An American redneck is not typically educated enough to carry on a rational, reasonable, nor civil discussion of much.
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It’s a slur against American Southerners. I am an American Southerner and I find it strange that it’s okay to make slurs about our group and to use that word as a pejorative.
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It is not only more restrictive than just being an American Southerner, but is typically used for anyone anywhere with a particular set of undesirable characteristics. Though it originates from the typical appearance of farmers with the back of their necks sunburned red.
At the very least it only applies to white people.
uneducated racist white people with a characteristic black and white, us and them mentality
certainly there is an implication of churlish country oafishness.
For me the characteristic image from my (very liberal) childhood is the person who calls anyone who thinks different from the way they do by a singular inappropriate label like “commie.”
But labels like this which start pejoratively (like “Christian” for example) are often worn proudly by people promoting the characteristics pointed to as things which are good.
It should be noted that southerners, as typical of them, had their own pejorative label for Northern Americans before this one. The term is “Yankee.” It is adopted from the English who used this (or “Yank”) for all Americans. And this one was worn proudly by Americans before the southern pejorative usage. In searching for a reason why they would use this negatively for the Northern Americans one cannot help remember that the southern colonies had more British loyalists than other colonies (though NY and PA also had many loyalists).
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Also just depends on why you are. I’m also in the south and I live in southern Alabama. Redneck here is used for three different groups of people.
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Those who work in the sun all day. Their necks get sunburned and looks red. People routinely joke about “ back to my red neck duties” and so on.
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Some use it to refer to someone’s whose country. It’s even used synonymously with country often. Where I’m at hillbilly is more commonly used as a negative stereotype about certain types of rednecks. But many proudly use the term. Even people who are not white. Black men and Mexican men will also use the term redneck. People will use terms like “ that’s redneck truck”‘referring to a truck used for farming or country stuff.
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It’s often used negatively by those outside of the region to refer to stupid white conservatives. If someone does something that’s just stupid they will call it rednecking and etc.
Like if you find someone who is using a water hose instead of pipes under their house to move water they will calm them a redneck almost like redneck means trailer trash.
When I was in high school there was a “redneck”’club where they all used dip, practiced shooting guns at farms and went mud riding or driving through corn fields and so on. They proudly use the term “redneck”. Even that one comedian used it lightheartedly as “ you might be a redneck if” and it was mostly rednecks who went there and laughed about it.
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It isn’t okay. I’m unlisting this topic.
- Looks like Adam’s going to have to find a non-pejorative term to use.
I didn’t realize this was in response to Adam using this term elsewhere. That makes sense - I was wondering why a “random” redneck topic was suddenly here in the forum. Feel free to flag Adam’s stuff. I’ll happily make it go away whenever necessary.
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- He has consistently used the term to characterize the kind of people that he is not one of.
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- That must be what @adamjedgar seeks to distance himself from.
- @marta, you like language. Check out this thread.
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“A glorious absence of sophistication” is a great definition!
At a university party once we played “You might be a redneck if…” where the real fun was hearing everyone try to sound like Jeff Foxworthy.
My favorite was “You might be a redneck if the grass in your yard is shorter than the grass in the bed of your pickup”.
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