kelley at pulpculture.org wrote:
>
> I guess I was surprised, after everything I've written on the topic, that
> you'd prefer to accuse me of harboring stereotypical attitudes about
> "rednecks".
I didn't. E-mail is a lousy way to work out distinctions. In an essay one has at least 3 or 4 thousand words, and it is possible to put any statement into some sort of decent context. In e-mail the key statements get left as naked as a jaybird.
I'm not interested either in the "sensibilities" of poor whites or in the souls of those who use or don't use such terms as "redneck." I'm interested in intellectual coherence, and I think sloppy diction makes that difficult. So my objections to "redneck," "white trash," and numerous other bits simply obscure perception and clutter debate.
What I might say "about you" in this connection is that you underestimate yourself as a theoretician and analyst, you overestimate yourself as a humorist. Of course the list-culture of lbo-talk terrorizes everyone to fear that they may be called humorless or academic.
Carrol