About Us
Mission Statement
Rules of Conduct
 
Name:
Pswd:
Remember Me
Register
 

You might be a Redneck...
Author: Raine    Date: 04/23/2012 15:42:16

You will recall a few weeks ago that comic Jeff Foxworthy endorsed Mitt Romney and evidently campaigned with him during a series of southern primaries. Oh, I tell you, that was delightful. Mr. Foxworthy is mostly known for his "You Might be a Redneck" jokes... Here are a few examples:
Your brother-in-law is your uncle.
Your dad walks you to school because you're in the same grade.
You think a Volvo is part of a woman's anatomy.
You have 5 cars that are immobile and house that is!
The ASPCA raids yer kitchen
Redneck humor does have a special niche to a portion of the American population. For others, it's just not their cup of tea. This article helps to explain the popularity of people like Foxworthy and Larry the Cable Guy:
It's tempting to view the success of the Blue Collar troubadours—the others are Foxworthy, Bill Engvall, and Ron White—as a triumph of savvy packaging. But the comedy speaks to a broadly American condition: the feeling of being left out.
(snip)

Redneck comedy—the creation of a cretinous, backwoods alter ego—was once useful in maintaining the delicate social fabric of the South. 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.
I have been thinking about this strange alliance between Mr. Romney and Mr. Foxworthy. Mostly, though, I have been thinking about rednecks. A lot people were very upset with Bill Maher and Alexandria Pelosi a few weeks ago for a short film they produced about the South. Many people considered it southern-bashing. This writer, Joe Patrice sums this conundrum up for me quite well:
Moments ago, I was reading a Caroline May piece in the Daily Caller, where she lambasts Bill Maher and Alexandra Pelosi because they “bash the South.” The source of her ire is a short film that Pelosi shot in Mississippi where she interviewed a number of white men who expressed views that were at odds with their economic interests and were at times unabashedly racist.

Meanwhile on TV, comedian Jeff Foxworthy appeared with Mitt Romney in Alabama and Mississippi to wild cheers for making millions perpetuating the stereotypes May shames Pelosi for showing. Indeed Foxworthy’s comedy goes much further than Pelosi’s video because it celebrates these stereotypes, encouraging pride in systemic poverty and denigration of education.

May blasts Pelosi for unfair sampling, while Foxworthy thrives on the belief that everyone in the South still drives the General Lee.
(snip)
The more the country recognizes those contradictions, the more flawed the conservative narrative becomes. Maher and Pelosi gave this a national audience, and it scares conservatives.

And yet Foxworthy’s humor is critical to the GOP strategy in the Deep South. While obviously the Deep South is not entirely replete with rednecks, Foxworthy’s family-friendly, affable comedy tells the rest of the country that the South isn’t really that extreme — this is just a sub-culture that even Southerners mock. But for the many educated voters in Alabama and Mississippi who laugh at his redneck jokes, there is a sense of connection with the subjects. When he jokes that you’re a redneck “if your bicycle has a gun rack” the audience laughs because they aren’t like the subject, but can relate because they have a gun rack in their truck or at home. It encourages pride in the premise of the jokes, a simple, American pride-based redneck culture, a culture essential to keeping the Deep South in the GOP column. Foxworthy tells the country not to worry while telling the South to be proud of the anti-intellectual worldview that keeps the GOP in power.

Somewhere along the line, it seems the Right decided to take the mantle of "redneck". It has become something we have associated with the Tea Party. There is a serious contradiction between being a redneck and supporting Mitt Romney. To be really honest, there is a serious contradiction between being a redneck and being politically conservative. This is especially true when one looks back on the term's long appropriated history. Some say it began in Scotland, others say it was bestowed upon the Presbyterians in Fayetteville, NC. Many others say it had to do with being a poor farmer -- thus the redneck.

However, there is something here that is very important. Rednecks were union supporters. They supported the rights of the people over the corporations and the power holders. Redneck was political term for poor farmers:
By 1900, "rednecks" was in common use to designate the political factions inside the Democratic Party comprising poor white farmers in the South. The same group was also often called the "wool hat boys" (for they opposed the rich men, who wore expensive silk hats).

By 1910, the political supporters of the Mississippi Democratic Party politician James K. Vardaman—chiefly poor white farmers—began to describe themselves proudly as "rednecks," even to the point of wearing red neckerchiefs to political rallies and picnics.

By the 1970s, the term had turned into offensive slang and had expanded its meaning to mean bigoted, loutish and opposed to modern ways, and was often used as a term to attack Southern white conservatives and racists.

The United Mine Workers of America (UMW) and rival miners' unions appropriated both the term redneck and its literal manifestation, the red bandana, in order to build multiracial unions of white, black, and immigrant miners in the strike-ridden coalfields of northern and central Appalachia between 1912 and 1936. The origin of redneck to mean "a union man" or "a striker" remains uncertain, but according to linguist David W. Maurer, the former definition of the word probably dates at least to the 1910s, if not earlier. The use of redneck to designate "a union member" was especially popular during the 1920s and 1930s in the coal-producing regions of southern West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, and western Pennsylvania, where the word came to be specifically applied to a miner who belonged to a union.
Can you see where I am going here? Redneck has always been a derogatory term that people have tried to proclaim as their own -- in defiance of those that denigrated them. Mostly it did apply to poor people who wanted to earn a living fairly and with dignity.

Maybe I am misunderstanding context. But I would think that Mitt Romney and Redneck humor - not to mention its very real and serious history - do not mix. Rednecks have long cared about labor rights. Somehow a lot of people got duped. History is important, not repeating bad history is even more important.

You might be a redneck if you don't support Mitt Romney. You might be a redneck if you support workers rights. You might be a redneck if you like people who understand your struggles. You might be a redneck if you are part of the 99%. You might be a redneck if you support Obama over a silly stereotype perpetuated by a few rich comedians. Jeff Foxworthy has made a career of making jokes about rednecks -- Mitt Romney has made a career of taking jobs away from rednecks.

Who, exactly, is the joke on?

Am I wrong?

&
 

27 comments (Latest Comment: 04/24/2012 04:27:37 by BobR)
   Perma Link

Share This!

Furl it!
Spurl
NewsVine
Reddit
Technorati