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Interview With Wired Appalachian Advocate, Dana Kuhnline
Interview With Wired Appalachian Advocate, Dana Kuhnlineby Joe Solomon
Social Media Trainer for Energy Action Coalition, and writer based in Charleston, WV
08/27/2014
(excerpt)
You spent a number of years in West Virginia and elsewhere in Appalachia and working to build the movement against mountaintop removal coal mining in the heart of coal country. Tell us about a moment working in West Virginia. Specifically, tell us about a moment when you felt like you were totally out of hope. What happened?
A single moment? An obvious choice was a tense public hearing in 2009 that had a huge pro-coal mob outside (the Army Corps Nationwide 21 Permit Hearing). I had to go through the mob (to get my car keys) and got shoved and hit by a woman HOLDING A BABY - she shoved me WITH THE BABY. I was just so flabbergasted, all the fear left me. How do you move forward as a community from a level of fear and desperation so intense that people are physically using babies as weapons? When the main reason I got involved in fighting mountaintop removal was to protect children's health. And I don't want people to judge this woman; she was put in a terrible position and did something terrible -- that is what oppression does to us all sometimes. I tell the story to point out the system that very deliberately created this situation.
Also I was dressed up very nice in a suit, but wore a button that gave me away as a tree-hugger, and everyone kept telling me to wash my hair, take a bath, etc. My hair looked very clean, but that's not the point, it was just, people didn't see me at all, but the lie they were told, that I was the dangerous one, and that was more comfortable than the truth - that coal is just running out. Whether or not I wash my hair ever again, we have to transition the Appalachian economy.
You asked about hope. To be honest, hope isn't something I fuss about. To me, whether we win or lose (and we will do both) my priority is to do that with dignity....
MORE at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-solomon/interview-with-wired-appa_b_5715543.html