Rev. Erudite Redneck, B.S., B.S., M.A., M.Div.

As I understand it, you can be a redneck and white trash, but you can also be a redneck without being white trash. One can also be PWT and not be a redneck (although it probably helps).
Actually, I don't like the term "white trash" because it conjures up all sorts of connotations that are, to me, racist. The implication is that "PWT" are just this side of being "the 'n' word", not much better, just as shiftless, lazy, drunken, liable to break the law, etc. I realized how awful all this was back in the '90's when the whole Monica thing broke, when I believe James Carville, speaking of Paula Jones, said, "You know what happens when you drag a twenty dollar bill through a trailer park," or something to that effect; the implication, of course, was that Jones was trailer trash, her testimony on Clinton's alleged sexual confrontation bought and paid for. There was no discussion of the merits of her allegation - just a casual dismissal due to Jones' status as "PWT".
I realize your post was all in fun, and I hate to rain on your parade by getting all serious, but I think that we need to set aside all this labeling crap because all it does is play on stereotypes that no longer serve a useful purpose.
BTW, my grandfather was a proud Tennessee Ridgerunner.
 

Dude. I have fun with it, but I mean a serious discussion, and I'm glad you rose to it. (Welcome back, BTW)

The article is a serious look at a real thing. looks like a paper for an American Studies grad seminar.

I am a redneck. I am not white trask. My dad inherited a few tumbledown rent houses. Most of the time, the people who lived in them were PWT -- and I mean that as a descriptor, and I know that a regular reader of this blog used to live in one of those houses, and I consider her to be a redneck, NOT PWT.

I initially hated the "Redneck Woman" song by Gretchen Wilson because I think she further blurred the line between the two. Her line about standing in the frotn yard with a baby on her hip, or something like that, was offensive to me because I thought it perpetuated a harmful stereotype. But I came to see it as the same as a black rapper using the N-word.

Fine lines everywhere here.

I seriously do think that PWT and rednecks shouild be treated as a minority ethinc group. If it was, then cockfighting would never have been outlawed in Oklahoma -- and I'm dead serious about. I am still pissed that the predominant culture just rolled OVER my kind because of a pastime that made them uncomfortable. It goes way beyond a city-country thing.

Speaking of: I found myself this morning in a redneck part of south OKC where we bought our beloved Bailey, the semiretarded weinie dog. At the house where we got him, ther were several generations of mixed families, car on blocks, etc., etc., all the usual steriotypical stuff. It was there I coined a joke worthy of Foxworthy:

If yer dogs got papers and yer kids don't, you might be a redneck.

I can say that. Let some city-slickin' snob come in and say it and he might get a good ol' redneck ass-kickin'. Whereupon he might be advised to turn the other cheek. I kid.

Hey, you sure missed a grand shoot-out a few posts back. But it continues ...
 

I was no fan of "Redneck Woman" either because, frankly, Gretchen Wilson isn't one, was never one, and she does indeed perpetuate a harmful stereotype in that song. BTW, who's Uncle Cephus or whatever his name is that she mentions?
I have known true rednecks. My favorite one was a guy whose name escapes me, but lives in the small VA town where my wife had her first church. WOuld give you the tattered shirt off your back, no questions asked, nicest guy in the world, but I saw worlds collide one day as I stood behind the counter at the convenience store in town where I worked for a while. The store was just off I-95, so we got a mixed clientele, locals looking for booze and travelers looking for gas and a pot to pee in. During March, a northerner on his way south for spring break decided to try and strike up a conversation on the NCAA basketball tournament. Our local's response to the question of his preference in that year's tourney was, "Oh, hell, I don't watch basketball. I like racin'", said just like that, as if NASCAR were something holy.
As for cockfighting - guess it must be a cultural thing (a lot of Mexican immigrants also are in to cockfights; they keep breaking up a ring up here in our neck of the woods, dog-fighting, too) so I won't say much more about it. I guess my point is the whole PWT thing is related in my own mind to questions of race and class that should be left behind. As for redneck - well, I've known too many to claim they don't exist. Charlie-Daniels-lovin', hootin-and-a-hollerin', foot-stompin', stars-n-bars-decal-in-the-back-of-the-pickup drivin', family oriented (even if their families aren't what some would call "traditional") folks. They're one of the best things America has produced, along with the Wright Brothers, rolled toilet paper, and Jimi Hendrix.
 

I think its Bocephus she mentions. That's Hank Williams Jr. Bocephus is what his daddy called him.

It ain't holy or nothin' but the ERs are into racin'. There is a discarded left rear tire from Kevin Harvick's car at Daytona a few years back in plain view in our livin' room. :-)
 

I agree that there are signifcant differences between a redneck and whitetrash. I own up to being born into "white trash status" but moving out of it as did my siblings.
It ment we didn't own much of anything. Certainly not land. A lot of our clothes were literally sewed from feed sacks. (They actually sold chicken feed in sacks made out of printed design material so people could use them for that. Always pissed the feed store owner off when mamma made him, move six sacks to get to the design she wanted.) Our meals were stereotypical, etc..
I was ten before I lived in a share cropper's house that had hot water and a flush toliet.
A red neck I never had, because we always worn full brim hats while outside. Never caps. In fact when working even in the heat of August we wore loose long sleave cotton shirts to keep the sun off. Thus we might have qualified as "Red Hands" but never Red Necks. Now the gal that was 2 years older than me and lived on the next farm used to plow in her two piece bathing suit
(not a bikin mind you). I remember one day when we were in adjoing field and she was plowing that way, except it looked like when she was headed away from me and down at the far end of the row she had the top off to get a fuller tan. It would be back on when we waved at each other when we got to ends of the rows close to one another. Then about about half way up the row, on one pass, she dropped her one-way and took the tractor off across the field towards her house. Seems she had lost her swim suit top and it had gotten plowed under. Now that's a white trash dream.
 

Dude. That's a short story.

I wish I could write.