[lbo-talk] gibson, missionaries, shrub's distraction

[Bill Bartlett]

Well said Carrol. These terms are highly offensive. Whenever I see 
the term "redneck" I picture some of the people I've known who fit 
that description. People who work outdoors all their lives. A few of 
them are arseholes, but many are not. "Redneck" is an ignorant form 
of class abuse, used by people who think they are in a class above 
those who work outdoors. But in fact they are not, either in the 
sense of being in a different economic class, or in the sense of 
being intellectually superior. Use of the term is merely evidence 
that you are an ignorant wanker.

As for "white trash", it is obviously a term of abuse used by 
racists. I wouldn't touch it with a barge-pole and I'm always 
embarrassed to hear other people use it, because of what it implies 
about them.

Bill Bartlett
Bracknell Tas

At 12:28 PM -0600 26/2/04, Carrol Cox wrote:


>Nope, won't check it. I also dislike the term redneck -- I find it's
>original meaning (sunburnt from overlong hours working in the sun) still
>too prominent for me. And about the vilest stuff ever published in the
>Illinois State University student paper was by three smug liberal
>students (who more than fit the template of "Love me, I'm a liberal")
>writing about their "experience" in a politely choreographed
>'confrontation' of demonstrators and "rednecks" in some small southern
>town about 16 years ago.
>
>I get the same queasy feeling in my stomach when I see the term "white
>trash" tossed around: I agree with those who say it has never lost its
>original primary force as a white-racist slogan. It means whites as
>disgusting as those black people, and all the whitewashing in the world
>won't change it.