(n.) from the characteristic sunburned neck acquired in the fields by farm laborers. [Slang] a poor, white, rural Southerner, often specif., one regarded as ignorant, bigoted, violent, etc.: often a derogatory term. Webster's New World College DictionaryOn bad days, Steve Harris laments the name he and his partner chose for their business.
On bad days, Redneck Remodeling doesn't ring as creatively as it did when they put it on fliers they left on windshields of cars in the Lowe's parking lot in Shallotte.
But on good days, he and business partner Chuck Wilbur laugh about the name, as was intended, and talk about customers drawn to them because of it.
"Redneck" is one of those words. You just don't know how it's going to strike someone when you put it on a windshield or lob it into a conversation.
Some people associate it with ignorant, rural, drunken, violent, poor, white male Southerners. Others see it as a badge of honor pinned to a person who is honest, independent and loves his family.
The negative connotations and how they play out in society can produce real problems for those who are labeled as redneck, academics say. They can be a barrier to employment and to finding a way to alleviate the poverty of some rural whites.
But ask many of those people who seem to have automatically negative pictures of rednecks to think, really think about it, and they are likely to find positive ways to describe rednecks and admit that, you know, we all probably have a bit of redneck in us.
Take Jason Eastman.
Eastman, a psychology professor at Coastal Carolina University, has written an academic paper on southern rockabilly bands that equates the term "redneck" with "hillbillies" and "poor white trash."
In the paper, Eastman describes a culture that romanticizes hard drinking and violence. The bands work to perpetuate the stereotype, the paper says, through the lyrics of their songs, the way they dress and act, and even the beer they drink on stage.
But when you start talking with Eastman about how he feels, really feels, he'll tell you he grew up in rural northwestern Pennsylvania where some of his relatives could be called rednecks.
Then he begins to describe those he knows personally using words and phrases such as friendliness, willingness to help each other and having a strong sense of community and family.
Attitudes evolve
Associations that go with the word "redneck" have evolved since it first appeared to describe poor southern white men. Paul Huber, an associate professor of history and political science at the University of Missouri-Rolla, wrote in a 1995 article that the word "redneck" grew from the Mississippi delta in the mid- to late-1800s to describe uneducated whites who forged a hardscrabble existence by the sweat of their brows, the blistering of their hands and the reddening of their necks under the strong southern sun.
Both blacks and upper-class whites, Huber wrote, used it to distinguish themselves from a class of people they saw as less worthy than themselves.
In the 1920s, Eastman said, the term Redneck Army was applied to West Virginia mine workers who wore red bandanas as a symbol of solidarity in a strike against owners.
Over generations, both mine- and farm-based rednecks moved into jobs in towns and cities, got a steady income in cotton and textile mills among other places and began spending some of their wages at the same beaches as the urbanites from Columbia, Greenville and Raleigh, N.C., eating in the same pancake houses and slathering on the same suntan lotion.
Out of this movement came the popularity of Andy Griffith, NASCAR, Willie Nelson and, more recently, Jeff Foxworthy, who cashed in on the good and bad impressions of rednecks. He showed Madison Avenue that there is, in fact, real gold in them thar hills.
Eastman described the journey much like that of blacks. But he said it is a cycle, not a one-way road.
Which means that just as with blacks, Hispanics and CEOs, there will always be people who look down their noses at them.
"I guess I'm a hippie redneck," said Michael Johnson of Myrtle Beach when a conversation launches about the word and its meanings.
Johnson is from Raleigh and grew up spending a lot of time at Wrightsville Beach, N.C., near Wilmington.
He at first defines redneck as someone born and bred in the South, but then says there are a lot of rednecks in the Northeast as well. As the discussion progresses, he acknowledges that the word does carry a negative connotation for a lot of people who use it to define those who are less well-read and less worldly.
Eventually, he disavows his own redneck traits and says that, instead, he's an in-your-face surfer type.
"There's good ol' boy redneck farmer boys who are surfers," he said. But they just do it temporarily, not for the better part of 55 years, as he has.
At the end, though, he acknowledges that there is at least one connection between himself and most rednecks.
"They do tend to be honest, that's true," he said.
The book
Johnson was familiar with Richard Cote's introductory novel, "The Redneck Riviera," which was published in 2001 and set in Myrtle Beach.
The novel drew a picture of beach shops, pancake houses and other tourist attractions that some along the Grand Strand did not think was painted as a compliment.
Perhaps that was because Cote lived in Mount Pleasant, and they assumed his picture carried the tinge of Charleston's perceived snobbery.
But Brant Branham, chairman of the board of the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, wasn't one of them.
He said if the moniker of the Redneck Riviera means that Grand Strand residents are friendly people who welcome others of all classes to their shores, that's OK with him.
Lucy Jarosz and Victoria Lawson of the University of Washington's Department of Geography, postulate in a 2002 treatise that some using the term redneck do so to reinforce their justification that such people's poverty is their own fault, that it's a lifestyle rednecks choose.
Indeed, Eastman said a survey of employers in North Carolina concluded that they would rather hire Hispanics than rednecks because their impression was that Hispanics are more reliable.
Eastman's paper concludes that the rockabilly bands don't do rednecks any favors by glorifying a stereotype. He writes that instead of raising consciousness about those things that keep many poor whites poor, the bands "promote a culture of self-destruction through substance abuse and violence."
Jarosz and Lawson theorize in their paper that the rural landscape some think of as redneck country doesn't exist anymore. The term, they wrote, disguises the racism and guilt of those who use it.
The label
"I think everybody has a little redneck in them," said Rick "Cooter" Douglas, a comedian who works at the Comedy Cabana in Myrtle Beach.
Fellow comedian Pete Lee, who was born in Wisconsin, said redneck is considered cool by some from his state.
"I know rednecks in the North who have adopted a Southern accent to be more redneck," he said.
Richard Wilbur isn't one of them. A New York state-bred redneck, his accent would still give him away as not from around here, but he doesn't care.
People who put down rednecks, he said, are a bit too white collar, a bit too tied to desks, a bit too uptight.
"People who make the term redneck negative have problems right up front," he said.
The name Redneck Remodeling was his idea, one he chose because it appealed to his sense of humor, which is pretty much the guiding principle for most things he does.
"Other people look at you and think, 'Oh God, that's stupid.' Well, I had fun doing it, and I don't care what you think," he said. "I try to have a joke going all the time."
Harris, Wilbur's partner, said he considers himself a redneck as well. To him, the word defines someone who is fair, honest, fun-loving and family-oriented.
The two recalled one customer they got from their fliers. She was a lady from the Northeast who thought their name was so funny and unique that she called her daughter back home to tell her about it, they said.
Still, Harris said, "Part of me worries about the name."
But then he thinks: "Everything's going to work out as long as you do two things: One, you believe in God, and two, you're honest." -Sun News
