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{{Short description|Derogatory term applied to white person from the rural South of the United States}}
{{other uses|Redneck (disambiguation)}}
{{About|redneck as a pejorative|the historical subculture |Poor White| different connotations |Country (identity)| other uses|Redneck (disambiguation)}}
{{pp-semi-indef|small=yes}}
[[File:Sunburn Treatment Practices.jpg|thumb|250px|The term may come from the look of a [[sunburned]] neck]]
'''''Redneck''''' is a derogatory term mainly, but not exclusively, applied to [[white Americans]] perceived to be crass and unsophisticated, closely associated with rural whites of the [[Southern United States]].<ref name="Harold Wentworth 1975 p. 424">Harold Wentworth, and Stuart Berg Flexner, ''Dictionary of American Slang'' (1975) p. 424.</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/redneck |publisher=Merriam Webster |title=Redneck – Definition and More |access-date=January 25, 2014}}</ref>


Its meaning possibly stems from the [[sunburn]] found on farmers' necks dating back to the late 19th century.<ref>Huber, 1995.</ref> Its modern usage is similar in meaning to ''[[Cracker (pejorative)|cracker]]'' (especially regarding Texas, Georgia, and Florida), ''[[hillbilly]]'' (especially regarding [[Appalachia]] and the [[Ozarks]]),<ref>Anthony Harkins, ''Hillbilly, A Cultural History of an American Icon'', Oxford University Press (2004), p. 39.</ref> and ''[[white trash]]'' (but without the last term's suggestions of immorality).<ref>Wray (2006) p. x.</ref><ref>Ernest Cashmore and James Jennings, eds. ''Racism: essential readings'' (2001) p. 36.</ref><ref>Jim Goad, ''The Redneck Manifesto: How Hillbillies, Hicks, and White Trash Became America's Scapegoats'' (1998) pp. 17–19.</ref> In Britain, the ''Cambridge Dictionary'' definition states: "A poor, white person without education, esp. one living in the countryside in the southern US, who is believed to have prejudiced ideas and beliefs. This word is usually considered offensive."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/redneck |title=redneck |website=Cambridge Dictionary}}</ref> People from the white South sometimes jocularly call themselves "rednecks" as insider humor.<ref>{{cite book |author=John Morreall |title=Comic Relief: A Comprehensive Philosophy of Humor |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P9LVotZ2mH8C&pg=PT106 |year=2011 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |page=106 |isbn=9781444358292}}</ref>
Jake+ Code Orange= Redneck


An alternative origin story is that during the [[West Virginia Mine Wars]] of the early 1920s, workers organizing for [[labor rights]] donned red [[bandanas]], worn tied around their necks, as they marched up [[Blair Mountain]] in a pivotal confrontation. The West Virginia Mine Wars Museum commemorates their struggle for fair wages. A monument in front of the George Buckley Community Center in Marmet, WV, part of the "Courage in the Hollers Project" of the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum depicts the silhouettes of four mine workers cut from steel plate, wearing bright red bandanas around their necks or holding them in their hands. <ref>{{cite web |url=https://wvpublic.org/do-you-know-where-the-word-redneck-comes-from-mine-wars-museum-opens-revives-lost-labor-history/ |title=Do You Know Where the Word "Redneck" Comes From? Mine Wars Museum Opens, Revives Lost Labor History |date=18 May 2015 }} </ref> <ref>{{cite web | url=https://wvminewars.org/courage | title=Courage in the Hollers }}</ref>
'''Redneck''' is a historically derogatory slang term used in reference to poor white farmers in the U.S. South.<ref>Harold Wentworth, and Stuart Berg Flexner, ''Dictionary of American Slang'' (1975) p. 424.</ref> It is similar in meaning to "[[Cracker (pejorative)|cracker]]" (especially regarding Georgia and Florida), "[[hillbilly]]" (especially regarding [[Appalachia]] and the [[The Ozarks|Ozarks]])<ref>Anthony Harkins, ''Hillbilly, A Cultural History of an American Icon'', Oxford University Press (2004), pg 39.</ref> and "[[white trash]]".<ref>Wray (2006) page x.</ref><ref>Ernest Cashmore and James Jennings, eds. ''Racism: essential readings'' (2001) p. 36.</ref><ref>Jim Goad, ''The Redneck Manifesto: How Hillbillies, Hicks, and White Trash Became America's Scapegoats'' (1998) p. 17-19</ref>


In recent decades the term expanded its meaning to mean bigoted, loutish, and opposed to modern ways<ref>Barbara Ann Kipfer and Robert L. Chapman, ''American Slang'' (2008) p. 404</ref>, and has often been used to attack Southern conservatives and racists<ref>William Safire, ''Safire's political dictionary'' (2008) p. 612</ref>. At the same time, some Southern whites have reclaimed the word, using it with pride and defiance as a self-identifier.<ref>Goad, ''The Redneck Manifesto: How Hillbillies, Hicks, and White Trash Became America's Scapegoats'' (1998) p. 18</ref>
By the 1970s, the term had become offensive slang, its meaning expanded to include racism, loutishness, and opposition to modern ways.<ref>Robert L. Chapman, ''Dictionary of American Slang'' (1995) p. 459; William Safire, ''Safire's New Political Dictionary'' (1993) pp. 653-54; Tom Dalzell, ''The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English: J–Z'' (2005) 2:1603.</ref>


Patrick Huber, in his monograph ''A Short History of Redneck: The Fashioning of a Southern White Masculine Identity'', emphasized the theme of masculinity in the 20th-century expansion of the term, noting: "The redneck has been stereotyped in the media and popular culture as a poor, dirty, uneducated, and racist Southern white man."<ref>{{cite journal |first=Patrick |last=Huber |title=A short history of Redneck: The fashioning of a southern white masculine identity |journal=Southern Cultures |volume=1 |issue=2 |year=1995 |pages=145–166 |doi=10.1353/scu.1995.0074 |s2cid=143996001 }}</ref>
==Political term for poor farmers==
The term is probably derived from individuals having a red neck caused by sunburn or a mixture of sweat and the dust of red clay dirt common in the southern states. A citation from 1893 provides a definition as "poorer inhabitants of the rural districts...men who work in the field, as a matter of course, generally have their skin stained red and burnt by the sun, and especially is this true of the back of their necks".<ref>Frederic Gomes Cassidy & Joan Houston Hall, ''Dictionary of American Regional English'', 2002, p. 531.</ref>


== 19th and early 20th centuries ==
By 1900, "rednecks" was in common use to designate the political coalitions of the poor white farmers in the South.<ref>Albert D. Kirwan, ''Revolt of the Rednecks: Mississippi Politics 1876-1925'' (1951).</ref> 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:<ref>Patrick Huber and Kathleen Morgan Drowne, "Redneck: A New Discovery," ''American Speech'' 76.4 (2001) 434-437.</ref>
{{quote|
Primary on the 25th.<br />
And the "rednecks" will be there.<br />
And the "Yaller-heels" will be there, also.<br />
And the "hayseeds" and "gray dillers," they'll be there, too.<br />
And the "subordinates" and "subalterns" will be there to rebuke their slanderers and traducers.<br />
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.
}}


=== Political term for poor farmers ===
By 1910, the political supporters of the [[History of Mississippi|Mississippi]] 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.<ref>Kirwan (1951), p. 212.</ref>
The term originally characterized [[farmers]] that had a ''red neck'', caused by [[sunburn]] from long hours working in the [[Farm field|fields]]. A citation from <time>1893</time> provides a definition as "poorer inhabitants of the rural districts ... men who work in the field, as a matter of course, generally have their skin stained red and burnt by the sun, and especially is this true of the back of their necks".<ref name=regional>Frederic Gomes Cassidy & Joan Houston Hall, ''Dictionary of American Regional English VOL.IV'' (2002) p. 531. {{ISBN|978-0674008847}}</ref> Hats were usually worn and they protected that wearer's head from the sun, but also provided psychological protection by shading the face from close scrutiny.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ozFCDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA254 |title=The Dynamics of Fashion |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |author=Elaine Stone |year=2018 |page=254 |isbn=9781501324000 |access-date=April 17, 2019}}</ref> The back of the neck however was more exposed to the sun and allowed closer scrutiny about the person's background in the same way callused working hands could not be easily covered.


By 1900, "rednecks" was in common use to designate the political factions inside the [[History of the Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic Party]] comprising poor white farmers in the South.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Kirwan|first1=Albert D.|title=Revolt of the Rednecks: Mississippi Politics, 1876-1925|date=1951|publisher=University of Kentucky Press|location=Lexington|isbn=9780813134284}}</ref> 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:<ref>{{cite journal|author1=Patrick Huber|author2=Kathleen Drowne|title=Redneck: A New Discovery|journal=American Speech|date=2001|volume=76|issue=4|pages=434–437|doi=10.1215/00031283-76-4-434}}</ref>
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 to attack Southern conservatives and [[Racial segregation in the United States|segregationists]].<ref>Robert L. Chapman, ''Dictionary of American Slang'' (1995) p. 459; William Safire, ''Safire's Political Dictionary'' (2008) pp. 612-13; Tom Dalzell, ''The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English: J-Z'' (2005) 2:1603.</ref>


{{quote|<poem>
==Coal miners==
Primary on the 25th.
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" remain 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.
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.
</poem>}}


[[File:Frank Tengle, Bud Fields, and Floyd Burroughs, cotton sharecroppers, Hale County, Alabama.jpg|thumb|250px|Poor white [[sharecroppers]] in [[Alabama]], <time>1936</time>]]
The term can be found throughout McAllister Coleman and Stephen Raushenbush's 1936 socialist proletarian novel, ''Red Neck,'' which recounts the story of a charismatic union leader named Dave Houston and an unsuccessful strike by his fellow union miners in the fictional coalfield town of Laurel, [[Pennsylvania]]. The word's varied usage can be seen in the following two examples from the book. "I'm not much to be proud of," Houston admits to his admiring girlfriend Madge in one scene. "I'm just a red necked miner like the rest." In another scene, a police captain curses Houston as a "God-damned red neck" during a fruitless jailhouse interrogation, before savagely beating him with a sawed-off chair-leg.
By <time>1910</time>, the political supporters of the [[History of Mississippi|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.<ref>Kirwan (1951), p. 212.</ref>


Linguist Sterling Eisiminger, based on the testimony of informants from the Southern United States, speculated that the prevalence of [[pellagra]] in the region during the [[Great Depression in the United States|Great Depression]] may have contributed to the rise in popularity of the term; red, inflamed skin is one of the first symptoms of that disorder to appear.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Redneck|author=Sterling Eisiminger|page=284|journal=American Speech|volume=59|number=3|date=Autumn 1984|jstor=454514|doi=10.2307/454514}}</ref>
The earliest printed uses of the word red-neck in a coal-mining context date from the 1912-1913 Paint and Cabin Creeks strike in southern West Virginia and from the 1913-1914 Trinidad District strike in southern [[Colorado]]. It is not known where the term originated. UMW national organizers quite possibly transported "redneck" from one section of the country to the other. Then again, its popularizers may have been agents of the Baldwin-Feltz Detective Agency, an industrial espionage and mine security company headquartered in [[Bluefield, West Virginia|Bluefield]], West Virginia, who worked as company guards and spies in both the West Virginia and the Colorado strikes. What is relatively certain, however, is that it originated as a negative [[epithet]]. Apparently, coal operators, company guards, non-union miner, and strikebreakers were among the first to use the redneck in a labor context when they derided union miners with the slur. According to industrial folklorist George Korson, non-union miners derisively called strikers "rednecks" in the Appalachian coalfields, while slurring them as "sweaters" in [[Oklahoma]] and the southwestern coalfields. It is possible that redneck emerged in strike-ridden coalfields to mean "union miner" independently of its in the deep south. Clearly, the best explanation of redneck to mean "union man" is that the word refers to the red handkerchiefs that striking union coal miners in both southern West Virginia and southern Colorado often wore around their necks or arms as a part of their informal uniform.<ref>Patrick Huber, "Red Necks and Red Bandanas: Appalachian Coal Miners and the Coloring of Union Identity, 1912-1936," ''Western Folklore'', Winter 2006.</ref>


=== Coal miners ===
==Late 20th and early 21st century==
[[File:Coal miners in soda fountain. Inland Steel Company, Wheelwright ^1 & 2 Mines, Wheelwright, Floyd County, Kentucky. - NARA - 541456.tif|thumb|Coal miners in soda fountain, [[Kentucky]], 1946]]
Late 20th century writers [[Edward Abbey]] and [[Dave Foreman]] use "redneck" as a political call to mobilize poor rural white Southerners. "In Defense of the Redneck" was a popular essay by Ed Abbey. One popular early [[Earth First!]] bumper sticker was "Rednecks for Wilderness." [[Murray Bookchin]], an urban leftist and [[social ecology|social ecologist]], objected strongly to Earth First!'s use of the term as "at the very least, insensitive."<ref>Bookchin, Murray; Foreman, Dave. "[http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0896083829 ''Defending the Earth: A Dialogue Between Murray Bookchin and Dave Foreman''], South End Press, 1991. See Page 95.</ref>
The term "redneck" in the early 20th century was occasionally used in reference to American coal miner union members who wore red [[bandanas]] for solidarity. The sense of "a union man" dates at least to the 1910s and was especially popular during the 1920s and 1930s in the [[Coal mining|coal-producing]] regions of West Virginia, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania.<ref>Patrick Huber, "Red Necks and Red Bandanas: Appalachian Coal Miners and the Coloring of Union Identity, 1912–1936", ''Western Folklore'', Winter 2006.</ref> It was also used by union strikers to describe poor white [[strikebreakers]].<ref name=GreenHills>{{cite book|author=James Green|title=The Devil Is Here in These Hills: West Virginia's Coal Miners and Their Battle for Freedom|publisher=Grove Press|date=2015|location=New York|page=380|isbn=9780802124654}}</ref>


== Late 20th and early 21st centuries ==
But many members of the Southern community have proudly embraced the term as a self-identifier.<ref>{{cite news |last= Kyff |first = Rob |title = Embrace Slurs, Reclaim Pride |work = [[Hartford Courant]] |date = August 3, 2007 |page = D.10 |accessdate = 2010-06-30 |url = http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/courant/access/1314629651.html?dids=1314629651:1314629651&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Aug+03%2C+2007&author=ROB+KYFF&pub=Hartford+Courant&desc=EMBRACE+SLURS%2C+RECLAIM+PRIDE&pqatl=google |quote = Many southerners have adopted the disparaging term redneck as a banner of pride.}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last = Page |first = Clarence |authorlink = Clarence Page |title = 'Redneck' is not a word that a politician should take lightly |url = http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=jJYWAAAAIBAJ&sjid=pxIEAAAAIBAJ&pg=4969,4414198&dq=redneck+pride&hl=en |work = The Milwaukee Sentinel |date = July 18, 1989 |accessdate = July 30, 2010}} {{Dead link|date=October 2010|bot=H3llBot}}</ref> Among those who dispute that the term is disparaging, Canadian [[Paul Brandt]], a self-identified redneck, says that primarily the term indicates independence.<ref>{{cite web |url = http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/features/music/story.html?id=6741c148-adcd-4b19-85b6-da075da836ba |title = Country singer Brandt proud to be a 'redneck' |date = November 28, 2007 |publisher = Canwest News Service |accessdate = 2010-06-30}}</ref> In his 1997 book ''[[The Redneck Manifesto (book)|The Redneck Manifesto]]'', which explores the socioeconomic history of low-income Americans, author [[Jim Goad]] indicated rednecks are traditionally pro-labor and anti-establishment and have an anti-[[Hierarchy|hierarchical]] religious orientation.


Writers [[Edward Abbey]] and [[Dave Foreman]] also use "redneck" as a political call to mobilize poor rural white Southerners. "In Defense of the Redneck" was a popular essay by Ed Abbey. One popular early [[Earth First!]] bumper sticker was "Rednecks for Wilderness". [[Murray Bookchin]], an urban leftist and [[Social ecology (theory)|social ecologist]], objected strongly to Earth First!'s use of the term as "at the very least, insensitive".<ref>Bookchin, Murray; Foreman, Dave. [https://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0896083829 ''Defending the Earth: A Dialogue Between Murray Bookchin and Dave Foreman'']. South End Press. 1991. p. 95.</ref> However, many Southerners have proudly [[Reappropriation|embraced the term as a self-identifier]].<ref>{{cite news |last = Kyff |first = Rob |title = Embrace Slurs, Reclaim Pride |work = [[Hartford Courant]] |date = August 3, 2007 |page = D.10 |access-date = 2010-06-30 |url = https://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/courant/access/1314629651.html?dids=1314629651:1314629651&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Aug+03%2C+2007&author=ROB+KYFF&pub=Hartford+Courant&desc=EMBRACE+SLURS%2C+RECLAIM+PRIDE&pqatl=google |quote = Many southerners have adopted the disparaging term redneck as a banner of pride. |archive-date = 2011-06-29 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110629034521/http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/courant/access/1314629651.html?dids=1314629651:1314629651&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Aug+03,+2007&author=ROB+KYFF&pub=Hartford+Courant&desc=EMBRACE+SLURS,+RECLAIM+PRIDE&pqatl=google |url-status = dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last=Page |first=Clarence |author-link=Clarence Page |title='Redneck' is not a word that a politician should take lightly |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=jJYWAAAAIBAJ&pg=4969,4414198&dq=redneck+pride&hl=en |work=The Milwaukee Sentinel |date=July 18, 1989 |access-date=July 30, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150927171911/https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=jJYWAAAAIBAJ&sjid=pxIEAAAAIBAJ&pg=4969,4414198&dq=redneck+pride&hl=en |archive-date=September 27, 2015 }}</ref> Similarly to Earth First!'s use, the self-described "anti-racist, pro-gun, pro-labor" group [[Redneck Revolt]] have used the term to signal its roots in the rural white working-class and celebration of what member Max Neely described as "redneck culture".<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/11/redneck-revolt-guns-anti-racism-fascism-far-left |title=Redneck Revolt: the armed leftwing group that wants to stamp out fascism |last=Watt |first=Cecilia Saixue |date=11 July 2017 |website=[[theguardian.com]]|access-date=29 April 2018}}</ref>
==Popular culture==
The [[Grand Ole Opry]] and ''[[Hee Haw]]'' are popular entertainments from years past, and they, as well as entertainers [[Hank Williams]], [[Grandpa Jones]] and [[Jerry Clower]], have seen lasting popularity within the redneck community. Entertainers like [[Minnie Pearl]] used homespun comedy as much as music to create a lasting persona, and musicians like [[Earl Scruggs]] and [[Lester Flatt]] appeared on shows such as ''[[The Beverly Hillbillies]]'', lending credence to broad humor about uncomplicated rural Americans.


== As political epithet ==
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 [[List_of_French_words_and_phrases_used_by_English_speakers#B|bons mots]], the redneck comedian created an illusion of white equality across classes."<ref>[http://www.slate.com/id/2129296?nav=tap3 America's favorite redneck. - By Bryan Curtis - Slate Magazine<!-- Bot generated title -->].</ref>
According to Chapman and Kipfer in their "Dictionary of American Slang", by 1975 the term had expanded in meaning beyond the poor Southerner to refer to "a bigoted and conventional person, a loutish ultra-conservative".<ref>Robert L. Chapman and Barbara Ann Kipfer, ''Dictionary of American Slang'' (3rd ed. 1995) p. 459.</ref> For example, in 1960 [[John Bartlow Martin]] expressed Senator [[John F. Kennedy]] should not enter the Indiana Democratic presidential primary because the state was "redneck conservative country". Indiana, he told Kennedy, was a state "suspicious of foreign entanglements, conservative in fiscal policy, and with a strong overlay of Southern segregationist sentiment".<ref>{{cite book |author=Ray E. Boomhower |title=John Bartlow Martin: A Voice for the Underdog |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UDF3BwAAQBAJ&pg=PA273 |year=2015 |publisher=Indiana UP |page=273 |isbn=9780253016188}}</ref> Writer [[William Safire]] observed that it is often used to attack white Southern [[Conservatism in the United States|conservatives]], and more broadly to degrade working class and rural whites that are perceived by urban progressives to be insufficiently progressive.<ref>William Safire, ''Safire's political dictionary'' (2008) p. 612</ref> At the same time, some [[white Southerners]] have [[Reappropriation|reappropriated]] the word, using it with pride and defiance as a self-identifier.<ref>Goad, ''The Redneck Manifesto: How Hillbillies, Hicks, and White Trash Became America's Scapegoats'' (1998) p. 18</ref>


==In popular culture==
[[Johnny Russell]] was nominated for a [[Grammy Award]] in 1973 for his recording of "Rednecks, White Socks, and [[Pabst Blue Ribbon|Blue Ribbon Beer]]," parlaying the "common touch" into financial and critical success. ''[[Rednecks (song)|Rednecks]]'' is a song by [[Randy Newman]], the lead-off track on his 1974 album ''[[Good Old Boys]]''. [[Country music]] singer [[Gretchen Wilson]] titled one of her songs "[[Redneck Woman]]" on her 2004 album ''[[Here for the Party]]''.
*[[Johnny Russell (singer)|Johnny Russell]] was nominated for a [[Grammy Award]] in <time>1973</time> for his recording of "[[Rednecks, White Socks and Blue Ribbon Beer]]". Further songs referencing rednecks include "[[Longhaired Redneck (song)|Longhaired Redneck]]" by [[David Allan Coe]], "[[Rednecks (song)|Rednecks]]" by [[Randy Newman]], "[[Redneck Friend]]" by [[Jackson Browne]], "[[Redneck Woman]]" by [[Gretchen Wilson]], "[[Redneck Yacht Club]]" by [[Craig Morgan]], "[[Redneck (song)|Redneck]]" by [[Lamb of God (band)|Lamb of God]], "[[Redneck Crazy]]" by [[Tyler Farr]], "[[Red Neckin' Love Makin' Night]]" by [[Conway Twitty]], "Up Against The Wall Redneck Mother" by [[Jerry Jeff Walker]], "[[Your Redneck Past]]" by [[Ben Folds Five]], "[[American Idiot (song)|American Idiot]]" by [[Green Day]], and "[[Picture to Burn]]" by [[Taylor Swift]].
*Comedian [[Jeff Foxworthy]]'s <time>1993</time> comedy album ''[[You Might Be a Redneck If...]]'' cajoled listeners to evaluate their own behavior in the context of [[Stereotype|stereotypical]] redneck behavior.


== Outside the United States ==
In recent years, the comedy of [[Jeff Foxworthy]], [[Ron White]], [[Bill Engvall]], and [[Larry the Cable Guy]] has become popular through the "[[Blue Collar Comedy Tour]]" and ''[[Blue Collar TV]]''. Foxworthy's 1993 comedy album ''[[You Might Be a Redneck If...]]'' cajoled listeners to evaluate their own behavior in the context of [[Stereotype|stereotypical]] redneck behavior, and resulted in more mainstream usage of the term.


==Historical uses==
=== 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 [[Bishops' Wars|The Bishop's War]] that preceded the rise of [[Oliver Cromwell|Cromwell]].<ref name=Albion>[[David Hackett Fischer|Fischer, David Hackett]]. (1989) ''[[Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America]]''. New York: [[Oxford University Press]].</ref><ref name=oed>redneck (1989); ''Oxford English Dictionary'' second edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.</ref> Eventually, the term began to mean simply "[[Presbyterianism|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.<ref>[[Arthur L. Herman|Herman, Arthur]], ''[[How the Scots Invented the Modern World]]''. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2001, p. 235.</ref>
There are several historic uses that are no longer in current use.


Dictionaries document the earliest American citation of the term's use for Presbyterians in <time>1830</time>, as "a name bestowed upon the Presbyterians of Fayetteville (North Carolina)".<ref name="regional"/><ref name=oed />
===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 English ruling class to denote that they were the rebels in what came to be known as [[Bishops' Wars|The Bishop's War]] that preceded the rise of [[Oliver Cromwell|Cromwell]].<ref name=Albion>Fischer, David Hackett. (1989) ''Albion's Seed, Four British Folkways in America''. New York: [[Oxford University Press]].</ref><ref>redneck (1989); ''Oxford English Dictionary'' second edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.</ref> Eventually, the term began to mean simply "[[Presbyterianism|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.<ref>Herman, Arthur, ''How the Scots Invented the Modern World''. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2001, p. 235.</ref>


=== South Africa ===
In the ''Dictionary of American Regional English'', the earliest American citation of the term's use for Presbyterians is from 1830, as "a name bestowed upon the Presbyterians of Fayetteville [North Carolina]".
An [[Afrikaans]] term which translates literally as "redneck", {{lang|af|[[wikt:rooinek|rooinek]]}}, is used as a disparaging term for [[British diaspora in Africa#South Africa|English South Africans]], in reference to their supposed naïveté as later arrivals in the region in failing to protect themselves from the sun.<ref>{{citation |title=A Dictionary of South African English |author=Jean Bedford |publisher=Oxford}}</ref>


==See also==
== See also ==
* [[yokel]]
* [[Bogan]], Australian term
* [[Class discrimination]]
* [[Culture of the Southern United States]]
* [[Culture of the Southern United States]]
* [[Country (identity)]]
* [[Florida cracker]]
* [[Georgia cracker]]
* [[List of ethnic slurs]]
* [[List of ethnic slurs]]
* [[Old Stock Americans]]
* ''[[Plain Folk of the Old South]]''
* [[Redlegs]] – poor whites that live on [[Barbados]] and a few other Caribbean islands
* [[Stereotypes of white Americans]]
* [[West Texas Rednecks]]
* [[White trash]]
* [[Yokel]]


==References==
== References ==
{{reflist}}
{{Reflist}}


== Further reading ==
==Sources==
* Abbey, Edward. "In Defense of the Redneck", from ''Abbey's Road: Take the Other''. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1979
* Abbey, Edward. "In Defense of the Redneck", from ''Abbey's Road: Take the Other''. (E. P. Dutton, 1979)
* Ferrence, Matthew, "You Are and You Ain't: Story and Literature as Redneck Resistance", ''Journal of Appalachian Studies'', 18 (2012), 113–30.
* Goad, Jim. ''The Redneck Manifesto: How Hillbillies, Hicks, and White Trash Became America's Scapegoats'', New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997
* Goad, Jim. ''The Redneck Manifesto: How Hillbillies, Hicks, and White Trash Became America's Scapegoats'' ([[Simon & Schuster]], 1997).
* Harkins, Anthony. ''Hillbilly: A cultural history of an American icon'' (2003).
* Huber, Patrick. "A short history of Redneck: The fashioning of a southern white masculine identity." ''Southern Cultures'' 1#2 (1995): 145–166. [http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/scu/summary/v001/1.2.huber.html online]
* Jarosz, Lucy, and Victoria Lawson. "'Sophisticated people versus rednecks': Economic restructuring and class difference in America's West." ''Antipode'' 34#1 (2002): 8-27.
* Shirley, Carla D. "'You might be a redneck if ... ' Boundary Work among Rural, Southern Whites." ''Social forces'' 89#1 (2010): 35–61. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/40927553 in JSTOR]
* West, Stephen A. ''From Yeoman to Redneck in the South Carolina Upcountry, 1850–1915'' (2008)
* West, Stephen A. ''From Yeoman to Redneck in the South Carolina Upcountry, 1850–1915'' (2008)
* Weston, Ruth D. "The Redneck Hero in the Postmodern World", ''South Carolina Review'', Spring 1993
* Weston, Ruth D. "The Redneck Hero in the Postmodern World", ''South Carolina Review'', (Spring 1993)
* Wilson, Charles R. and William Ferris, eds. ''Encyclopedia of Southern Culture'', (1989)
* Wilson, Charles R. and William Ferris, eds. ''Encyclopedia of Southern Culture'', (1989)
* Wray, Matt. ''Not Quite White: White Trash and the Boundaries of Whiteness'' (2006)
* Wray, Matt. ''[[Not Quite White: White Trash and the Boundaries of Whiteness]]'' (2006)


==External links==
== External links ==
{{wiktionary|redneck}}
{{Wiktionary|redneck}}
{{Commons category|Rednecks}}
* [http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-2718 Poor Whites — The Georgia Encyclopedia] (history)
* [https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/poor-whites/ Poor Whites] in the ''[[New Georgia Encyclopedia]]'' (history)


{{Socialclass}}
{{Socialclass}}
{{Ethnic slurs}}
{{Stereotypes in the United States}}
{{Appalachian people}}
{{White people}}
{{Authority control}}


[[Category:American culture]]
[[Category:Social groups]]
[[Category:Culture of the Southern United States]]
[[Category:Pejorative terms for people]]
[[Category:Stereotypes]]
[[Category:Ethnic and religious slurs]]
[[Category:American folklore]]
[[Category:History of subcultures]]
[[Category:Social class subcultures]]
[[Category:American regional nicknames]]
[[Category:American regional nicknames]]
[[Category:American slang]]
[[Category:American slang]]
[[Category:English words]]
[[Category:European-American culture in Appalachia]]
[[Category:Florida culture]]
[[Category:Georgia (U.S. state) culture]]
[[Category:History of subcultures]]
[[Category:Pejorative terms for white people]]
[[Category:Rural culture in the United States]]
[[Category:Slang of the Southern United States]]
[[Category:Slang of the Southern United States]]
[[Category:Rural culture]]
[[Category:Socioeconomic stereotypes]]
[[Category:Stereotypes of rural people]]

[[Category:Stereotypes of the working class]]
[[da:Redneck]]
[[Category:Stereotypes of white Americans]]
[[de:Redneck]]
[[Category:Texas culture]]
[[eu:Redneck]]
[[Category:Working-class culture in the United States]]
[[fa:ردنک]]
[[fr:Redneck]]
[[Category:Covenanters]]
[[Category:Bishops' Wars]]
[[it:Redneck]]
[[ja:レッドネック]]
[[pl:Redneck]]
[[pt:Redneck]]
[[ru:Реднеки]]
[[simple:Hick]]
[[tr:Redneck]]
[[zh-yue:Redneck]]
[[zh:Redneck]]

Latest revision as of 18:01, 13 December 2024

This article is about redneck as a pejorative. For the historical subculture, see Poor White. For different connotations, see Country (identity). For other uses, see Redneck (disambiguation).

The term may come from the look of a sunburned neck

Redneck is a derogatory term mainly, but not exclusively, applied to white Americans perceived to be crass and unsophisticated, closely associated with rural whites of the Southern United States.[1][2]

Its meaning possibly stems from the sunburn found on farmers' necks dating back to the late 19th century.[3] Its modern usage is similar in meaning to cracker (especially regarding Texas, Georgia, and Florida), hillbilly (especially regarding Appalachia and the Ozarks),[4] and white trash (but without the last term's suggestions of immorality).[5][6][7] In Britain, the Cambridge Dictionary definition states: "A poor, white person without education, esp. one living in the countryside in the southern US, who is believed to have prejudiced ideas and beliefs. This word is usually considered offensive."[8] People from the white South sometimes jocularly call themselves "rednecks" as insider humor.[9]

An alternative origin story is that during the West Virginia Mine Wars of the early 1920s, workers organizing for labor rights donned red bandanas, worn tied around their necks, as they marched up Blair Mountain in a pivotal confrontation. The West Virginia Mine Wars Museum commemorates their struggle for fair wages. A monument in front of the George Buckley Community Center in Marmet, WV, part of the "Courage in the Hollers Project" of the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum depicts the silhouettes of four mine workers cut from steel plate, wearing bright red bandanas around their necks or holding them in their hands. [10] [11]

By the 1970s, the term had become offensive slang, its meaning expanded to include racism, loutishness, and opposition to modern ways.[12]

Patrick Huber, in his monograph A Short History of Redneck: The Fashioning of a Southern White Masculine Identity, emphasized the theme of masculinity in the 20th-century expansion of the term, noting: "The redneck has been stereotyped in the media and popular culture as a poor, dirty, uneducated, and racist Southern white man."[13]

19th and early 20th centuries

Political term for poor farmers

The term originally characterized farmers that had a red neck, caused by sunburn from long hours working in the fields. A citation from provides a definition as "poorer inhabitants of the rural districts ... men who work in the field, as a matter of course, generally have their skin stained red and burnt by the sun, and especially is this true of the back of their necks".[14] Hats were usually worn and they protected that wearer's head from the sun, but also provided psychological protection by shading the face from close scrutiny.[15] The back of the neck however was more exposed to the sun and allowed closer scrutiny about the person's background in the same way callused working hands could not be easily covered.

By 1900, "rednecks" was in common use to designate the political factions inside the Democratic Party comprising poor white farmers in the South.[16] 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:[17]

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,

By , 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.[18]

Linguist Sterling Eisiminger, based on the testimony of informants from the Southern United States, speculated that the prevalence of pellagra in the region during the Great Depression may have contributed to the rise in popularity of the term; red, inflamed skin is one of the first symptoms of that disorder to appear.[19]

Coal miners

Coal miners in soda fountain, Kentucky, 1946

The term "redneck" in the early 20th century was occasionally used in reference to American coal miner union members who wore red bandanas for solidarity. The sense of "a union man" dates at least to the 1910s and was especially popular during the 1920s and 1930s in the coal-producing regions of West Virginia, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania.[20] It was also used by union strikers to describe poor white strikebreakers.[21]

Late 20th and early 21st centuries

Writers Edward Abbey and Dave Foreman also use "redneck" as a political call to mobilize poor rural white Southerners. "In Defense of the Redneck" was a popular essay by Ed Abbey. One popular early Earth First! bumper sticker was "Rednecks for Wilderness". Murray Bookchin, an urban leftist and social ecologist, objected strongly to Earth First!'s use of the term as "at the very least, insensitive".[22] However, many Southerners have proudly embraced the term as a self-identifier.[23][24] Similarly to Earth First!'s use, the self-described "anti-racist, pro-gun, pro-labor" group Redneck Revolt have used the term to signal its roots in the rural white working-class and celebration of what member Max Neely described as "redneck culture".[25]

As political epithet

According to Chapman and Kipfer in their "Dictionary of American Slang", by 1975 the term had expanded in meaning beyond the poor Southerner to refer to "a bigoted and conventional person, a loutish ultra-conservative".[26] For example, in 1960 John Bartlow Martin expressed Senator John F. Kennedy should not enter the Indiana Democratic presidential primary because the state was "redneck conservative country". Indiana, he told Kennedy, was a state "suspicious of foreign entanglements, conservative in fiscal policy, and with a strong overlay of Southern segregationist sentiment".[27] Writer William Safire observed that it is often used to attack white Southern conservatives, and more broadly to degrade working class and rural whites that are perceived by urban progressives to be insufficiently progressive.[28] At the same time, some white Southerners have reappropriated the word, using it with pride and defiance as a self-identifier.[29]

Outside the United States

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.[30][31] 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.[32]

Dictionaries document the earliest American citation of the term's use for Presbyterians in , as "a name bestowed upon the Presbyterians of Fayetteville (North Carolina)".[14][31]

South Africa

An Afrikaans term which translates literally as "redneck", rooinek, is used as a disparaging term for English South Africans, in reference to their supposed naïveté as later arrivals in the region in failing to protect themselves from the sun.[33]

See also

References

  1. ^ Harold Wentworth, and Stuart Berg Flexner, Dictionary of American Slang (1975) p. 424.
  2. ^ "Redneck – Definition and More". Merriam Webster. Retrieved January 25, 2014.
  3. ^ Huber, 1995.
  4. ^ Anthony Harkins, Hillbilly, A Cultural History of an American Icon, Oxford University Press (2004), p. 39.
  5. ^ Wray (2006) p. x.
  6. ^ Ernest Cashmore and James Jennings, eds. Racism: essential readings (2001) p. 36.
  7. ^ Jim Goad, The Redneck Manifesto: How Hillbillies, Hicks, and White Trash Became America's Scapegoats (1998) pp. 17–19.
  8. ^ "redneck". Cambridge Dictionary.
  9. ^ John Morreall (2011). Comic Relief: A Comprehensive Philosophy of Humor. John Wiley & Sons. p. 106. ISBN 9781444358292.
  10. ^ "Do You Know Where the Word "Redneck" Comes From? Mine Wars Museum Opens, Revives Lost Labor History". 18 May 2015.
  11. ^ "Courage in the Hollers".
  12. ^ Robert L. Chapman, Dictionary of American Slang (1995) p. 459; William Safire, Safire's New Political Dictionary (1993) pp. 653-54; Tom Dalzell, The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English: J–Z (2005) 2:1603.
  13. ^ Huber, Patrick (1995). "A short history of Redneck: The fashioning of a southern white masculine identity". Southern Cultures. 1 (2): 145–166. doi:10.1353/scu.1995.0074. S2CID 143996001.
  14. ^ a b Frederic Gomes Cassidy & Joan Houston Hall, Dictionary of American Regional English VOL.IV (2002) p. 531. ISBN 978-0674008847
  15. ^ Elaine Stone (2018). The Dynamics of Fashion. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 254. ISBN 9781501324000. Retrieved April 17, 2019.
  16. ^ Kirwan, Albert D. (1951). Revolt of the Rednecks: Mississippi Politics, 1876-1925. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press. ISBN 9780813134284.
  17. ^ Patrick Huber; Kathleen Drowne (2001). "Redneck: A New Discovery". American Speech. 76 (4): 434–437. doi:10.1215/00031283-76-4-434.
  18. ^ Kirwan (1951), p. 212.
  19. ^ Sterling Eisiminger (Autumn 1984). "Redneck". American Speech. 59 (3): 284. doi:10.2307/454514. JSTOR 454514.
  20. ^ Patrick Huber, "Red Necks and Red Bandanas: Appalachian Coal Miners and the Coloring of Union Identity, 1912–1936", Western Folklore, Winter 2006.
  21. ^ James Green (2015). The Devil Is Here in These Hills: West Virginia's Coal Miners and Their Battle for Freedom. New York: Grove Press. p. 380. ISBN 9780802124654.
  22. ^ Bookchin, Murray; Foreman, Dave. Defending the Earth: A Dialogue Between Murray Bookchin and Dave Foreman. South End Press. 1991. p. 95.
  23. ^ Kyff, Rob (August 3, 2007). "Embrace Slurs, Reclaim Pride". Hartford Courant. p. D.10. Archived from the original on 2011-06-29. Retrieved 2010-06-30. Many southerners have adopted the disparaging term redneck as a banner of pride.
  24. ^ Page, Clarence (July 18, 1989). "'Redneck' is not a word that a politician should take lightly". The Milwaukee Sentinel. Archived from the original on September 27, 2015. Retrieved July 30, 2010.
  25. ^ Watt, Cecilia Saixue (11 July 2017). "Redneck Revolt: the armed leftwing group that wants to stamp out fascism". theguardian.com. Retrieved 29 April 2018.
  26. ^ Robert L. Chapman and Barbara Ann Kipfer, Dictionary of American Slang (3rd ed. 1995) p. 459.
  27. ^ Ray E. Boomhower (2015). John Bartlow Martin: A Voice for the Underdog. Indiana UP. p. 273. ISBN 9780253016188.
  28. ^ William Safire, Safire's political dictionary (2008) p. 612
  29. ^ Goad, The Redneck Manifesto: How Hillbillies, Hicks, and White Trash Became America's Scapegoats (1998) p. 18
  30. ^ Fischer, David Hackett. (1989) Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America. New York: Oxford University Press.
  31. ^ a b redneck (1989); Oxford English Dictionary second edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  32. ^ Herman, Arthur, How the Scots Invented the Modern World. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2001, p. 235.
  33. ^ Jean Bedford, A Dictionary of South African English, Oxford

Further reading

  • Abbey, Edward. "In Defense of the Redneck", from Abbey's Road: Take the Other. (E. P. Dutton, 1979)
  • Ferrence, Matthew, "You Are and You Ain't: Story and Literature as Redneck Resistance", Journal of Appalachian Studies, 18 (2012), 113–30.
  • Goad, Jim. The Redneck Manifesto: How Hillbillies, Hicks, and White Trash Became America's Scapegoats (Simon & Schuster, 1997).
  • Harkins, Anthony. Hillbilly: A cultural history of an American icon (2003).
  • Huber, Patrick. "A short history of Redneck: The fashioning of a southern white masculine identity." Southern Cultures 1#2 (1995): 145–166. online
  • Jarosz, Lucy, and Victoria Lawson. "'Sophisticated people versus rednecks': Economic restructuring and class difference in America's West." Antipode 34#1 (2002): 8-27.
  • Shirley, Carla D. "'You might be a redneck if ... ' Boundary Work among Rural, Southern Whites." Social forces 89#1 (2010): 35–61. in JSTOR
  • West, Stephen A. From Yeoman to Redneck in the South Carolina Upcountry, 1850–1915 (2008)
  • Weston, Ruth D. "The Redneck Hero in the Postmodern World", South Carolina Review, (Spring 1993)
  • Wilson, Charles R. and William Ferris, eds. Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, (1989)
  • Wray, Matt. Not Quite White: White Trash and the Boundaries of Whiteness (2006)
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