What does "redneck" mean to you?

[Iluvleiberman]

I see so many people on DU use the term. I'm curious to how you folks are using it.

[greatauntoftriplets]

1. I am a northerner and NEVER use that term....

...except in relation to a book I am reading now called "The Redneck Maifesto", which was recommended to me by a fellow DUer who happens to live in Oklahoma.

[maxanne]

22. don't forget

the common northern redneck. This variety is distinguished by a plaid flannel shirt, and jeans. Camo and blaze orange in October.

The northern redneck frequently has more than one flag decal on the pickup. There will also be a bumpersticker for the Fryeburg (ME.)fair. Gun rack visible in the back window.

[wuushew]

2. Its in websters, check it out

One entry found for redneck.


Main Entry: red·neck
Pronunciation: 'red-"nek
Function: noun
Date: 1830
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

[Iluvleiberman]

12. "attributed to rednecks"

That doesn't make sense so a redneck is person who behaves like a redneck? Then what is a redneck?

[TahitiNut]

49. The etymology, AFAIK ...

... is from the red sunburn on the back of the neck of a field laborer, or farmer. It was not at first a general expression aimed at southerners. It was originally a "southern expression" only, meant to disparage those working the fields (sharecroppers, itinerants, etc.) instead of sitting on the veranda sipping iced tea (or mint juleps?). A cultural 'value' that remains to this day is the (esp. female) preference for pale rather than tanned skin. I remember this was very prevalent attitude when I lived in Mobile in the 60's. Southern 'elites' tend to eschew tans.

Whatever goes around, comes around. :shrug:

[celestia671]

3. Well...

I happen to live in an area where rednecks are pretty common. To me, they're guys(or girls) with mullets, annoying drawls with many gramatical errors. They drive pickup trucks usually adorned with many rebel flag stickers and pro Bush/Republican/NRA stickers.

[Ohio Dem]

4. You'd think the mullets would keep their necks from being red.

But it just doesn't work out that way, does it?

I live in a similar area. For this reason, I've never associated "redneck" with the South.

[Darth_Ole]

15. I agree with Celestia671's assessment of it..

Except I *do* associate the term with the South, because I lived in East KY for a while where they roam around everywhere.

[freeforall]

17. Redneck Country

Alberta, Canada. Conservative country. Originally, I believe it referred to farmers, who would get sunburned necks while working in the fields. Now, it refers to those who are narrow-minded and conservative (republican in US) with fixed opinions. Many drive pickup trucks, LOL.

[stevedeshazer]

34. You are right

As a kid, I had a "farmer tan" every summer, and still sometimes do.

Alberta didn't seem all that redneck when I was there recently. Everyone I encountered seemed friendly. The lack of hate radio while driving was refreshing.

[SensibleCenterist]

5. Actually

I associate "redneck" with the kind of food I like! There's a local restaurant that is decorated with varnished logs, fake candle irnn-wroght lanterns, red vynil booths and all the waiteresses are excellent and wear beehives. The works.

The food is great. Hearty steaks, real good bacon and eggs. Huge portions on everything. Perfect for a low-carb dieter just don't eat too much and skip the bread and potatoes (also excellently made).

This is in Fremont, California BTW.

[Iluvleiberman]

7. So eating at that restaruant makes you a "redneck'?

Interesting. Sounds like a really good place to eat too.

[markbark]

6. Well...

I always pictured an ill mannered lout, room temperature IQ, beer gut, greasy NASCAR hat hiding a mullet.

A quote from this creature would be something like:
"Me an' Bubba was yeller dawg Democrats 'til '64 when them no-good nawthun lib'ruls let them damn niggers* git th' vote. Haven't looked back since."

In short, just the kind of dim witted "useful idiots" that the Republican brownshirts hold so near and dear.


* Note: I normally do not countenence the use of the "N" word, but in this context I think it is necessary to get the point across. These are just the sort of troglodyte knuckle-draggers that I see wandering about the countryside whenever I visit the parental units (who retired to Myrtle Beach, SC)

[QC]

10. Race prejudice vs. class prejudice

Nice example of how extreeeeemely squeamish people are about even the slightest hint of race prejudice but when the focus turns to class prejudice, all things are acceptable.

[markbark]

52. Define Class...

You can find many of the fine examples I refer to stalking the halls of Congress too....

(on edit - ... althought the two alpha males of that particular herd (Strom & Jesse) are no longer wandering about there. Trent is still lurking about though ;) )
--MAB

[QC]

56. Well, the dialect used in your example

is usually associated with the lower classes, so perhaps I can be forgiven for not knowing that you were actually talking about millionaire demagogues.

I wonder how bankers talk when they get together to discuss redlining minorities into ghettos? What about corporate executives discussing new ways to screw the poor? Wall Streeters brainstorming new ways to loot working people's pensions?

[Touchdown]

8. Someone so thin skinned as...

to call northerners, westerners, mid-westerners (anybody who isn't southern) a bunch of Yankee (some other expletive)morons, because the SOUTH IS SO SACROSANCT that nobody can criticize any southerner, no matter how lowdown, racist, or agressively corporatist they are, in 180 reply threads that were started on the best intentions.

It's just fine and dandy to bash Californians, New Yorkers, Texans, or anybody above the Mason-Dixon line, bur heaven help those who make a remark about a segment of the South, because everybody down there takes it PERSONALLY.

But, maybe that's just my opinion.;-)

[efhmc]

43. Hey. When did Texas get above the Mason-Dixon line? You are right not

to classify it as "the south". Except for parts of East Texas, it's a really strange mix all its own. (Remember 7th generation Texan here.)I wish people at DU would find better ways to spend their time. I could sure use some good vibes for our candidates and I could sure use some good advise on how to win the hearts and minds back of many good Texans that have left the Democratic party.

[Touchdown]

54. How about west of the Mississippi?

I don't know of a east/west division line...the continental divide is a little far west.

[efhmc]

72. Just teasing. As a child I always wanted to go see that line.

eom

[HalfManHalfBiscuit]

9. Anybody that eats at Red Lobster

Or drives a Camaro.

[shanti]

65. red lobster?

wtf??? :crazy:

[jfkennedy]

11. A southerner

A redneck is a southerner from the Deep South. Most rednecks are southerners. George Bush Jr. is the exact icon of a redneck.

His father however George Bush I would not say is a redneck.

George Bush Jr. is a product of the southern Bible belt. Most are extremists and fundamentalists in their views. They are similar to the Taliban in Asia, and they have been known to sponsor the Taliban in the past because their religions and politics are the almost the same.

[AmeriCanadian]

13. When I spend too much time in the pool!

har har

[Touchdown]

16. The take your shirt off!

Who knows, you might have more company at the pool...or have it all to yourself...either way, you'll have a nice red glow all over.:shrug:

[maveric]

69. GWB is not a product of the southern bible belt.

He's a product of snotty, old money, New England business class.
He likes people to think that he's spawned from the bible belt.

[efhmc]

74. Thanks for reminding people of that. He had all the privileges that

come with money: private schools, being set up in businesses, part of the good old boy network in everything he tried (and failed at), etc. His father and their family are the quinessential carpetbaggers. They come into an area and take the best and leave the worse. Every time he speaks, (the 2 words I accidentally hear before flipping the channel) I am so grated by that phoney West Texas accent, I could roll in prickly pear. Okay, I've ranted enough. Back to work.

[HawkerHurricane]

14. Two things

The first that comes to mind is the NASCAR watching crowd.

The second, comes from my Grandfather (not Grandpa Hurricane), who was a self described 'Redneck Southern Farmer': A redneck is someone who owns his fields, but has to work them himself, hence the sunburned (red) neck. As opposed to sharecroppers, who lease/rent the fields, and the upper class who either hire out or sharecrop thier fields. He made it sound like the farming societies middle class.

[twilight]

18. redneck hell here

You got yer truck and you got yer pregnint gyrlfrien and you got yer sixpack of beer tween yer legs and you are so freakin happy you can't wipe that big stupid grin off yer face.

You got two flags, one on either side of yer truck and they are both made in china but no one cares because yer a redneck and you like it.

So does you gyrlfrind.

Good lord ... way too many of them around here! Its beginning to wear me down I do believe.

:puke:

[Wonk]

19. Jeff Foxworthy: You might be a redneck if....

You think the last words to The Star Spangled Banner are "Gentlemen, start your engines."

You think watching professional wrestling is foreplay.

You think the Mountain Men in Deliverance were just "misunderstood".

You hammer bottle caps into the frame of your front door to make it look nice.

You go to your family reunion looking for a date.

more...

[sybylla]

60. "Being a redneck means...

having an absolute lack of sophisitication" Jeff Foxworthy, Blue Collar Comedy Tour

He also said it can be temporary or permanent and can affect anyone at any time regardless of origin.

It is a definition I think fits the bill very well, including many, many people here in Wisconsin. I have always heard, in my circles here, people who lack sophisitcation being called rednecks or sometimes kentucks(regional), and have never thought of the term as solely southern.

[maxanne]

20. how come you consider us

"you people" Iluvlieberman? This is the second thread I've seen you distance yourself from us that way. :eyes:

[Iluvleiberman]

24. I hate to say it but as a guy who can actually stand Joe Lieberman....

I don't fit in with 90 plus percent of DUers. Prefaced to say Gen Clark is my favorite candidate.

[Wonk]

25. You spelled his name right that time. Congrats! nt

[stevedeshazer]

30. I was wondering the same thing

I haven't ruled out Joe, BTW.

As to rednecks, I am one. I just happen to be a Democrat with leftist leanings. I love Merle Haggard, chicken and jo-jos, pickups, and Southerners and Westerners. I can't stand yuppies, smart-asses in Beemers, and big-city politics.

Until we all stop bashing each other, we'll never get along. And here I am, bashing another group. Go figure.

[mantis]

42. lol

We are all Dems here....most of us anyway.

The Gen. is my guy if he gets in.

[Mari333]

all my uncles

call themselves rednecks...
I avoid them.

[wuushew]

21. I consider this a redneck truck

[Blue_Chill]

23. Redneck is just like all other racist terms

but since it is racism towads whites it is allowed by the PC crowd. To me it's no different then 'nigger' 'spic' 'chinc' and all others we are subjectd to by those less evolved.

[Iluvleiberman]

26. I am a white Southernner and I have been called a redneck n/t

[Blue_Chill]

28. I'm a hispanic and I've been called a spic

Idiots are everywhere and come in every color.

[Iluvleiberman]

31. Agreed ,friend n/t

[Clete]

35. I am a person of mixed parentage.

I have never been called a spic but I have been called a beaner by my relatives. I have called them rednecks in return. We all love each other otherwise.

[knight_of_the_star]

38. Where are you from?

The one I've heard used to refer to Hispanics is beaner, then again, I live in Southern California.

[Blue_Chill]

57. answers

Born in Santiago, Chile currently living in Northern VA. Here they call hispanics 'wetbacks' and 'spics'.

[Clete]

32. I am not surprised.

To me a redneck is a good guy like my very white relatives, who work driving trucks, fixing helicopters. They are in the military. I could tell you more but this is as much as I want to say.

I am a Beaner and I too am a good person.

[Clete]

27. Actually, I thought it was politer than other terms.

It seems to me that people who fit in that category (don't ask me for measurements or size)like it better. So excuse me, because I have used the term, if it isn't PC. Should I just say WASP?

Oh, by the way, I am a certified beaner. My redneck cousins have called me that since I can remember.

[Bridget Burke]

29. White working-class Southerner

The terms dates from the days before gentlemen of leisure exposed themselves to the sun on the golf course.

No Bush has ever been a redneck.

[Dob Bole]

33. A Country Person

who does not fall under the category of country gentleman.

[QC]

36. My grandfather had a deep red, leathery neck.

He got it by working in his own fields every day after coming home from a shift in the mines. Despite his fourth grade education--he had to leave school for work, because his family was very poor--he managed to raise five children to adulthood, all of whom went on to do well for themselves. (One sickly child died of hypothermia during a cold spell, despite his and my grandmother's best efforts to keep her warm, because the mining company cabin they lived in was so shoddy that snow blew in around the windows and through the shingles.)

My grandfather was an ardent Democrat, a devoted fan of Harry Truman, and secretary of his United Mine Workers local. (My father remembers seeing him filling out his union paperwork by lantern light.) He never voted for a Republican or lived in a house with indoor plumbing or central heat. He struggled every day of his life and died at 68 from years of overwork and the lousy medical care poor people have always gotten.

He is why it never fails to make me angry when pampered, well-fed people breezily dismiss him and his kind as mere rednecks.

[Clete]

37. And this is a true redneck.

One that earned it.

[efhmc]

45. What a wonderful tribute to a good person and the type of American I wish

we had many, many more of. Bless him and his memory.

[QC]

46. Thanks!

He died when I was only seven, but I remember him well. Not perfect, but a good man in more ways than not.

[morningglory]

39. Neck reddened from pushing a plow and

sloppin' hawgs. Salt of the earth.

[knight_of_the_star]

40. I wonder

Why is it that rednecks always seem to have PICKUPS? Is there something more American about driving a pickup truck?

[QC]

41. Well, they can be quite useful

when your work sometimes requires you to carry things that will not fit into a Volvo.

[roughsatori]

48. OMG I just burst out laughing

And thanks for the story about your Grandfather, he sounded a lot like mine, including the medical care he could not get though he was a WW1 veteran.

He used to hawk fish on NYC's Bowery, sell Newspapers, and "Slaughter House worker" as he called it. He took my Dad to the Slaughter House once when my father was unemployed. My father told me he vomited on the floor from the odor and sound of animals squealing like they knew what was up. He said my Grandfather use to eat his lunch right beside where the animals where being knocked out with a sledgehammer. Perhaps that is why I'm a vegetarian.

And my Grandfather had a leathery red neck. Yet he was the one who taught me to play chess when I was a kid. And my brother has a pick-up due to his job, so it struck me as very funny.

[Clete]

44. Needed on a farm.

There are those who think they need it. I actually drove a pick-up for years in the city, sort of a Tanya Harding thing I guess. I like them.

[chaska]

47. Origins of the tern 'Redneck".

Somebody should look this up (I'm going to bed). BUT, if memory serves it started with the Kentucky coal miners, who used to wear red bandanas around their necks.

[nolabels]

50. My brother next door

That's where you send his E-mails to, mine was nonredneck.
Btw we do have friends that live in High places

Redneck Penthouse Apartment


http://www.funnypicoftheday.com/p018.shtml

[JVS]

51. I don't use that word

[AlinPA]

53. To me it means we need to figure out how to get their vote.

This is a lot of fun, but lets face it, those are the Americans we need to reach. Sorry I'm so serious this morning.

[Bandit]

55. When the term first came to my attention in mid sixties it was used

to describe an alchohol flush and a way to differentiate a pothead from a boozer. A redneck was a good ol boy who enjoyed his booze and put down the pot head. I'm sure it's morphed into a much different meaning since then. It had absolutely nothing to do with being from the South. Anyone anywhere could be a redneck. It is another term for intolerance.

[Sick of Bullshit]

58. To me, the term "redneck" refers to an antisocial rural lifestyle

Profile of a typical "redneck", McDonald County, Missouri, 1967:


Likes to get drunk and even start fights in bars
Usually has a pickup truck, but a beat up Chevy, Ford or Plymouth sedan can serve as a second ("town") car. Often, there are cars on blocks in the yard.
Looks down on, even taunts, boys who do well in school
Prejudiced against "furriners", especially people of different races
Thinks you're a wuss if you don't want to go shooting deer every fall
Calls his wife "woe-man" and considers her a second-class citizen
Likes "chawin' tobaccah", especially Red Man, or Copenhagen snuff
Gives the kids guns to play with

And it was not a derogatory term to them-- some of them even boasted of being "rednecks". And the Bellamy Brothers even wrote a song in praise of a "redneck girl"

[QC]

59. It depends on who is using the word.

I sometimes refer to myself as "queer." Is that different from, say, someone shouting the same word at me from a moving car as I walk down Main Street? I think the two situations are very different.

A lot of country people use the word "redneck" to refer to themselves, but they also recognize when someone is using the word to sneer at them, as is more often the case.

[slackmaster]

61. Sunburn on neck of someone with short hair who works outside

I think it's possible to be simultaneously a redneck and a hippie.

I've been called both.

:hippie:

[Brian Sweat]

62. "Suburban Cowboy"

[kentuck]

63. A "redneck" is a country Puritan...

Who has adopted the religious and moral teachings of the original Puritans of New England, who might work in the fields or doing manual labor in the sun, and is easily recognizable from his sun-burned neck.

[StandWatie]

64. when I was in Arkansas..

I found that people would use "hillbilly" to describe someone with the mullet and the confederate flag on the back of the pick-up truck and that it could be used in a joking manner fairly easily but "redneck" meant some old farmer who went to church every sunday and always had cowshit on his boots.

[Art_from_Ark]

71. I never heard of that kind of "hillbilly" in Arkansas

It could be a regional interpretation. Where I was raised, hillbillies were supposed to be hill people with little contact, or desire to contact, with the outside world. Generally uneducated, scratching out a living in the rocky Ozarks with mainly animal power, caricatured by scraggly beards and a propensity to make moonshine and go to hoe-downs. Oldtimers in my hometown said that the hillbilly lifestyle began to die out when WWII forcibly brought them into the modern world.

[foxy]

66. I consider myself a redneck

In my opinion a redneck is a good 'ol boy or gal as in my case. We live by the old ways and don't take crap from any one. We like the way we live our life if you don't don't pay attention to us. Kinda like this is my world your are just a visitor.:hippie:

[ronnykmarshall]

67. A picture is worth a thousand words!

[maveric]

68. Narrow minded, non-thinking,racist, homophobic,flag waving...

confederate flag waving, wife beating, beer slurping, ignorant, nationalistic, intellectual hating, bu$h adoring, Fox news watching, Clinton bashing, war mongering, 2nd amendment loving, NRA membership holding, lout that hides behind the bible to make up excuses for his/her stupid and deplorable behavior.

[samsingh]

70. George Bush is a baseline

for redneck.

[QC]

73. Wow!

You mean rednecks are the children of New England old money who are educated at Andover, Yale, and Harvard and get their daddy's rich friends to buy the presidency for them?

It seems more likely to me that Bush is a demagogue who has learned how to play to well to a certain group of voters, many of whom are the stereotypical "rednecks" we love to pile on around here, and many of whom are yuppies, tech professionals, religious fanatics, captains of industry and finance, etc.

[WoodrowFan]

75. Redneck vs Good Ole Boy

"A Good Ol Boy tosses his empties (beer cans) into the back of his pickup, a redneck tosses them alongside the road." Billy Carter 1980