why is it ok to call me a redneck?

[antigone382]

166. But it IS classist, and here is the impact that such a stereotype has:

I live in one of the poorest counties in the South. Before someone saws on about how the immense suffering and lack of access to basic human necessities that these people suffer is all hunky-dory because they "vote against their own interests," know that they are traditionally and staunchly Democratic--so much so that Al Gore came here to thank these people for their support after the 2000 campaign. But we are adjacent to some wealthier areas, including an upper crust private university. I see people discriminated against EVERY DAY because they fit the "redneck" stereotype. I see lives thrown away EVERY DAY because of hopelessness and lack of opportunity, lives gobbled up first by poverty, then by drugs, and finally by police harassment and lifelong entrance into the criminal-justice-industrial-complex. Most of the young men I know here have received lifelong felonies, mostly for drug offenses; meaning the higher education that was already almost unobtainable is now totally out of reach for them; meaning that they will never again have the ability to influence the political process.

And all of this is enabled by the attitude these people face from a very young age; that their status as classless hillbillies makes their lives devoid of value. To outsiders they are dirty, inbred, toothless, illiterate hillbillies worthy only of scorn. You see it in letters to the editor written by the wealthy about how giving local people jobs is just "feeding the rats" (that's word for word), you see it in sideways glances and under-the-breath comments, and you see it in the way that police are far more likely to pull a car over if its appearance and that of its occupants signify that they are "hicks," how they are more likely to get the poor boys in trouble for a little pot than they are one of those young and promising college students.

I see the very real effects of prejudice against poor Southern people every single day, and it is not in any way, shape, or form constrained by political persuasion. If you want to pretend that perpetuating those stereotypes and the harm they do is OK because the people you are reducing to subhuman status *might* politically oppose you, then those are your priorities. But it reveals a pretty ignorant and counterproductive understanding of class issues in the United States, and it sure as anything does not help the progressive cause.