I saw a post on Facebook this morning… it was shared multiple times and liked about twice that.

Picture this… a picture of an old run down home with a broken old timey washtub on the porch. There is a rundown rusted and broken swing set in the front yard with some sort of a towel hanging on the swing set to dry.

The article – while trying to defend Appalachia and their vote – spoke of homes being surrounded by dead grass and weeds. It spoke of our life expectancy and our use of alcohol and drugs. It mentioned our lack of education and offered, what I can assume, are accurate statistics. It spoke of our children’s rotting teeth due to parents feeding their babies Mountain Dew from baby bottles. How, due to Mountain Dew being cheaper than milk and our water too polluted to drink, we have fallen to this Mountain Dew ailment.

And so many of you shared it…

So many of you liked it…

You hate being stereotyped of voting out of racism, but you are okay with the above mentioned stereotype? No. I am not.

So let me ensure the real Appalachia is depicted and the more accurate testament of their vote…

I will start by telling you about my home, this liberal Clinton voters home, where I was raised and how I see my people…

The picture I want you to see is one of strength and dignity like, during all my travels, I have never seen matched.

Let’s start with this picture in your mind….

I drive into my hometown on a winding road through miles and miles of mountains and trees. As I drive in I may pass cows out to pasture, stray dogs running in freedom and I have to ensure I avoid hitting deer. I often see people sitting on their front porch and they will typically wave as I pass. They don’t know me. I am a stranger to them, but even strangers get a friendly greeting.

I finally get to my Mother’s home, nestled at the end of steep dirt road, one that, when it snows, even a four wheel drive can’t get up or down. But that’s okay, we have the four wheeler and razor for that, because we are efficient in many ways.

Her home sits in the middle of 70+ acres of beautiful land, which borders a national forest. Her grass is typically cut and my Mom and Stepdad spend a lot of time ensuring the grass is weed free.

When you picture my home that is what I want you to see.

Now the people…

I have never fed my child Mountain Dew from a baby bottle. None of my mother’s 12 grandchildren had this experience either. Do some? Maybe. No one that I know, but then again, I don’t know everyone.

My grandmother is in her 80’s and many of my great aunts and uncles, many still living, are around the same age. Maybe that isn’t a long life expectancy, but what do I know?

None of my family are alcoholics or drug abusers. But here is what we are….

Lawyers.

Pharmacists.

Teachers and coaches.

Coal miners.

Business owners.

Nurses.

Most of them can hunt and fish. We do this for sport and food. We grow our own fruit and vegetables and spend hours in the kitchen canning them. Who needs Del Monte when you have a pantry full of Mama’s green beans?

So basically, you know how everyone says when the zombie apocalypse comes, they are going to find a Darryl? We are all Darryl’s in SWVA. We are survivors….

And right now, the people in SWVA are just trying to survive. Unemployment is up, as is poverty. Our area is dependent on coal as our primary source of jobs and revenue. Coal is down. Lay-offs are the norm.

My people, the strong, proud, hard-working people of SWVA, are the “forgotten ones”. Some have never witnessed poverty, not even in the rural areas of some cities, quite like the poverty you will observe in SWVA. The major differences? We have no national organizations that offer us aide or stand up for our needs. Very few politicians are concerned with white “hillbilly” poverty. It has long been accepted in this country and this fact will continue. Many find us comical… today we are still the one group of people that it is socially acceptable to make fun of…

But we are proud. We are survivors. We don’t ask for or want handouts, we want jobs. We are willing to work from sun up to sun down seven days a week to provide for our family and that is all that we ask for and expect.

So here comes 2016. A wealthy business man comes in and reminds us that we are not forgotten. That he has not forgotten us. He promises us a stronger coal industry and jobs.

Let me pause right here….

I am a liberal. I voted for Hillary and threw down with most anyone that cared to debate me. I have had many opinions of the race and this election. I stand by my opinions. I stand by what I have said all along. There are several people, family members included, that the minute they said “coal” or “I am voting for a job”, my argument ended with them. We may have continued with our feelings of the candidates, but I would never question their need to feed their family. My daughter, a 15 year old liberal to the core, would debate her classmates at school. Her father and I always told her, coal is off limits. Even he and I knew what this meant for our people.

You see, I have thrown around words like hate and race, but I have never lumped my people into this category. I know and understand, when you are forgotten, when you are tired and suffering, you desire a candidate that remembers you. You desire a candidate that believes in you and your people. Trump offered that and won their votes.

So what I hope you understand now, we aren’t what some would have you believe. We aren’t what was depicted in this article, though I believe the intent was pure. We have a strong faith in God, Family, Coal and Country and Trump gave promise to their faith…