Banned Again!

Hillbilly trash.

Leon OTM! They'll be banning the medical encylopedia next.

I find you just as fucking offensive Jay. I hate when anti-southern prejudice masquerades as liberalism.

http://ronwade.freeservers.com/DeanFlagwavers.JPG

So go stick it up your ass, MM.

Look, I don't feel bad at all about this. The South has held us in low esteem for treading on their rights & winning the Civil War for over 150 years (and if you don't believe this, make a trip down south & bring up the war in mixed company).

I have no problem with saying that I will forever hold a grudge against Southern Christian Fundamentalists who have effectively destroyed everything that the North believes in & who are working to make this country uninhabitable for anyone who isn't a Jesus-loving creationist.

OMG

The only thing worse than Yanqui prejudice against the south is southern hyper-sensitivity.

Penguins: "Fuck you, polar bears"

North vs. South : on A&E.. 9pm ET

I drive past far more rebel flags and gun racks on brand new Expeditions than I do on beat-to-hell F-150s.

I'm a manual laborer, from the south, who drives a pickup truck and owns a couple of guns - but I certainly don't bristle when someone talks about white trash or rednecks.

John Edwards was born into a blue-collar community and life - in no way does he have any of the traits popularly associated with 'rednecks' or white trash. Neither does Bill Clinton. Or Jimmy Carter. Being born poor/working-class and white in the south doesn't make you a redneck or white trash.
Whereas Dubya was born rich, educated rich and has adopted all the traits of being a redneck, from the small-minded prejudice to the old-time fire and brimstone religion (Carter's a fundamentalist, too, isn't he? But he's that love thy neighbor kind) to the adoration of all things fucking Texan to riding around his dude ranch and wearing a big-ass belt buckle. He's a cartoon. Which pretty much covers every redneck I grew up around or deal with, they were almost always from the middle or upper-middle class. Construction workers, carpenters and painters aren't out looking for which belt buckle looks 'Texan' enough, trying to find the right pair of shitkickers or whatever.

That makes you a total asshole. By "asshole" I mean nothing having to do with the human anus, but just "people who disagree with me."

Your descriptive grammar excuse just isn't going to hold water here, unless you really are the kind of person who would say "that nigger stole my car!" and then be like "no, I only called that particular guy a nigger because he stole my car." Words have meanings, and you when you use the words you invoke their meanings no matter how much you backtrack and pretend not to.

I read an essay on Mystic River yesterday that referred to Dirty Harry a 'redneck.' So far as I know, neither Clint Eastwood nor Dirty Harry were poor, white southerners. Maybe I missed "Dirty Harry Does Appalachia"? SLC Punk has a scene where the main guy describes all the social cliques in his hometown. One of these groups was (surprise surprise) 'rednecks.' Strangely enough, for a film set in Salt Lake City, these rednecks also weren't poor and white from the Deep South. They were people who adopted 'redneck' attitudes and cultural allegiances.

Your argument is akin to saying that 'nigger' - in any variation and in any context - remains a racial epithet and its use is racist. Because that's how it began, right?

Yes, some old white men at the National Review still use redneck as a synonym for "poor white southerner." But then we have, say, "Redneck Woman" - which is not, last I checked, a song about either unionizing the coal mines or class-consciousness and pride.

The 'extreme class connotation' doesn't exist in common usage - again, I'll point to "Redneck Woman," SLC Punk and the Mystic River as three widely disparate uses of the term all centered on an individual's mindset and actions rather than birthright. "Redneck" vs. "high-class woman," "redneck" vs. counter-culture, "redneck" vs. hippie do-gooders. Or, going back to Jay's statement - what did "hillbilly trash" in that context have to do with class? Absolutely nothing - anyone reading his statement and the context can see that. Because some very old, very much outdated uses of "redneck" and "white trash" invoke class, that means that every usage does?

That is, as I said, kind of like asserting that every use of "nigger" is the same, whether it's David Duke or Mobb Deep or someone in the 1920s. Does anyone believe that's how our language works?

Alas, this isn't about my usage. I can't even recall referring to anyone as a redneck or white trash in many moons. This is about the overbearing hyper-sensitivity of some southerners at the first mention of either one.

Are all the upper-middle class guys rocking Mobb Deep allowed to use "nigger" the same way--with the same conotations?

"Why does nigger have racist connotations? Just because it did once upon a time? How come Mobb Deep gets to say it??" Please tell me you're beyond this, milo.

Anyway, like I said, I fail to see how the person described in the article cut-and-pasted at the top of this page is a redneck. I imagine him with the collar of his white dress shirt practically constricting the circulation at the throat, an overbearing, almost sweaty mein, and a fervor to protect the children from seeing... the horrors that he sees!

Used in a non-racist context (the racist context for "nigger" is still prevalent, where no such context seems to exist for "redneck" as far as I see), I have no issues with a white person using "nigger."

***

Because DeLillo certainly, and the ACLU a bit less, are thought of as middle-class or upper-middle class intellegentsia type activities. That's why. On the other hand, there probably are people you'd look at and go "redneck" who are into this stuff. Amazing how reality has this way of not matching up with the categories you want to pigeonhole it into.
No one's "pigeonholing" anyone - you continue to read far too much into the words and certainly into this discussion. I don't know if I've called anyone white trash or a redneck in years. I prefer, say, "motherfucker."

But you agree that it's not the condition of being a poor white southerner that defines "redneck" and "white trash" - it's attitude and action. (Another obvious and key difference between 'redneck' and 'nigger' - one is inescapable for those assaulted with the term, their blackness is a part of who they are. By your own definitions the same can't be said for 'redneck,' which can't be used for all or most white people only those of a certain region and socioeconomic class.)

Please tell me you're beyond this, milo.
You should start by not misreading what I wrote. In response to "words mean things," asserting an eternal, unchanging definition of "redneck" and associated words: "kind of like asserting that every use of "nigger" is the same, whether it's David Duke or Mobb Deep or someone in the 1920s."

eg the language changes over time. What was once a term solely of derision and hatred becomes a term of endearment or a term of respect when used in a certain way. Maybe redneck was once a term solely of derision and elitism. Now it's a term used for derision of another sort, elitism of another sort, both based on how it's used by those who choose to self-identify with 'redneck culture.'

Anyway, like I said, I fail to see how the person described in the article cut-and-pasted at the top of this page is a redneck. I imagine him with the collar of his white dress shirt practically constricting the circulation at the throat, an overbearing, almost sweaty mein, and a fervor to protect the children from seeing... the horrors that he sees!
Right - redneck (or 'hillbilly trash') having no economic implications in this case. The head of the library at least has a college degree, probably a master's to run a regional library unit. He's not a poor, white southerner - but he exhibits the negative traits (as judged by Jay) of 'hillbilly trash,' close-minded authoritarian tendencies with some fundamentalism on the side.

Many of my friends have been called "hillbilly trash" and worse. Maybe they even joke to themselves sometimes that they are hillbilly trash, in the endearing way you mention above. So are you calling these people, these friends of mine, closed-minded, authoritarian, and fundamentalist? Wait a minute I know what you're going to say. "If they're not those things then they're not hillbilly trash." milo you simply need to accept that your definition of this word simply doesn't match up to what most other people think of when they hear it. When I hear "hillbilly trash" or "redneck" I will think - 99% of the time - not that the person being called that is a fundamentalist or an authoritarian - but that the person using those words is an insecure dick. Just saying.

Main Entry: red·neck
Pronunciation: 'red-"nek
Function: noun
1 sometimes disparaging : a white member of the Southern rural laboring class
2 often disparaging : a person whose behavior and opinions are similar to those attributed to rednecks
- redneck also red·necked /-"nekt/ adjective

-- Michael White

What was once a term solely of derision and hatred becomes a term of endearment or a term of respect when used in a certain way. Maybe redneck was once a term solely of derision and elitism. Now it's a term used for derision of another sort, elitism of another sort, both based on how it's used by those who choose to self-identify with 'redneck culture.' -milo

When I hear "hillbilly trash" or "redneck" I will think - 99% of the time - not that the person being called that is a fundamentalist or an authoritarian - but that the person using those words is an insecure dick. -Tracer Hand

Right now 'hillbilly' and 'redneck' are probably derogatory in most uses, but maybe things could change. I once had a temp job for this English guy who was selling instructional kits for painters and I got this call from this guy from the South who had bought one and it was just a totally different experience talking to him. Cultural regionalism might be a good thing in certain respects. It would be a shame if the things that are unique to the South just faded away and if we didn't have words to refer to them.

Likewise, I am sure many Australians would use a word like redneck and have no clue of it's offensiveness in the sense being argued here.

I dont know if I have a point, this just came to mind.

Part of your problem here is you're confusing my defense of Jay's words with a defense of his statement. I don't think referring to the guy or his peers as "hillbilly trash" is necessarily called for and it's certainly not productive. But I don't really care, it's not offensive. As a white southerner I don't need to get up in arms "'cuz the durn Yankees is hatin' on us." Refer to the second or third thing I said, period: the only thing worse than irrational prejudice against southerners are hyper-sensitive southerners who whine about it.

Going back to your definition Tracer Hand, look at the second. It's basically what I've been saying over and over - ideology and actions, not class. There are a lot of definitions in Webster's that have gone by the wayside, the overarching classist element of 'redneck' is one of them. Is it disparaging? When used in some contexts, yes - who cares? It's meant to be disparaging, that's the point of insulting someone. When used in other ways - the self-identification that I've referred to several times - it's obviously not disparaging. And it is from the self-identifiers that we generate the "behavior and opinions [...] attributed to rednecks."

Either way, it is rarely, if ever today (I can't account for Wm. Buckley and Co.), used as a blanket classist epithet.

I wish southerners had something better to do than complain about than age-old words that they've mostly adopted as their own anyway. Like getting one of those cars in the front yard working or head down to the courthouse and get Lurleen's baby some of that welfare money.

Anyway milo you still haven't said what a redneck mentality or attitude is other than big belt buckles, a love of Texas, small-minded prejudice and what was the other thing? Christian fundamentalism? I'm just saying that's a very skewed picture, and it lacks exactly the few good connotations and stereotypes people have of rural working-class white people that I like. So yeah I'm "sensitive" about that.

Judge's bumper sticker: "I'm a Little Bit Bossy / And a Little Bit Stasi"

I'm just saying that's a very skewed picture, and it lacks exactly the few good connotations and stereotypes people have of rural working-class white people that I like.
Yes, it's a skewed picture and in this connotation it isn't pro-anyone. But it still has nothing to do with "rural working-class white people" unless you make it about them. Jay didn't. I didn't. That's been the fucking point: the word(s) aren't about "rural working-class white people." Dirty Harry. Utah. etc. etc. etc.

Right. And I'm saying this is exactly the same logic of people who use the word "gay" as a synonym for "stupid and effeminate." i.e. "Perhaps the word 'gay' has had historical connotations but it doesn't have anything to do with sexual orientation the way I'm using it"

still, the book has been on the NYT best list for like, what, 15 weeks now? folks were reading it at the airports and on the planes i was on for the flights home after christmas.

Which is to say, they were being a little totalitarian.

[it was on USA last night]

[[huk u r brilliant]]

however, i do recommend listening to the audio book version, since Jon & the rest read their own material. even better when jon starts blasting media folks with fcc violations, etc.