Identity, Heritage, and Respect

I may ruffle a few feathers with this, but I need to say it straight.

Over the past several years, a lot of people have moved down here from up North and out West. 
Tennessee and the surrounding states keep growing, and most of us don’t mind that. 
We’re a welcoming people. 
We always have been.

But respect has to go both ways.

Lately, I’ve run into someone who moved here and seems to constantly pick apart the South—our manners, our education, how slowly we talk, how slowly we move, and every old stereotype she can drag out. 
It’s constant, and it wears thin. 
After a while, it starts to feel like she didn’t come here to live among us, but to look down on us.

If you choose to live here, you should also choose to respect the people who were here before you.

It’s one thing to notice differences when you move somewhere new. 
Everybody does that. 
It’s something else entirely to treat those differences as proof that you’re somehow better than the people around you.

That attitude isn’t harmless.
 It turns real people into punchlines.

I was born and raised in Tennessee. 
I’ve never lived anywhere else. 
This is home.
These are my people. 
This is the life I know.

So let me be clear. 

We do not accept being defined by stereotypes, and we do not accept being spoken about as though we are somehow lesser.

We don’t like being called “hillbillies” as though it’s supposed to be an insult.

Yes, many of us come from mountain communities. 
Yes, not everyone here has had the same opportunities as people elsewhere. 
But none of that makes us less.

We are not lesser. 
We are not backwards. 
And we are not a punchline.

Many of us trace our roots back to Irish and Scottish ancestry, with Cherokee heritage woven through some family lines as well. 
That history still shows itself in our speech, our traditions, and our values.

People sometimes forget that much of East Tennessee, eastern Kentucky, western North Carolina, southwest Virginia, and West Virginia is Appalachia. 
This is mountain country, and the mountains shape the people who live here. 
They shape our speech, our humor, our resilience, our independence, our loyalty, and the way we hold tight to family and neighbors. 
You don't grow up in these mountains without carrying a part of them with you.

That doesn't make us better than anyone else, and it certainly doesn't make anyone else better than us. 
It simply makes us who we are. 

Appalachian culture is its own culture, just as the Deep South has its own traditions and history.
We may all be Southerners, but there are differences within the South, and those differences deserve to be understood rather than mocked.

And while we are generally a gracious people, it's also true that when someone keeps talking down to us, folks will eventually respond in kind. 
A little teasing might follow when respect isn't being shown. 

But that's not where we start. 
We start with welcome.

All we are asking for is simple: the same respect we give others. 
Nothing more, nothing less.

We're not asking to be redefined. 
We're asking to be understood as we are—proud of where we come from, grounded in who we are, and not willing to be reduced to stereotypes.

Every once in a while, something weighs on my mind enough that I feel compelled to write about it. 

Today is one of those days.