It is a gross over-simplification to equate an entire class of people with residence in trailer parks, but that is exactly what has happened; the most popular stereotype going today is that trailer parks and rednecks go together. Having lived in more than one rolling home, I feel within my rights to say, "Who cares?"
Jeff Foxworthy and some of his "Blue Collar" colleagues have made a mint off the Redneck brand. Their success indicates there is a large demographic out there who like to make fun of themselves and even take a perverse pride in wearing an epithet that has heretofore been demeaning.
In the interest of full disclosure, I come from people who have been a part of, yet always hoped to rise above, the redneck culture. We were broke, but never poor. We suffered and sacrificed, but never ended up in the "poor house” as my father always warned us we might.
Out of necessity, my family strived for self-sufficiency on a small Texas farm in the 1940s. My parents and all my siblings were veterans of the Great Depression. It turned out to be great training. To make extra money between harvests, my dad trapped, cured furs and tanned leather. My mom drove the school bus and worked in the school cafeteria. In the fall, my mother and I, with two of my siblings, picked cotton alongside migrant workers. We had a wind generator and raised our own food. In short, we were rednecks.
Rednecks, whatever the definition, were once a subculture. Now their ranks are burgeoning with new arrivals from higher up the economic scale. Assimilation will be swift, if the newbies want to make it with their new friends.
The good news: As Bocephus sings, "A Country Boy Can Survive."
There is more good news. While Americans of the middle and upper classes were busy trying to divest themselves of any provincial or rustic connections and thus had become a people with no heritage or identity, Rednecks were becoming a more homogenous people, making rich contributions to the greater culture.
Country music with all its variations is so universal and powerful that it not only defines a culture, but provides people moral and spiritual support in their everyday lives. (I would join a church whose entire ministry was made up of country music).
The bedrock principle of Redneck Economics:
Work your ass off, trade for everything you can and grow the rest.
So, all is not lost for those who never expected another Depression, let alone a class transformation. You could do worse than be assimilated by the redneck culture.
Think about it-- they live in the best part of America that's still intact: rural, agricultural and small town America. It's the same world inhabited by God-fearing people, country music, great food, true patriotism, family values and the last Americans with anything close to the original ideal of freedom.
Fulbright in 1966-67; Visiting Lecturer in American Literature with Baghdad University/Texas University Exchange Program. Guest Lecturer for the American Authors Lecture Series for the United States Information Service in Iraq.
Co-authored with Carole Chaney "Baghdad Letters" in 2003, a collection of letters and journals written in 1966-67 in Iraq.
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