Home
In this issue

Dec. 1, 2008

Max Freidlander, as told to Jacklyn C. Wadler: India Inkings

Mark Steyn: Whodunit!?

Nov. 28, 2008

Rabbi Ahron Rapps: An evil seed that didn't have to be

Melanie Phillips: Carpe diem --- or can we all relax now?

Nov. 26, 2008

Michael Feldberg: Meet the Orthodox Jew who laid groundwork for scientific development of ordnance that undergirds America's current world leadership

Andrea Simantov: Shades of life

Nov. 25, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Getting Emotional For Influence

The Kosher Gourmet by Ethel G. Hofman : Thanksiving feast!

Nov. 24, 2008

Rabbi S. Binyomin Ginsberg: 'I just Became a grandchild!'

Barry Rubin: Don't flatter your enemies, protect your friends

Nov. 21, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: Money matters?

Caroline B. Glick: Civilization walks the plank

Nov. 20, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: Bronfman's blindness

The Kosher Gourmet By Linda Gassenheimer: Portobellos add a hearty flavor to pasta with pesto

Nov, 19, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Spread the wealth? Jewish tradition and income equality

Elliot B. Gertel: 'Mad Men': Tackling prejudices or reinforcing them?

Nov, 18, 2008

Dr. Debby Schwarz Hirschhorn: The End of the Age of Reason

Jonathan Tobin: Does Barack + Bibi = Disaster?

Nov, 17, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The End of the Age of Reason

Diana West: Gulling Americans into making terror legit?

Nov, 14, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: The Power of Spiritual Inertia

Caroline B. Glick: The perils ahead

Nov, 13, 2008

Stratfor Intelligence Briefing: How Bush and Obama together could change the Middle East dynamic

The Kosher Gourmet by JeanMarie Brownson: Sweet and savory, crispy and meltingly tender bestilla

Nov, 12, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Tyrannical Co-Workers

Michael Doyle: High Court to consider today donated monuments that may have religious messages in public parks

Nov, 11, 2008

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Will Obama stop government officials considering institutionalizing financial jihad?

Jonathan Tobin: They Will Decide Their Own Fate

Nov, 10, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: $8 billion, modern-day Tower of Babel being built?

Barry Rubin: A letter to the president-elect from a Middle East realist

Nov, 7, 2008

Rabbi Francis Nataf: Of Children and Immortality

Caroline B. Glick: Livni's Obama strategy

Nov, 6, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: How I tricked a classroom of apathetic students into grasping the fallacy of moral relativism

The Kosher Gourmet By Gina Kim: Tips for making the perfect soup --- includes recipes

Nov, 5, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Destitute Debtors

Bruce Weinstein: 'Religulos': Bad title,even worse movie

Nov, 4, 2008

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Treasury Dept. submits to Shariah law

Frida Ghitis: A surprise for Obama in the Middle East

Nov, 3, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: Who says Jews are Smart?

Jonathan Tobin: Was He Wrong About Everything?

March 22, 2007

J-Rhythms with Avraham Rosenblum: JWR's cutting-edge music program showcasing performers -- singers, song writers, musicians, and bands -- who learn and live the Torah lifestyle (OUR NEWEST IGODCAST !)

Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review June 17, 2008 / 14 Sivan 5768

Apologia pro redneck, Or: In defense of a word — and a people

By Paul Greenberg


Printer Friendly Version
Email this article

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | This time it's a duly certified, establishment-vetted, card-carrying member of the Mainstream Media who's been caught, tried and convicted by the always watchful PC Police. This time it was no Howard Stern or Don Imus, or even a football coach lettin' 'er rip at a press conference. This time it was NBC's own, always respectable if not downright pedestrian Andrea Mitchell, aka Mrs. Alan Greenspan. Goodness. What did she do? It seems the lady went and referred to an area of southwestern Virginia as "redneck, sort of bordering-on-Appalachia country."


Ooh-wee!The linguistically delicate of southwestern Virginia are still squealing. These easily offended types must be crying in their martinis — because the folks who prefer Schlitz couldn't care less. The real rednecks in southwestern Virginia must be wondering what all the fuss is about.


It happened when Ms. Mitchell was using her cultivated nasal tones to describe footage of a campaign stop by the Democratic presidential nominee presumptive and a former governor of Virginia in lovely Bristol, Va. And this is what she dared say:


"Interesting images today ... Barack Obama, Mark Warner in southwest Virginia. This is real redneck, sort of bordering-on-Appalachia country...."


You'd have thought she said Those Dumb Crackers. All overly sensitive heck broke loose on the poor woman.


The speech cops swooped down on her in an instant. How dare she use the R-word? The local paper got all uppity. To quote the Bristol Herald Courier: "To correct Mitchell, Bristol doesn't border 'Appalachia ... country.' It is part of the Appalachian Mountain region. While the region faces challenges, it doesn't deserve to be the butt of jokes."


The butt of jokes? The use of "redneck" when referring to what was once known as the Southern yeomanry is now a joke — and one in bad taste at that? The rednecks in these parts, and probably everywhere, tend to 'ppreciate redneck jokes. ("You might be a redneck if you're stopped by a state trooper, he asks if you have an I.D., and you say, 'Bout what?' " —Foxworthy, J.)


So what term are we enlightened. reconstructed, re-educated Americans of the thoroughly thought-reformed 21st century supposed to use instead of "redneck" — working-class white? That's not English, it's sociologese. Redneck is a brief, vivid descriptive phrase for an American type we all know. Once upon a time, brief, vivid description was what good journalism was about. Naturally the term now has been declared verboten.


Andrea Mitchell, on her way to the stocks, was quick to apologize for speaking plain, the ultimate sin in our denatured times:


"I owe an apology to the good people of Bristol, Va., for something stupid that I said last week. I was trying to explain based on reporting from Democratic strategists why Barack Obama was campaigning in southwest Virginia.


But without attribution or explanation, I used a term strategists often use to demean an entire community."


What's the world coming to? Here we have political strategists talking plain and reporters using mushspeak. The world's done turned upside down.


Sure, some words should be off-limits, and everybody knows which ones they are. That is, everybody who had a mama who threatened to wash his mouth out with soap if he ever used that word again. But "redneck"? What next? Will we be forced to say "the Y-word" when we mean Yankee?


Every time a perfectly good American word is lost, we are all deprived. And the cumulative effect is a life-destroying erosion of the language, which is sapped of its power, vitality and variety. Redneck an insult? Rednecks would only laugh at the idea — because rednecks are proud of who they are. That's why they can afford a sense of humor. In a world of anemic, self-censored, pre-washed, so-called commentary, their pride is refreshing.


Who are these rednecks anyway? One inadequate definition would be to say they're the descendants of the Scots-Irish who pushed the American frontier across first the Appalachians and then ever westward, spreading as far north as the hills of Pennsylvania and as far south and west as wide-open Texas, leaving their manners, speech and customs an indelible if often unremarked part of the American character.


Oh, yes, rednecks are also fighters. Which means that, ignored and snubbed in times of peace, or just patronized by those who think their very name an insult, they are always called on when the country's in real trouble. To this day, they are part of the backbone of the United States military. They are, in short, people to tie to. They will stand their ground, as America's enemies have discovered since 1776 and long before. They need no one to come to their defense, let alone shield them from their honest name. Yes, they can be touchy, but only about matters of honor.


Rednecks embrace simplicity as a welcome change from the kind of fraudulent sophistication you can hear at a click of the channel on television or on National Platitudinous Radio. But that doesn't make them simple. Quite the opposite. Their code is as involved as any Bedouin's, and maybe more so than the Southern gentleman's. Indeed, the two — gentleman and redneck — are part of the Southern whole, complementing and competing with each other, each half-envying, half-pitying the other but aware they share an indissoluble bond that involves the land, the language and whatever is the essence of what the South is, or was. Both may now be endangered species, united by what they are not: false.


Those who object to the name redneck, if not the species itself, might as well take offense at Arkie or Okie or black or Creole. Hasn't the Southern language lost enough distinctive words, and therefore distinctive thought, to the bowdlerizers, the euphemizers and sanitizers who would leave the treasure of the Southern tongue as barren and burned-over as the once green acres Sherman ravaged on his march to the sea? Enough verbicide. The toll has already been too heavy. Let's not lose a word that sums up a whole ethos.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

JWR contributor Paul Greenberg, editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, has won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. Send your comments by clicking here.

Paul Greenberg Archives

© 2006 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

Insight (Our Columnists)

 Mitch Albom
 Michael Barone
  Dave Barry
 Tony Blankley
 Andy Borowitz
 David Broder
 Stratfor Briefing
 Mona Charen
 Linda Chavez
 Ann Coulter
 Greg Crosby
 Rod Dreher
 Larry Elder
 Suzanne Fields
 John Fund
 Frank J. Gaffney
 Lloyd Garver
 Jonah Goldberg
 Julia Gorin
 Jonathan Gurwitz
 Paul Greenberg
 Victor Davis Hanson
 Betsy Hart
 David Harsanyi
 Nat Hentoff
 David Horowitz
 Laura Ingraham
 Jeff Jacoby
 Paul Johnson
 Jack Kelly
 James Klurfeld
 Ed Koch
 Ch. Krauthammer
 Jonathan Last
 Michael Ledeen
 John Leo
 David Limbaugh
 Kathryn Lopez
 Rich Lowry
 Michelle Malkin
 Jackie Mason
 The Medicine Men
 Dick Morris
 Bill O'Reilly
 Clarence Page
 Kathleen Parker
 Dennis Prager
 Wesley Pruden
 Tom Purcell
 Jonathan Rauch
 Celia Rivenbark
 Robert Robb
 Cokie & Steve Roberts
 Pat Sajak
 Debra J. Saunders
 Culture Shlock
 Roger Simon
 Michael Smerconish
 Thomas Sowell
 Mark Steyn
 John Stossel
 Cal Thomas
 Jonathan Tobin
 Bob Tyrrell
 Diana West
 Dave Weinbaum
 George Will
 Walter Williams
 Mort Zuckerman

'Toons
 Robert Arial
 Chuck Asay
 Chip Bok
 Dry Bones
  Lisa Benson
 John Branch
 Gary Brookins
 John Cole
 J. D. Crowe
 John Deering
 Brian Duffy
 Everything's Relative
 Mallard Fillmore
 Jake Fuller
 Bob Gorrel
 Joe Heller
 David Hitch
 Jerry Holber
 Steve Kelley
 Jeff Koterba
 Dick Locher
 Chan Lowe
 Ranan R. Lurie
 Jimmy Margulies
 Rick McKee
 Michael Ramirez
 Jeff Stahler
 Danna Summers
 John Trever
 Gary Varvel
 Kirk Walters

Lifestyles
 How 2
 Lori Borgman
 The Savvy Consumer
 Elder matters
 Fixit
 Dr. Peter Gott
 Marybeth Hicks
 GET A JOB! by Marty Nemko
 Richard Lederer
 Tech Maven
 Nutrition Myths
 Bruce Williams
 How Stuff Works