Don’t Say “Redneck”
Yesterday, I had a discussion (actually, something of a debate) with a liberal activist friend of mine. We’re both active in an Indivisible group and were discussing plans for the upcoming months. In that discussion, she referred to the “rednecks” who voted for Donald Trump.
A week or so ago, my wife and I watched “Hillbilly Elegy”. Early in the story, the protagonist is seen lunching with white shoe lawyers whom he hopes to persuade to let him intern at their firm. During the lunch, one of the lawyers uses the term “rednecks” to refer to working people from rural areas.
Too many people (sadly, far too many liberals) who would never, in a drunken stupor, use any of the nasty racial or ethnic epithets we’re all familiar with, use the term “redneck” without reservation or hesitancy. I’d like to make a motion that we all, liberals in particular, expunge “redneck” and “hillbilly” from our vocabularies.
Let’s start with redneck…everyone who knows whence that term comes, raise your hand. Those of you with your hands in the air know that it refers to the coal miners who fought the Pinkerton Guards and the US Air Corps in the Mine Wars back in the 1920’s. Those men wore red bandanas around their necks to provide evidence of their solidarity just as we might wear Black Lives Matter t-shirts today. They referred to each other as “rednecks”. All to say, we should be using the word as a term of honor and respect for those who gave their lives for the cause of worker rights.
But that’s not remotely how we use it, is it? We use it as a pejorative, and we generally use it in reference to working people whose politics might not be the same as ours. The people we call “rednecks” work in factories, on construction sites, in hospitals, in schools, in restaurants for low wages and few benefits. They suffer from inadequate schools, hospitals, infrastructure, and government services, more so than many of us do. We use it to refer to the very people who’ve been most hurt by the neo-liberal policies that we, along with conservatives, have happily espoused and implemented for the past century or so. Despite all this, we refer to them with this epithet that’s historically wrong and ethically wrong. We need to stop it.
We need to drop “hillbilly” from our lexicon as well. Yes, I know it’s one of those pejoratives that we hear Appalachian natives use among themselves. I grew up in the mountains of Western North Carolina. I’m allowed to refer to friends and family as hillbillies. If you’re not from Appalachia, you’re not allowed to refer to us in that way. We all know that there are terms that members of the community are allowed to use with each other that are not available to those outside the community. I’m not of Italian descent. There are terms I’m not permitted to use when speaking to a member of that community that he or she IS permitted to use when speaking to members of their own community. That’s just the way it is.
For some reason, we liberals have come to think that “redneck” and “hillbilly” aren’t as egregious as other epithets because they’re mostly used in reference to white folks. It’s not at all clear why we’ve decided that speaking of members of white working communities in such mean-spirited terms is acceptable. I suppose we convince ourselves that “those people” are racist, homophobic, transphobic, confederate flag waving Trumpbots who deserve our contempt. And, of course, there are many white working people who do hold those views. On the other hand, when we fight for universal health care, universal college education, universal childcare, protection of the environment, better worker health and safety regulations, living wages, these are among the very groups for whom we’re fighting. But why should they trust us to have their interests at heart when we use such contemptible language in referring to them?
Here’s the bottom line…the terms “redneck” and “hillbilly” are as reprehensible as other epithets that we’d never consider using. Let’s quit using those terms.
