Rednecks, Hillbillies, and White Trash

[DA]

I do think people from the suburbs or whatever throwing around terms like "redneck" and "white trash" derisively is pretty messed up. I'm a redneck, btw; a redneck who despises Bush, has more black literature and music in his house than white, speaks 2 languages and is learning a third, is probably more knowledgeable on world issues than the average CNN anchor (not that this is saying much), converted to Islam when at 23, and voted Nader in 2000. I also love headin out in the woods, firing guns, good old fashioned home cooking, Merle Haggard, boxing, hound dogs, and I put Hank Hill to shame with my wierd affection for ugly utilitarian goods. "Pluggers" doesn't define me, and those who use their priveledge to lump all of us "white trash" together just make themselves look ignorant.

Look, I'm white. Hence, I never say "nigger". Black people can say it all they want. For me, it's on the Top shelf--way outta my reach. I can say shit like "redneck". If you're not one, maybe you shouldn't.

I don't even really mind the words so much as the lame, hypocritical PC standard behind them. As that one dude pointed out, working class white people are the last acceptable target for unimitigated scorn. It's this attitude of "I respect all the world's cultures...Oh, except them." These people can glorify some of the most fucked up and backwards attitudes on earth with cultural relativity, and you'd never catch them making fun of any other culture's art forms or the like....But when it comes to Saturday Morning Gun Shows or Honky Tonks, suddenly they're not so relative anymore! It's the same people who despise football now, but would love it if it were European, and would hate Soccer if that were popular with "rednecks" here.

Look, I won't insult you latte-sippin, tofu munchin, leg-shavin, Hilary-votin, nancy-boy bobos if you won't insult me :-P

[Joan]

I'd have to disagree. It all depends on what group you're in, and in what environment you're venting unmitigated scorn. In my circle, self-absorbed baby boomers and clueless bratty-child-enabling parents get quite a bit of scorn. I have quite a bit of mocking at the ready for thug boys of any race who wear dress-length t-shirts and pants below their asses. In TV sitcoms, dads of any financial strata are common targets and always have been. Within right-wing groups, queers, Jews, feminists, environmentalists and anyone who doesn't toe the religious-right line is free game for some nasty open hatred.

It goes on and on and up and down a scale from levity to vitriol.

I think perhaps this might just be a sore spot for you because it hits close to home.

It only has as much power as you let it.

[DA]

"Within right-wing groups, queers, Jews, feminists, environmentalists and anyone who doesn't toe the religious-right line is free game for some nasty open hatred. "

True, but in the mainstream it has to be restrained to some extent, whereas redneck bashing is always in season. Even among much of the right wing. As for anti-Semitism, I see that as much on the left as I do on the right, maybe moreso sometimes. Besides which, Feminism and enviromentalism are ideologies, not categories in an ethnic/socio-economic sense.


"It goes on and on and up and down a scale from levity to vitriol.

I think perhaps this might just be a sore spot for you because it hits close to home.

It only has as much power as you let it."

That or I dislike arbitrary PC speech codes that promote discrimination while claiming to be against it. If I'd said "Kyke" half as much as some people who use this site say "White trash"(or some variant) I'm sure I would have gotten more of a rise.

I'm not a humorless, easily offended guy. I actually enjoy most of Josh's jabs at pluggers just fine, as Pluggers is horrible and richly deserves mockery. But When people say snobby, classist bullshit, especially liberals who have no clue what being working class is like and would never mock any other group lower on the ladder than them....Yeah, I will call them on that.[/quote]

[beasley]

Looks like I took a wrong turn at Albuquerque...

[Anastasia]

..But When people say snobby, classist bullshit, especially liberals who have no clue what being working class is like and would never mock any other group lower on the ladder than them....Yeah, I will call them on that.

Oooh... careful there, buckaroo - "liberalism" is as much an ideology as "feminism" or "environmentalism", and a "liberal" can just as easily be working class as a snotball latte-sippin' yuppie.

'Course, what do I know, I'm neither "liberal" not "redneck", though if you saw my house you probably would think if not actually say "White Trash". Kidding, kidding. Well, maybe not. But I've had grunt-work jobs most of my life and it sure does piss me off to see other working class folks voting for the fascist elite just because they're afraid of aligning themselves with those so-called "liberals", if ya know what I mean. Maybe it's unfair to characterize "rednecks", but far too many of them are voting for those who are as much against the working class as anyone else in the world, just because they get fooled ito thinking that they have to support some "anti-liberal" agenda. Which means, essentially, that they are characterizing themselves, and ultimately suffering for it.

not a smart way to elect a leadership. if you ask me.

[Adam-12]

not a smart way to elect a leadership. if you ask me.

You can't expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you.

[DA]

'Course, what do I know, I'm neither "liberal" not "redneck", though if you saw my house you probably would think if not actually say "White Trash". Kidding, kidding. Well, maybe not. But I've had grunt-work jobs most of my life and it sure does piss me off to see other working class folks voting for the fascist elite just because they're afraid of aligning themselves with those so-called "liberals", if ya know what I mean. Maybe it's unfair to characterize "rednecks", but far too many of them are voting for those who are as much against the working class as anyone else in the world, just because they get fooled ito thinking that they have to support some "anti-liberal" agenda. Which means, essentially, that they are characterizing themselves, and ultimately suffering for it.

not a smart way to elect a leadership. if you ask me.

I think you're taking what I said out of context a bit. My point is more that these people seem pretty liberal as a whole but seem to feel picking on and insulting working class white people is cool. Yeah, there are liberal white working class people (My mom comes to mind, and I'm not exactly a hardcore right-winger myself). I even made a point of mentioning that I dislike Bush in the first post. Yeah, I agree that a lot of rednecks vote for people who put a boot on their neck. However, the issue has been oversimplified (especially by those elitist "Urban Archipelago" assholes), and a lot of rednecks don't vote for Bush. Or, in the case of many social conservatives (union workers, in many cases), when they realized during Clinton that the democrats were still going to screw them economically, aligned with a party that they know screws them, but has similar values to some extent. I don't nessiscarily agree with this approach, but I do understand it to some extent.

But hey, let's hate on rednecks because some of them voted for Bush. Then let's hate on the Jews, cos after all, they helped get Bloomburg elected in NY. Oh, wait, nobody would do that; see, they recognize it as stereotyping. Plenty of Jews probably voted against him, and those that didn't weren't nessiscarily worse people than the ones on the other side.

Oh, and the Urban Archipelago thing I mentioned earlier; THAT is a specific, intolerant ideaology. It proposes the tired old idea that the hicks in flyover country are the cause of all evil, and if we were all bisexual, wine-bar frequenting, Focault-reading, liberal hipsters who work in record stores or as computer programmers, the world would be a better place. They, as far as I can tell, are far more intolerant than most of the rednecks in America.

[mere cog in the machine]

Hey dumbass! Who exactly voted the rich people into the government? Did I miss something? Was the franchise limited to fortune five-hundred executives? Gee golly, you surely don't know as much as a CNN anchor about simple frigging democracy. Maybe you should spend less time frightening the animals with gunplay and read something. Like a fourth grade textbook.

[Joan]

The more you argue, DA, the more I feel you are being overly sensitive and humorless. I can't even figure out where you're getting your perception that there's a gigantic mainstream persecution of rednecks.

Aside from "Blue Collar TV," which is rednecks poking fun at rednecks and having a good laugh, I can't think of any major media outlet for redneck bashing. There's no redneck-bashing radio show equivalent to a liberal-bashing Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity, or TV show like the O'Reilly Factor. And no one ever lynched a redneck for having a junky yard, or drinking cheap beer or whistling at a white woman.

It seems to me you're really riled up about what boils down to everyday ordinary snobbishness, which, yes, is wrong but a) isn't anything new, b) goes both ways and which you seem to exhibit just as equally in reverse, and c) is nothing to give yourself a coronary over.

Blacks, Jews, Native American, Gay/Lesbian/Trans folks and others have been robbed, beaten, tortured, killed and submitted to genocide just for being who they are. I don't mind doling out verbal respect when referring to these groups.

Rednecks are generally poked fun at for making poor/unsophisticated decisions (see "Redneck Yard of the Week") and for particular behaviors (see Britney Spears frequenting gas station restrooms barefoot), not for being working-class folks. I just don't see the two issues as being comparable.

[gnome de blog]

Death to Gil Thorp.

[Zorba's Little Brother]

This thread is triggering some interesting ads in the google ads box at the top. I see one for anger management training, one for martial arts, and another for a conference on youth violence.

Nick

[Anastasia]

well, I for one don't expect to see America all join hands and sing Kumbaya together anytime soon. But I do think it's a shame. Politics, and Social Politics, in this country has become a game of "Who Do You Hate?" more than "What Are You For?". It's called the Politics of Divisiveness, and it works very, very well. Rush Limbaugh is a rich fat cat with a 25 million dollar mansion and a Culuhd Maid whom he sends out to score dope on the street for him. Any working class person who thinks he speaks for them is living in Dimension X. On the other hand, Hilary Clinton is a Rich Fat Cat who gets millions of bucks for writing autobiographies about a life who's high point was trying to make excuses for a husband getting blow jobs inthe Oval Office, and anyone who really believes that she really represents the interests of "The People" have been having someone slip LSD into their Starbucks.



Now, if the deluded listeners of Rush Limbaugh and the Wacked Out supporters of Hilary Clinton (speaking in a broad, general sense here) could actually manage to get together and see how they all have the same interests at heart - meaning the interests that Rich Right and Left Wingers are not interested in because it would mean less riches for the fat cats - then we might actually see something good happen in the country. It's called "solidarity". But as long as people don't realize that those in power, Right, Left, Republican, Democrat, whatever whatever whatever, are quite happy to see this sort of diviseness keeping supposed political opposites from comparing notes, they will, I am quite confident, be very happy to let things roll along just as they are.

[Islamorada Girl]

It's all scenes from the class struggle in the US. People tend to idenitify with the socio-economic class above them, rather than the one below them.

As a WA

[Islamorada Girl]

It's all Scenes from the Class Stuggle in the USA.

As a WASP and a writer, I will continue to poke fun at the pompous, the pretentious and the ignorant in my ethnic egroup as long as they're around.
I'll never run out of material.

[Mooncity]

It's all scenes from the class struggle in the US. People tend to idenitify with the socio-economic class above them, rather than the one below them.

Hmmm... pretty insightful. Hadn't thought of that, myself. Sure is true when you stop to think about it.