Published: June 29, 2008 05:15 pm         

Changing West Virginia with the power of a laptop

This Side of the Fence

While feeding my insatiable appetite for online news, I pleasantly stumbled upon the media buzz recently created by a Kanawha County man’s quest to improve West Virginia’s perceived negative stereotypes — one blog at a time.

This Herculean effort is being led by Jason Keeling, a public relations consultant from Cross Lanes, who, like myself, is fed up with those — including the sometimes moronic media — who steadfastly portray the good people of West Virginia as inbred, dirt-poor, backward Appalachian hicks whose sole purpose in life is a trip to Wal-Mart.

But first, two short instructional paragraphs for those who may have trouble detailing the differences between a blog and a frog resting lightly on a log.

The word blog is short for “Web log.” A Web log is a personal Web site where “bloggers” maintain a daily diary of sorts on whatever topic they choose. One Web site claims there are over 112 million blogs on the Internet.

Two of my favorites are “Lincoln Walks at Midnight” and “Ron’s Thots.” The former (mywvhome.blogspot.com) is an excellent “just-the-facts approach” to state news by Associated Press writer Lawrence Messina. The latter (rons-thots.blogspot. com) is by Greenbrier County’s Ron Miller and his views on “politics and religion and life in general.”

Keeling launched his blog (abetterwestvirginia.com) in 2007 with the aim to “establish a productive dialogue regarding West Virginia’s culture, economy, and government.”

On June 20, West Virginia Day, Keeling and about 35 other bloggers made newspaper headlines by focusing on positive West Virginia images in hopes of reflecting “a more accurate view of our beloved state.”

But why should anyone in West Virginia care if someone in Idaho laughed when the vice president of the United States used us as the butt of an incest joke?

Where you live is part of your identity and it’s one of many ways in which we, as social human beings, identify with each other.

With all things being equal, when searching for a job and possibly a place to locate your manufacturing plant, would you rather be identified with a potato or with impregnating your cousin?

And by the way, I hope everyone caught the Charleston Daily Mail story by reporter Jake Stump which not only debunked the state’s inbreeding myth, but also gave possible explanations as to how we became so stigmatized in the first place.

Stump’s article said an in-depth study of 140 years’ worth of marriage records by a University of Kentucky professor revealed Appalachian inbreeding levels “were not extreme enough” to merit the widely held stereotype when compared with other populations “elsewhere or at earlier periods in American history.”

Even worse, a North Carolina professor pointed the finger at carpetbagging coal barons from the early 1900s who unfairly portrayed West Virginia as being uncivilized in order to help cover up their dirty business dealings.

Although correcting all of our state’s negative images via the Internet will be harder than getting Don Imus to be a spokesman for the NAACP, Keeling’s venture should be marked as a watershed moment in our state’s history.

“We have to be honest with ourselves as to how the world perceives us,” Keeling told me by phone last week. “We need to celebrate our successes and discuss our challenges.”

The way Keeling and others are framing their arguments against those who perpetuate the state’s negative stereotypes is unique and well-founded.

It’s not an in-your-face shouting match, but rather a collective and intelligent public relations approach to re-educating people about our wild and wonderful state.

That being said, I am now revising my own behavior whenever I am confronted by outsiders who make fun of our state.

Instead of normally becoming defensive and challenging them to a fisticuffs duel, I’m now going to just stare back at them with an expressionless face.

If you take away their enjoyment of getting a rise out of you, perhaps they will move on and make fun of somebody else.

For instance, if the room full of journalists had stayed stone-silent when Cheney delivered his West Virginia slur, rather than breaking out in laughter, that might have given Cheney plenty of reasons to revise his joke list.

I cannot say the same for my column writing, however, because I will always use this forum as a bully pulpit to shine the light on those who are giving the state a black eye.

So hats off to Keeling and his merry band of brothers and sisters who are attempting to do the unthinkable — make West Virginia synonymous with what is great about our state. I’m on board. Carpe Diem, everybody. Have a great week.

— Christian lives in Greenbrier County. E-mail: cgiggenbach@register-herald.com