Posted on 02/23/2005 10:16:43 PM PST by DAVEY CROCKETT
In an interview with New York Magazine, Rep. Charles Rangel said, "I don’t have the slightest clue who Hillary really is. All I see is a gal who knew she was as good as anyone else, and she saw this guy she could make something of, so she forfeited Illinois and went to Arkansas. That’s a hell of a move to make for a redneck, which is all he was." When asked if he really thought Bill Clinton was a redneck, Rangel told WWRL Radio's Steve Malzberg and Karen Hunter: "Of course he is. He's from Arkansas."
Many southerners were offended by Rangel’s implication that all southerners are rednecks. I am a native southerner, and an actual hillbilly from the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. I wasn’t offended by being referred to as a redneck by implication though; I was offended by another aspect of Rangel’s statement that hasn’t gotten much attention. No, it wasn’t that he described Hillary as an opportunist who only married Bill for power -- that seems pretty accurate. What offended me was Rangel’s implication that rednecks are on par with Bill Clinton.
A redneck is a rural, low land southerner - in other parts of the country, we are called hillbillies, cowboys, bumpkins, hicks or just country. Rednecks are traditional Americans, who work hard to support their families, and go to church on Sunday. Rednecks volunteer as Sunday school teachers, youth leaders, firemen and anything else their community needs. Rednecks usually drive pickup trucks, and they spend a lot more time than they would like using those trucks to haul things for neighbors, but they never complain, decline or accept payment. Rednecks pay their own way and spend their hard earned money on clothes, insurance, food and education for their kids - rednecks won’t take charity or welfare.
Rednecks mow their own lawns and work on their own vehicles and they have every manner of tool imaginable (which they keep in a shed that they built themselves). Rednecks don’t spend their leisure time protesting, or at fancy cocktail parties, criticizing President Bush’s grammar -- they hunt, fish and enjoy sports with their friends and families. Rednecks usually wear work boots or cowboy boots, but at some point in their lives most rednecks owned a pair of combat boots, when they risked their lives to give the "pampered" the privilege of criticizing our "cowboy" president. Rednecks show respect for veterans, say the Pledge of Allegiance with the words, "Under God", and stand when the national anthem is played. Rednecks may not have the best education, but they know what matters: faith, family, patriotism, self sacrifice, and a strong work ethic. A redneck may not have much money, but he knows what is truly valuable. If you threaten a redneck, his family, his friends or his country, he will not back down, surrender or appease.
In the words of Hank Williams Jr., "you can't starve us out and you can't make us run / Cause we’re them ole boys raised on shotguns / We say grace and we say ma'am / If you ain't into that we don't give a damn / We’re from North California and South Alabam / And little towns all around this land / And we can skin a buck and run a trot line / And a country boy can survive". ("Country Boy Can Survive")
In spite of all of our faults, flaws and country ways, rednecks have a strength of character that is a sign of integrity. Bill Clinton is no redneck! Bill Clinton is WHITE TRASH!. Many rednecks are registered Democrat because our daddies and granddaddies were Democrats, but we don’t vote that way any more -- and, we wouldn’t cross the street to spit on Bill Clinton.
Judson Cox is a political columnist from the mountains of North Carolina. He is quickly gaining recognition as one of the most popular and influential voices of his generation. As a college student, and a young entrepreneur, he has a unique perspective on matters of politics, economics and culture.
Copyright © 2005 Judson Cox
He is making a profit off of our money as we speak.
While on his little tsunami aid trip....he has been making public events for his book!
They are charging people 200 bucks a ticket to go to the signing.
AND HE HAS NO OVERHEAD.....Since his hotel and ride are paid for by the US on the tsunami trip.
Joe Scarborough reported it.
That is what a whole bunch of us from Arkansas tried to tell people for years. His entire family was, is and always be white trash. And he married white trash!
I remember at one time the budget office couldn't find a trillion dollars. All I could think about was him pocketing it. I'm sure he scammed us out of millions. You're right. IF we knew, I'd want to lynch him AGAIN after we lynched him for being a traitor. LOL
Spoken like a true rednex. :)
Now my brother is in Alabama. He is a redneck.
Rangel does not get the complexity of southern life.
the slimeball is not a "redneck". He's just a "red" and has his sojourn to Russia while in college and his selling of our nuke secrets to China to prove that. S/he is/are the proverbial "Manchurian candidate(s)". On the matter of "trash"; we have Charlie Rangel. Now anybody who knows anything about colloquilisms knows that "redneck" is intended as a derrogatory terms aimed at poor southern whites by those who (falsely) believe themselves superior (think: "Noo YAWK liberal"). This is to say that a black man calling a white man a "redneck" is intended in the same derrogatory sense as a white man calling a black "nigger". So why is it that a black elected official gets away with racist remarks like that and nobody calls HIM on the carpet for racism??
He used to be a redneck, but now all of the redness has gone to his nose.
<< Rednecks may not have the best education .... >>
Not true.
Rednecks as a Rule have the very very very best of Education -- of the kind, as often as not, that's not too badly buggared up by a lotta dumbest-denominator schoolin'!
Not bad though.
Half a sentence to take issue with in the whole piece.
The Author needs to spend more time on freerepublic. Then he would change this opinion!
isn't it amazing that caucasians have to do verbal gymnastics when referring to a member of Mr Rangel's race, yet he can use a term like "redneck" without hesitation and apparently get away with it ?
I grew up in cheap apartments and trailor parks and have been called 'white trash' so many times I couldnt even guestimate the number.
When I grew up, we looked up to rednecks as they had regular incomes.
Bill Clinton disgraced his office in a way that no one I knew growing up would, as we had more respect for the Presidency than that.
Bill Clinton is just an amoral lawyer, and thats a lot lower than 'white trash' any day.
Reminds me of a joke where this DC lawyer spends his two week vacation each year at the same little hotel in rural West Virginia. He watched the young daughter of the hotel owner grow up into a beautiful woman and fell into an affair with her one summer.
When he returned the next summer, he found her bouncing a baby on her knee - and yes, it was his son.
'Why, Mary Lou, I would have done the honorable thing and married you. Why didnt you tell me you were pregnant?' he asked.
'Well, my family and me stayed up till 3 am at the kitchen table talkin it over', she replied, 'and we finally decided that it would be better to have a bastard in the family than a lawyer.'
That about sums it up for me.
Bump that! This author has a growing presence in conservative circles here, but I'm reserving judgment on him so far. He paints with a mighty broad brush, as it were. I hesitate to go further, yet ... but the origin of the term "white trash" is in the assumption that ALL black people are trash.
Yeppers and that would make Hillary a
White Trash bag
"Cousin Monica and the Cigar"
I think I saw that on Spectravision once.... ;)
Hmmm I don't see your linkage at all...but I guess you do
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