In December, I read Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance. I’m a little late to the game for that one, as it’s been around for a couple of years. It’s a powerful story that I can say has affected me deeply.
If you haven’t read it, it needs to be near the top of your reading list for 2019. It is the memoir of a man who grew up as an Appalachian emigrant in a Midwestern city. It’s the story of the cycle of poverty and its effects in the hillbilly culture and context.
While reading the book, I thought of different directions I could take to write about how it has impacted me. This is the first. Who knows if there will be more, but I hope so.
When I read blogs, articles, and books, like most people, ides that reinforce my worldview are what I notice first. This was no different. One thing that has frustrated me about our culture at this time is the way the discussion of racial issues is framed (easy for me to say since I’m white). I’ve thought for a long time that our issues are as much about class as race, but they always seem to be framed in the context of race. Hillbilly Elegy is the first piece I’ve seen that clearly demonstrates that the destructive cycle of poverty is not anchored in race.
Vance’s book is about a sub-culture that is white and poor. He describes the cyclical nature of poverty and its reinforcing effects through generations in a way that I’ve never heard or thought of before. Using the hillbilly culture, Vance demonstrates that it is as much a mindset issue as a systemic one.
Now my personality is such that when I see a problem, I want to know what I can do to help fix it. In this, Vance acknowledges that the problems of poverty and abuse he describes in his book are difficult, if not impossible to fix from the outside, due to the nature of the characters, personalities and values of those who need help. For hillbillies there is a natural distrust of outsiders. For him, and others he knows, it was a direct relative, or someone close like a teacher who had the positive influence and demonstrated that there was a different way to go.
I hate it when there’s a problem that I want to help with, but I can’t.
Over the past year, I’ve read several bloggers who have referred to the “circle of influence” from Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.* I gather from their assessment that each of us has a circle of influence and a circle of concern. The circle of concern is the larger of the two and includes macro-level issues like nuclear proliferation, the environment, liberty, presidential politics, etc. These are items that we might think about, and want to do something about, but we have little power or influence.
The circle of influence is located within the circle of concern. It contains those areas that you can influence. If my circle of concern includes the environment, then my circle of influence contains the ways that I can impact the environment. My circle of concern might include sea turtles and desertification, things that I can’t do much about in the Midwestern US. My circle of influence includes how much and what I buy that becomes landfill. Personally, I dislike how much of our agricultural focus is on corn. My circle of influence includes buying gas with as little ethanol as possible.
Back to Hillbilly Elegy. When I think about that text, and I think about it often, I try to figure out what is in my area of influence so that I can have a positive impact on people in a similar situation. I do not live in or near Appalachia, so there is probably little that I can do specifically for them. However, people in need of help are all around us. The cycle of poverty is not limited to Appalachia, big cities or anywhere else. There are many things I can do to help the poor in my town and my county. For example, there is a food bank in my town. My son is a Boy Scout and every fall they do a food drive to fill the food bank. Our church has a food bank donation basket. Despite those things, we haven’t contributed much to the food bank in the time that we’ve lived here. That’s low-hanging fruit.
I gave money to Big Brothers/Big Sisters when we lived in Cedar Rapids. I thought about volunteering, but never got around to it. We don’t have a chapter here in my small town, but that seems like a good way to directly impact a young person.
J.D. Vance explained that a teacher in school impacted him in a way that changed his life. It started with one person. That made me think of the story of the boy and the starfish. A boy tossing starfish in the ocean might not have a large impact on all of the starfish stranded on the beach, but it made a big difference for each starfish that was returned to the sea.
I’ve been thinking about Hillbilly Elegy for weeks since I finished the book. I don’t know exactly how I will influence people in a similar situation in a positive way, but I know that I’m committed to doing something. Maybe the first step is simply to write about it. Now I have you to keep me accountable.
I’ll keep you posted.
*I haven’t read that book yet, but I just ordered it through my library, so it’s next on my list.