Real and Unreal

I just came across this headline and photo on CNN's feature page:

LIFE IN APPALACHIA TODAY

I have two reactions, one socio-political and the other, personal memoir.

First, social commentary:  C'mon, really? Life in Appalachia Today? More Like Wild Sh-t You Can Still Find in America Today. There are an estimated 3000–5000 Klan members throughout the US as of 2012. How many of these events could they possibly get together in a year?

I'm not saying the Klan is not a threat to society, or that this is not outrageous regardless of how few occur. But this is not Life in Appalachia Today. (Another photo CNN showed was of a snake-handler. I'm here to tell you that that's not too common either.)

How about we have a few pictures of more common aspects of Life in Appalachia, if that's what you say you're going to show? You could get some provocative shots of a church BINGO game. And if you're still craving that negative spin, focus on the obesity rate: You will see men and women at BINGO using two, even three, folding chairs together to sit comfortably. Now that, though negative, at least shows something relevant about Life in Appalachia Today.


Second, personal memoir:  Sure, Klan events happen still; there are scattered occurrences all over. I'm not sure how often it happens today in Upper Appalachia, where I'm from. What I do know, empirically, is that it used to happen. I had a brush with it when I was five or six years old.

A loving,  patient, soft and huggable woman in town had become my "Nana" by the time I was a few months old. She cared for me like a grandmother for the first decade of my life. 

Nana Perkin's husband, Ernie Perkins, was driving us in his truck when we saw the remains of a burnt field right off 209, the main route to town. I don't remember a cross, but there was a large area of blackened ground with bleachers set up around it.

Ernie teased us, "You'ins want we head over to the Ku Klux Klan for a cross burnin'? Haw! You kin tell your daddy we joined up with the Klan!"

I didn't know what he was talking about but apparently Nana did. She told him to "shush in front of her" (me). Nana was always telling him that. Ernie was a good man—tender with me—but he was typical for a man of that time and that place, a hillbilly, plain and rough.

They didn't go into it further. I felt something sinister connected to that burnt ground and empty bleachers. What got burnt? Who burnt it? Who sat in the bleachers and watched? People I knew? I remember I shivered. I thought it maybe had to do with witches.

"Revolutionaries must be realists." ~ Angela Davis

Angela Yvonne Davis, circa 1969

In the mid-1980s, as an undergrad at the University of California, San Diego, I got a job that entailed calling graduates of the university to solicit donations for the Alumni Association.

To perform this job, I would grab a handful of information sheets at the start of each shift, on each of which was a scattering of data that the association had gathered about a particular grad. I would call that grad and run through a script designed to elicit a financial contribution.

I got so I could run the routine pretty quickly and I was persuasive, apparently, because I made the alumni association--and myself--a fair amount of money.

So! One day, grabbing an info sheet and scanning the first name, year of graduation, degree and academic department, I got hold of an "Angela" who looked to be working as a professor somewhere. I started on the script:

Hi, Angela, this is <insert tapu's real name here>, calling for the UCSD Alumni Association. We have in our files that you received your Master's Degree here in the Philosophy Dept. What did you think of your time here and of the quality of education you received?

She spoke amiably about her high opinion of some of the philosophy professors, and how one in particular--Herbert Marcuse--had drawn her to study there. Hah...? Huh?? My minor was Philosophy. I stole a glance at the full name:  Angela Yvonne Davis. Right. I had Angela Davis on the phone and I was about to ask her for a contribution to the University of California. Like, where she had become embroiled in revolution to the point that the FBI put her on the Most Wanted List. Like, where she was when then-Governor Ronald Reagan tried to get her banned from ever teaching in the UC system.

She was in the midst of her second run for Vice President on the Communist ticket and I wanted her to send privileged So Cal surfer students some cash so they could soon join the wealthy business class of their parents.

I started backing down. But Angela Davis cut to the chase for me. She pledged 1000 dollars then and there. Most people pledged 25-100 dollars. She told me she had gotten a first-rate education at the University of California and that she would always respect that opportunity. I thought I would die.

Is there anyone hotter than Angela Davis?