OK. Is this a refusal of my awkward olive branch? If so, I shan’t bother you again (or go hungry, for that matter, Woody.)
Can we make nouveau riche be treated as hate speech as well?
Daniel
No refusal, just didn’t want to get hijacked into that discussion or any tangents. Also, a bit busy at work.
Yes, usually, yes, and yes, respectively. Now, even though I consider them hate terms, as they are used disparagingly the vast majority of the time – even moreso than Nigg+, – should they be disallowed on the SDMB? Who knows?
Same here, except I’m not really amused or pissed off.
To me, “hillbilly” is no more derogatory than “tarheel”, or “hoosier”. It refers to people from a specific location. Whereas, “white trash” and “redneck”, are derogatory terms referring to the way people live.
What a marvelous age we live in.
And not just because I bet I never would have encountered 90% of those terms if someone hadn’t catalogued them. 
Celebrate yourself in anyway that you like, and more power to you! But I will be amused if you move the Appalachian Mountains to Ohio. The highest point in Ohio is in Western Ohio – Campbell Hill, and it’s only 1, 550 feet above sea level.
No, your point is noted. I guess one of the differences is that most of the words that you listed are labels used against individuals. Use of the word dork or asshole or motherfucker doesn’t encourage stereotyping and promote ignorance about a group of people. And that’s what I’m more sensitive to.
I am in agreement with you that the hillfolk are generally pleasant people to know and spend time with. That’s not what I’m objecting to at all. It’s not an insult to be grouped in with these people.
It is insulting to reduce them to cartoonish versions of who they really are, ridicule their culture and customs, laugh at their poverty, make unfounded assumptions about their intelligence, attribute characteristics to them that they don’t have and then assume that most people who live within five hundred miles of them have those same characteristics.
Not only is it insulting, but it also promotes ignorance.
(Personal note to LHOD: The next time you have a few minutes on your hands, take the short walk from the Wolfe house to what used to be his father’s business for me. If you’ve never read Look Homeward, Angel, maybe you would find something in it. I am particularly fond of Asheville.)
I absolutely agree. I think our disagreement, if we have one, is whether the words “hillbilly,” “redneck,” and “white trash” are used exclusively, or even primarily, to contribute to this sort of cartoonish caricature. I tend to hear the words used to jokingly describe oneself; when they’re used as pejoratives, I tend to hear them used to describe behaviors (e.g., someone is called a redneck because they fly the Confederate flag or because they confine hunting dogs to tiny, cramped enclosures, not because they live in a ramshackle house).
I strongly object to characterizing someone pejoratively for their economic background. I don’t object to a pejorative characterization based on a person’s behavior.
Where’s his father’s business? I pass by the Wolfe house a couple times a month–it’s just been rebuilt after a disastrous fire several years ago–but I didn’t know his father had a business in town. And I keep meaning to read Look Homeward Angel, but haven’t gotten to it yet.
Daniel
Just like the other assholes in this thread, you can be amused by whatever the fuck you like.
But since your ignorance is profound, how about a few links?
http://www.oache.org/appfacts.html
http://www.appalachianohio.org/
http://www.appalachianohio.com/
http://www.odod.ohio.gov/goa/ARC4ProgramAreas.htm
http://www.oache.org/counties.htm
I know where the fuck I live.
Zoe,
I’m not sure where you are, but the southern and southeastern parts of Ohio are part of Appalachia. From the Appalachian Regional Commission list of counties in Appalachia: Ohio: Adams, Athens, Belmont, Brown, Carroll, Clermont, Columbiana, Coshocton, Gallia, Guernsey, Harrison, Highland, Hocking, Holmes, Jackson, Jefferson, Lawrence, Meigs, Monroe, Morgan, Muskingum, Noble, Perry, Pike, Ross, Scioto, Tuscarawas, Vinton, and Washington. link.
Tim
among the hillbillies in Chillicothe (Ross County) Ohio
Left Hand of Dorkness, Thomas Wolfe’s father had a business that I believe was at the Southeastern end of the “square.” In the book his father carved monuments, but I can’t remember if that was also true in real life. I think maybe so. It seems to me that there are tools of the trade or markers of some sort on the sidewalk in front of the bulding. I remember it as almost a straight walk from the house.
Before you begin the book, stop by the house and get a copy of The Lost World of Thomas Wolfe for about six bucks. Since Look Homeward Angel is very autobiographical, this book is mostly a corresponding photo book to illustrate the real life parallels.
I am thrilled to hear that they have rebult the house! The interior had been gutted the last time I was there.
Oh, I have so been waiting for your permission. But I’ve never thought of you as an asshole.
Your links, and Tim’s source, indicate that the Southeastern part of your state is considered part of Appalachia – not that the Apalachian Mountains are a feature of the Ohio landscape. But if you insist…
Hey. It’s a start.
I didn’t think you were one either until you condescended so ignorantly in this thread. I honestly don’t know what your deal is.
You quarreled when I said I lived in Appalachia. Obviously, you were mistaken about the definition of Appalachia.
This area is most often considered part of the Appalachian Mountains:
Zoe, have you ever crossed the Ohio River from West Virginia or Kentucky into Ohio? Maybe you have, but I suspect not. When you cross the river, you leave the foothills of the Appalachians and enter… more foothills of the Appalachians. I live about 50 miles from the Ohio River, in the Scioto River valley. The land here is mostly nice, flat fertile river valley land, but it is interspersed with these features. They stick up 200 to 500 feet above the surrounding land, they are too steep and rocky to farm, and geologists tells us they are a part of the geological formation known as the Appalachian Mountains. We call these mountains. They wouldn’t impress a Sherpa, but in the eastern US, they’re mountains. Appalachian Mountains, to be precise.
I can understand this distinction of “geologically connected” versus “impressively connected” because the Appalachian chain runs out about 10-15 miles north of Montgomery, Alabama, where I lived for six years. I used to drive up to the last real “hill” in that chain and look into the distance at the Montgomery “skyline.” The hills in that section of Alabama are barely hills, much less mountains, but if you follow the landforms further northeast you eventually get into high country that continues to rise to the level of the Blue Ridge, the Smokies, and the obvious “mountains” in the Southern Highlands. It is very amusing to people in the West (I have to assume) to hear these mountains referred to as “mountains” when you have The Rockies and other chains in the West to compare to. I’ve seen cross section charts comparing East and West mountains and it’s obvious that the high ground in the East is puny by comparison.
For someone who’s used to elevations in the hundreds of feet to go to where they’re in the thousands, the change is dramatic, but to go where they’re in the tens of thousands is staggering. It’s all relative.
Bah. The Rockies are teenage upstart mountains. Our mountains are the oldest mountains in the world, and you want to mock them for being a little worn-down?
Daniel
What’s really cool – if you believe the Plate Techtonics version – is that The Appalachians were formed when we banged into Africa and Africa got the Atlas Mountains for its trouble. I’ve always thought the Sequatchie Valley needs to be explained better than the versions I’ve read about. Not that I’ve read all that much about it.
Yep. My sister lives in Jackson Wyoming. Now those are mountains! Another sister lived in Las Cruces. Not as tall as the Tetons, but some pretty neat mountains, too.
What’s funny is that my dad, who grew up here in the hills, absolutely loved heading north in Ohio to where the abrupt change comes and it’s all rolling farmland. There are a couple of spots on the freeways where you top a low rise and miles and miles of fields dotted with farm buildings stretch out before you. To him, that was the most beautiful sight in the world. To me? “It’s pretty flat, Dad.”
Lots of my friends are Kanaks and Mokes. :rolleyes: :dubious: 