That’s a capybara.
Stereotypically Caucasian does not mean definitely Caucasian.
Tell me. What is the overwhelmingly common target group that are called “rednecks?”
What if you went to a town that’s commonly described as being “full of rednecks” only to discover that it’s really mostly Asian? Honestly, what would you think to yourself?
White folk. So what?
You don’t have to be white to be a redneck, though.
Answer my second question.
I would think it was freakin’ weird. However, if you told me that [Asian person] was a redneck, and I met him and he was chewing Skoal and driving a '78 Trans Am, I wouldn’t bat an eyelid.
The fact that most rednecks are white doesn’t necessarily prove that redneck is a racist term. In this case, race is incidental. It’s an insult intended for a certain population for a number of different perceived traits, but race is not one of those traits. The most obvious proof of this is the fact that the term was invented by white people, to describe an economic and cultural subgroup of white people. It’s not a term intended to create divisions by race, but divisions by wealth within a particular race.
I would think it was weird, too, because I and most people have the idea in our heads a major characteristic of “redneck” is whiteness.
I think that most people use the term “redneck” with race very much in mind. Because of that, I’m having a hard time reconciling that it’s not a racist term.
We can get into formal definitions of the word all day long, but it still doesn’t excuse that the term is most often used to negatively describe a subset of WHITE people.
You know, “nigger” is likely the most powerful single racial term out there. So, yes, no other term can really be compared to it. There are still plenty of less offensive terms tha tpeople should not use and are banned here. For example “Jap” is pretty mild, but we have had it’s use discouraged by staff. And in some cases “Jap” isn’t a racist term, it is used by people of Japanese descent (and others) to refer to certain motorcycles as a slang term = “Jap bike”. It’s also pretty mild, clearly a mere shortening of the word “Japanese”. But still, in many contexts, it’s also meant derogitively. So, it appears to be out, in most usages anyway.
So, rather than the idea that “redneck” or “Honkey” are as “bad” as “nigger”- let us compare those terms to “jap”.
Redneck* could* be a socio-economic term, sometimes, and that is how it is defended here. But “honkey” and “whiteboy” can not be defended as refering to a economic grouping, but yet they apparently will still be allowed.
So the defence of “redneck” based upon it’s sometimes use as a socio-economic term is also disingenuous. It appears that from the responses here by Marley, that *no term at all *that refers to the white majority here in Amercia can be considered hate speech.
I can see an occasional in context usage of “Redneck” as acceptable (just like “Jap”). But can anyone defend “Honkey” or “whiteboy” as anything but hate speech?
I dunno. It’s a derogatory term that is race-specific in common usage. The fact that it’s directed against a particular class of white people just means that it’s classist as well as racist. I don’t know whether the significance of the word’s origin trumps how the word is actually used now. Context is a big factor. The term “Uncle Tom” coined by a white woman, and I daresay it carries different weight depending on whether it’s used by one black person against another, or by a white guy like Ralph Nader.
Which I agreed with above. However, I can’t think of another racial slur which doesn’t necessarily apply to a specific racial group. Can you?
I guess, on reflection, it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t offend me; it matters if it seriously offends other people. If the OP considers it truly objectionable, ban it.
Well, this is a little hard, I suppose. Can you give me a list of races?
I don’t think your logic follows. Look at it this way: everyone who could be described by the word “nigger” is a human being. Does this mean that “nigger” is insulting to all humans? No, of course not. The term describes a specific subset of the human race. Calling someone a “nigger” isn’t a “speciesist” insult, even though everyone it’s used against is of the same species.
I agree that the origins of a term are not the end-all of definition, but I don’t think the usage of “redneck” has shifted significantly from its origins. And as I said in my first post, it certainly can be used as a blanket derogatory term for all white people, depending on the context. But that applies to any term: if I say that I got a deal on Craig’s List by Jewing the other guy down, I’ve just used “Jew” in a racially derogatory manner. That doesn’t make “Jew” intrinsically derogatory, though.
If the yardstick for banning terms is that it insults at least one person, we’re going to run out of acceptable words around here real quick.
These are good points. At heart, I suspect that defining racism is ultimately a quagmire because the popular concept of race itself is fairly senseless to begin with.
I guess I really need to reconcile myself to uncertainty, and accept that I may or may not be racist when I make fun of rednecks.
A little more ignorance-fighting from a running GQ thread – any potential federal and state laws against hate speech were ruled unconstitutional in 1992.
That, I didn’t know going in to our discussion. Thought it might have been on some state books.
Interesting, and I wondered about the constitutional issues there, but it doesn’t really affect things here.
You can’t have it both ways. Is white not a race, then?
You stated that you “can’t think of another racial slur which doesn’t necessarily apply to a specific racial group.” Then you asked if I could. You need to give me some parameters, here, i.e., races.
For example, I can think of lots of slurs that apply only to subnets of Asians, primarily based on country of origin. Do you consider Asian to be a race? If I called someone a “nip,” would you consider that racist? I realize the differences between “nip” and “redneck,” but I’m curious as to your answer.
Also, please refrain from cropping my mosts. I’d like not for my quoted words to be taken out of context. Thanks. (edit: you didn’t do this for the last post, but you have all along and it’s tad annoying)
You’re missing the point. It’s not whether Slur X only applies to a subset of a given group, it’s whether Slur X can apply to members of other groups too.
I would guess that the term “nigger” has been used, at one point or another over the last couple hundred years, to describe members of pretty much every dark-skinned race on the planet: Polynesians, Indians, etc. I recall that the charming epithet “sand-nigger” was frequently bandied about post-9/11.
Wikipedia seems to bear out my suspicions:
Also, in addition to “sand-nigger” for Arabs, “timber nigger” refers to Native Americans. Weird.