Are "Hillbilly" & "Redneck" Nation's Last Acceptable Stereotypes? [View all]

[theHandpuppet]

http://rcnky.com/articles/2014/05/23/are-hillbilly-redneck-nations-last-acceptable-stereotypes
River City News
Are "Hillbilly" & "Redneck" Nation's Last Acceptable Stereotypes?
Friday, 05/23/2014

An online discussion among Appalachian academics sparked a debate about “whether bias in academe (and society) is too accepted when it is about the people of the region they study,” Scott Jaschik writes for Inside Higher Ed.

The discussion began with a report that a student had been walking around barefoot and a faculty member had called him a hillbilly. Others said that they’d heard similar comments, and that instructors who cautiously think about whether “their comments might offend members of many groups do not feel the same need to be sensitive to those from poor, largely white, rural communities in Appalachia,” Jaschik reports.

When the Academe Blog published the debate, it didn’t name the institution where the incident occurred, but Rosann Kent, director of Appalachian studies at the University of North Georgia, said she posted the question asking her colleagues what they would do about the other professor’s remark.

“Kent said what bothered her about the colleague’s comment was the quick assumption that this student must be from Appalachia and not just any student who was celebrating the end of the year and the arrival of warm weather by being slightly less dressed than normal,” Jaschik writes... MORE at link posted above.

Also see: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/05/13/online-faculty-discussion-raises-concern-about-bias-against-appalachians-and-poor?utm_source=slate&utm_medium=referral&utm_term=partner#sthash.YIbcS7Wf.3BFaz0hs.dpbs