Redneck
Please note that his article describes a stereotype and therefore it has to express certain stereotypical views. They are included here in order to document the existence of the specific social group to which these stereotypes apply.
In modern usage, redneck predominantly refers to a particular stereotype of individuals living in Appalachia, the Southern United States, and later the Ozarks, and the Rocky Mountain States. The word can be used either as a pejorative or as a matter of pride, depending on context.
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.
Etymology
Possible Scots-Irish Etymology
The word redneck was first cited in Scotland. In Scotland, the National Covenant and The Solemn League and Covenant (a.k.a. Covenanters) signed documents stating that Scotland desired a Presbyterian Church Government, and rejected the Church of England as their official church. Many of the Covenanters signed these documents using their own blood, and many in the movement began wearing red pieces of cloth around their neck to signify their position to the public. They were referred to as Rednecks. These Scottish Presbyterians migrated from their lowland Scottish home to Ulster (the northern province of Ireland) during the 17th Century and soon settled in considerable numbers in North America across the 18th Century. Some immigrated directly from Scotland to the American colonies in the late 18th and early 19th-centuries as a result of the Lowland Clearances. One etymological theory holds that since many Scots-Irish Americans who settled in Appalachia and the South were Presbyterian, the term was bestowed upon them and their descendants.
Possible American Etymology
The popular etymology says that the term derives from such individuals having a red neck caused by working outdoors in the sunlight over the course of their lifetime. The effect of decades of direct sunlight on the exposed skin of the back of the neck not only reddens fair skin, but renders it leathery and tough, and typically very wrinkled and spotted by late middle age. Similarly, some historians claim that the term redneck originated in 17th-Century Virginia, because indentured servants were sunburnt while tending plantation crops.
It is clear that by the post-Reconstruction era (after the departure of Federal troops in the American South in 1874-1878), the term had worked its way into popular usage. Several 'black-face' minstrel shows used the word in a derogatory manner, comparing slave life over that of the poor rural whites. This may have much to do with the social, political and economic struggle between Populists, the Redeemers, and Republican Carpetbaggers of the post-Civil War South and Appalachia, where the new middle class of the South (professionals, bankers, industrialists) displaced the antebellum planter class as the leaders of the Southern states. The Populist movement, with its pseudo-socialist message of economic equality, represented a threat to the status quo. The use of a derogative term, such as 'redneck' to belittle the working class, would have assisted in the gradual disenfranchisement of most of the Southern lower class, both black and white, which occurred by 1910.
Another popular theory stems from the use of red bandanas tied around the neck to signify union affiliation during the violent clashes between United Mine Workers and owners between 1910 and 1920.
History
“Rednecks” are largely descendants of the Ulster-Scots and Lowland Scots immigrants who travelled to North America from Northern Ireland and Scotland in the late 17th and 18th centuries. The Ulster-Scots had historically settled the major part of Ulster province in northern Ireland, after previous migration from the Scottish Lowlands and Border Country. The "Celtic Thesis" of Forrest McDonald and Grady McWhiney holds that they were basically Celtic (as opposed to Anglo-Saxon), and that all Celtic groups (Scots Irish, Scottish, Welsh and others) were warlike herdsmen, in contrast to the peaceful farmers who predominated in England. James Webb (former US Secretary of the Navy) uses this thesis in his book Born Fighting to suggest that the character traits of the Scots Irish, loyalty to kin, mistrust of governmental authority, and military readiness, helped shape the "American identity." Fiercely independent, and frequently belligerent, "Rednecks" perpetuated old Celtic ideas of honor and clanship. This sometimes led to conflicts such as the Hatfield-McCoy feud in West Virginia and Kentucky.
In colonial times, they were often called Rednecks and "crackers" by English neighbors. As one wrote, "I should explain ... what is meant by Crackers; a name they have got from being great boasters; they are a lawless set of rascalls on the frontiers of Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas, and Georgia, who often change their places of abode."
The fledgling government inherited a huge debt from the American Revolutionary War. One of the steps taken to pay down the debt was a tax imposed in 1791 on distilled spirits. Large producers were assessed a tax of six cents a gallon. However, smaller producers, most of whom were Scottish or Irish descent located in the more remote areas, were taxed at a higher rate of nine cents a gallon. These rural settlers were short of cash to begin with, and lacked any practical means to get their grain to market other than fermenting and distilling it into relatively portable distilled spirits. From Pennsylvania to Georgia, the western counties engaged in a campaign of harassment of the federal tax collectors. "Whiskey Boys" also made violent protests in Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia. [1] This civil disobedience eventually culminated in armed conflict in the Whiskey Rebellion.
“Rednecks,” and especially Tennesseeans, are known for their martial spirit. Tennessee is known as the "Volunteer State" for the overwhelming, unexpected number of Tennesseans who volunteered for duty in the American Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Texas Revolution (including the defense of the Alamo), and especially the Mexican War. During the Civil War, poor whites did most of the fighting and the dying on both sides of the conflict. Although poor southern whites stood to gain little from secession, and were usually ambivalent to the institution of slavery, they were fiercely defensive of their territory and loyal to their homes and families.
Although slaves fared the worst by far, many poor whites had a hard "row to hoe," as well. The disruptions of the Civil War (1861-65) and Reconstruction mired African Americans in a new poverty and dragged many more whites into a similar abyss. Sharecropping and tenant farming trapped families for generations, as did emerging industries, which paid low wages and imposed company-town restrictions (see Carpetbagger). Once-proud yeomen frequently became objects of ridicule, and sometimes they responded angrily and even viciously, often lashing out at blacks in retaliation. "Poor whites" (meaning, financially destitute) were increasingly labeled "poor white trash" (meaning, financially and genetically worse off than most) and worse; “cracker,” "clay eater," "linthead," "peckerwood," "buckra," and especially "redneck" only scratched the surface of rejection and slander. Northerners and foreigners played this game, but the greatest hostility to poor whites came from their fellow southerners, sometimes blacks but more often upper-class whites. Generally, the view of poor white southerners grew more and more negative, especially in modern movies and television, which have often stressed the negative and even the grotesque while reaching huge audiences. “Rednecks” have has borne their full share of this stereotype of lower-class southern whites who share poverty status with immigrants, blacks, and other minorities.
Although the stereotype of poor white southerner and appalachians in the early twentieth century, as portrayed in popular media, was exaggerated and even grotesque, the problem of poverty was very real. The national mobilization of troops in World War I (1917-18) invited comparisons between the South, Appalachia, and the rest of the country. Southern and Appalachian whites had less money, less education, and poorer health than white Americans in general. Only southern blacks had more handicaps. In the 1920s and 1930s matters became worse when the boll weevil and the dust bowl devastated the South's agricultural base and its economy. The Great Depression was a difficult era for the already disadvantaged in the South and Appalachia. In an echo of the Whiskey Rebellion, "Rednecks" escalated their production and bootlegging of Moonshine whiskey. To deliver the whisky and avoid law enforcement and tax agents, cars were "souped-up" to create a more maneuverable and faster car. Many of the original drivers of Stock car racing were former bootleggers and "Ridge-Runners."
World War II (1941-45) began the great economic revival for the South and Appalachia. In and out of the armed forces, unskilled southern and appalachian whites, and many African Americans as well, were trained for industrial and commercial work they had never dreamed of attempting, much less mastering. Military camps grew like mushrooms, especially in Georgia and Texas, and big industrial plants began to appear across the once rural landscape. Soon, blue-collar families from every nook and cranny of the South and Appalachia found their way to white-collar life in metropolitan areas like Atlanta. By the 1960s blacks had begun to share in this progress, but not all rural Southerners and Appalachians were beneficiaries of this recovery.
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]
Stereotypes
The stereotypical redneck lives in a trailer or old weatherbeaten farm house in a rural area, and drives an old, large, beat-up pickup truck, possibly adorned with the Confederate Battle Flag, with a gun rack in the rear window. He may wear a "Wifebeater" (a white sleeveless undershirt), and/or a farmer t-shirt. He also wears blue jeans, a baseball or trucker hat. Rednecks like boot cut jeans, and the jeans of redneck men often have a permanent circle on the back-pocket from carrying a can of dipping tobacco, such as Skoal or Copenhagen. Their hair is often worn in the mullet style, or in a military-style haircut. He is also prone to swearing, perhaps not as much as the stereotypical Yankee, but more than other Southerners, Westerners, or Appalachians.
A redneck is stereotypically imagined as consuming mass produced American beer such as Budweiser or Miller by the case. Other beverages might include Moonshine, Pabst Blue Ribbon (in more traditional settings), as well as Jack Daniel's whiskey.
Stereotypical hobbies include hunting, fishing, riding 4-wheelers and snowmobiles, and watching professional wrestling, Stock car racing, and monster truck rallies. Rednecks are characteristically fond of repairing car engines and collecting junked cars on their lawns.
Country and Southern Rock bands such as Lynyrd Skynyrd figure in as their preferred genre of music. Redneck men also listen to other Southern Rock and Metal such as the Allman Brothers, ZZ Top, Ted Nugent, Alice In Chains, Pantera, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Limp Bizkit, Black Sabbath, Ratt, Motörhead, Bad Company, and Guns N' Roses.
Redneck females are generally portrayed as sexually promiscuous. The typical redneck female is portrayed as unsophisticated and unstylish, often with scraggly long hair that is rarely cut. "Daisy dukes" are a name for the extremely small shorts worn by the character "Daisy Duke" on the popular television program (and 2005 film) The Dukes of Hazzard.
Rednecks are often portrayed as lacking education or being ignorant.
Popular culture
The Grand Ole Opry, and Hee Haw are popular entertainments from years past, and they, as well as the entertainers Hank Williams, Grandpa Jones and Jerry Clower, have seen lasting popularity within the redneck community, as well as forging opinions in the minds of those without.
Author Jim Goad's mid-90s book entitled The Redneck Manifesto explores some of the socioeconomic history of this word and the low income Americans. Goad argues that elites manipulate low income people (blacks and whites especially) through classism and racism to keep them in conflict with each other, and distracted from their exploitation by elites.
Redneck Rampage, a mid-90s video game, placed the player in the role of a redneck, killing and maiming various animal and human enemies.
Country and Western music singer Gretchen Wilson titled one of her songs "Redneck Woman" on her 2004 album, Here for the Party. Wilson was born and raised in the state of Illinois.
King of the Hill is a contemporary American animated sitcom showing a modern suburban family in Arlen, Texas. In the show, they are sometimes derisively called "redneck" and "hillbilly" by an Asian-American neighbor.
According to James C. Cobb, a history professor at the University of Georgia, the redneck comedian "provided a rallying point for bourgeois and lower-class whites alike. With his front-porch humor and politically outrageous bons mots, the redneck comedian created an illusion of white equality across classes." [3]
In recent years, the Comedic stylings of Jeff Foxworthy, Ron White, Bill Engvall, Larry the Cable Guy, and Roy D. Mercer have become intensely popular, with the first four forming first a "Blue Collar Comedy Tour", and now a Blue Collar TV television show and film.
Urban Rednecks
Although the idea of an Urban Redneck would at first seem an oxymoron, they do exist and are actually quite common. There are basically three different kinds of Urban Rednecks.
- The Transplanted Redneck is found in urban centers all over the world. His job or his dreams have forced him to leave his native community in search of new opportunities. The Transplanted Redneck remains true to himself and his culture, despite immersion in the urban landscape. A transplanted redneck, or pair of rednecks, may raise a family in the city and retain their redneck characteristics for several generations.
- The Poser is found all over North America, but is especially concentrated in cities in the Southern United States, Nevada and Utah. These individuals may have no Redneck roots, or even be a transplanted Yankee, but either seek acceptance in their new homes, or have vastly distorted perceptions of the social norms in their adopted communities. The Urban Cowboy phenomenon that started in the 1980s is characterized by individuals in full country & western garb, that have never even been near a horse.
- The Postmodern Redneck is also found all over North America. The Postmodern Redneck may, or may not, have Redneck roots. As opposed to "The Poser", the Postmodern Redneck has experienced a philosophical transformation in which he rejects modernism and urbanity, in favor of simpler more genuine way of life. The Postmodern Redneck is often an educated professional who owns guns, hunts wild game, and isn't afraid to get his hands dirty changing oil or cleaning a stable.
Extraterritorial Conclaves
There are also several areas where large groups of Rednecks live outside of their normal ranges. One is Bakersfield, California and the surrounding area, which experienced mass migration by Arkansans (Arkies) and Oklahomans (Okies) during the Great Depression and Dust Bowl era of the 1930s, by folk seeking to leave poverty and crop failures behind them.
In the 1950s, Bakersfield country musicians such as Buck Owens, Merle Haggard and Wynn Stewart helped develop a unique country music style called the Bakersfield sound. Their influence was so great that Bakersfield is second only to Nashville, Tennessee, in country music fame. Bakersfield continues to produce and influence famous country music artists.
Other extraterritorial conclaves can be found throughout the oil-producing areas of Alaska. In the second half of the 20th-Century, concurrent with the development of the oil industry and pipeline, large numbers of Gulf Coast petroleum workers moved to Alaska for high pay and adventure - and many stayed.
This phenomenon is not unique. Yankees also have extraterritorial enclaves in areas such as South Florida and Cary, North Carolina aka (Concentrated Area of Relocated Yankees),
Claims
Many celebrities have claimed to be rednecks when they don't fit the public's description of a redneck such as Kid Rock, Fred Durst, Uncle Kracker, Vanilla Ice, Rob Zombie, Evan Seinfeld, Pepper Keenan, and Everlast.
Related terms
Australia
The term "Redneck" is also often used in Australia to describe individuals of Anglo-Celtic heritage living in rural or highland regions.
Barbados
"Poor whites" in Barbados (descendants largely of seventeenth century English, Scottish, and Irish indentured servants and deportees) were called Red Legs. Many of these families moved to Virginia and the Carolinas as large sugar plantations replaced small tobacco farming.
Brazil
The term Caipira is used to define inhabitants from the countryside of southestern Brazilian states (chiefly rural, and descendents of Japanese, Portuguese and Italian immigrants), which are considered the Brazilian counterparts of American rednecks. Depending of how the word is applied, it can acquire pejorative conotation. The most pejorative ways to call a Caipira are "capial" (kha-pee-aw), intentionally mispronounced "capiar" (kha-pee-arr), as a Caipira supposedely would do, and Jeca (zhe-kah).
Chile
The term Huaso is used to describe people who work or inhabit the rural sectors of the country. They are described as wearing a poncho, straw hat and cowboy boots.
North America
The term farmer tan is sometimes used to refer to a sunburn, particularly when the sunburned area covers the neck and arms of the person only. This can also refer to a suntan covering the same area.
South Africa
In South Africa, the Afrikaans term rooinek (meaning "redneck") was derisively applied by Afrikaners to the British soldiers who fought during the Boer Wars, because their skin was sensitive to the harsh African sun. The phrase is still used by Afrikaners to describe English-speaking white people.
Ironically, the term "redneck" is also used by the English to describe very conservative Afrikaners because of that group's historic support of apartheid, a system of white, minority power and privilege and black and "coloured" exploitation and disenfranchisement, possibly by analogy to the American usage described above.
Similar Terms
See also
- Classism
- Good ol' boy network
- List of ethnic slurs
- White trash
- Trailer park trash
- Ned (Scottish)
- Chav (the UK version of a "wigger")
- Redneck Rampage
- Redneck Riviera
- Whiskey Rebellion
Sources
- The Redneck Hero in the Postmodern World, by Ruth D. Weston, South Carolina Review - Spring 1993
- Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, ed. by Charles R Wilson and William Ferris, 1989
- In Defense of the Redneck, by Ed Abbey, University of Arizona Press, 1979
External links
- Canadian Redneck Hunting and Fishing (informative)
- Blue Collar Comedy (comedic)
- Red Green Show (comedic)
- Poor Whites - The Georgia Encyclopedia (history)