@McGentrix,
I'm from a town in Ohio that once elected a Klansman for President, from family from Appalachian Ohio, Tennessee, Kentucky, the Alabama part of Indiana it certainly rang with what I grew up with.
Three state Governors in my family and it all went thfthp! after the Civil War. What do we now Texan rednecks got to lose? We sure never ever were Republican. before. (note: I was a pre Ronnie Reagan Republican and did vote for GHWB twice though the GOP has forced me to vote straight Democratic in national elections since.)
From Wikipedia. BTW I refer to the pre '70's "Redneck". Like me, a redneck.
Redneck
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about redneck as a pejorative. For the subculture, see Poor White. For other uses, see Redneck (disambiguation).
The term redneck is a derogatory term chiefly used for a rural poor white person of the Southern United States.[1][2] Its usage is similar in meaning to cracker (especially regarding Georgia and Florida), hillbilly (especially regarding Appalachia and the Ozarks),[3] and white trash (but without the last term's suggestions of immorality).[4][5][6]
By the 1970s, the term had become offensive slang, and its meaning had expanded to mean bigoted, loutish, and opposed to modern ways. [7]
Patrick Huber has emphasized the theme of masculinity [clarification needed] in the continued expansion of the term in the 20th century, noting, "The redneck has been stereotyped in the media and popular culture as a poor, dirty, uneducated, and racist Southern white man."[8]
19th and early 20th centuries
Political term for poor farmers
The term characterized farmers having a red neck caused by sunburn from hours working in the fields. A citation from 1893 provides a definition as "poorer inhabitants of the rural districts...men who work in the field, as a matter of course, generally have their skin stained red and burnt by the sun, and especially is this true of the back of their necks".[9]
By 1900, "rednecks" was in common use to designate the political factions inside the Democratic Party comprising poor white farmers in the South.[10] The same group was also often called the "wool hat boys" (for they opposed the rich men, who wore expensive silk hats). A newspaper notice in Mississippi in August 1891 called on rednecks to rally at the polls at the upcoming primary election:[11]
Primary on the 25th.
And the "rednecks" will be there.
And the "Yaller-heels" will be there, also.
And the "hayseeds" and "gray dillers," they'll be there, too.
And the "subordinates" and "subalterns" will be there to rebuke their slanderers and traducers.
And the men who pay ten, twenty, thirty, etc. etc. per cent on borrowed money will be on hand, and they'll remember it, too.
By 1910, the political supporters of the Mississippi Democratic Party politician James K. Vardaman—chiefly poor white farmers—began to describe themselves proudly as "rednecks," even to the point of wearing red neckerchiefs to political rallies and picnics.[12]
Linguist Sterling Eisiminger, based on the testimony of informants from the Southern United States, speculated that the prevalence of pellagra in the region during the great depression may have contributed to the rise in popularity of the term; red, inflamed skin is one of the first symptoms of that disorder to appear.[13]
Coal miners
The term "redneck" in the early 20th century was occasionally used in reference to American coal miner union members who wore red bandannas for solidarity. The sense of "a union man" dates at least to the 1910s and was especially popular during the 1920s and 1930s in the coal-producing regions of West Virginia, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania.[14] It was also used by union strikers to describe poor white strikebreakers.[15]
Late 20th and early 21st centuries
Writers Edward Abbey and Dave Foreman also use "redneck" as a political call to mobilize poor rural white Southerners. "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 "at the very least, insensitive".[16]
But many members of the Southern community have proudly embraced the term as a self-identifier.[17][18] Among those who dispute that the term is disparaging, Canadian Paul Brandt, a self-identified redneck, says that primarily the term indicates independence.[19]
I find it accurate and real.
Why do you only call out racist when you imagine yourself slighted? Things what make Juan go " .....hmmmm!"
