pull the rug out from under us. That’s what happened with the mines. That’s what happened with the unions. That’s what happened with the pills.
In the Battle of Blair Mountain, it wasn’t Black versus White. It was workers versus lies. Families versus betrayal. The men wore red bandanas because they were united; not because they were pure. And we’re still fighting that same war today, just with different weapons.
What they call bigotry is sometimes just poor translation. The old men at the diner don’t have the words for systemic power grabs. They’ve never heard of cultural subversion. But they feel it.
And if you’d just sit down with them – not to argue, but to listen – you’d realize: these folks don’t want to win for themselves. They just don’t want to be erased.
If you come here with truth in your heart, we’ll house you. We’ll clothe you. We’ll walk through fire with you.
But if you come here to climb over us – if you come to win instead of share – then don’t be
surprised if the land spits you out.
We’ve buried enough betrayal in this soil. It won’t take more without a fight.
We don’t hate the world. We just remember what it did to us. And we’re not letting it happen
Again. Not without a voice, and not without a witness
Contact us at news@cartercountytimes.com
