i exist to speak the truths of my people. that has wound up being mainly Appalachia. our truths are that every genocide is interconnected, and that all authority exists with the aim of subjugation. my family is not so unique or special. you’ll find stories like ours all over the world if you choose to look. i have a best friend whose father was decapitated by Wagner in Kiev. i have a neighbor who arrived here from a Siberian orphanage. i have a coworker who spent time on an anti-poaching task force in The Ivory Coast (sorry, i can never remember the french. Cote-de-Ivore?). the importance isn’t to give me empathy, but instead the people who are fighting for survival right now be they in Sudan, Palestine, Lebanon, the Congo, Iran, Syria, or Ukraine. we are all one people and our differences are illusions. we have adapted to our environments in different ways, but wherever we are we help who we can