What really is a Redneck?
A lot of folks are going around calling themselves Redneck, and a lot more are going around bad-mouthing folks like me 'cause I call myself a Redneck. I'm starting to get the idea that most of 'em don't even know what a Redneck really is! So this here is my "educational" portion of my web site - just to tell you a little bit about us.
So here goes: it all started back just before the Civil War. You see, the North and the South had developed different cultures. The North had been settled earlier and the winters were colder (still are!) so there wasn't as much of a growing season as there was in the South. So the North turned mostly industrial, and started making things instead of raising crops. Down in ol' Dixie, the opposite was true. Folks were mostly farmers. They had a slower pace of life, and used slaves to perform the farm labor.
WAIT A MINUTE! Did I say slaves? Yep, that's what they used. You see, they didn't have tractors yet, since they hadn't been invented, and dumb animals could only do so much. So the slaves were the perfect answer to the labor problem. Now most of y'all probably knew that. But I'll bet you didn't know where the slaves came from...
Slavery started years before in the North (YES, THE NORTH!) when a bunch of merchants were looking for something to sell. They came across these "primitive" tribes in Africa, and decided to sell them! Now these tribes weren't really all that primitive, they just looked different, and talked different, and acted different form the traders, so the traders decided tyhey must be primitive. Sounds like some things that go on today, don't it?
Anyway, the traders either caught the slaves, or bought them from the chiefs, and shipped them over to the New World. Now I've heard horror stories about the treatment of slaves on these ships (I heard one congressman say that so many slaves were thrown overboard during the trips, the sharks changed their migration course to the shipping lanes!) and I'm sure some of 'em are true, but I doubt that most of 'em are. Why? Because these slaves were valuable! They were the whole reason the traders were out there in the first place! Just throwin' 'em overboard would be like throwing away money, and these were greedy folks, so I have a little trouble swallowing a lot of these tales. Mistreated, OK, maybe. Killed? Not unless it was absolutely neccessary!
They sold the slaves in the New World. That was mostly the North in the early days, since it was settled first. Now when the Southern farmers needed farm labor, they got them some slaves from the Yankees and started farming. And it worked great! Slaves were actually people, so they could be trained to do anything. Of course, slavery of ANYBODY is wrong, and it was back then, but I'm just tellin' it from the farmers' standpoint.
Anyway, this went on for a while, until some enlightened individuals (mostly up North) decided that slavery was wrong. Smart decision, but they took it a little too far. You see, just freeing their own slaves wasn't good enough - they decided that everybody should free the slaves. And a little congressional power behind 'em did the trick so far as shoving that idea down everybody's throat!
Now like I said before, slavery is wrong. I don't agree with some of that trash from some so-called "rednecks" (I call 'em "redneck wannabe's"!) about shipping all the blacks and Jews back to Africa and Israel. They ain't nothing wrong with being from a different place, or having a different skin color. I'm just trying to get this point across about how the Southerners felt about the issue, 'cause that's real important to the story.
Anyway, the Southerners had already been getting the short end of the stick on some bills that Congress passed - getting taxed higher just 'cause they were farmers and stuff like that. So here comes the Yankees, the same people who introduced slavery to the South, telling the Southerners that now they had to give 'em up. Well, that just didn't set right with the farmers. They didn't have any other way to farm the huge fields that they were growing, and they had to farm big places because of the taxes they were paying.
So the Southerners decided if they couldn't get fair treatment from the Federal government, then they didn't want to play no more. They decided to secede and form their own country, the Confederate States of America. Of course the yankees didn't like that one bit, so out came the armies and the guns, and the Civil War was begun.
Regardless of why it started, the Civil War was a terrible thing. You had folks from the same families lining up on different sides and shooting each other. The really sad thing is that if the Yankees hadn't been so rushed to get the anti-slavery laws passed, there wouldn't have been a need for the Civil War. Southerners were starting to think twice about the slavery thing, too. But when the Yankees decided to ram the issue down their throats, well, folks, all heck broke loose!
During the Civil War, the South was all but destroyed. Farms were burned to the ground, women and kids were abused, brothers and fathers were killed, it was just a mess! And of course, everybody's heard about General Sherman's march to the sea. He didn't just march, he burned his way! Now Atlanta is a proud town, and Southerners were real proud of it, so this just ticked everybody off.
After the war, ol' Abe Lincoln had a plan to re-build the South; He didn't forget they were still Americans. But he went and got himself killed, so the plan never happened. Instead, the Yankees came down to help us re-build. Of course, they intended to get a little slice of the pie for themselves. They saw an opportunity to take the Southerners to the cleaners.
Picture this: The farms are burnt or destroyed, the ones that are left are badly damaged, the farmers are trying to make a crop so they can hold on to what's left of their land. But the carpetbaggers didn't care. They saw an opportunity to buy the land dirt-cheap, since the farmers usually couldn't even pay the taxes on it.
So after all the atrocities of the war, the remaining Southerners are driven off their land by a bunch of greedy businessmen. It's no wonder they began to hate the blacks - they were a constant reminder of the war, and the hardships they were going through. The Yankees took a name for the folks that tried to hold on to their land throughout all of this - rednecks. They were usually working the fields from sun-up to sun-down, bent over, and the backs of their necks tanned deep red. Of course they were considered stupid, because they were taken so easily, and unsophisticated because they didn't have much of a culture left. The funny thing is that all this was the direct result of the war that the Yankees started.
Of course the Southerners tried to fight back. They organized a group to protect the wounded vets and the women and kids while they were trying to hold on to what they had. The carpetbaggers weren't above burning somebody out to make them sell faster. This group was secretive, since the Union army was posted to keep the peace, and they usually looked the other way when a Yankee did something. They wore hoods so they couldn't be recognized, and they always warned the wrong-doers before they took any drastic action. They would erect a cross in the yard and light it so it could be easily seen. Oh, yeah, if you haven't guessed by now, they called themselves the Ku Klux Klan.
Now the KKK has changed a lot during the years, but I thought it was important to set the record straight - they didn't start out as a hate group, they were originally protectors and peace-keepers. It's really a shame to see what they have become, but remember where they came from and it might make y'all think a little the next time you decide to belittle them.
Anyway, let's get back to the main point. Redneck has changed over the years, but it still has kept part of it's original meaning. Stubborn? Yes. Proud? Yes. Willing to fight for what they believe in, even when the odds are against them? Yes. Willing to work for what they want? Yes. These are characteristics of all Rednecks, regardless of where they live.
But there's a few things they are not. Rednecks ain't racists, at least no more so than other folks. They don't marry their cousins (that goes back to the war, when EVERYBODY in an area was related - so who were they gonna marry?), and they don't sexually abuse livestock. They are just as smart as the rest of the folks, they have families, they hold down jobs, and they make decent neighbors. They are just good old folks who have a strong sense of right and wrong, and they're not gonna change it just because somebody says they should.
They are a little different. You can always tell a Redneck - he's the one that winds up being the butt of the jokes, but doesn't really care. He's the guy that everybody knows, but not real good. He's the guy who stays to himself most of the time, but is always there if you need a hand (but never asks for help himself). We come from everywhere now, the South, the North, the Midwest, and the West Coast. There's even some Rednecks overseas. Look around real close - one of us might be living next door!
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