Does the term redneck refer to a culture or race?

megaprogman said:

There seems to be some confusion about this word. I tend to use it to refer to a culture, where others seem to want to use it to refer to a race.

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As I brought up in the other thread I've only heard of it used as a racial slur against whites.
Sure, i see some people who try to use it against a culture, as you've suggested (the stereotypical 'bumpkin' type) - but the use is quite liberal (not political, as in - liberally spread around) to all whites. Just as the term 'nigger' is known as a racial slur against all blacks - however - some people try to claim it as purely a cultural slur, now, and only use it to describe a 'ghetto thug' or whatever.

I've been called 'redneck' just because of where I live - based on the fact that I'm white and live in a small town.
Per the 'cultural use' of it - I'm not poor, uneducated, racist or anything that would be 'redneck' according to your thought process. So, to me, it's purely racist and unacceptable just as the use of the term 'wetback' and 'jap'

I prefer people just don't use it - but hick or bumpkin, yeah, these have never been explicitly race-based and thus cultural slurs.

however, why does that still make them acceptable? As if slandering someone's culture is OK or acceptable?

The_Patriot said:

Massachussets was the first to legalize it, for a British colony, and the first to criminalize it, but only after they sold all of their slaves in the south.

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The first to criminalize it as a colony was Georgia.

Your Star said:

Politics existed back then too. Lincoln didn't want to go to war, so he had to try to appease the southern states with statements like these. He actually was one of the first politicians to debate about the issue of slavery in his earlier days. And once the war broke out we saw his true feelings on the subject.

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Lincoln wanted war which is why he had the Star of the West, flying US Navy colors invade South Carolina's waters to resupply Fort Sumter in January of 1861. Fort Sumter was the result of Captain Anderson, US Army, invading South Carolina when he moved his troops from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter on December 25, 1860. On April 13, 1861 there was a fleet of US Navy ships entering the harbor that consisted of 2 ships of the line, a sloop of war, and a troop transport to resupply Fort Sumter. Brig. General Beauregard had sent the third and final request for surrender to Captain Anderson after the US navy fleet entered Charleston Harbor at about 4 AM. Anderson refused and hoped for the navy fleet would reach his position before day break. Beauregard ordered the defenses of Charleston to open fire in defense of a naval fleet that was under orders to resupply the fort or to invade Charleston and secure it. Lincoln always wanted war.

Harry Guerrilla said:

The first to criminalize it as a colony was Georgia.

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My mistakes.

apdst said:

Lincoln sought to preserve the Union. Slavery had nothing to with it. not to mention that Lincoln was a racist and didn't wants whites and blacks living among each other. Lincoln didn't issue the Emancipation Proclamation until two years after the war began; plus it only applied to Confederate held territory. Places like Kentucky, Maryland and New Orleans were exempt, because they weren't Confederate held territories.

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Lincoln was a man of his time and a politician.
While I do agree preserving the Union was top priority, Lincoln did change his tune, as the world around him changed.

missypea said:

Lincoln was a man of his time and a politician.
While I do agree preserving the Union was top priority, Lincoln did change his tune, as the world around him changed.

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That's what people don't understand about Margaret Sanger (and everybody else who lived two hundred years ago): that was the way things were. There was no other known way.
Someone who expressed modern day ideas about human rights at that time not only would never have ascended to a position of social or political leadership, but probably would've been locked up in an insane asylum and tortured.

The_Patriot said:

My mistakes.

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No biggie, the point of that factoid was to show the moral superiority types that slavery was legalized based on utilitarian usage and that only when it was no longer needed did the northern states decide to criminalize it.

The fact of the matter is that, most people like to point that finger not realizing that there are 3 other fingers, pointing right back at them.

Harry Guerrilla said:

No biggie, the point of that factoid was to show the moral superiority types that slavery was legalized based on utilitarian usage and that only when it was no longer needed did the northern states decide to criminalize it.

The fact of the matter is that, most people like to point that finger not realizing that there are 3 other fingers, pointing right back at them.

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My understanding is that it was based on pragmatism; the largely industrial North's economy didn't require slaves by the 1800s; the southern agrarian economy did.
Although I think it was on its way out anyway, what with the invention of the cotton gin and other mechanical gadgets and gizmos which made hand-picking and manual labor less essential.
By the 1900s, slavery probably would've no longer been economically advantageous to the South.

1069 said:

My understanding is that it was based on pragmatism; the largely industrial North's economy didn't require slaves by the 1800s; the southern agrarian economy did.
Although I think it was on its way out anyway, what with the invention of the cotton gin and other mechanical gadgets and gizmos which made hand-picking less essential.

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That's exactly right.

That in no way means I support slavery or discrimination based on arbitrary reasons.
On the other hand, I won't apologize for things I didn't do.

The_Patriot said:

Lincoln wanted war which is why he had the Star of the West, flying US Navy colors invade South Carolina's waters to resupply Fort Sumter in January of 1861. Fort Sumter was the result of Captain Anderson, US Army, invading South Carolina when he moved his troops from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter on December 25, 1860. On April 13, 1861 there was a fleet of US Navy ships entering the harbor that consisted of 2 ships of the line, a sloop of war, and a troop transport to resupply Fort Sumter. Brig. General Beauregard had sent the third and final request for surrender to Captain Anderson after the US navy fleet entered Charleston Harbor at about 4 AM. Anderson refused and hoped for the navy fleet would reach his position before day break. Beauregard ordered the defenses of Charleston to open fire in defense of a naval fleet that was under orders to resupply the fort or to invade Charleston and secure it. Lincoln always wanted war.

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So the Confederates fire first, yet you blame it on the north? Completely ignoring the fact that South Carolina succeeding is treason, and more than enough justification for war.

Goshin said:

Again, a very narrow perspective.

I've studied the civil war very carefully. The primary causes and issues were economics and political power. Northeastern states dominated Congress and wanted to enact tariffs and other restrictions on trade that would destroy the south economically. Southern states responded by challenging Fedgov power, declaring provisions they considered intolerable "null and void" within their borders.

Slavery was actually more of a side-issue, until Lincoln decided to make it a "causus belli", a propaganda tool to demonize the opposition and make the war seem like a glorious fight of good against evil, rather than its real causes: the greed of various Northern industrial and shipping concerns, and the desire of certain political figures to make the central government supreme over the states.

Learn a little history.

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Lincoln's "House Divided" speech was in 1858.

Harry Guerrilla said:

Lack of comprehension is not my problem.
If someone can't understand the message, even when it has been clarified time and again, it is not my duty to educate those who don't want to understand.

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You're wrong. It IS your failure if you can't communicate your message. And this doesn't mean you personally, this is those in general who wish the Confederate flag to not be offensive.

Harry Guerrilla said:

I don't respect people that blame me for things I did not do. It's a two way street, you have to show it to get it and all my life I have operated as if race is of no importance to me, only character.

What do I get in return?

Constant implications that I am still a racist because of the place I was born.

It's not right to always apply guilt be association.

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You don't respect people when they ask you to not do something they've informed you offends them?

You are just ignoring the audience.

I'm trying to explain to you why this is happening. I'm trying to educate you about the communication process and why the efforts to reform the image of the Confederate flag are failing even today.

This is NOT about history. This is about communication. And the side trying to redeem the flag are failing at their efforts to do so.

It doesn't help that I have to drive past a statue of the founder of the KKK with a Confederate flag flying behind it at least once a week.

What I'm trying to tell you is that if you're saying "f*** you" to your audience when they don't understand what you're trying to communicate is that it IS your fault.

You are failing to express your point of view in a way that alters the perception of your audience. And you seem proud of it; because you blame your audience in the first line of your post - which is actual proof of your failure as a communicator.

Now, I'll grant you this: you're going to have a hard time ever altering what that flag will mean to most people except Southern whites - because of the one part of communication that you can't control and that's the outside force of history. It was flown by the enemy of the US who happened to be slave-owners (I'm not saying the War was about slavery); It was flown by racist organizations in the 1950s and 1960s during the Civil Rights struggle. It's flown frequently by racist organizations today as well.

So you may be flying it for different reasons, but when it has that much association, you're likely never going to change the mind of your audience. So, when you show it - you HAVE to take that into account. If you don't, then once again, you fail as the communicator.

I'm telling you these things from my perspective of a Communications major. Okay, that's what I studied. I'm explaining to you why you're failing and likely, will always fail to reclaim the meaning of the flag. It carries too much weight. I freaking live in the South now and I love it and I love most people (although Nashville is surprisingly full of transplants from all over) here, so I know the Southern perspective on the war and hear it ad nauseam. But it's not going to change the fact that the Confederate flag is a symbol of pride for Southern whites only. It will always be a symbol of oppression for Southern blacks.

It may not mean that to you; but if you're ignore your audience, you fail to communicate. It's not what you've done. It's the years of history that will always weigh down that flag.

Your Star said:

So the Confederates fire first, yet you blame it on the north? Completely ignoring the fact that South Carolina succeeding is treason, and more than enough justification for war.

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Show me in the Constitution of the United States where secession is prohibited to the states. It's called defensive fire against an invading fleet. Firing in defense is not an offensive act while invading with seaborne forces is an offensive act as is invasion of land forces.

1069 said:

My understanding is that it was based on pragmatism; the largely industrial North's economy didn't require slaves by the 1800s; the southern agrarian economy did.
Although I think it was on its way out anyway, what with the invention of the cotton gin and other mechanical gadgets and gizmos which made hand-picking and manual labor less essential.
By the 1900s, slavery probably would've no longer been economically advantageous to the South.

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It would've likely gone by the way side - but probably much later.

The cotton gin actually caused a surge in slavery: eHistory.com: Invention of Cotton Gin

Slavery in America

But eventual automation may have eventually led to a decline in slavery. But it initially cause a huge rise in slavery and also caused an increase in the price of slaves.

The_Patriot said:

Show me in the Constitution of the United States where secession is prohibited to the states. It's called defensive fire against an invading fleet. Firing in defense is not an offensive act while invading with seaborne forces is an offensive act as is invasion of land forces.

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It was an act of treason. The entire CSA was treason against the USA. That land was the United States, and they had a right to be within the confines of their own boarders.

The_Patriot said:

I've shown you, as have others, that you were taught wrong. Lincoln, himself, stated that he went to war for taxes not slavery. Those are his words in the historical record that said it. He was so happy to leave slavery alone that he mentions the Corwin Amendment, which would have made slavery legal for all time. He wrote it and had Corwin submit it to Congress, which is why it's called the Corwin Amendment.

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Link to Lincoln writing the Corwin Amendment please? He supported it as a compromise to stave off the Civil War.

FilmFestGuy said:

You're wrong. It IS your failure if you can't communicate your message. And this doesn't mean you personally, this is those in general who wish the Confederate flag to not be offensive.

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I can't change the reception if someone doesn't want to understand.
A person who doesn't want to understand, is almost impossible to get through to.

FilmFestGuy said:

You don't respect people when they ask you to not do something they've informed you offends them?

You are just ignoring the audience.

I'm trying to explain to you why this is happening. I'm trying to educate you about the communication process and why the efforts to reform the image of the Confederate flag are failing even today.

This is NOT about history. This is about communication. And the side trying to redeem the flag are failing at their efforts to do so.

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I understand that but it comes to a point that enough is enough.
Constantly denigrating a group of people based on things that are out of context and misunderstood has it's limits.
Especially when the people making the insults are more intolerant than those they are going after are perceived to be.

FilmFestGuy said:

It doesn't help that I have to drive past a statue of the founder of the KKK with a Confederate flag flying behind it at least once a week.

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:stop:

Nathan Bedford Forrest did not found the Klan, although he did participate in some of it's earlier campaignes of terror, he reversed his position on Black people and adopted an incredibly liberal ideology of Black inclusion and equality.

He also defended the city of Rome from complete destruction of the Union army.
Looking at from that standpoint.

There is a definite reason why many people describe those as heroes and not villains.

FilmFestGuy said:

What I'm trying to tell you is that if you're saying "f*** you" to your audience when they don't understand what you're trying to communicate is that it IS your fault.

You are failing to express your point of view in a way that alters the perception of your audience. And you seem proud of it; because you blame your audience in the first line of your post - which is actual proof of your failure as a communicator.

Now, I'll grant you this: you're going to have a hard time ever altering what that flag will mean to most people except Southern whites - because of the one part of communication that you can't control and that's the outside force of history. It was flown by the enemy of the US who happened to be slave-owners (I'm not saying the War was about slavery); It was flown by racist organizations in the 1950s and 1960s during the Civil Rights struggle. It's flown frequently by racist organizations today as well.

So you may be flying it for different reasons, but when it has that much association, you're likely never going to change the mind of your audience. So, when you show it - you HAVE to take that into account. If you don't, then once again, you fail as the communicator.

I'm telling you these things from my perspective of a Communications major. Okay, that's what I studied. I'm explaining to you why you're failing and likely, will always fail to reclaim the meaning of the flag. It carries too much weight. I freaking live in the South now and I love it and I love most people (although Nashville is surprisingly full of transplants from all over) here, so I know the Southern perspective on the war and hear it ad nauseam. But it's not going to change the fact that the Confederate flag is a symbol of pride for Southern whites only. It will always be a symbol of oppression for Southern blacks.

It may not mean that to you; but if you're ignore your audience, you fail to communicate. It's not what you've done. It's the years of history that will always weigh down that flag.

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I can't help that some people used it as a symbol of hate.
I have had no control over it, it's something I can't change.

All I can do is inform.

On a related note (sort of) meth is just such a heinous drug.
Look at these before and after pics I just came across.
Some of the "afters" are up to five years later (I saw that a couple of the "before"s were from 2005), but most are from less than a year later.
It's got to be the worst drug ever.

The Faces of Meth (New Images) - KDVR

Your Star said:

It was an act of treason. The entire CSA was treason against the USA. That land was the United States, and they had a right to be within the confines of their own boarders.

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Show me in the Constitution of the United States where secession is prohibited to the states.

1069 said:

On a related note (sort of) meth is just such a heinous drug.
Look at these before and after pics I just came across.
Some of the "afters" are up to five years later (I saw that a couple of the "before"s were from 2005), but most are from less than a year later.
It's got to be the worst drug ever.

The Faces of Meth (New Images) - KDVR

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Yea it's pretty bad, especially the people who get the twitchies.
Although I've made fun of them, I probably shouldn't because their addiction has overridden their normal social controls.

Harry Guerrilla said:

I can't change the reception if someone doesn't want to understand.
A person who doesn't want to understand, is almost impossible to get through to.

I understand that but it comes to a point that enough is enough.
Constantly denigrating a group of people based on things that are out of context and misunderstood has it's limits.
Especially when the people making the insults are more intolerant than those they are going after are perceived to be.

:stop:

Nathan Bedford Forrest did not found the Klan, although he did participate in some of it's earlier campaignes of terror, he reversed his position on Black people and adopted an incredibly liberal ideology of Black inclusion and equality.

He also defended the city of Rome from complete destruction of the Union army.
Looking at from that standpoint.

There is a definite reason why many people describe those as heroes and not villains.

I can't help that some people used it as a symbol of hate.
I have had no control over it, it's something I can't change.

All I can do is inform.

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But getting back to the actual point: if "redneck" is racist because it's only used against whites; then the Confederate flag is also racist because it's only used by whites.

Until it's a symbol of pride for the whole region and not just Southern whites, I fail to see how it can communicate anything else due to its associations with a racist past.

Thus, how can you claim that you "give respect" when it is given to you, if someone respectfully says what you're doing is offensive to me and you continue to do it?

Harry Guerrilla said:

Yea it's pretty bad, especially the people who get the twitchies.
Although I've made fun of them, I probably shouldn't because their addiction has overridden their normal social controls.

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I've done it recreationally a number of times; I seem blessed with the ability to dabble in drugs without getting hooked (actually, sometimes it felt more like a curse, because I was the one who always had to watch, relatively unscathed, as my partners-in-crime- including my husband- fell beneath the wheels of drug addiction).
Meth always seemed yucky to me: dirty, cut with god-knows-what. Makes you stink like hell.
The only good part about it was that it lasted a comparatively long time (compared to coke, that is), but even that becomes a negative when you've been awake for 72 hours picking imaginary lint out of your carpet, and you've started hallucinating, and you begin to feel like you've so thoroughly forgotten how to sleep that you will die- literally die- before you're ever able to go to sleep again.

Psychoclown said:

Whatever the motivation, its still ignorant, wrong headed, and flat out stupid.

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Except white racism is bred of attempts to maintain institutional dominance, and anti-white racism, though also an unfair generality, is a raw reaction to that. Its language is characterized by partially accurate complaints about European oppression, with inappropriate application to all people of European descent. White racist complaints about "oppression" usually involve the mass media's refusal to depict their "white rights" movement as a civil rights struggle.

Harry Guerrilla said:

It's meant to insult based on historical prejudice, most used by pretentious elitists.

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The word "redneck"? Or "anti-white racism"? Anti-white racism is generally based on reactions to dominance, real or merely perceived. It's not bred of a desire to dominate others, as white racism is. Black nationalism, unlike white nationalism, is not inherently associated with black supremacist views, which are themselves bred of reaction to white supremacism. People who asininely equate the NAACP with the KKK as "equal racist organizations" are joined in agreement only by white nationalists, who claim that they are fighting for "white rights."

The people that usually mention "anti-white racism" as a problem that they imply is equivalent to white racism are those with white populist mindsets themselves, that usually have the idea that African-Americans "blacks," (we can't be "politically correct"), just need to "work harder" to succeed and have general tendencies to lazily use welfare instead of working hard.

Goshin said:

In another thread, a month or two ago, I explained in detail why many Southerners view the Stars and Bars as a symbol of regional and cultural pride, and not as a symbol of racism (let alone slavery). I won't go into all that again, look it up if you like.

Yes, I'm aware that many people choose to view it as a symbol of racism. That would be why I don't usually fly it myself, but I support the right of any Southerner who is flying it as a symbol of heritage, not hate, to do so.

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The "Stars and Bars" refers to the first national flag of the CSA:



The "Confederate flag" used today is entirely different, and is based on the battle flag, though its shape is rectangular.



It's not true that the Civil War was "not about slavery," as some historical revisionists have claimed. It was not about slavery in its context as a moral issue, since the general public, Lincoln included, were typically adherents to doctrines of black racial inferiority. It was about slavery as an economic issue, with it being an integral staple of agrarian labor productivity in Southern states. It was about Southern resistance of Northern dominance, but resistance of perceived federal interests in abolition of an authoritarian institution, just as it was when the South resisted desegregation a century later. After the rather shabby Emancipation Proclamation, a significant number of plantation slaves deserted and defected to the Union army, though.

FilmFestGuy said:

But getting back to the actual point: if "redneck" is racist because it's only used against whites; then the Confederate flag is also racist because it's only used by whites.

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Not necessarily true.
Redneck is generally used as a pejorative to describe southern/rural white people.
It's meant as an insult.

On the other hand, people who wave a Confederate flag, could be Black, Hispanic etc.
It's based on what the flag represents to them.
Generally speaking, the flag itself represents Southern culture of decentralized political governance.

It also represents the native side of the war where people were actually saved by Confederate forces from many of the Union campaigns of burning cities, sacking food stores, etc.

FilmFestGuy said:

Until it's a symbol of pride for the whole region and not just Southern whites, I fail to see how it can communicate anything else due to its associations with a racist past.

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It could be but by and large, Black southerners have adopted a dissimilar cultural system which is not representative of decentralized political governance.
That is a generality of course, but largely true.

FilmFestGuy said:

Thus, how can you claim that you "give respect" when it is given to you, if someone respectfully says what you're doing is offensive to me and you continue to do it?

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I don't get offended easily but I like to call out double standards, especially when it comes to bigotry and prejudice.
If the Black Panthers clarified themselves as a Black cultural support group, I have no beef with any of their symbols and regalia as long that is their true intent.

If they start going off the deep end, making racial slurs and bigoted remarks, their true intent is reveled.

Cochise said:

The word "redneck"? Or "anti-white racism"? Anti-white racism is generally based on reactions to dominance, real or merely perceived. It's not bred of a desire to dominate others, as white racism is. Black nationalism, unlike white nationalism, is not inherently associated with black supremacist views, which are themselves bred of reaction to white supremacism. People who asininely equate the NAACP with the KKK as "equal racist organizations" are joined in agreement only by white nationalists, who claim that they are fighting for "white rights."

The people that usually mention "anti-white racism" as a problem that they imply is equivalent to white racism are those with white populist mindsets themselves, that usually have the idea that African-Americans "blacks," (we can't be "politically correct"), just need to "work harder" to succeed and have general tendencies to lazily use welfare instead of working hard.

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I merely want fairness.
If the intent of now is to move forward, we shouldn't be clinging to ideas that it is "ok" to insult one group because of the transgressions for their fore bearers.

Bleh, political correctness is for wienies.
The majority of Black people, where I live, describe themselves as Black and me as White.