At 06:41 PM 12/9/95 CST, you wrote:
>
>Just a quick note to reenforce what you said about white trash.
>The moniker is doubly perjorative as that first it knocks the poor
>and underpriviledged as devoid of value, then it backhandedly slaps
>the black recipients of white derision with whom "trash" are usually
>compared.

Right.  But when it casually tossed off by soooo many people, it 
somehow gets legitimized....that's not the right word....it loses it's
punch or something.  I don't know....because that sounds like I'm saying
that by institutionalizing racism makes it OK.  I don't know what
I'm saying.  Lack of sleep, I guess.

>I was unconscious of this myself until it was poited out to me by an 
>actor from Vicksburg, MS.  The term redneck is a classist remark.
>It targets agriculturally-based white Southerners who work the land
>fort their livelyhood and bear the scars of sunburn (and often skin
>cancer) for their devotion to putting food on our tables.  Martin Luther
>King, Jr. had many "white trash" and "redneck" allies in his unachieved
>Poor People's March on Poverty that he was planning when gunned down.

What do you mean by classist?  Are you talking money as the only
determinant of "class"?  I don't associate the word "redneck" with
income level.  I associate it with someone who can't see beyond 
their front stoop (culturally, socially, politically, whatever).  
Yes, I'm aware of the words etymology, but I think its contemporary
usage imbues it with a different meaning altogether.

>Anyone who has something bad to say about farmers...
>ANDREW OF AMERICA
>Had better not talk with his mouth full.

Agribusiness, on the other hand.....

Why didn't you post your note to the group?   I would have appreciated
the public support!
Richard McKewen
Box 236 Cooper Station
New York, NY 10276-0236	               rqm9261@is.nyu.edu