White trash and rednecks

Hillbilly for me is not derogatory. Usually if I refer to someone as a redneck, it is because I consider them backwards and close minded. White trash, well just the stereotypical image it brings to mind is how I have used it...mostly with certain family members.

Born in Georgia, raised in Miami, prefer 4 wheeling out in the reservoir to dinner and dancing. Live in a double wide on 2.5 acres, 17 miles from town where our largest store is Wal-Mart, drive a Ford truck, have an air boat and a couple travel trailers, husband spends most of his time fishing or tinkering in his garage. Love NASCAR and would take a weekend at the track over going to the movies anytime. What does that make me... Yes we fly the Confederate flag, along with the American Flag, POW flag and our 2 favorite NASCAR driver flags.
Oh did I leave out the fact that 2 of my 3 children have their Bachelor Degree's with no student loan debt. The 3rd started her Bachelor program this year. I myself will be finishing my Bachelor program Dec 2016.
Husband completely describes us as Redneck and I have no problem with that, trash... only in the can outside.

I'm British and have never been to the US. I'd love to!

To me, the term hill-billy comes straight out of the TV show - good-natured and generous, uneducated but full of sound common sense and resourcefulness. Red-necks are outdoors, resourceful people who also have a delightful lack of caring about appearances. Neither terms are derogatory to me, just an extremely generalised way of describing lifestyle. White trash to me is the Ewells in To Kill a Mockingbird - never complimentary. As for "racist", the definition is the belief that one race is superior to another. But the "white" in "white trash" seems to me to be only a way of differentiating. Again, it's a generalised way of describing a lifestyle.

I associate red neck with racist... I have never heard the term red neck used to refer to a person of color

I have Florida Gator duct tap. Love the stuff.

As for the original post: I do use both terms occasionally. I don't think of redneck as a bad thing. Here in rural Minnesota we have plenty of friends and family that identify themselves as redneck. And I'm sorry, but sometimes the term "white trash" is appropriate and brings to mind EXACTLY what I'm trying to convey.

For the record;

Word Origin and History for white trash Expand
n.
1831, originally Southern U.S. black slang.

The slaves themselves entertain the very highest contempt for white servants, whom they designate as 'poor white trash.' [Fanny Kemble, journal, Jan. 6, 1833]

And from Wikipedia;

Black people use the term as an attack against whites.[18][19] Use of "White trash" epithets has been extensively reported in African-American culture.[20] Black authors have noted that blacks, when taunted by whites as "niggers," taunted back, calling them "white trash."[19] Black parents taught their children that poor whites were "white trash".[21] The epithet appears in black folklore.[22] As an example, slaves (when out of earshot of whites) would refer to harsh slave owners as a "low down" man, "lower than poor white trash," "a brute, really."[23]

The term white trash dates back not to the 1950s but to the 1820s. It arises not in Mississippi or Alabama, but in and around Baltimore, Maryland. And best guess is that it was invented not by whites, but by African Americans. As a term of abuse, white trash was used by blacks--both free and enslaved--to disparage local poor whites.

I live in a massive urban/suburban metropolitan area with millions of people. "Rednecks" aren't country folk here. Yes, there are some people who call themselves rednecks in the Jeff Foxworthy context. But most people who self-identify as rednecks or who are referred to as rednecks bear no resemblance to hard working salt of the Earth type people. They almost all share the same cluster of beliefs and opinions that revolve around interpretation of "old time" values in an intolerant and prejudiced manner. 

You say somebody's a "redneck" then a lot about who they are and what they're about is understood. 

If you read my post further up on this page, you'll see I said I wanted to be clear I don't think people today are using the term to be racist. I said the origins were racist. There's a world of difference. 

I think of Hillbillies as people who live in small homes in the hills and mountains of the Appalachian Mountain range and who often spend a lot of time outdoors and doing crafts for a living since farming is durn near impossible in many spots.

Part of me has longed to be a Hillbilly along the Blue Ridge. Sigh.

Yeah, but keep reading. It turns out I am wrong.

Maybe in some parts of the country this is more true than other places, but I think it's time you realize that you are insulting a great many people who are not racist with that association.

I'm confused by your statement because you said this on the post above to me:
Maybe in some parts of the country this is more true than other places, but I think it's time you realize that you are insulting a great many people who are not racist with that association.

Maybe we are saying the same thing and I am not being clear.

I think when people use the word red-neck they are not only using the term to refer to someone who is uneducated and unsophisticated but also someone who is intolerant of others.  Which is why I think of the term racist when I hear red-neck.  

I would never and do not ever use the word. I hate ugly labels and avoid them. But when I picture someone who calls themselves a red neck, I think of intolerant, ignorant and along with that is often racist.  

Some historical info regarding the origin of the term Redneck; 


Historical Scottish Covenanter usage
In Scotland in the 1640s, the Covenanters rejected rule by bishops, often signing manifestos using their own blood. Some wore red cloth around their neck to signify their position, and were called rednecks by the Scottish ruling class to denote that they were the rebels in what came to be known as The Bishop's War that preceded the rise of Cromwell.[21][22] Eventually, the term began to mean simply "Presbyterian", especially in communities along the Scottish border. Because of the large number of Scottish immigrants in the pre-revolutionary American South, some historians have suggested that this may be the origin of the term in the United States.[23]

Dictionaries document the earliest American citation of the term's use for Presbyterians in 1830, as "a name bestowed upon the Presbyterians of Fayetteville [North Carolina]".[10][22]

Roman Catholics
In Northern England in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Roman Catholics were also known as rednecks.[24]


By 1900, "rednecks" was in common use to designate the political factions inside the Democratic Party comprising poor white farmers in the South.[11] The same group was also often called the "wool hat boys" (for they opposed the rich men, who wore expensive silk hats). A newspaper notice in Mississippi in August 1891 called on rednecks to rally at the polls at the upcoming primary election:[12]

Primary on the 25th.
And the "rednecks" will be there.
And the "Yaller-heels" will be there, also.
And the "hayseeds" and "gray dillers," they'll be there, too.
And the "subordinates" and "subalterns" will be there to rebuke their slanderers and traducers.
And the men who pay ten, twenty, thirty, etc. etc. per cent on borrowed money will be on hand, and they'll remember it, too.


Poor white sharecroppers in Alabama in 1936
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.[13]