Posted on a local blog:
“Thinking that the best candidate for the new County Executive in a legitimate nationwide search would be found right here in Prince William County are so unbelievably astronomical that it defies description.
Prince William County is not just another hollow in McDowell County, West Virginia where inbreeding allows for your sister to be your wife and the mother of your brother.
But that’s the way the BOCS treats hiring of top policy makers and leaders in Prince William County.?”
Inbreeding? Has the author of that statement ever met anyone from McDowell County, West Virginia? Do they know anything of the population? Off the top of my head, I thought of the gentleman who headed up Fairfax County Parks and Rec for decades. He was born and raised in McDowell County. I would say that he did quite well for himself.
Has the author of that nasty, hateful comment ever seen the film October Sky or read the book Rocket Boys? Both were inspired by Homer Hickman, a retired NASA employee, who grew up in McDowell County and became a scientist and famous author.
I detest that kind of regional bigotry and prejudice. Maybe that statement is something you might say with your own friends in your own home but never publicly. Maybe!
I shared the comment with my best friend of many decades who was born and raised in nearby Raleigh County. West Virginia. I will share her comments:
“I’m speechless. McDowell is not at all a bad place. Has no more inbreeding than Prince William. Maybe he was never exposed to the [redacted] or the [redacted]. It is deep coal field culture but hard working and honest for the most part. So unfair that i don’t even know what to say.”
What is wrong with people who think it is perfectly OK to disparage an entire group of people based on where they live? Regional and class bias is never acceptable.
It is even worse to accuse those people of incest. No, it isn’t funny and no, it isn’t OK. Furthermore, Prince William County is full of West Virginia transplants as well as descendants of those transplants.
McDowell County is an economically depressed area. It was a coal mining area and has had mine after mine close. Even their Walmart closed last winter but that in no way makes the residents guilty of incest. Many places have undergone sweeping economic downturns in this country as industries change.
It’s just wrong to make those kinds of remarks about a region–almost as wrong as making those kinds of remarks about someone’s race, religion or ethnicity. Is this the latest Trump mentality, where it’s ok to call various groups out as rapists and thieves? This type of regional slurring is NEVER OK.
As a matter of record, I am not from West Virginia, but many of my friends have deep roots in that state. The local blogger needs to profoundly apologize. Not everyone is fortunate enough to live in the Gainesville District.
