elizabeth stephens

In Appalachia, our cultural foods have evolved in the way that they have because our ancestors were poor and starving. Poor, white southerners ate foods that were cheap and calorically-dense. This is why we now eat biscuits and gravy, grits, and local vegetables cooked in leftover animal fats. They were lucky to have had things like flour and grease to make gravy. My grandparents regularly only had this to eat, and even then, the food was scarce. Cuisine that has evolved from poverty is not exclusive to another race or another country. Americans, Europeans, white people in general — have all struggled with poverty, and many of our cultures adapted and survived eating scraps, like these people are doing now. You are not genetically superior because you are blessed with abundant resources. You are lucky to have been born into the abundant wealth that America has today. Using these peoples’ suffering as evidence that Haitian immigrants are an inferior people is mind-blowingly cruel and ignorant. If you want to look down on Haitian immigrants because people in their homeland are starving, then I guess you should deport all of us in Appalachia and plenty of southerners whose ancestors worked hard but still spent years doing things like this to SURVIVE. You are the entitled elite that republicans claim to hate so much.