What is a Redneck?

[Haole Girl]

I've been hearing this term a lot again, lately. An election year phenomenon? I don't know.

I used to think the term "Redneck" described someone who lived a poor, rural existence, and because they worked manual labor outdoors an often had a "red neck," the label was born. Later in my life, due to a lot of comedian acts, and our society moving from farming to industry, I noticed it took on a whole new meaning. It has become a vile term, meaning bigot, and Bush-loving "moran." Am I right?

This subject came up at work, last week, and one African American woman actually thought it was not a derogatory label. The other African American woman quickly corrected her. I decided to steer completely clear of the conversation and just listen (smart move, on my part...you think?).

I'm sorry, but I don't know many people who would enjoy being called a Redneck. I guess there are worse terms....I can think of one, but I won't repeat it here.

Opinions?

[trof]

1. In 50's Alabama it was derogatory.

I was a teen, and to me it meant an ignorant, possibly inbred, country bumpkin.
Not just uneducated, but stupid and uneducatable.

[Haole Girl]

3. Even in the 50's it was derogatory....interesting...

...it's interesting how the woman at work, I was talking about, still believed it wasn't. Makes me wonder...

[trof]

9. Of course back then, I didn't know what blacks called us.

Within earshot, it was usually 'sir' or 'mam', if anything.
Even for a little boy born and raised in Alabama it sounded odd for a 50-something black man to say 'yessir' to me.

From reading about the period, 'cracker' was probably one blacks-for-whites term.
I don't think 'honkie' came in until the radical 60s.
Still don't know where it comes from.

[cobalt1999]

43. Cracker is what we Floridians (northern) call each other.

Now, more to distinguish the "original" or multi-generational Floridian from the 75% new comers.

[Joey Liberal]

16. Redneck = Moron

Tons of them here in Oklahoma.

[LostinVA]

31. Yup, redneck=moran

[Nikia]

2. I used to refer to people behind their backs as "rednecks"

Just as other people use certain ethnic/racial/religious/other group slurs when they are talking with people who are not members of that group. Of course I only used it to describe lower class rural people who were ignorant types, had several lifestyle characteristics that I thought of as redneck, and seemed to enjoy being that way. I came to realize that this was insensitive and bigotted of me just as some people use other group slurs to refer to members of that group who meet certain characteristics. It does not matter that many of those I referred to as "redneck" were bigotted themselves. Two wrongs don't make a right.

[trof]

4. A bit more:

Many of what I guess I'd call lower-middle and middle class southerners are proud to call themselves rednecks now.

But don't YOU do it unless
1. You claim 'Rednekkedness' too, or
2. You're very, VERY close friends.

Them ol' boys got full gun racks in them pickups.
;-)

[Nikia]

5. On a related note: My grandfather used "hillbilly"

He grew up in Southwestern Ohio. He used it degrotarorily just as I used to use redneck.
I know that the "hill" part refers to Appalachia, but do you think that they mean basically the same thing?

[Haole Girl]

6. I don't know...

...good question, I suppose. :shrug:

[trof]

7. KY, parts of TN, and the Ozarks tend to use hillbilly, or did.

[Haole Girl]

8. Thanks

I haven't heard the term in years. Hopefully, that one has died a quiet death.

[idgiehkt]

12. good point about that

I call myself a redneck sometimes but hillbilly is probably more accurate. I have an inquisitive mind but my roots are in the dirt, not the sidewalk.

[William Bloode]

23. Nope.

We hillbillies are a different crowd than your typical "redneck". Hillbilly has more to do with location. We are just automatically assumed to be ignorant, lazy, low life. More or less from bad media portrayal.

[trof]

10. Then there's 'white trash'.

I heard that term used about 'low class' whites by other whites once in a while.
'Trailer trash' is a more recent innovation.
I guess you could say it's 'color blind'?
;-)

[trof]

11. Oh, and 'common'.

As in "Well, she's just COMMON, anyway".
This covered anything from wearing white shoes after Labor Day to having a child out of wedlock.

Interesting discussion that sparked some long ago memories.
Thanks.

[brentspeak]

13. "white trash" is one of the worst insults ever

Not only does is it calling people "trash", but it's also implying that non-whites are "trash" by default.

[trof]

14. True. Back then the standard "street" term for blacks

was perjorative although it was my experience that many whites either didn't realize it or were just oblivious. Or didn't care.

[RebelOne]

46. Trailer trash really gets to me because I live in a mobile home.

Just because a person lives in a mobile home does not mean that they are a second-class citizen.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

15. I've come to realize that it's extremely classist and disrespectful

to people whose lives are one shitty day after another.

They're born in poverty, sent to low-quality schools, and work long and hard at minimum wage jobs with no benefits.

They are potential allies, but not if we make jokes about them.

[Haole Girl]

17. You are absolutely, 100%, correct about this.

Thank you!!!

Would these kinds of remarks be one reason there are still "W" stickers in Wall-mart parking lots, on beaten-up old vehicles, all around our nation today (not just in the South)? Who knows for sure. Why risk it, though, in 2008? Why?

Think.

[LostinVA]

22. Totally disagree with y''all on this

As my post down thread states. You have the reason why there are W stickers mixed up -- it has nothing to do with calling people rednecks -- they have those stickers because they ARE rednecks. It's an attitude and belief system now, it haas nothing to do with economic or educational status. And, rednecks have not traditionally just been in the South. They are all over. They are in every single country.

I grew up redneck. I used the "n-word" in my youth, to my now shame. I KNOW the culture. And, it is a culture. Some of those that YOU call "rednecks" aren't, and would have a fit you were calling them that. Not because they work at physically labor... but because they aren't racists, etc. THAT'S what the word means now, even to those who call themselves that.

Rednecks don't mind being called rednecks, btw -- as every single one of my closest relatives will tell you.

[skygazer]

18. It's a term I despise

Along with "trailer trash" and "white trash" and all the other terms that disparage people who are poor. I don't understand why so many people here are so down on poor people - I thought we were the party of compassion.

And yet I see so many negative threads about the poor - threads that assume that those who don't have a job are lazy, or that people are having kids to keep getting welfare, or those who live in poverty are automatically lousy parents. Threads that repeat every negative Ronald Reagan welfare queen talking point ever made. It's discouraging.

I don't know what a redneck is. I grew up in a rural farming economy. Many of the adults I knew had little education but they worked hard and had a lot of valuable knowledge to share. Many of them were kinder and more generous than many "educated" people I've met. And it irritates the hell out of me to see people like that dismissed as some sort of a joke.

[ScreamingMeemie]

42. Thank you sky...as the wife of somebody who is often called "redneck"

by virtue of his birth-and often by the idiots in my family, I appreciate that. :hug:

[bertha katzenengel]

19. My beloved claims the title proudly. Do read: THIS is a redneck.

For her, it's regional, but something more. I can't define it for her, though. Perhaps she'll weigh in.

She's from eastern Tennessee. She is a progressive liberal, a follower of Christ, is well-read, sophisticated, devours two newspapers and several crosswords daily, is a wine aficionado, and, besides country music, knows classical and opera very well.

And she's a redneck.

[XemaSab]

20. I think it's a term that's being reclaimed

The reclaimed term in my mind doesn't differ much from good ol' boy or "country"... there's a certain anti-cityish flavor to it.

I would say rural, outdoorsy, and white is the most simple working definition.

[Patiod]

47. We heard a bunch of rich yahoos using it about themselves

Were at a very nice restaurant near Charles Town WV a few years ago, and these three young couples were drinking a lot and playing "who is the biggest Redneck" (although I would have been willing to bet my dinner bill that every one of them had attended a University, and had probably been in a fraternity at said university)

"well, we were really Redneck today! We went to Walmart!"
"Hey - we're really Redneck, because we just bought a pick-up truck!"
"No, you guys aren't Rednecks, I'm a Redneck! I can skin a deer by tying a rope to a pickup truck and...."

We who were eating at the next table were inclined to add to Jeff Foxworthy's list: If you are willing to describe, in detail and in a voice audible to everyone at a fancy expensive restaurant, how to skin a deer using you pick-up truck, a rope, and a tennis ball, then you are indeed a Redneck.

[LostinVA]

21. My redneck relatives love being called rednecks

And, they all have HS degrees and make at least twice as much money as me. They live in a ruralish part of NJ, and revel in their reactionary attitudes and their anti-intellectualism. These are smart people, gang -- far, far from stupid... and they all have a good education from one of the best school districts in the country. Hoverer, they continually vote against themselves -- because they hate black and Hispanic people -- and are creepily anti-intellectual -- THEY are the classist and the elitist in my family, not those of us "elitist" Liberals who make little money working in ed ucation, etc. So, those in this thread who think those who call people rednecks are elitist or whatever must not have any close relatives who are rednecks.

To me, redneckism has to do with an attitude and a belief syustem... not with money, etc. As I said, they all make a huge amount of money in good union jobs. They aren't poor, they don't work in a field... none except for two uncles who are crabbers even have physical jobs. And, most fly Confederate flags. In NJ.

[William Bloode]

24. I'll have to add this too.

Only in the recent past has being called a redneck ok. It was more or less not a very polite thing to call someone, nor was it flattering to be called one. This attitude was as recent as the 80's. The term then used was good ol boy.

A redneck was saw as a lazy, lowlife that drank a lot, and or used hard drugs, and was very violent. Hence sayings like "gettin red" on someone, or "he went all crazy and got rednecked".

Blame it's new popularity on the media, and Jeff Foxworthy for the most part.

[LostinVA]

27. I agree with you -- except I blame it on the rise of the GOP

and their culture of divisiveness.. with a smattering of Foxworthy (whose was SO not raised a redneck).

[William Bloode]

29. Yep,

The gop with the complicit help of the media made folks from the south seem ever more divided from their other countrymen.

Edit to add* There are a lot of folks here that feed that very divide.

[LostinVA]

30. To me, not just the South, just this demographic

My redneck relatives all live in NJ.

[Rabrrrrrr]

25. Anyone who thinks Toby Keith dresses nice and/or drinks out of a jelly jar

especially if they're drinking whiskey out of it. In the morning. While sitting on the crapper, smoking a cig, yelling at the kids who haven't been bathed in a week cuz mom hasn't been sober and her pregnancy has her bedridden, and reading a magazine about race cars, guns, or how the nazis moved to bolivia, became communists, and then started the UN with the help of the Jewish Marxist Secular Muslim terrorists.

[spacelady]

38. Hey! I'd come over there & knock you down if I wasn't sitting one the

pot! No, let me finish, I setting down my drink, putting down the paper & addressing YOU! Yes You with all the RRRR's~! Oncet I git goin' you won't be able to believe how much of a backbone of the nation I am! I got to go yell at the kid now.

[LostinVA]

26. I just asked my "ex-redneck" SO this question

Background: she is from a small town in NC right in the middle of tobacco country... population 400+. NO blacks are allowed to live there. Very much a hunting, fishing area, etc. Her parents are redder than red... as is everyone in her family except a cousin and her husband. Her cousin is a K-5 teacher.

OKay, so I asked her, her answer: She would say it's partially activity, ie hunting, fishing, NASCAR... but, that you can do that stuff and NOT be a redneck. It doesn't mean you're stupid or poor -- all her family make very, very good money -- at RJR, airline mechanic, etc. It DOERS mean you';re anti-intellectual and proud of it -- college education is snooty and pointless, etc. To her, they think they are the REAL Americans: "down to earth," all about God and Country -- the real patriots. ie white and Christian. They are very much "Redneck and proud of it," and loathe any hint of cultural diversity. Her Mom thinks every Mexican wants to rape a white women. And, they NEVER acknowl3dged our relationship in over ten years.

She also said what I said when she read this thread: that people who grew up redneck know what it means, and those that didn't don't -- because it's very hard to explain. But to her, the real snobs are her redneck relatives -- they are insular and unforgiving of anyone not of their class and beliefs.

[Arugula Latte]

28. Let's ask Jeff Foxworthy!

He'll know for sure...

[YellowRubberDuckie]

32. Not all rednecks are Bush loving morans.

A lot of them are nice, honest, open-minded people. According to Jeff Foxworthy a redneck is someone with a "Glorious lack of sophistication." :shrug: I know a lot of people like that, but they're nice, honest people. And I know democrats who are rednecks. That really wasn't a fair definition.
Duckie

[Placebo]

33. If you have to ask...

just sayin'. :P

[Spider Jerusalem]

34. What is a redneck?

Generally speaking, it means a rural, usually Southern (at least in Amerca; Australia and Canada have rednecks, too, who seem to share the same British cultural background as the American ones, for the most part) white of Scottish/rural English/Ulster Scots ancestry; rednecks are generally perceived as clannish (which can and has given rise to violence of the Hatfield-McCoy sort), distrustful of outsiders ('you ain't from around here, are ya, boy?'), usually somewhat religious (most of their ancestors were Presbyterians; today most of them in the US are Southern Baptists--the Baptists split from the Presbyterians about 200 years or so ago), resentful of what they see as the imposition of authority (it was rednecks who started the Whiskey Rebellion in the 1790's and ran moonshine in Appalachia 150 years later), quick-tempered and somewhat prone to violence...so generally speaking, I'd say it's a term that most often refers to members of a specific ethnic group with certain common cultural features.

[Haole Girl]

35. Sounds like the definition I believe it to mean, lately, too...

...and, wouldn't you agree it is rather derogatory? I mean, you wouldn't like to be called a Redneck, simply because you ended up having to live in the South, would you? Plus, as you see above, some people think the term applies to people all over our country (though, I've never heard it used for other regions before today).

[Spider Jerusalem]

36. Well, like I said...

the people called 'rednecks' generally share common ethnic and cultural roots; it's true that they're mostly found in the South, but the Okies and Arkies of the 1930's and their descendants in California come from the same background; so do a lot of rural Pennsylvanians, in the old coal-mining towns in the Alleghenies; many of the residents of the Pine Barrens region of New Jersey; and so on.

And as others have noted, there are a lot of people who seem to be reclaiming the word as a term of self-identification; I'd find it kind of offensive, personally, but then culturally I'm not at all a redneck (nor am I a Scots-Irish Protestant, for that matter).

[ovidsen]

37. Redneck vs. Good ol' boy

I heard this a long time ago. This is how it works in SC

A redneck throws the empties out the window of his pickup.

But a good ol 'boy tosses them back into the bed of his pickup.

It's all about being selfish... or not being selfish. With the rednecks (and I use that term advosedly) here, the anti-intellectualism is accompanied by a lack of compassion. They don't really care what happens to other people. For example It's the true redneck who wants to ban all abortions, no exceptions, but thinks the government's wasting it's money if it's used to fund any kind of prenatal or postnatal care.

[astral]

39. I think you've got it, Ovidsen

I was thinking reading through the thread, redneck means different things to different people, and for me it's come to change over the years but the people who called certain others 'rednecks' when I was a teen were friends who were Indian. And they pretty much meant anyone who was too straight, or looked down on pot-smokers while they themselves were getting drunk on booze, or anyone who was prejudiced against Indians.

As the years went on, (maybe it's REGIONAL!) it came to mean people who would go on a picnic and leave all their trash behind, including garbage bags full of empty beer bottles. People who take their old refrigerator or couch and go dump it in the roadside in our beautiful land to save themselves the cost of disposing of it at the dump. People who don't care about others nor will they go out of their way to remember they're sharing the planet with the entire human race.

Poor? Uneducated? That does not make a person a redneck.

Good topic.

[Withywindle]

40. That's the way I remember in SW VA too.

A good ol' boy and a redneck both drive a pickup truck with a gun rack and drink a lot of beer and listen to Lynyrd Skynyrd.

But a good ol' boy is a nice guy. A redneck is a bigot who shoots the neighbors' dogs.

At least among my circle of friends, the distinction was VERY important. :D

[LostinVA]

44. Bingo -- better than I said it up thread

[Withywindle]

52. Thanks! We had a lot of pithy observations about this...

A good ol' boy and a redneck will both drive drunk and speed, sure.

But a good ol' boy will swerve to miss an animal in the road. A redneck will swerve to hit it.

[Elidor]

41. Didn't our society move from farming to industry before you were born?

Or is it just me?

[Haole Girl]

48. Well...yes, but...there used to be *some* respect for farmers.

Now, it seems, there isn't. Maybe it's because both sets of my Grandparents were farmers...which most people here probably can't identify with. It pretty much happened by the 50's...and I was born in the 60's. I didn't miss is by much!

[Mutley]

45. I think it's used in a very derogatory way

and if certain other racial/lifestyle type slurs are unacceptable, which they are, then why isn't this one unacceptable?

Is it okay just because it's used against the "other side?"

[Haole Girl]

49. Thank you!!!

That's what I think. I don't see why it's gotten complicated these days...does our society not feel comfortable unless we have accepted derogatory slurs? And, don't we run the risk of alienating a fairly large group of people who live in rural areas if we persist in this?

[Aristus]

50. I had always equated 'redneck' with 'bigot'.

I grew up in Texas, but in a fairly progressive family. My mother always told us to avoid people who used bigoted terminology. My Dad held "rednecks" in utter contempt. He would say that since he grew up in Oklahoma and didn't fall for the bigot bullcrap, that anyone could do it.

It wasn't until I came to DU and discovered proud, dedicated lefties embracing the redneck label that I realized that there could be liberal rednecks.

[merh]

51. See this journal entry

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/merh/8

or this thread for interesting discussion
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x4443215