By J.D Vance
Sometimes it doesn't "take a village," it takes a hillbilly.
Why didn't our neighbor leave that abusive man? Why did she spend her money on drugs? Why couldn't she see that her behavior was destroying her daughter? Why were all of these things happening not just to our neighborhood but to my mom? It would be years before I learned that no single book, or expert, or field could fully explain the problems of hillbillies in modern America. Our elegy is a sociological one, yes, but it is also about psychology and community and culture and faith. (p. 146)
J.D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy, a memoir from the holler to the halls of Yale, provides a necessary counterpoint to the cries of systemic racism and social inequality. It is not that Vance ignores or decries claims of inequity, whether that be among his own Appalachian hillbillies or people of color, but he demonstrates a truth often ignored -- that every story is unique.
In our race-conscious society, our vocabulary often extends no further than the color of someone's skin--"black people," "Asians," "white privilege." Sometimes these broad categories are useful, but to understand my story, you have to delve into the details. (italics mine)
It is that little word, "details" that is often ignored in one-factor arguments and sweeping generalizations that prop up a social vision of victimization.
Addressing the merry-go-round of instability on which he rode as a child and teen, Vances writes:
I had a biological half brother and half sister whom I never saw because my biological father had given me up for adoption. I had many stepbrothers and stepsisters by one measure, but only two if you limited the tally to the offspring of Mom's husband of the moment. Then there was my biological dad's wife, and she had at least one kid, so maybe I should count him too. Sometimes I'd wax philosophical about the meaning of the word "sibling": Are the children of your mom's previous husbands still related too you? If so, what about the future children of your mom's previous husbands? By some metrics, I probably had about a dozen stepsiblings. (p. 81)
Vance digs into the details of his own life and, in doing so, helps the reader grapple with details too often ignored: family of origin, personal responsibility, nutritional choices, work ethic (i.e. laziness), the power of stability, and ones faith.
My takeaways:
1. Don't give up on that recalcitrant student: Vance was a behavioral "bad kid," no doubt exasperated by a dysfunctional home. He ran into his kindergarten teacher twenty years later. His teacher told him he had "behaved so badly that she nearly quite the profession--three weeks into her first year of teaching." Vance commented, "That she remembered me twenty years later says a lot about my misbehavior." (p. 95)
2. Question educational barriers to opportunity: Vance shared a "recent" comment made by one of his high school teachers. It is telling as it comes from an educator and not a politician: "They want us to be shepherds to these kids. But no one wants to talk about the fact that many of them are raised by wolves." The author comments about his sophomore year in high school: ". . . I was miserable. The constant moving and fighting, the seemingly endless carousel of new people I had to meet, learn to love, and then forget--this, and not my subpar public school, was the real barrier to opportunity." (p. 127)
3. Never underestimate the power of a stable home: Vance's life improved markedly when he moved in permanently with his grandmother. She instilled discipline and responsibility: "Those three years with Mamaw--uninterrupted and alone--saved me. I didn't notice the causality of the change, how living with her turned my life around. I didn't notice that my grades began to improve immediately after I moved in. And I couldn't have known that I was making lifelong friends." (p. 138)
4. Social visions still hinge on personal responsibility:Vance notes that in his neighborhood many people "gamed the welfare system." He writes, "I could never understand why our lives felt like a [monetary] struggle while those living off of government largesse enjoyed trinkets that I only dreamed about. . . . a large minority was content to live off the dole." (p. 139)
5. It's a wonderful world. But . . . It is full of less-than-wonderful stories that reveal systemic problems beyond race; problems in the family. I will only quote a portion of pages 146-47.
We choose not to work when we should be looking for jobs. Sometimes we'll get a job, but it won't last. We'll get fired for tardiness, or for stealing merchandise and selling it on eBay, or for having a customer complain about the smell of alcohol on our breath, or for taking five thirty-minute restroom breaks per shift. We talk about the value of hard work but tell ourselves that the reason we're not working is some perceived unfairness."
No, this is not the experience of every home or every person, and that is his point. There are examples of familial stability in this social earthquake. "Children of these intact homes have plenty of reason for optimism." (p. 149)
"Social justice" is the cry of the day -- and with good reason. Disparities abound. But what so resonates with me about Hillbilly Elegy is what seems so absent from most social visions, namely, identifying the tangled web of causes, and then calling out the necessity of personal responsibility to facilitate change. Yes, the biblical ethic is "do justice, and love kindness, and walk humbly with your God," (Micah 6:8), but it is also "In all hard work there is profit" (proverbs 14:23), "do you see a person skilled in his work, he will stand before kings, he will not stand before obscure men" (Proverbs 22:29), and "If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat." (2 Thessalonians 3:10).
Where today is the cry of Kennedy for everyone to pursue the public good: “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.” Our country seems to have devolved into a finger-pointing, blame-casting, "give-me-more-money" approach to problem solving. It's not working.
As Vance concludes: "Are we tough enough to look ourselves in the mirror and admit that our conduct harms our children?" (p. 255) Are we willing to take the kind of responsibility that stops "blaming Obama or Bush or faceless companies and ask ourselves what we can do to make things better." (p. 256)
This is a book that longs for a better world. From a biblical perspective it highlights some factors that will bring change. Life is a divine-human dance. Sovereignty and responsibility are both necessary. And while I appreciate the oh-so-necessary cry for personal responsibility that pours from these pages, any look at our history or any other history will clarify the need for Jesus, the Sovereign riding the white horse (Revelation 19:11) who is and will make all things new. (Revelation 21:5)
BOOKS TO EXPLORE:
Murray, Charles. Losing Ground. 2015. His comment: "another book about black folks that could have been written about hillbillies."
Wilson, William Julius. The Truly Disadvantaged. 1990. What happens when northern migration meets factory towns which eventually shut down.