Redneck: Encyclopedia II - Redneck - Modern usage

Redneck - Modern usage

"Redneck", like the word nigger, has two general uses: firstly, as a pejorative for outsiders, and secondly as a term used by members within that group. To outsiders, generally, it is a term for those of Southern or Appalachian rural poor backgrounds, or more loosely, rural poor to working-class persons of rural extraction. (Appalachia also includes large parts of Pennsylvania, New York and other states) Within that group, however, it is used to describe the more downscale members. Rednecks span from the poor to the working class.

The term "Peckerwood", an inversion of "Woodpecker", is also used, but usually only with negative connotations. This word was coined in the 19th century by southern blacks to describe poor whites. They considered them loud and troublesome like the bird, and often with red hair like the woodpecker's head plumes. This word is still widely used by southern blacks to refer to southern whites.

Usage of the term "Redneck" generally differs from Hick and Hillbilly, because Rednecks reject or resist assimilation into the dominant culture, while Hicks and Hillbillies theoretically are isolated from the dominant culture. In this way, the Redneck is similar to the Cracker.

Generally, there is a continuum from redneck (a derisive term) to the country person; however, there are differences. Rednecks typically are more libertine, especially in their personal lives, than their country brethren who tend towards social conservatism. Also, the lowest class rednecks, especially, have a penchant for the obscene or outrageous (see "stereotype" below).

In contrast to country people, they tend not to attend church, or do so infrequently. They also tend to use alcohol and gamble more than their church going neighbors. Further, "politically apathetic" better describes this group. The younger ones generally don't vote. If they do vote, while they tend towards populism and the Democratic party, they are less homogenous than the country people and other Southern whites. Many Southern celebrities like Jeff Foxworthy and the late Jerry Clower embrace the redneck label. It is used both as a term of pride and as a derogatory epithet; sometimes to paint country people and/or their lifestyle as being low class. In recent years, members of the American Left from the West Coast and New England have taken to calling Christian Conservatives as "Rednecks" presumably as some sort of insult. This practice succeeds in insulting both Rednecks and Christian Conservatives, but is grossly inaccurate based on the pro-labor, anti-establishment, anti-hierarchy religious orientation of traditional Rednecks.

Writer Edward Abbey, as well as the original Earth First! under Dave Foreman (before that group was taken over by urban leftists around 1990), proudly adopted the term rednecks to describe themselves. This reflected the term's possible historical origin among striking coal miners to describe white rural working-class radicalism. "In Defense of the Redneck" was a popular essay by Ed Abbey. One popular early Earth First! bumper sticker was "Rednecks for Wilderness." Murray Bookchin, an urban leftist and social ecologist, objected strongly to Earth First!'s use of the term as having racist overtones and used this as part of his broader attack on deep ecology, possibly reflecting pro-urban and anti-white working class, anti-rural biases.

The recent prosperity of the New South changed the social status of the Redneck. The 20th-Century ideas of Southern upward mobility, which required dropping or modifying your accent and joining the mainstream, was considered the norm for the region. (Exceptions were made for politicians and college football coaches, for whom a drawl was still required for regional credibility.) Newfound prosperity allowed Rednecks to cling to their old ways and reject the status quo of modernity. In the 1990s, when Jeff Foxworthy drawled "you might be a redneck …" he was not only needling folks who (in his priceless formulation) had ever fought over an inner tube. In one of his stand-up routines, Foxworthy sums up the condition as "a glorious absence of sophistication." According to Slate columnist Bryan Curtis, "Foxworthy was also preaching to the newly minted white middle class, those who had ditched the pickup for an Audi and their ancestral segregation for affirmative action." According to University of Georgia professor James C. Cobb, "Now, feeling relatively secure and closer to the mainstream, they rebel against acting respectable, embracing this counterculture hero—the 'redneck' who is what he is, and doesn't give a damn what anybody thinks." [2]

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Modern usage", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki