General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAbout this so called hillbilly. His real name is
James Donald Bowman. His maternal grandparents moved from Kentucy to Middletown Ohio in 1940. Both James Donald and his mother were born in Middletown Ohio. Middletown Ohio is not in Appalachia it's pretty
much flatland, he is a fake hillbilly. His father deserted them his mother was an adict and he was raised by his grandparents.
![](du4img/smicon-reply-new.gif)
Dennis Donovan
(21,148 posts)Dave Bowman
(2,985 posts)ETA: Bowman? Sounds familiar.
peggysue2
(11,220 posts)Very Trumpian!
Skittles
(156,721 posts)a fucking asshole
Response to Skittles (Reply #3)
Name removed Message auto-removed
William769
(55,783 posts)Skittles
(156,721 posts)if you don't know, it's not hard to figure out where YOU are from
Prof. Toru Tanaka
(2,191 posts)a kennedy
(31,282 posts)He learned how to use the system from an early age. JMHO.
crazylikafox
(2,805 posts)Its in the book.
Thats the kind of abusive relationship he thinks parents should stay in for the good of the children.
rogerashton
(3,934 posts)Hamel -- his mother's second husband adopted him. Um, how many names can a person have?
Actually, of course, he legally changed his name to Vance, and an American citizen has a right to do that.
doc03
(36,181 posts)the 1986 Dwight Yoakom song Readin' Rightin' and Route 23.
rogerashton
(3,934 posts)But the song is about a real thing -- remote areas (like North Caddo Parish, Louisiana, where I grew up) -- lose population, and especially the educated. Like my momma done said, "The trouble with Caddo Parish is that everybody with any get up and go has gotten up and gone." And like JD, I got up and went (though I turned down the offer from Penn.)
debm55
(30,028 posts)not Appalachia. I drove with my husband down to the University of Virginia from Pittsburgh. I was shocked at what I saw. going through the hills and mountains. Those people living there ,were dirt poor, That drive was through Appalachia. and I was so sad to see the conditions they were in.
doc03
(36,181 posts)Appalachia.
debm55
(30,028 posts)using the Appalachian Hillbilly to describe himself because geographly it is not true. He is not being trueful about his roots. My area is mostly coal mining, rust belt poor and so was his.
doc03
(36,181 posts)but we are in the Appalachian foothills which is part of the Federal Appalachian Reginal Commision area.
Link below scroll down to the map.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachia
bedford county~
maxsolomon
(34,434 posts)Some people claim Eastern Ohio (like Palestine where the chemical spill was) is Appalachia, but to me, you got to be on the other side of the Ohio for that.
debm55
(30,028 posts)Hillbilly. His book claims other wise and it is not true. Pundits and television news call Middleton, OH Appalacha, it is not. Vance, with your Yale degree, do you know where the Appalachian Mts. run? And it is not Ohio.
doc03
(36,181 posts)debm55
(30,028 posts)doc03
(36,181 posts)as is most of Pennsylvania. But Middletown certainly is not in Appalachia. Scroll down to the map of Appalachia on
the link.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachia
Celerity
(46,154 posts)Alice B.
(153 posts)debm55
(30,028 posts)Celerity
(46,154 posts)into Ohio, thus rebutting your claim in the post of yours I initially replied to.
you said:
![](https://i.gyazo.com/664dbf555ca86d2f24e780d0386d6484.png)
That is factually incorrect.
Appalachian Ohio
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_Ohio
Appalachian Ohio is a bioregion and political unit in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Ohio, characterized by the western foothills of the Appalachian Mountains and the Appalachian Plateau. The Appalachian Regional Commission defines the region as consisting of thirty-two counties. This region roughly overlaps with the Appalachian mixed-mesophytic forests, which begin in southeast Ohio and southwest Pennsylvania and continue south to Georgia and Alabama. The mixed-mesophytic forest is found only in Central and Southern Appalachia and eastern/central China. It is one of the most biodiverse temperate forests in the world.
Geologically, Appalachian Ohio corresponds closely to the terminal moraine of an ancient glacier that runs southwest to northeast through the state. Areas south and east of the moraine are characterized by rough, irregular hills and hollows, characteristic of the Allegheny Plateau and Cumberland Plateaus of the western Appalachian Plateau System. Unlike eastern Appalachia, this region does not have long fin-like ridges like those of the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians subranges, but a network of rocky hollows and hills going in all directions.
The region is considered part of "central Appalachia", a political, cultural, and bioregional classification that includes southeastern Ohio, Eastern Kentucky, most of West Virginia and Southwestern Virginia. The region has a total population of roughly 1.982 million.
![](https://i.imgur.com/J2kefDG.png)
Counties of Appalachian Ohio, with East Central region in yellow, South East region in red, and Southern region in blue
1. Adams County
2. Ashtabula County
3. Athens County
4. Belmont County
5. Brown County
6. Carroll County
7. Clermont County
8. Columbiana County
9. Coshocton County
10. Gallia County
11. Guernsey County
12. Harrison County
13. Highland County
14. Hocking County
15. Holmes County
16. Jackson County
17. Jefferson County
18. Lawrence County
19. Mahoning County
20. Meigs County
21. Monroe County
22. Morgan County
23. Muskingum County
24. Noble County
25. Perry County
26. Pike County
27. Ross County
28. Scioto County
29. Trumbull County
30. Tuscarawas County
31. Vinton County
32. Washington County
![](https://i.imgur.com/rNsYy99.jpeg)
debm55
(30,028 posts)doc03
(36,181 posts)summer_in_TX
(3,020 posts)Carlitos Brigante
(26,691 posts)maxsolomon
(34,434 posts)I don't know why DU keeps having to assert that Vance is claiming it is.
I read as much of that book as I could stomach. He's claiming he's FROM Hillbillies, and he is. His family would drive back to Appalachia to visit relatives - it's only 3 - 4 hours away.
Having grown up in Cincy, I can tell you that there are lots of Appalachian emigrants in SW Ohio.
debm55
(30,028 posts)Penn State, when a professor of mine stated I would never get a job outside of SW PA because of my accent.
Celerity
(46,154 posts)http://www.socialareasofcincinnati.org/report/Chapter5.html
Introduction
The term Appalachian is not synonymous with poverty. The vast majority of Appalachians in the metropolitan area are not poor, not on welfare, and are not high school dropouts. Most own their homes and have relatively stable families. They are a predominantly blue collar group. About 10 percent hold managerial and professional jobs. In socioeconomic status white Appalachians, as a group, hold a position between non-Appalachian whites and African Americans. In inner city Cincinnati (and probably Covington and Newport), however, Appalachians in some respects hold a socioeconomic position closer to African Americans than to non-Appalachian whites. African American Appalachians tend to blend into the larger African American community and so are not identifiable in the type of analysis offered here. Other studies show them to be about 16 percent of the Appalachian populations in Cincinnati(1).
Figure 6 shows the relationship of Appalachians to poverty. Only one Appalachian neighborhood, Carthage, does not have a high poverty rate (see also Chapter 4 on white poverty). In addition to the areas mentioned in Cincinnati there are many Appalachian sections beyond the city limits - Norwood, Covington, and Newport for example. Clermont county is an Appalachian county. South Lebanon, Western Hamilton County and Dearborn County also have Appalachian concentrations for example, in Harrison and West Harrison.
In many ways white Appalachians and African Americans are in comparable positions regarding socioeconomic status. This can be seen visually by examining figure 6. The SES I and II areas along Millcreek and to the West, excepting North Fairmount, South Cumminsville, and Fay Apartments, are Cincinnati's major Appalachian communities. The SES I and II areas east off I-75, excepting East End, tract 54 in Oakley, Linwood, and census tract 10 in Over-The-Rhine, are primarily African American. (The separately incorporated communities of Elmwood Place and Norwood are east side communities with Appalachian blue collar areas). As African Americans and Appalachians spread out from the inner city their movements have been, respectively, north and east and north and west.
The ecological parallelism breaks down when one notes that there are some high SES primarily African American neighborhoods which have no counterpart white Appalachian areas. These are in Kennedy Heights, North Avondale - Paddock Hills, and Roselawn. High status Appalachians do not concentrate in ethnic enclaves. The parallelism breaks down in other important ways. White Appalachians do not face racial discrimination but may face discrimination based on accent, place of residence, or life styles. White Appalachians without these identifiers may pass easily through doors closed to people of color. White Appalachians, on the other hand, lack the strong organizational infrastructure provided by African American churches and antipoverty agencies set up in response to the civil rights movement. White Appalachians are especially disenfranchised when it comes to the operation of public school systems. This shows up in extremely high dropout rates (see chapter 6).
snip
Table 5a
Criteria For Classifying Neighborhoods as Appalachian
1. Greater than 16% of the families were below poverty level
2. Less than 39% of them are African American
3. Less than 76% of the persons 25 and older persons are high school graduates
4. More than 15% of the persons 16-19 years old who are not in school, are not high school graduates.
5. More than 31% of the persons 16-19 years old are jobless (persons unemployed plus persons under 65 years not in the civilian labor force).
6. More than 3.1 persons per family
![](https://i.imgur.com/PMJ3ljD.gif)
![](https://i.gyazo.com/8c0bc1686014db57b83d7f70a8c18d56.png)
![](https://i.gyazo.com/0164ed987bb3a3f1447bf5956b09c552.png)
Alice B.
(153 posts)Culture may or may not be argued here, and the county/counties in which Middletown, OH are not technically Appalachian counties. That said, the region stretches from Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia, up into New York, and yes, Ohio, too.
https://www.arc.gov/about-the-appalachian-region/
I had to refer to this map a lot for a work thing. I'm getting nostalgic, lol.
While I'm here, I'd like to enthusiastically suggest anyone outside the region check out the Looking At Appalachia photography project. I'm not sure it's still active but it's a wonderful look at the depth, breadth and diversity of this place, which really is more than hollers.
https://lookingatappalachia.org
(I was born in southern WV and am currently living in PA)
debm55
(30,028 posts)call them hills here . What I saw in the drive to Virginia was more of what I consider Appalachian Mountain areas.
viva la
(3,639 posts)But I read the book. They were employed and had $, but they were pretty extreme. "Mamaw" literally set "Papaw" on fire.
Response to doc03 (Original post)
Name removed Message auto-removed
The Santos of the presidental race.
vishnura
(276 posts)The Santos of the presidental race.
LetMyPeopleVote
(151,425 posts)obamanut2012
(27,291 posts)But he makes it seem like it was drugs brought by "immigrant caravans."
kentuck
(112,186 posts)From the map, I would be from "central Appalachia".
Over the years, there have been hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of hillbillies, that have migrated out of the hills and toward the cities in Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana. They took the "hillbilly" customs with them when they moved. They settled in places like Cincinnati, Dayton, Middletown, and Lima, OH. And they moved to places like Fort Wayne, Indiana and Benton Harbor, Michigan. Many moved to Detroit after the war and settled in Dearborn. They all have hillbilly populations, although not the majority population.
It is the "hillbilly" culture that moved to all these different places and more, looking for good employment and a better life. They were considered some of the best workers and many had their relatives that followed them to these many different cities "up North". They all wanted a better life which they could not find in the mountains and in the coal mines.
Hekate
(93,384 posts)Of course people took their culture with them its what people do.
Have you read any of Malcolm Gladwell? His book Outliers: the Story of Success has a chapter that to me was worth the whole price of the book. The title of Chapter 6 is Harlan, Kentucky and they inherited an honor culture that has followed them down through the centuries.
As for Vances personal family history, yikes. I thought one point of his book was that he overcame it but apparently not, and apparently the free-will part of him decided to just work for Thiel and be a prick.
Martin68
(23,961 posts)parents were violent with each other and with their children. He's telling the truth about his roots, but the lessons he draws from his experiences in that culture have changed since he wrote his book, and many of the people in the Kentucky community disagree with his depiction and conclusions about the reasons for the issues they face. He originally blamed their problems on a failure to take personal responsibility, and now he just parrots the MAGA populist line about elites and liberal government being the problem.
kentuck
(112,186 posts)I was angry when I read it. The 80's were a tough time in the mountains, with the opioid crisis and all the deaths. That was the timeframe that he referenced. He painted the entire people with a broad brush that I thought was very unfair. In hindsight, it looks like he was doing it for political purposes. I thought his book sucked.