Ashley York As J.D. Vance’s memoir “Hillbilly Elegy” surged to the top of the New York Times Best Seller list, I was on location in Kentucky filming “Hillbilly” — a documentary that examines the long history of vicious cultural stereotyping that has plagued Appalachia.My first memory of seeing Appalachia depicted to the nation was the 1989 CBS special, “48 Hours: Another America.” As a 9-year-old, I watched Dan Rather tell the world about the people of Muddy Gut, in Floyd County, one county over from where my family and I lived.
Everything about that program — from the images of the broken-down cars to the condescending tone of the faceless narrator — made me feel shame.
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