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OPINION
The Chronicle
Ernest H. Pitt
Publisher Emeritus
1974-2015
617 N. Liberty Street
336-722-8624 I 41 \
www.wschronicle.com
Elaine Pitt Business Manager
Donna Rogers Managing Editor
WALI D. PlTT Digital Manager
Our Mission
The Chronicle is dedicated to serving the
residents of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County
by giving voice to the voiceless, speaking truth
to power, standing for integrity and
encouraging open communication and
lively debate throughout the community.
This is a way
village works
on literacy
While students and parents get ready to go back
to school, members of the community are helping
out. Back-to-school giveaways abound. But one
member of the community is Blinking as a member
of the village, trying to help raise the children.
Andrew Snorton, a Wake Forest University
alumnus, will celebrate his birthday this month, and
he is planning a party of sorts. He is inviting the
community.
He will coordinate a program called "The
Literacy Project" to take place on Saturday, Aug. 27,
from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the Malloy-Jordan East
Winston Heritage Center, 1110 E. Seventh St. in
Winston-Salem.
Snorton says he wants to push and encourage
students in grades K-12 and adults to embrace and
improve their consistency with reading.
n s some
thing I want to
do as it ties in
with my birth
day," which is
Aug. 31,
Snorton said.
"I've always
done a commu
nity service and
outreach piece
when celebrat
ing my birth
day; this year, my focus is on the encouragement of
reading, as it truly is a powerful means of learning."
As part of the program, group readings will be
conducted to help demonstrate and model the over
all importance of reading.
He asks that those who attend the program bring
a book. He has a list of the kinds he would like to
see. Or, people can donate a gift card from a local
bookstore in an amount ranging from $8 to $31.
The emphasis on books doesn't stop there. Any
books that are not picked up during the book
exchange will be donated to a local school or
schools, library or other community-based organiza
tion. (See story on page B8.)
This is a novel idea to help spread readership.
Snorton realizes how important it is.
Who in the village will work with Snorton to
help people read? What other ideas are out there to
help break the chains holding back people who can't
read?
Reading is so fundamental that a TV drama fea
tured a young criminal who killed the wrong person
because he couldn't read the name of a street on a
map and got the wrong address of the alleged vic
tim.
Reading can lead to self-esteem. Reading can
open doors. Reading can lead to good jobs.
Let's rebuild the village to lead children to the
right address: the one that leads to success.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Train track
projects improve
rail transportation
To The Editor:
? I recently enjoyed a unique train
ride from Raleigh to Charlotte and
back on the American View, an
Amtrak car with a special all-glass
front. The trip offered me and my fel
low passengers a new perspective on
the state's rail network and the
improvement projects taking place in
Lexington and Thomasville.
Improving our freight rail service
and enhancing rail safety are two
important aspects of Governor
McCrory's 25-Year Vision for trans
portation in North Carolina, and
North Carolina's rail system is hard at
work on projects that accomplish
both. Two of the closed crossings are
in Davidson County. Another project,
the Thomasville to Davidson Double
Track Project, is adding four miles of
second track which will let passenger
trains to safely pass slower freight
trains. The additional track will help
reduce congestion, increase reliability
and decrease travel time between
Raleigh and Charlotte. The project
will also improve a railroad bridge
over Rich Fork Creek and construct
new railroad bridges over Hamby
Creek tributary and Abbotts Creek.
These bridges will also prevent colli
sions between trains and cars.
I encourage you to visit
NCByTrain.org to learn more about
PIP and our state's railroad system.
Robert Broome
Director of Communications
NCDOT
Court overrules
GOP majority
again over maps.
Where does it stop?
To the Editor:
The people of North Carolina
have a right to vote in constitutional
districts.
The federal court ruled today
[Aug. 11] that 28 districts in our state
are in violation of the Equal
Protection Clause of the U.S.
Constitution because race was the
predominant fac
tor in the draw
ing of those dis
tricts.
O u r
Republican
? ? majority contin
ues to ignore the courts and pass
unconstitutional laws. So much so
that the court cited that this legisla
ture failed to heed the guidance that
could have prevented this litigation.
Our citizens have again been
denied their constitutional rights to
vote by Republicans -this time under
racially gerrymandered state legisla
tive districts. Republican leadership
has cost the people of the citizens of
the state more than $9 million in legal
fees. Where does it stop?
Rep. Larry D. Hall
Democratic Leader
N.C. House of Representatives
Note: On Aug. 11, the Fourth
Circuit ordered new maps drawn for
28 districts in North Carolina.
Hot Hillbilly book: White
skins, black masks
Bill
Ttirner
Guest
Columnist
Those who want to read
an extremely rare book that
speaks to the similarities
between poor whites and
poor blacks - especially in
this white hot summer of
presidential politics, where
race and class fertilize the
ground on which Donald
Trump runs - must read
"Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir
of a Family and a Culture
in Crisis," by J. D. Vance.
Vance, 34, an ex
Marine who holds a Yale
law degree - through a
walk down memory lane
paved with the dysfunc
tions of his extended white
working-class family,
whom he calls with a com
ical and witty familiarity
and warped sense of loyal
ty everything from "moun
taineers," to "trailer trash,"
to "rednecks" - opens the
view to the demoralized
whites to and for whom
Donald Trump speaks. Mr.
Vance's chronicle jumps
between the homeland of
his "Mawmaw" and
"Pawpaw" in the coalfields
of Eastern Kentucky to
Middletown, Ohio to
where they migrated after
WW II - north to find man
ufacturing jobs. In the
Appalachian heartland of
Kentucky and West
Virginia - indeed among
millions of whites through
out America - there is a
feeling of powerlessness as
their way of life, the advan
tages and privileges white
ness gave them, is being
devastated.
With their world of
work shattered and their
conservative world views
called into question, the
traditional values, norms.
and behaviors of the white
working class have
devolved into a new code,
a new set of self-destnic
tive conduct. Elegy reads
like Vance is writing about
pigeon-holed poor black
people in Central Harlem,
not stereotyped poor white
people in Harlan County,
Kentucky or Central
Appalachia. It reads like
pages torn from Daniel
Patrick Moynihan's 1965
dated report, "The Negro
Family: The Case for
National Action."
Moynihan argued more
than a half century ago that
"the deterioration of the
Negro family is thd\funda
mental source of the weak
ness of the Negro commu
nity." Substitute the key
words with deindustrializa
tion and globalization and
you have the tangle of
pathology that affects the
white working class: fami
ly dysfunction, drug and
alcohol addiction, crime,
and intergenerational wel
fare.
In the Rust Belt swaths
of America described by
Vance, life for many work
ing class whites is crum
bling and disintegrating.
"Where's my white privi
lege?" "My white life mat
ters, too!" "They're taking
our jobs!"
Mr. Vance does not ask
what America is doing for
the white working class,
but rather he points out
what they are doing to
themselves. "Hillbilly
Elegy" blathes and buries a
lot of the victims of a
changed America. Vance
does not spend much time
on the effect of the disap
pearance of blue-collar
i
jobs and what it means to
be isolated from the edu
cated, elite, and effete,
white American main
stream. That's something
poor black people have
also known a lot about for a
very long time.
The last book about
working class and impov
erished white people to
charge up the air to such a
sizzling level was Harry
Caudill's 1963-published
"Night Comes to the
Cumberlands." Will the
government's reaction to
"Hillbilly Elegy" be the
same - a new War on
Poverty? I certainly hope
not because the War on
Poverty that started in
Appalachia in 1965 came
up with some mirror image
skirmishes for urban
blacks' way out of their
despair and want - Model
Cities and Urban Renewal.
Those agendas, plans,
policies, and courses of
action only masked the
troubles of disadvantaged
whites and blacks. We
shouldn't put any more
skin - of any color - in
those same old poverty
programs. In the end, Mr.
Vance's funeral song about
the white working class
reads like the autobiogra
phy of Supreme Court
Justice Clarence Thomas:
in order make his point he
badmouthed his own peo
ple - blamed the victims.
Dr. Bill Turner is a
noted educator, writer and
thinker who called
Winston-Salem home for
many years. Reach him at
hill-turner? comcast net.
1 1
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