R. E. Lee is not PC

[Lisabob]

Whether they change their name from R.E. Lee to something else is none of my concern, since I don't live in that council. What I would say, Apache Bob, is that it also probably has very little impact in either direction on their membership numbers. Correlation is not causation.

[Gold Winger]

"Pack is right about the original use of redneck."

 

According to a documentary about the West Virginia coal mine wars that I saw on the History Channel, redneck originally refered to the miners who wore red bandanas to identify themselves during the pitched battles.

 

When I was a youth, a redneck was ususally someone who worked in the construction trade, usually of a conservative nature but it was never a disparaging term.

 

Someplace along the way, it became an insult.

[Apache Bob]

Gold Winger - I always thought it came from workers in the fields getting sun burned on the neck.

I do love the redneck jokes or scouter jokes.

[OldGreyEagle]

In the old South, the landed gentry got to sit on the porch and plan what to wear at the next Cotillion. The non-landed free people (read white) had to work for their living and in the fields most often at that. Yes, they had red necks from sun burn. Such people had little resources to educare their children so redneck became slang for a poor uneducated white person. Then again, after Googling Redneck, I am not so sure. Try Cracker as well.

[elfdream]

I also heard the thing about the West Virginia coal miners and the red bandannas. This was to identify them during the Battle of Blair Mountain.

 

I always thought that would make a good movie.

[packsaddle]

OGE, during my years living in the mill village and starting a family, I was surrounded by poor, relatively uneducated people whom many might have called, 'rednecks', probably in a disparaging tone. But I found most of them to be thoughtful, modest, generous, and deeply-caring people. There were, to be sure, some who didn't care about much of anything and just a few who were of criminal intent. But I could have said the same thing about the well-educated, middle-class communities in which I have since lived. Actually, I could add that it often seems that the more money some of us have, the more often that's all we care about. But that makes perfectly logical sense, I suppose.

 

Edited part: typos, sorry(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

[OldGreyEagle]

I understand Pack, it was an attempt to explain the origination of the word not judgemental, but speakign of which...

 

There is something called the "Red Neck Comedy Tour" and we have had threads here on the forum talk about "Red Neck" Themed Camporees. What do we think about that?

[packsaddle]

My family tree has branches. So I wouldn't know.