Echoes of Appalachia

There’s a story passed around about the people of Appalachia. It gets told by outsiders with a crooked smile, by policymakers with no stake in the outcome, and even by folks here who’ve heard it long enough to believe it. The story says we like to take care of our own. That we don’t want outside help. That we can fix what’s broken with our own hands. The words “self-reliance” gets dragged out like a flag, and we’re supposed to salute.

That idea has been around a long time, and it serves a purpose. Not one that lifts us up. It works the other way.

When a hillside community loses its only clinic and has nowhere left to go for medical care, there’s silence from the top. The excuse always circles back to cost and “community independence.” When a mine closes and no one comes to talk retraining, to offer jobs, or to bring investment, there’s talk about pride and tradition. When children sit through winter in crumbling school buildings with peeling paint and mold on the ceiling, officials say it’s about resilience. As if stubborn survival is all we deserve.

The word self-reliance carries weight. It was made to sound like strength. And yes, folks here know how to do for themselves. They garden, can, repair, build. They care for one another in ways cities lost long ago. But that’s not what politicians mean when they say it. They don’t praise it out of respect. They use it to cut the cord.

Over time, this idea has crept into every excuse for cutting programs. They say we don’t need transit, because we drive. They say we don’t need broadband, because we aren’t interested. They say we don’t need maternity wards, because we’ve always made do. This story, told again and again, becomes a reason for nothing to change. It becomes a reason to leave us behind.

This manipulation didn’t start yesterday. The coal companies shaped it early on. They liked the image of the strong mountain man, the quiet woman who doesn’t ask for help. It made organizing harder. It turned community struggle into personal failure. If you were laid off, it was on you. If your water ran brown, it was your job to figure it out. And if you couldn’t pull through, then you weren’t strong enough.

The government picked up that line later. Every time folks tried to demand better schools, better wages, safer roads, the answer was always the same. They pointed to self-reliance. They said it like it was a compliment, when really it was a way to walk away.

There are people in the halls of power who love this arrangement. When folks take care of everything on their own, they don’t have to show up. When we stop asking because we know the answer is silence, they can go on funneling money to where they want it to go. Places that already have more than enough.

The trouble is, people still believe in the story. Not everyone, not always, but enough. It’s passed through generations like a family heirloom. It gets into church sermons, school plays, even campaign slogans. It makes it harder to organize. When folks are taught to feel shame for needing help, they don’t ask. When someone says, “That’s not how we do things here,” it shuts down conversation before it starts.

This leaves us in a bad place. Our clinics are underfunded. Our teachers are overworked and underpaid. Emergency rooms sit an hour away. The power grid is brittle. Water lines crack and go unrepaired for months. And when someone speaks up, they’re met with that same old line. Self-reliance.

The people of this region have never been afraid of work. They’ve held it all together with calloused hands and worn boots. That’s real. What’s false is pretending that pride means silence. What’s dangerous is using strength as an excuse to deny support.

Some will say this is about culture. That what makes this place special is the old way. That interference brings trouble. The truth is, we already live with the interference. It comes in the form of out-of-state investors taking mineral rights for pennies. It comes in the form of lawmakers cutting taxes for corporations while small towns struggle to keep the lights on in public buildings.

Self-reliance means nothing when the tools are stripped away. You can’t patch up a school when the roof’s caved in and there’s no money for a ladder. You can’t grow food when the land’s poisoned. You can’t build a future when every bit of investment skips you over.

We need to name what’s happening here. This isn’t about values or independence. It’s about abandonment. It’s about choosing who matters and who doesn’t. And those decisions have real consequences. Children who grow up without access to specialists. Parents forced to drive hours to deliver a baby. Grandparents with no choice but to die early because there’s no dialysis clinic within reach.

There’s no dignity in being ignored. There’s no honor in watching your community crumble because someone somewhere thinks you’re too proud to ask for help.

So what do we do?

We tell a different story. One that starts with truth. We call out the lie when we hear it. We remind each other that asking for what we need isn’t weakness. It’s survival. We find allies, whether they live in the next holler or across the country. We say out loud that infrastructure matters. That schools should be safe. That health care is a right. That no one should have to choose between feeding their family and paying for insulin.

Appalachia doesn’t lack strength. It lacks investment. It lacks respect from the people in charge. And that won’t change until we tear down the false story and speak the real one.

You can love your community and still demand better. You can plant your roots deep and still ask for clean water. You can be proud and still raise your voice. These things don’t cancel each other out. They build on each other.

They build something stronger than self-reliance.

They build justice.

-Tim Carmichael