Rednecks: America's Last Minority?

Fortunately, we don’t sell many of the Redneck cigarette lighters displayed on the counter near the Bics. One is called “Redneck Bottom Fishing” and has a cartoon depicting two guys sitting on the bottom of a lake wearing swim goggles. One is holding a bass. There is also a dog swimming around with a mask, and a beer cooler tied down and floating above them. Another is called “Redneck Fishfinder,” depicting a guy in a boat holding the legs of another guy who is mostly submerged under water searching for fish. The “Redneck Bass Fishing” lighter depicts a few guys who just tossed dynamite into a lake, exploding, with fish flying out of the water. “Redneck Fishing Tournament” shows guys using high-voltage electrical wires to shock and kill fish.

I envision stereotypical rednecks getting a "har, har" chuckle out of these lighters as they toss their cigarette butts in lakes and rivers before heading home to watch Duck Dynasty.

The lighters are made in Spain for a company called Buck Wear which sells all manner of hats, shirts, coffee mugs and other merchandise stereotyping rural folks. (Ironically, they also sell merchandise that supports the stereotypes they make fun of, such as “Patriotic,” “God Bless America: Love it Or Leave It!,” NRA “You Can Have My Guns When You Pry My Dead Fingers Off It” sort of things. In other words, they apparently profit by selling stereotypes to the people who proudly fit the stereotypes.   

But not everyone who fits the stereotype is amused – like the older, gray-bearded man who came into the store one evening to buy a six-pack of Bud Light. He was wearing an NRA hat. As I was ringing him up he says, “I gotta tell you, I am greatly offended by these lighters.”

He has a strong southern accent.

“I can understand that,” I say. “I am kind of offended by them too. They definitely perpetuate stereotypes.”  
“Damn right they do,” the man says. “I am from Georgia and find it very offensive.”

I thought I knew where he was coming from. I had recently read an article in Salon by Alexandra Bradner called “America’s favorite joke is anything but funny,” about making fun of rural people, particularly on TV reality shows such as “Buckwild” (which I have never seen).

Bradner tells of a controversial proposal to make a show called “The Real Beverly Hillbillies” and quotes U.S. Congressman Harold Rogers of Kentucky who said, “No one would dare propose creating a program focusing on stereotypes about African-Americans, Muslims or Jews … Why then would it be okay to bash those of us living in rural America?”

Good question. Bradner takes a good shot at answering it:

“Of course, we all know why. Suffering people are so entertaining. There’s nothing more humorous than decades and decades of exploitation at the hands of the coal and natural gas industries, both of which have ravaged the landscape and choked its people in miserable jobs, hundreds of dark miles beneath the Earth’s surface. We love to chuckle at insurmountable educational challenges, like the fact that, in 2007, only 17.3 percent of people age 25 or over in West Virginia had a bachelor’s degree, the lowest rate in the nation. The lack of basic healthcare in some regions, the aging population, the weight management issues, the diabetes, the heart disease, the mesothelioma, the routine chemical spills, and the poisoned drinking water are pretty funny. Household incomes from 2007 to 2011 that are $13,000 lower than the national average and 17.5 percent of the state’s population below the poverty line — riotous. And what’s more laughable than, as of 2010, the ninth-highest teenage birthrate in the country?”

Bradner suggests that we stereotype and make fun of rural folks to insulate ourselves from real issues and needs and to make ourselves feel better, more “sophisticated” than others.

"I can see your point," I tell the customer from Georgia. "I will bring it up with my boss."
“Good,” he says. “But I doubt it’ll do any good. Nobody cares if you make fun of rednecks. We’re the last minority.”
“The last minority?” I say.
“Yes,” he replies. “I bet you would never see anyone selling faggot lighters, kike lighters or nigger lighters.”
“Whoa!” I say. “That is hardly the same thing! Those are terrible, insulting words that degrade people for who and what they are; redneck is a term for how people behave . . . a lifestyle they live . . . many seem to love being rednecks . . . they use the term themselves . . . but they choose to be rednecks; they weren’t born rednecks . . “
“Bullshit,” the man says. “I was born a redneck and damn proud to be a redneck!”
“Wow,” I say. “Do you march in redneck pride parades?”
“I would,” he says.
“Are you offended by Jeff Foxworthy?” I ask.
“No,” he says. “He’s just being funny.”
“We also sell Duck Dynasty hats,” I say. “Are you offended by that?”
“Hell no,” he says. “They tell it like it is. They’re the real deal!”
“I guess that's why they call it reality TV,” I say.

At this point his transaction is complete and I am hoping he will just leave. He doesn’t.

“We’re the last real Americans,” he says. “Yet we’re the only Americans it’s okay to make fun of.”
“You do realize that you are being the stereotypical southern redneck that people make fun of, right?" I say, "The stereotype you claim to be offended by?”
“How so?” he asks.
“Well . . . by being an ignorant, hateful, intolerant bigot who thinks you’re the only true American,” I say.

He looks surprised. And offended.

“That’s a bunch of damn politically-correct bullshit!” he says. “And I’ll tell you what, I ain’t spending my money here again.”
“I’d rather you didn’t,” I say.

In her article for Salon, Alexandra Bradner also wrote: 

“The problem with a stereotype is usually not that it is completely inaccurate, but that it identifies a feature as relevant or important for irrelevant reasons and, in so doing, makes it difficult for the person or entity to break out of the stereotype and beyond it.”