r/news • u/FreeChickenDinner • 4d ago

West Virginia couple charged with trafficking their adopted Black children to be used as ‘slaves,’ authorities allege

https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/27/us/west-virginia-adopted-black-children-slaves-reaj/index.html
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u/Muted_Balance_9641 4d ago

Fun fact is the neighbors called the cops a ton to report them but the cops only came a few times.

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u/WriggleNightbug 4d ago

This fact isn't fun at all.

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u/Muted_Balance_9641 4d ago

I mean I find it hopeful that the neighbors never gave up until the kids got rescued. Even in a state like West Virginia which is associated to some degree with the history of the south.

But to each their own.

Hope the kids can sue their “parents” and their church and family for everything they own.

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u/bros402 4d ago

what a good neighbor

fuck the police

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u/snailfighter 4d ago

I read this to the state farm jingle.

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u/madsjchic 4d ago

You know I had to go back and reread it

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u/somesappyspruce 4d ago

Omg me too!

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u/BearcatChemist 4d ago

I love this.

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u/bros402 4d ago

No, that'd e

"What a good neighbor

fuck the cops"

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u/snailfighter 4d ago

Like a good neighbor (5 syllables)

State farm is there (4 syllables)

So your first edition was perfect. 🤌

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u/badgurlvenus 4d ago

she sounded so angry on the 911 call. good for her for never giving up until these kids could get justice.

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u/49orth 4d ago

They're probably all Trump Republicans and Evangelical Christians, including the investigating police.

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u/Johnready_ 4d ago

The police are the ones who finnaly figured it out, if they had no reason to enter the house, what do you expect them to do? That’s how criminals get away with their crimes, when the cops do something wrong, like entering a house with no real reason besides a neighbor complaining. You need proof of something, thankfully, or, not thankfully because the child, they got what they needed to end this.

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u/Round-Philosopher837 4d ago

The police are the ones who finnaly figured it out

only after letting the kids suffer.

That’s how criminals get away with their crimes, when the cops do something wrong, like entering a house with no real reason besides a neighbor complaining.

cops can literally murder, rape, and torture people and get away with it scot free, yet investigating numerous calls for child slavery is what would finally get them in trouble?

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u/Johnready_ 4d ago

So I’m guessing you, and others didn’t even read or search anything about this case huh? They where caught in west va, and it’s obvious with the ppl making comments about west va and its past or whatever, but they where originally from Washington, and have an 80acre farm there, they fled when they found out they where being investigated, I guess the cops sure didn’t do their job, terrible cops, almost as Terrible as you seem to be.

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u/Round-Philosopher837 4d ago

They where caught in west va, and it’s obvious with the ppl making comments about west va and its past or whatever, but they where originally from Washington, and have an 80acre farm there, they fled when they found out they where being investigated

all of which happened after the police ignored the initial calls for help, therefore prolonging the torture they had to endure. what's your point, exactly?

almost as Terrible as you seem to be.

calling out cops for ignoring child torture makes me just as bad as the people ignoring child torture? what a sane thing to say.

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u/Johnready_ 4d ago

Ignored? Do you understand what an investigation is? Just say you’ll never be happy with anything the cops do and move on, you make everyone look bad, just letting you know.

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u/WriggleNightbug 4d ago

I was reacting to the cops not doing shit, but actually it is nice to know the neighbors called it in.

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u/iProtein 4d ago

Even in a state like West Virginia which is associated to some degree with the history of the south.

While I'm all for dropping on Appalachia, doesn't West Virginia specifically exist as a repudiation of the confederacy?

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u/Canopenerdude 4d ago

Historically, yes. Contemporarily? Eh...

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u/arrynyo 4d ago

I live in Ohio and I say "wtf?" Every time I see a confederate flag in front of somebody's house. They hide behind history but don't even know the history.

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u/Mediocretes1 4d ago

Man, I live in Wisconsin and see confederate flags sometimes. If we were any more north we'd be Canada 😂

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u/Shoeprincess 4d ago

I see them in WA state .. we weren't even a state then?

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u/MsBlackSox 4d ago

And yet, there's Battleground...

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u/M_H_M_F 3d ago

IIRC WA State's history is a bit...white. I forget which PNW state it was, either Oregon or WA that was initially established as whites only/ was a haven for exiled klansmen.

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u/penguinopph 1d ago

It was Oregon.

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u/Iforgotmyemailreddit 4d ago

Hell, I live in Montana and see the occasional one.

MT wouldn't be a state until a quarter of a century after the Civil War ended lmao. Makes 0 sense.

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u/Heathen_Mushroom 4d ago

There are reports that even some Canadians fly the Confederate flag.

Vice signalling knows no borders.

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u/Enchelion 3d ago

Texas-cosplayers in Alberta definitely.

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u/AccomplishedCat4524 4d ago

A relative in the UP posted something with the confederate flag. I’m like really? We had family fight for the union.

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u/Val_Killsmore 4d ago

Same here in Minnesota. And Minnesota troops captured the Battle Flag of Northern Virginia during the Battle of Gettysburg.

I saw a Confederate flag patch on a biker in Minneapolis. It was on the top of his vest. There was something like a shirt flap sewed on the bottom of his vest that said "Minnesota". I felt like I was in a parallel universe for a second.

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u/ThisIsNeverReal 4d ago

There have been a few around me here in WI too. I hate it but I can't do anything about it, except voting when they have my specific one-block neighborhood jerrymandered do that my vote doesn't count. Fucking Waterloo.

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u/DeyUrban 4d ago

My sister moved to the Netherlands and has seen at least one there. I know they show up in Canada every now and then too. They've basically gone international as just one of many symbols contemporary white nationalists can use when they can't or won't use a swastika or other explicitly Nazi symbols.

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u/MsBlackSox 4d ago

See them in Michigan too.

The city I grew up in was a stop on the underground railroad. A house with a hidden passage flies one of the flags. Like, bro

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u/Faiakishi 3d ago

I'm in Minnesota. We're culturally basically Canada.

Not only that, but the Twin Cities are gay af. Ilhan Omar is our representative, for christ's sake. The fuck are confederate flags doing here?

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u/MalevolentRhinoceros 4d ago

I went to a college in Maine that had a pretty big class for specialized law enforcement. Saw TONS of confederate flags in those kids' dorm windows. Wasn't even out-of-state students; most of them were locals.

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u/remainderrejoinder 4d ago

The only confederate flags you should see that far north are ones that were captured and never returned.

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u/dedsqwirl 4d ago

I was in the Niagara region of Canada and there were a few confederate flags. One was on a house.

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u/arrynyo 4d ago

Hell most of the people I talk to when I go out there I would assume are Canadian. There ain't no reason for althe stars and bars to be that far north 🤣

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u/kiriyaaoi 4d ago

I lived in Upstate NY, and spent quite a bit of time in Northern New Jersey as well for friends, and you'd be shocked at the number of confederate flags you see once you leave the cities in NY, just 10-15 minutes out of Albany and Syracuse and it's like Alabama. New Jersey is even crazier, just half an hour to an hour outside of NYC it's like West Virginia.

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u/arrynyo 4d ago

I've been up there by Buffalo and yea...it's wild

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u/soldiat 4d ago

I have hillbilly cousins outside of Syracuse. Can confirm.

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u/Psychological_Fish37 3d ago

You see it downstate too, seen it Mount Vernon on a license plate cover. Maybe Yonkers, I wouldn't put it past Staten Island.

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u/Faiakishi 3d ago

I love the shade you guys throw at Staten Island.

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u/Ffdmatt 4d ago

Being an idiot is his HERITAGE

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u/TheUnluckyBard 4d ago

I live in Ohio and I say "wtf?" Every time I see a confederate flag in front of somebody's house. They hide behind history but don't even know the history.

Right?

It's like "Motherfucker, don't talk to me about history; nobody in your family has been south of Chillicothe for seven generations!"

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u/PrettyPunctuality 4d ago

I also live in Ohio, and there's a house behind mine that has a confederate flag flying. The people who live there act exactly like you would expect.

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u/arrynyo 4d ago

I'll bite. A bunch of no trespassing signs, lots of crap in the yard that nobody who doesn't want tetanus would even think about touching, busted pickup or Chevy cavalier rotting in the driveway? And let us not forget a "Don't tread on me" flag or license plate sprinkled in there somewhere?

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u/eliz1bef 4d ago

I am in Indiana and we have folks with the confederate flag in my neighborhood. Our state does like to think of itself as the south of the north. It's a very red state with a blue doughnut hole in Indianapolis where I live.

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u/MagicPistol 4d ago

Hell, I've seen confederate flags in California before. That's a sign for me to GTFO of that area.

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u/arrynyo 4d ago

Must pulling pretty hard for the south if they're flying that flag way out there.

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u/Psychological_Fish37 3d ago

Its not the South anymore, its a dog whistle for racism. It used to be safe thing to hide about in some areas. Then a Racist shot up a black church in 2015, and a lot people who used to give racist the benefit of doubt, started giving no quarter. A few southern states wised up and stop flying the stars and bars on state grounds, like that wasn't a ridiculous thing to begin with. That would be like having a small Union Jack on the top of the Statue of Liberty. Racism is a such a stupid practice.

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u/arrynyo 3d ago

I will never understand it. "I hate you people because my ancestors couldn't own you as slaves."

I bet if you sat some of these people down and asked them why they hate other races, would we get an answer that we haven't ever heard before?

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u/ElectronicOmelette 4d ago

Also came here to say this. 😂 I'm from WV around the tristate area with OH and KY and I've always done a silent facepalm when I saw the Confederate flag anywhere.

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u/arrynyo 3d ago

I bet you have stories for days living in that area 🤣

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u/ElectronicOmelette 3d ago

I could legit give a whole series of TED Talks on my experiences there 😂

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u/arrynyo 3d ago

Hell, write a book 🤣

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u/gardenmud 3d ago

Bit of a non sequitur but I would strongly recommend Demon Copperhead, fantastic book about the area. Best book I've read in a year. And I learned an absolute fuckton without feeling like I was learning.

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u/arrynyo 3d ago

Thanks! I'll definitely check it out. I'm on the road a lot and I like to read when I'm taking a break. Much appreciated!!!!

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u/paracelsus53 3d ago

My neighbor in upstate NY flew a huge Confederate flag in his front yard.

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u/arrynyo 3d ago

As is tradition way up north 🤣

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u/paracelsus53 3d ago

It feels so kooky.

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u/Oorwayba 3d ago

We visited Michigan a couple years ago, and in the northern section of it, saw Confederate flags everywhere. It was crazy.

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u/CHKN_SANDO 4d ago

Kind of like how Western Maryland was the unionist part of Maryland and now its one of the "fly a confederate flag" parts

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u/mpyne 4d ago

Yes. West Virginia ripped itself away from the Confederacy precisely because its poor Appalachian population saw nothing redeeming in going to war with the Union to do the bidding of rich plantation owners of the rest of Virginia.

This wasn't strictly idealism (though that was a part), there had long been tension between plantation owners and the white farmers in Appalachia working farms not conducive to slavery. If slavery could have worked better in the hills and mountains of West Virginia, they may have never split from the rest of Virginia at all.

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u/PuppetPal_Clem 4d ago

only if you've never had a conversation with someone who is from there. they by and large worship the confederacy as some sort of lost civilization despite it existing for less time than N'sync was actively making music.

source: my stepdad is from WV and we had a couple years of uncomfortable conversations at family holiday gatherings due to his lack of education on the topic of real American history.

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u/ImCreeptastic 4d ago

lack of education on the topic of real American history.

Good thing there aren't a growing number of people trying to white wash our history! /s

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u/marco-esquondolas 4d ago

As a West Virginian born and raised and current resident, I can vouch that the majority of people that I know here are not fans of being lumped in with the south, in fact most are quite proud of our state's origin in rebellion against the Confederacy.

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u/IL-Corvo 4d ago

As another West Virginian, born and raised in the heart of coal-country, I can tell you I saw more than my fair-share of Confederate flags in Logan, Mingo, Wayne, Raleigh, and Cabell counties when I lived there.

Were they common? Not particularly. Even so, I watched with dismay as my home-state went from reliably blue to deep crimson during the Bush-era. West Virginia has a dysfunctional relationship with its origins, just as it has a dysfunctional relationship with coal.

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u/ElectronicOmelette 4d ago edited 3d ago

I totally agree with this. I moved out of state years ago and when people mention something about my "Southern draw," I'm always quick to correct them and explain the differences between the Southern and Appalachian dialect!

I'm originally from Wayne county and the more in the sticks I'd go, the more Confederate flags there were. It's mind boggling.

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u/IL-Corvo 4d ago

Logan County native here, and I saw the same there as well. The deeper up a holler, the more confederate flags you'd spot.

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u/Psychological_Fish37 3d ago

Logan County native here, and I saw the same there as well. The deeper up a holler, the more confederate flags you'd spot.

I never visited, I would love to though, I heard its beautiful country. I did drive all the way down to Atlanta Ga as a teen. The confederate flags were jarring. Of course it was Nascar season but couldn't be avoided. My family and I are Caribbean decent, my step dad is Rastafarian. Said he like it better in the south, liked his racism in the open. Of course everyone was super polite, but this was well before 2016, now it seems like Maga is the dog whistle racist flag people fly.

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u/Vorzic 4d ago

The outside world will continue to look at us negatively as long as these types of things happen. As long as we consistently vote in people like the pride of J6 Derrick Evans. As long as entire generations of forward thinking youths leave the state for opportunity because coal barons and corrupt politicians run the state, leaving us with the most racist elders imaginable (my grandfather is a prime example, actual POS). And unfortunately, they vote in way higher numbers.

Don't get me wrong, 80% of people I know and grew up around agree with you completely. They are also not the ones making a mockery of our state and slathered across national news every time something negative happens.

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u/stumbling_disaster 4d ago

WV raised myself, but I fled the state at 18. I can attest that I saw tons of confederate flags worn to school and flown proudly at friends houses. You must be from a more civilized part of the state, because I heard the n word plenty to go along with their racist ass flag. The couple black kids at our school beat the shit out of the couple of kids that actually said it to their face though.

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u/PuppetPal_Clem 4d ago

Congrats on finding a pocket of sanity then I suppose because the rest of your fellow statesman are not necessarily as enlightened.

Obviously no state is 100% full of bad people but there is enough evidence regarding rural WV in my life that I'm not surprised my non-white friends have no interest in going to music festivals in that state despite being interested otherwise. Have literally had friends of mine threatened by a cashier after asking for directions to a venue at a local independant gas station. Even if its not racial and just on some "out of towner" shit it's still stupid and bigoted.

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u/XT2020-02 4d ago

Yeah. It's a beautiful area. As a visitor for many months, due to work, I have seen so many nice people and very few nasty or questionable people. I got to say, my black coworkers hated WV. I (white dude) had no issues.

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u/Grogosh 4d ago

Fun fact!: West Virginia being so bad for farming like plantations is the reason why there were so few slaves there.

Otherwise WV would have fought with the South in the civil war.

It wasn't the people of wv, it was the poor farmland of wv that decided wv would be against the south in the civil war.

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u/Vorzic 4d ago

This is only partially true. The Union vs. Confederacy supporters were delineated geographically through the middle of the state, and the majority of the counties that sided with the Union were actually in the best farmland in the state, along the Ohio River basin on the East and Northeast parts of the state.

It was a huge matter of regional thought variance: those closer to the now Virginia border ardently supported Virginia, and the right to slavery. Those closer to the now Ohio and PA borders had a more "northern" mentality. Even the OG capital was up in Wheeling, partially due to the fact Virginia maintained control over the SW part of WV even through the war. It was VERY split. It can't be understated how important the influence of prominent politicians like Peirpont and Lincoln were to the creation.

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u/Psychological_Fish37 3d ago

As a West Virginian born and raised and current resident, I can vouch that the majority of people that I know here are not fans of being lumped in with the south

If not mistaken a lot of the Scotch/Irish immigrated there, no? The Hill Folk so to speak, they had history of not only being contrarians, and stubborn to boot. Its a lot of history to remember off the top of my head, but they used to have adversely relationship with big coal lots of labor disputes as well.

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u/FakeTherapist 4d ago

worship the confederacy as some sort of lost civilization

some right winger should make the really really bad movie of this so we can laugh at it

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u/Psychological_Fish37 3d ago

Why there's already Idiocracy.

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u/Faiakishi 3d ago

Phineas and Ferb ran for twice as long as the Confederacy existed.

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u/Oorwayba 3d ago

Oh yes, because you know one person/family so suddenly everyone is like that. I don't think you know what "by and large" means.

I'm from there. There are certainly those that are obsessed with the Confederacy. But there are way more that aren't. And most of the pro-confederate people I know don't even know or care much about it beyond it being cool to be a rebel. They certainly aren't worshiping it, just using the flag to say "look at me, I'm such a badass."

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u/GodzillaDrinks 4d ago

Yes. Its also notible for having the most Socialist Uprisings of any state. Its the site of the largest battle of the Second American Civil War (the Battle of Blair Mountain in 1921).

And at least two of those uprisings are recent enough for millennials to remember. The most recent "Coal War" was in ~1990. And the Teacher's Strike happened there in 2015.

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u/masonkbr 4d ago

As someone who lives in Indiana, I can safely say that it does not matter one bit which side our state fought for over a hundred years ago to these hillbilly fucks. Indiana played a pretty prominent role in the Underground Railroad, but current day rural Indiana is fully of confederate flags and Trump flags.

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u/Slightly-Drunk 4d ago

I read further into the article, the old evil farts are from Washington State, they only moved to WV recently.

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u/IAmAnAudity 4d ago

Indeed, it does.

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u/markth_wi 4d ago

It was contentious then, it's contentious now. What was once all Virginia became "Virginia" and "West Virginia" because eastern slavers tried fucking over farm-owners in Western Virginia - so when Virginia went to the Confederacy a couple of months later West Virginia peeled off.

Places like Morgantown and Harpers Ferry became hotbeds for abolitionists and slaves getting out of the South, but also for slavers to recapture freed or escaping slaves such that during the war Harper's Ferry was burned to the ground at least once.

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u/Flimsy-Station4169 4d ago

Wv exists to separate the property rights of the underground from the above ground property. Most generalities of the population are as hit or miss as the weather forecasts, depending on which side of the mountain your on.

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u/mushmushhhh 4d ago

West Virginia, for what it’s worth, seceded from Virginia at least in large part because east Virginia wanted slavery and West Virginia didn’t.

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u/In_Formaldehyde_ 4d ago

They like the economically left part but simultaneously don't like nonwhites much. Not that hard to understand.

Much of the South used to be Dixiecrats before the Civil Rights movement.

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u/cat_prophecy 4d ago

West Virginia is a state specifically created because they didn't want slaves and didn't want to be part of the Confederacy.

Why anyone would think it's "part of the south" is entirely beyond me.

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u/ImportantObjective45 4d ago

Modern culture war propaganda tells states that were invaded by the confederacy to consider themselves members. 

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u/Psychological_Fish37 3d ago

So true, they are re renaming schools Robert Lee in the south. They are pissed people want the south to stop being racist.

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u/ImportantObjective45 12h ago

Even the invader states were not good for citizens. Only 240 yuppie families were on top and they tweaked bank laws to take good land from regular farmers.

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u/Snoo_79218 4d ago

They have confederate statues that were erected by Sons of Confederate Veterans and contemporarily the Lost Cause pseudo historical narrative is alive and well in West Virginia. 

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u/Dwarte_Derpy 4d ago

Because of "muh deep history of racist culture" arguments are easy and sexy.

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u/CatoChateau 4d ago

Because of how much Banjo music permeates the air.

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u/Gyella1337 4d ago

These people deserve so much more worse than a lawsuit. I hope their story gets out in whatever prison they end up in so some real justice might be served.

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u/BlackClarkGriswold 4d ago

I haven't found West Virginia to be particularly racist. It is however a very very strange place culture wise. With that said one can be prejudiced and still not be okay with kids being treated like that.

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u/Weak-Rip-8650 4d ago

You can sue people with no money if you want, but generally it does not put you in a better position than before.

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u/pimparo0 4d ago

The irony is WV separated from Virginia to remain in the Union.

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u/Panda_hat 4d ago

The kids getting everything they own and the ‘parents’ going to prison forever would be nice.

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u/ffsudjat 4d ago

I may be wrong, but West Virginia separated from Virginia because of their loyalty to the Union. Still does not negate those couple as scum of the earth.

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u/CHKN_SANDO 4d ago

Even in a state like West Virginia which is associated to some degree with the history of the south.

West Virginia specifically exists because they didn't want to be in the south.

Which makes the current situation in WV even more depressing than it is at face value, in my opinion. Like they knew better at one point then decided to get stupid

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u/Klaatuprime 4d ago

Good luck suing a church; they'll cry poverty. The Catholics can't get away with that (even though they're still trying) because everyone knows they're rich, but other churches ty to claim they've given all their money to the poor.

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u/Dejugga 3d ago

Man, poor West Virginians. Your state makes a point of separating from Virginia because you opposed joining the Confederacy, fought for the Union, and yet you still get lumped in with the south so that people can make snide remarks.

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u/GodzillaDrinks 4d ago

I mean, WV is specifically associated with leaving the South.

It's also had more socialist-styled uprisings against opressive regimes than any other state. Including at least 2 in living memory, and I dont mean like 60 years ago. The most recent "Coal War" was in ~1990. And the Teachers Strike was in 2015.

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u/Witchgrass 4d ago

I'm a West Virginian. We don't consider ourselves part of the south. Look up why we seceded from Virginia.

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

[deleted]

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u/sas223 4d ago

It is definitely not a very blue state. Joe Manchin finally left the Democratic Party, who he didn’t vote with. All the other state reps are republicans. The governor is a Republican. They have voted for the Republican presidential candidate for decades.

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u/Voluptulouis 4d ago

Joe Manchin is a bitch.

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u/TheDumbElectrician 4d ago

My apologies I remembered very wrong. Thanks for the correction.

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u/MrP1anet 4d ago

West Virginia has a Republican governor, state house, and state senate, aka a tri-facta. It is very conservative. Joe Manchin will be replaced by a very conservative republican. Trump won the state with 69% of the vote in 2016 and 2020. It is not blue by any means these days.

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u/TheDumbElectrician 4d ago

I was corrected in another comment. I remembered very wrong, my apologies. Thanks for the information.

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u/MrP1anet 4d ago

You’re good. Once upon a time they were democratic. But they’ve always been conservative if you catch my drift.

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u/masshole4life 4d ago

as someone from a "very blue state", no, it most certainly is not.

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u/No_Midnight_2183 4d ago

Oh please you can't start a post with some readymade reddit meme bullshit like "fun fact" and then respond to someone pointing that out with the snark of "to each their own" as if that communicated at all what you're saying it communicates