Dear State Representative, American Idol Staff, Producers, Contributors, Partners, Beneficiaries & Affiliates,
For the first time, I'm appalled por American Idol! I, nor my entire family, will ever watch o donate to American Idol again! tu may say, "So what, who cares?" Well, maybe one viewer's opinion is not enough, but what about an entire state and many of its officials in outrage? That state is KENTUCKY. I'm sure tu remember us; the poor, hopeless, uneducated, illiterate, desperate, backwoods, toothless, barefoot and pregnant, trailer trash, Appalachian Hillbillies of Eastern Kentucky?? Surely, tu do because that is how Idol portrayed EVERYONE who is from this area on national TV.
For years, the typical resident of Appalachia has been portrayed as an uncivilized, moonshine-drinking, pipe-smoking, shotgun-toting, lazy, barefoot hillbilly with poor hygiene and a low IQ and tu didn't help to alleviate that at all!!!
I am a proud, college educated, Appalachian American and originally from Pike/Letcher County area where Idol supposedly visited. I take great issue with your insensitive, rude and somewhat inaccurate depiction of Appalachia and Eastern Kentucky! Your opinion of us is somewhat distorted and is as completely uneducated as the people seen in your imaginative segment. tu should be ashamed for representing everyone in this region as being that uneducated. tu should have researched the people, the culture, and the tradition to see how we, as a whole, in this region really are. It is unfortunate that people still hang onto such stereotypes and myths. We who live here are used to it, but it does not mean that such degrading remarks and accusations go down well. Is it not enough that my state has long suffered from the above stigma, without a powerful program like American Idol doing it further injustice por publicly portraying Eastern Kentucky, at every turn during the segment, as the last bastión of poverty and ignorance in America?
We are a proud people rich in history, culture, heritage and traditions whose hospitality is well known the world over. When I think of Eastern Kentucky and Appalachia these are a few of the things that pop into my head: Individualism, Self-Reliance, Patriotism, Pride, family traditions, values, morals, manners, modesty, hospitality, inicial cooking, generosity, with a amor of place and a sense of humor all wrapped up in lavishly beautiful landscapes.
Where are tu from? Are there not people in your area that are poor, homeless, living in trailers, starving, o uneducated? Are there not ghettos there? It's not what tu were trying to do I take issue with, it was the manner in which tu did it. I think it is wonderful that tu and others want to help those Americans who need a Hand up, not a hand out. I'm very supportive of and applaud the idea of helping children and the communities in which they live. To encourage efforts to help people get on the track of a más productive, well educated, happy, healthy lifestyle is noble, but only in positive avenues, while keeping their self respect and dignity intact! This tu did not do! One would think tu would have extended your visit to areas beyond our famous narrow hollows and steep hills where tu purposely sought out the scattering of places that most easily supported your own jaded vistas of Eastern Kentucky. Your cameras painted a picture portraying us as a community full of retarded education, dilapidated housing, basura filled trailers with cars up on blocks in the front yard, obsolete sanitation and our resounding ability to litter America with our children.
What tu failed to see, mention o portray is that there is poverty and uneducated people all over our great country and in places far less fortunate than those in Eastern Kentucky. Yes, we have poor, uneducated people here, like tu showed, however the vast majority of Appalachians are far from the life tu painted as truth. Which brings us to the root of the problem and that is that exposure from shows like yours does not help the people tu depict. Instead, it only extends the preexisting distortions that have plagued us in popular culture and have evoked highly negative imágenes of us as lazy, poor, and intellectually challenged individuals. I'm sure you're not aware that lucio Co., KY once had más Millionaires per capita than any other County in the United States.
When tu showed New Orleans tu portrayed their problems as being caused por environmental disaster and similarly with the LA segment. tu were careful to mention positive attributes about each. tu mentioned: how nice, intelligent, hospitable etc. they all were, but not so in Eastern Kentucky. tu even portrayed the African people as a más nice, social & hospitable people than us. Not one positive thing was dicho about Eastern Kentucky, NOT ONE! Not to mention, the people of Appalachia were obviously not worthy enough to be shown with Randy, Paula o Simon. Are we not clean enough for your precious famous hands to touch us, give us a pat on the back, to shake hands with, o to hug one of our children?
I am proud to be from Eastern Kentucky, part of America the greatest nation of all, and agree that we should tend to our children living in poverty, and our elderly should not have to choose if they are to eat this mes o buy medicine. But in order to achieve this do we, as Appalachian Americans, have to sell out our culture, heritage, traditions, and way of life only to be forced to feel ashamed of who, what, where and how we came to be? Without our rich mountain culture, our mannerisms, our way of speaking, our amor of these mountains, we will cease to exist and become just another mindless lemming living in America!
As John R. Buchtel from Ohio, Founder of Buchtel College, later changed to universidad of Akron, wrote:
Please, don't write me off because my grammar may be different from your own. I may pronounce my e's as short i, my o's as ya's o short u's. The verb context of my sentences may be out of order, and I may have silent h's at the beginning of the words I speak such as him o here. I may say "Cumear" for come here. I may say "all" for oil o "tar" for tire, o "woish" for wash, and "er" for o such as in "mater" (tomato) and "tater" (potato). I may ask tu for a mango meaning a green campana pepper instead of meaning a tropical mango south of the equator fruit.
tu may misinterpret my meanings of my sentences because of the way I word them. For a very simple example, the phrase "Please wash the tar off." Tar could mean three different things, tar as in blacktop, tar as in tire, o tar as in tower. This is not a lack of intelligence, and it is not a speech impediment! It is just a language, a language all its own. Does it cause some misinterpretations? It can. This is a language that is continuing to evolve for the generations still living in these areas. Education is helping, but instead of being demeaned, students should be made aware of this language, the history of this language, and made to feel proud of it.
When tu have been born in a region of great beauty, mountain magic, in the corazón land of America, it blends with your very soul and it's for this reason, most of us cannot leave our roots and transplant ourselves. We are one with our land, our rivers, our streams, our mountains, and as we gaze out at the majestic beauty before us, it's as the song says, "We reach out and touch the hand of God"."
Alta F. Ratliff
========================================
Kentuckians depicted negatively again ...
I want to express my disdain for zorro, fox and American Idol for allowing the despicable display of Kentucky in last week's episode. My name is Nathan Haney. I am from Paintsville, just north of the small area where Idol sent a camera crew to exploit a negative Appalachian and Kentucky stereotype in the name of "helping."
Not only was the scene disgustingly and overtly negative, but it didn't even go with the theme of the Idol event — which was clearly to help provide comida for children in need. Each of the Idol hosts went somewhere in America to help hand out comida to the needy, which is honorable and obviously needed in all parts of America, then somehow, out of the blue, comes a scene about reading, mostrando a mother who was illiterate with few if any teeth, an abandoned school bus in a front yard, coal extraction, and mentioned that a biblioteca for these kids was understocked.
This display makes me sick. I am very disturbed that this organization preyed on stereotypes to somehow promote its message. If tu want to help people in Eastern Kentucky, I am for it, but the best thing tu could do is try to knock down the media-created barrier that the people in Appalachia are a bunch of toothless, shoeless, pregnant, smoking, coal-mining, illiterates.
It was a clear exploitation of good and decent people.
I am a 23-year-old law school student at the universidad of Louisville. I am a proud Eastern Kentuckian, and I know a great deal of people from Appalachia who are much smarter than any of your American Idol hosts, that is for sure. If tu ever decide to send a crew back to Kentucky, please give me a call, let me prance tu around and mostrar tu all the great things Eastern Kentucky and Appalachia are doing for you.
Nathan Haney
Paintsville
For the first time, I'm appalled por American Idol! I, nor my entire family, will ever watch o donate to American Idol again! tu may say, "So what, who cares?" Well, maybe one viewer's opinion is not enough, but what about an entire state and many of its officials in outrage? That state is KENTUCKY. I'm sure tu remember us; the poor, hopeless, uneducated, illiterate, desperate, backwoods, toothless, barefoot and pregnant, trailer trash, Appalachian Hillbillies of Eastern Kentucky?? Surely, tu do because that is how Idol portrayed EVERYONE who is from this area on national TV.
For years, the typical resident of Appalachia has been portrayed as an uncivilized, moonshine-drinking, pipe-smoking, shotgun-toting, lazy, barefoot hillbilly with poor hygiene and a low IQ and tu didn't help to alleviate that at all!!!
I am a proud, college educated, Appalachian American and originally from Pike/Letcher County area where Idol supposedly visited. I take great issue with your insensitive, rude and somewhat inaccurate depiction of Appalachia and Eastern Kentucky! Your opinion of us is somewhat distorted and is as completely uneducated as the people seen in your imaginative segment. tu should be ashamed for representing everyone in this region as being that uneducated. tu should have researched the people, the culture, and the tradition to see how we, as a whole, in this region really are. It is unfortunate that people still hang onto such stereotypes and myths. We who live here are used to it, but it does not mean that such degrading remarks and accusations go down well. Is it not enough that my state has long suffered from the above stigma, without a powerful program like American Idol doing it further injustice por publicly portraying Eastern Kentucky, at every turn during the segment, as the last bastión of poverty and ignorance in America?
We are a proud people rich in history, culture, heritage and traditions whose hospitality is well known the world over. When I think of Eastern Kentucky and Appalachia these are a few of the things that pop into my head: Individualism, Self-Reliance, Patriotism, Pride, family traditions, values, morals, manners, modesty, hospitality, inicial cooking, generosity, with a amor of place and a sense of humor all wrapped up in lavishly beautiful landscapes.
Where are tu from? Are there not people in your area that are poor, homeless, living in trailers, starving, o uneducated? Are there not ghettos there? It's not what tu were trying to do I take issue with, it was the manner in which tu did it. I think it is wonderful that tu and others want to help those Americans who need a Hand up, not a hand out. I'm very supportive of and applaud the idea of helping children and the communities in which they live. To encourage efforts to help people get on the track of a más productive, well educated, happy, healthy lifestyle is noble, but only in positive avenues, while keeping their self respect and dignity intact! This tu did not do! One would think tu would have extended your visit to areas beyond our famous narrow hollows and steep hills where tu purposely sought out the scattering of places that most easily supported your own jaded vistas of Eastern Kentucky. Your cameras painted a picture portraying us as a community full of retarded education, dilapidated housing, basura filled trailers with cars up on blocks in the front yard, obsolete sanitation and our resounding ability to litter America with our children.
What tu failed to see, mention o portray is that there is poverty and uneducated people all over our great country and in places far less fortunate than those in Eastern Kentucky. Yes, we have poor, uneducated people here, like tu showed, however the vast majority of Appalachians are far from the life tu painted as truth. Which brings us to the root of the problem and that is that exposure from shows like yours does not help the people tu depict. Instead, it only extends the preexisting distortions that have plagued us in popular culture and have evoked highly negative imágenes of us as lazy, poor, and intellectually challenged individuals. I'm sure you're not aware that lucio Co., KY once had más Millionaires per capita than any other County in the United States.
When tu showed New Orleans tu portrayed their problems as being caused por environmental disaster and similarly with the LA segment. tu were careful to mention positive attributes about each. tu mentioned: how nice, intelligent, hospitable etc. they all were, but not so in Eastern Kentucky. tu even portrayed the African people as a más nice, social & hospitable people than us. Not one positive thing was dicho about Eastern Kentucky, NOT ONE! Not to mention, the people of Appalachia were obviously not worthy enough to be shown with Randy, Paula o Simon. Are we not clean enough for your precious famous hands to touch us, give us a pat on the back, to shake hands with, o to hug one of our children?
I am proud to be from Eastern Kentucky, part of America the greatest nation of all, and agree that we should tend to our children living in poverty, and our elderly should not have to choose if they are to eat this mes o buy medicine. But in order to achieve this do we, as Appalachian Americans, have to sell out our culture, heritage, traditions, and way of life only to be forced to feel ashamed of who, what, where and how we came to be? Without our rich mountain culture, our mannerisms, our way of speaking, our amor of these mountains, we will cease to exist and become just another mindless lemming living in America!
As John R. Buchtel from Ohio, Founder of Buchtel College, later changed to universidad of Akron, wrote:
Please, don't write me off because my grammar may be different from your own. I may pronounce my e's as short i, my o's as ya's o short u's. The verb context of my sentences may be out of order, and I may have silent h's at the beginning of the words I speak such as him o here. I may say "Cumear" for come here. I may say "all" for oil o "tar" for tire, o "woish" for wash, and "er" for o such as in "mater" (tomato) and "tater" (potato). I may ask tu for a mango meaning a green campana pepper instead of meaning a tropical mango south of the equator fruit.
tu may misinterpret my meanings of my sentences because of the way I word them. For a very simple example, the phrase "Please wash the tar off." Tar could mean three different things, tar as in blacktop, tar as in tire, o tar as in tower. This is not a lack of intelligence, and it is not a speech impediment! It is just a language, a language all its own. Does it cause some misinterpretations? It can. This is a language that is continuing to evolve for the generations still living in these areas. Education is helping, but instead of being demeaned, students should be made aware of this language, the history of this language, and made to feel proud of it.
When tu have been born in a region of great beauty, mountain magic, in the corazón land of America, it blends with your very soul and it's for this reason, most of us cannot leave our roots and transplant ourselves. We are one with our land, our rivers, our streams, our mountains, and as we gaze out at the majestic beauty before us, it's as the song says, "We reach out and touch the hand of God"."
Alta F. Ratliff
========================================
Kentuckians depicted negatively again ...
I want to express my disdain for zorro, fox and American Idol for allowing the despicable display of Kentucky in last week's episode. My name is Nathan Haney. I am from Paintsville, just north of the small area where Idol sent a camera crew to exploit a negative Appalachian and Kentucky stereotype in the name of "helping."
Not only was the scene disgustingly and overtly negative, but it didn't even go with the theme of the Idol event — which was clearly to help provide comida for children in need. Each of the Idol hosts went somewhere in America to help hand out comida to the needy, which is honorable and obviously needed in all parts of America, then somehow, out of the blue, comes a scene about reading, mostrando a mother who was illiterate with few if any teeth, an abandoned school bus in a front yard, coal extraction, and mentioned that a biblioteca for these kids was understocked.
This display makes me sick. I am very disturbed that this organization preyed on stereotypes to somehow promote its message. If tu want to help people in Eastern Kentucky, I am for it, but the best thing tu could do is try to knock down the media-created barrier that the people in Appalachia are a bunch of toothless, shoeless, pregnant, smoking, coal-mining, illiterates.
It was a clear exploitation of good and decent people.
I am a 23-year-old law school student at the universidad of Louisville. I am a proud Eastern Kentuckian, and I know a great deal of people from Appalachia who are much smarter than any of your American Idol hosts, that is for sure. If tu ever decide to send a crew back to Kentucky, please give me a call, let me prance tu around and mostrar tu all the great things Eastern Kentucky and Appalachia are doing for you.
Nathan Haney
Paintsville
Hello Kelly.
