Let's make this clear: responding to your teenage child's words with violence is NOT OKAY.

[antigone382]

35. If you were the descendant of Appalachian coal miners you would not feel this way.

Please tell Judy Bonds that it is OK to marginalize "rednecks," "hillbillies," etc. because they have not been exploited in our country's history. Except you can't, because after decades of fighting for an end to mountaintop removal, she died of cancer last year, like so many of the people drinking the poisoned water and breathing the poisoned air of her community.

Most "rednecks" come from poor areas with inadequate access to education, healthcare, and decent, respectful jobs--the consequence of those conditions is ignorance. Many of them are located in areas that have been continuously devastated by loggers and coal companies on a social, economic, and ecological scale that most Americans have no concept of. Do you want to know how many of your scorn-deserving rednecks I know who live without access to clean water or decent housing, who have given their limbs or their loved ones to industries that monopolize their lands and their governments, leaving them in a state of fear that if they do not give even these things away, the only economic opportunity they have will be lost??? Do you want to know how many redneck boys I have seen sucked into the prison-system, drained of any hope or sense of opportunity--and very largely because they were perceived as worthless rednecks?

My intention is not to equate the struggles of Appalachian people to the struggles of blacks. However, the notion that any group is acceptable to mock is beyond shameful, and ignorant of history to boot.