It is an unbearably hot and humid day in West Virginia in 1998. We are building a small flight of stairs for a family living in a mobile home; for hours we have been pounding nails, sawing, measuring, and sweating in the heat. “We” is a group of kids from Chicago on a mission trip to this impoverished state. The family is a single mother and her son, who have lived together her for several years. The stairs need to be built because recently the mother tripped on the makeshift staircase: a pair of cement blocks.
Every hour she comes out and gives us a new container of lemonade, which we accept gratefully and greedily. This lemonade is sweeter, cooler, better than the granulated stuff that we buy at Jewel back home.
We continue to toil in the sun into the afternoon, only being interrupted to shew away a snake which has strayed into the family’s garden. We don’t have snakes where I’m from. But here it’s not uncommon to be bitten when strolling through your yard. Here everything is a little bit different than back home. Us city kids are worn out easily by the labor, and the older youth group leaders take over the majority of the work soon. Inside, the mother is working just as hard, preparing a feast of chicken and dumplings for our entire group. It will be ready by sundown, she says in her friendly drawl.
Finally we finish the project. Four sturdy wooden stairs now lead up from the muddy ground to the door of their trailer. The son, Ben comes out when we are finished and he marvels at them after skipping down the steps in his bare feet. His mother comes out to see, and he nearly shouts:
“We got stairs, mama!”
I feel a slightly embarrassing wave of warmth come over me when he says this. Maybe it’s satisfaction at having helped this family in need, maybe guilt over living in a two-story, middle classed mansion compared to their home. What strikes me is how excited Ben is over having stairs. The family has been living on food stamps for years and simple pleasures like a working staircase bring them the kind of joy that only Christmas usually carries along.
The poverty in West Virginia is real, and it is still as much a problem today as it was then. Today they vote for who they’d like to represent the Democratic party, and more than likely, they will choose Hillary Clinton, even though she has no chance of winning the nomination. There are a lot of reasons why they will do this, and I don’t know them all. A great number of people will claim that they are stuck in a racist ideology, bred by time, ignorance, inbreeding, and poverty. On the road back to the school where we stayed for the week, there was a broken down stone wall that was spray-painted with an all-too-common message: “The only good Nigger is a dead Nigger.” We held our breath passing by it every day.
Racism is a fact of life in America today, especially in poorer southern states such as West Virginia. But I hope that Barack Obama’s supporters do not think that just because the people of the state chose to vote for Hillary over him means that they are racist. It’s certainly going to be one reason, but it is not the only one. To lump all of West Virginia together as a pack of ignorant redneck racist hicks is no more constructive than the claim that everyone who votes for Obama or McCain is a sexist pig who loathes her and could never vote for any woman.
West Virginia is a real state with real problems, and no matter what happens with the voting today, I hope that we keep in mind that these are not stereotypes: the people I met in there were among the kindest, most generous, most genuine that I’ve ever met. The legacy is there, but do not belittle the people of this state by labeling them as anything. 
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As a lifelong Kentuckian, and a student at the state’s flagship university, I can certainly relate to the stereotypes from which residents of West Virginia suffer on a daily basis. What the media doesn’t bother to portray is that states like West Virginia and Kentucky have many positive aspects and beautiful towns that are similar to what many think of as the American dream. I grew up in a small town in a middle class neighborhood and it was the best childhood anyone could have asked for. The bluegrass region is beautiful, it has low crime, and the people are both hard-working and friendly. Where is this depiction in the national media? All you get are pictures of hollows filled with run-down trailers and shoe-less children covered in dirt and coal dust.
To lump most of West Virginia together as bunch of poor, backwoods folk is also incredible stereotypical. You fix one set of steps for one family ten years ago and you think you “know” West Virginia?
What about the over one MILLION people who voted for Hilary Clinton in New York? Are those folks racist, too? Are they back-woods, too?
Would you even consider that there are individuals in West Virginia (and every other state) that consider the candidates’ platforms, voting history, and character and make intelligent decisions, despite media conjecture about the candidates?
Have you also considered that their are athletes, doctors, lawyers, teachers, and artists who were born, raised, and educated in West Virginia, and live there now because they want to?
West Virginia isn’t the only state with poverty. Our most recent census lists Washington D.C. with a greater percentage of poverty (2003-2004 two-year average) than West Virginia. I suggest that you go there to build houses, and then make generalizations about how the people in the District are very friendly but also poor and backward.
to Emily- I think you completely misread the intention of this post. I never said anyone who voted for Hillary was racist, I said it is one of many factors why some people might not vote for Obama.
I never said they were backward or that the entire state was destitute, you’re projecting. I think the points that you made were the ones that I did.
Perhaps I did misread your post, and I apologize. I deliberately tried to write my response so that I didn’t just seem “angry”.
I do find it unfortunate, though, that yet another post about West Virginia starts with an anecdote related to its poverty. What you did is a good thing - but you could have done that anywhere.
Am I making sense?
Dear Mr. Weaver, as an expat West Virginian I was of course caught up in the drama of the primary. I am also a liberal Democrat, though, because of what I have seen written by people I thought of as compatriots, I am rethinking those politics. In searching Google for “west virginia”, “racist”, the first two pages showed me one blogger, Dave Lindorff, who just barely stopped short of calling West Virginians =Nazis. Another “jokingly” suggested that West Virginians should be interned and reeducated, in the Communist Chinese manner. It has been an eye-opener for me. So when I saw your story I was touched, it was very nice of you to volunteer your time to help other people, and thank you for speaking up.
Bob- you’d be shocked by the kinds of search terms that people used to get to this post. “West Virginia ignorant rednecks,” “west virginia kkk racist,” and it just keeps going. I hope more people understand that not everyone in WV is racist, there are many great things to see and some wonderful people.