White trash. Trailer Trash. People of Wall mart.

[theHandpuppet]

233. From my DU Journal, 2005 & 2006

I've borrowed these OPs from my DU journal because after some 8 or 9 years I believe they're still relevant. Although I do believe the name-calling isn't as bad here as it was some years ago, the problem persists. I only ask, like hootinholler, that folks take a moment to consider why we use certain terms to denigrate people by class and that when we do, we play right into the narrative of those whose goal is to keep the 99% at each other's throats. If we're going to point fingers, it shouldn't be down but up.

Many thanks to hootinholler for this thread.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=230x1014
Why is name-calling the poor still okay even among "progressives"?
Edited on Fri Aug-04-06 11:03 AM by theHandpuppet

I'm posting this rant on the Poverty Forum because I don't dare post it on GD. I've brought this subject up before only to be met with outright hostility. Am I the only person who is sick and tired of a certain kind of name-calling that goes on throughout the "progressive" community here? Why is it that folks who otherwise identify themselves as politically enlightened think it's okay to refer to their political foes as "trailer trash", "stupid hillbillies" et al?

This is really, really bothering me and I'm having a hard time keeping a lid on my anger. I am Appalachian and a proud Scottish/German Jewish, college educated, progressive lesbian "hillbilly" who grew up as a "river rat" but has been an activist since I was involved in publishing an anti-war newsletter at 15 and helped lead a mass walkout of my high school to protest the Vietnam War. I am DAMNED SICK AND TIRED of every bozo Repuke being dismissed as some "toothless, ignorant hillbilly" when a majority of the people throwing those perjoratives around wouldn't know a hillbilly if they woke up next to one in the morning.

If you dare to object to this kind of name-calling you're called thin-skinned or told to "lighten up". Well, I'm not going to "lighten up." The poor are not our enemies, the powerless are not our enemies, the hungry or uneducated are not our enemies. The ones pulling the strings in this country can be found among the uber rich and their corporate allies. They can have Ivy-League educations. They live in the best homes. They're still scumbags. I'll proudly take my poor hillbilly neighbors any day over their kind of trash.

I had to grow up with that kind of hurtful name-calling and I'm totally sick of hearing this on DU. It's a kind of class warfare that turns my stomach. So what can you do?

I followed that up with...

Why are there no equivalent names for wealthy GOP voters?

After all, since they are in a position to make "educated "choices from their perches of comfort, shouldn't we hold them just as responsible as poor GOP voters? Even moreso, I would say. They are the ones stuffing GOP coffers, they are the lobbyists, the Bush "pioneers". Who threatens us more? The poor or rural person who votes for Bush out of ignorance or from being misled, or the well-heeled GOP voter who knows EXACTLY what they are doing and why, all the while providing those who will fashion a government suited to their greed with pocketsful of campaign cash? Why don't we have dismissive names for those folks, ones that reflect their economic status? You know why? Because in this country poverty is considered a moral failing. If you're poor you must be lazy, a loser. Boortz, hatemonger that he is, probably reflects a more widely held belief among Americans than we will ever admit, even to ourselves. If that wasn't true I wouldn't be seeing that very attitude reflected on DU, day after day. No wonder there are those who would call us "liberal elitists" when there are too many within the party who continually ridicule people who may lack an education or a decent place to live. As the old saying goes, if the shoe fits, wear it. They mock the way the poor dress, talk, walk, eat, vote. "Rednecks, hillbillies, trailer trash.." Yes, we've heard them all. I'm just not sure how much more of it I can take before I lose my temper and end up getting myself kicked off DU.

And then this...

I just want people to be aware without dismissing our feelings

Part of that process is letting folks such as yourself know where I am coming from. I grew up with the name-calling, being made to feel ashamed of and dismissed for something I feel is a real part of my identity. Some of my most vivid memories from childhood have to do with being called those hurtful names, of actually having been spit upon for being a "hilljack". For instance, I once remember a band trip I took with my school to the white, middle class suburb of Upper Arlington, Ohio, a Columbus suburb. It was a real treat for a bunch of poor kids who rarely got to take trips of any kind. Uniforms -- UNIFORMS! -- were a big deal, even though they were only old and borrowed. Well, we got to participate in a parade through that town and I WILL NEVER FORGET those people lining the streets and shouting names at us like "hillbillies!" and "river rats!" and actually throwing garbage at us while we passed. I went home that night and cried myself to sleep. I WILL NEVER FORGET. I will never forget the snickers when that first day of college I walked in with my clothes in a paper sack because I didn't own a piece of luggage, only to be given the clothes closet with one bare bulb as a studio while every other young person in my class was given an airy space with studio windows. I WILL NEVER FORGET.

I am proud of my Appalachian heritage. Proud of my beautiful, talented mother, the daughter of German Jewish refugees and who grew up in little more than a shack next to the railroad tracks; my mother who had a poor piece of meat to eat once a week if she was lucky and kept warm by collecting bits of coal from the loads that dropped off trains traveling through to somewhere else. Proud that she valued every one of us and exposed us to everything she believed would make us whole human beings -- art, music, dance, literature. Of walking hand in hand with my mother, day after day, to a wondrous public library (which to me seemed like a palace) and coming out with another armload of books. Mother would then make tea, sit her children around a rickety old card table and read to us. Never once did I ever hear my mother disparage another human being for their religion, for their race, for how much money they might or might not have in their pocket -- and she would never have allowed that in her home. Yes, we were and are hillbillies. Oh, I could tell you stories.

I am proud of my father's family, whose first American patriarch came to Virginia as an indentured servant and whose children and grandchildren trekked into the wild Appalachian mountains as free men. Proud of those who, to a man, served in Union regiments from Kentucky to free women and men who were worse off than themselves. (The fact that Appalachia was the bedrock of Southern Unionists is a neglected fact of history.) Proud of my large, strapping father who wrote reams of poetry and gave up his dreams of becoming a writer to toil all his life on the railroad to support his large family, who sacrificed much to send us all to college and never doubted our worth as human beings.

So you'll have to pardon what has turned into something of a rant here. I just want folks to know where that hurt comes from and no matter where you go those demons will follow. "Judge not, lest ye also be judged." I'm a hillbilly, not a dirty word.

Lastly, there was this ....

Maybe it's time to reclaim the word "redneck"

Once upon a time the word "redneck" had totally different connotations. It was a source of pride among union miners, including miners of color, who fought for justice against mine owners and government troops during what is known as "The Redneck War of 1921". Just do a Google search for the West Virginia miner's strike of 1921 or "The Redneck War of 1921" and you will find many links of historical interest. Miners who chose to take up arms in the struggle identified one another by the wearing of red bandanas around their necks; hence the term "rednecks". Of course, those who looked down upon the miners used this term in a derogatory fashion to describe anyone who was poor, perhaps lacked education or polish. Ironically, too many today who supposedly take pride in being called rednecks play right into the hands of those who used that term as a slur rather than as a source of pride, for the history of the "Redneck Miners" is one that has been lost to American History books. You have to look to the history of labor battles in this country to realize just what the redneck miners contributed to the labor movement and to justice in this country.

For just a glimpse into the "Redneck War of 1921" here are a couple of links.

http://www.appalachianhistory.net/2009/08/original-redneck-explanation.html
http://www.wvgenweb.org/wvcoal/red.html

As for the thread from 2005, I'm only providing the OP here, as the thread itself was quite long.

Class Warfare Here On DU -- STOP IT!

Posted by theHandpuppet in General Discussion (Through 2005)
Fri Aug 19th 2005, 11:30 AM

Y'know, I'm really getting very discouraged by what I view as the class warfare too often being waged within many threads here on DU. I can't tell you just how many times within the course of a single day I read disparaging remarks here about people in poor and/or rural areas. Vicious stereotyping of the poor is not something I expect here on DU.

Some of the comments I've read just today are worthy of the worst Freeper posts, ridiculing what poor folk eat, drive, where they live, go to the bathroom, et al ad infinitum.

Let me give you a clue, folks: it's not the poor in this country who sent us to Iraq, who are raking in billions via corruption and illegal wars, who are profiting from fixed elections, sucking up to lobbyists, driving Hummers, living in mini-mansions and gated communities, stealing from state pension funds, ripping off the American people via corporate robbers like Enron, who are donating millions upon millions into Republican coffers, who own the RW hate radio stations and mediawhore outlets, who spew their twisted visions of our future from their RW think-tanks, or whose policies are being rebelled against in vigils all across this land.

Are there, among poor folk, those whose actions and deeds are revolting, lacking in compassion or downright greedy? You bet. Yet for every small town preacher taking advantage of a poor widow on Social Security there are a few score and more of millionaires right in DC who are cannibalizing millions upon millions of their own citizens. Too bad their vile isn't so eagerly exploited by the media -- but then they own the media, don't they.

The Democratic Party is supposed to be the party which represents, among its number, the disenfranchised of this nation -- and that includes the poor and working class folks in this country of ours. Sometimes you'd never know it by some of the posts I read here on DU.

[Snipping the last sentence here, lest someone take it out of context.]