I Hate Rednecks, but I Love My Mother... (2162 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.57 on 11 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by heavenswalls <jbstizout.at.hotmail.com> (View user info) at 2003-06-29 03:57:49 EDT
As I've mentioned before, I live in the mid-south. Being from the south, I continually witness the different subcultures of southerners mix and mingle, and overall I can say that I hate my southern brethren. Why do I hate them? Why do I try and abandon customs known and taught to me since I was a child?
Looking back on my life, I know the original reason that derailed my brain from a closed state of mind that is the southerner (AKA - dumbass redneck). Ah yes, I was but twelve years of age and I'd met the girl of my dreams in junior high. She was from Michigan and her personality was quite different from the other budding redneck bitches at school. I won't go into details but I will say that for one thing, she taught and showed me things I'd never seen before (thanks), and she made me conscious of how different her family's customs and way of life were different from ours.
I guess you could say that my state of mind gained momentum, like a snowball rolling downhill, getting larger with more knowledge and wisdom to use to break myself completely free of my redneck brethren and their ways. I started changing my accent when I was around fifteen, and although I've broken free of the southern drawl, it's hard to keep from backsliding back into it when surrounded by friends from childhood that speak the most incoherent sentences and words you've ever heard. It's also hard to break from its entirety when my mother and father, whom I love so dearly, are indeed rednecks. That's the lingering reason I feel pain and guilt when I say I hate rednecks. It's almost all I've ever known.
Through the years of trying to break free, I've gained a tolerance for the redneck stupidity, as long as it doesn't particularly pertain to me. I do, however, feel shameful of my brethren because being who they are, they only know their own ways and customs. They feel that a person from outside the way of life just doesn't understand. I know that in a way it's like this in all cultures, but it seems the redneck culture is so idiotic. What's there to understand?
I know that different areas breed different individuals and ways of life, but the redneck way of life condones stupidity and closed-minded people. Just today I was out shopping and on my way in, and old model five-tone Chevy pickup caught my eye. This vehicle would've made POS of the goddamn millennia for all I'm concerned. It was a pure shitter, and it would've done justice by itself alone as a post. All over the bumper, tailgate and back glass, stickers of Confederate flags, NRA promos, and PBRA (look it up) were present. I just don't get it anymore. It used to make me angry, but now it just makes me sick.
In my mind, this post was going to be about one thing I saw today that I'll probably never forget. After thinking about it, I decided to write my thoughts, and unfortunately, it turned into a fucking autobiography. Sorry about it, but I hope I get the point across that rednecks disgust me.
What I saw today on my way out of the store where I saw the POS, was a brand new Mercedes-Benz with the top down, pulling into a parking space. On the radio, which had to be turned up at full volume, was Hank Williams Jr. singing Whiskey Bent and Hell Bound. Out of the Benz steps a fat-ass redneck sporting a pair of Wrangler jeans, filthy with God knows what, and the biggest, most ridiculous looking cowboy hate on the face of the Earth.
God I hate rednecks (Love you, mother)...
User Reviews
Submitted by Amy <wildncrazy_countrybaby.at.yahoo.c> at 2004-07-16 11:28:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Being a redneck has nothing to do with hate. It has to do with our southern heritage and the fact that we are gonna keep our rights and no one can take that away. The whole confederate flag issue is about history and that we will not follow the rules of others because we are free to do and say as we please. for someone that is a god fearing american citizen the person that wrote this article sure is quick to judge people for what they are and say they hate all rednecks without knowing them. The way i see it is that i like being a redneck and if you dont then you really just dont understand. We are just proud of where we came from just like everyone else. Just what is a redneck? love fried foods, barbecues, cold beer, gravies, and sweet tea? enjoy outdoor events such as, hunting, fishing, auto racing, and fairs? Are you hard working and independant? god fearing and patriotic? won't take no guff from no one? well then you are a redneck. We may be from the south and we may talk slow but that absolutely does not mean we are stupid, slow, or close minded.
Submitted by Thrasher <thrasher007200.at.yahoo.com> at 2004-05-26 04:16:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Your story was not too long. This is what people NEED to hear. You should check out the long story I put in this other site about MY feelings toward rednecks.
You should be aware that America will NEVER be united racially because of the Civil War and slavery; a southern thing. I'm proud of you for being a man and realizing you had enough potential to do something about it! Good luck in your life, and stay clean.
Submitted by loki (user info) at 2003-06-30 10:12:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
What about the name Tres? I had to explain to Sam where it came from, oh yes Tres here is Bubba III.
Submitted by Fabish (user info) at 2003-06-29 18:16:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
My nick-name as a child used to be "Bubba". I don't know why either, because I wasn't retarded, or massive in size either. Maybe it was because I was born on the very southern tip of Indiana, and my parents felt it was necessary to label me as a hick, since we were surrounded by them.
I grew up in central Illinois, and all the time I saw old people driving 35 mph down the road, just to look at the corn...
Submitted by El_Guapo (user info) at 2003-06-29 12:44:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
shit, i call everyone bubba.....
and as a transplanted californian who has lived the last half of his life in texas, i can relate to your plight. but, rednecks don't just live in the south. just about any rural area of this country you will find them. even in california, out in the country there's full blown white-trash rednecks complete with southern drawls (no, not the kind of southern drawl you'd find in the south, but they still have one.)
Submitted by HeavensWalls (user info) at 2003-06-29 12:27:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Bubba as a real name: 4
Bubba as a nickname: 6
Submitted by jwlmar10 (user info) at 2003-06-29 11:57:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Loki, you fucking rule. You are the only person that can make vegetable gardening sound cool.
Submitted by MickGinny (user info) at 2003-06-29 09:23:51 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
HW, off the top of your head, how many guys do you know named bubba?
+2 cuz you love your mom.
Submitted by yidele (user info) at 2003-06-29 09:08:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Not unless you grow a kosher shwantz, you're not. There is no reason why you should feel that having redneck roots/being a redneck somehow robs you of having a cultural heritage. I know that in the post-reconstruction America the ideas of redneck / hillbilly inferiority were freely seeded by the winners, but the facts are different. It was the south, not the north that was the repository of culture, genteel manners, honour, breeding & traditions that were brought there from the old continent. Oh, sure, you can't see all of that in a trailer park, but so what? isn't it enough to know that? My best memmories of growing up are linked with my mostly redneck friends, the inner landscape of my middle /late teens & more than half of my adulthood is texas, luisiana, Oklahoma - whatever I am was formed there & while I can appreciate the difference in point of view expressed by Yankees, I by no means consider it "more cultured" or "sophisticated" than that espoused by my friends & I do have some means of comparing these two since I am still a foreigner. Never be ashamed of what you are. Anyway, the eternal enemity/competition between the north & the south pales when compared to one simple statement by Shaw; When asked what he thought about american culture he answered: " I think that it is a good idea"
Submitted by loki (user info) at 2003-06-29 08:34:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
"There are a hundred ways to cover you redneck past." Ben Folds Five
I think we may be related. Consider this though, I been exposed to a few things that I really wish I had been sheltered from. For example, no one ever believes me when I say this, but I have personally witnessed snake handling in pentecostal churches. I have to say that having spent a childhood observing all sorts of bizarre adult behavior, I always saw a certain class of people in any geographic region that exhibit very similar characteristics as the southern redneck. I think we're the only ones who put so colorful of a label on it and have it so well defined.
Hollywood has certainly not done us any favors there and neither has nascar, country music, walmart, tobacco, and the War of Northern Aggression (you know what I mean there). I hate rednecks for stripping away any shot I had at a cultural heritage. I also hate rednecks in the same way I hate ditzy blonds for making it just that much harder for me to be taken seriously.
You have to reconcile for yourself what to take from your past and what to abandon, that is true of everybody. I like to think that everything in my past was important if as nothing else, how not to do something. The hard part for me was to use some sort of moderation and not summarily discount everything I had seen just based on a notion I had of it as redneck. It's all in the attitude. Take you hunting experiences with your grandfather. You could decide that hunting is redneck and not do it even though you enjoy it just to avoid participating in something redneck. Or you could decide that it is something that you enjoy so fuck it redneck or not.
When I finish my coffee, I'm going outside to weed my garden. None of my friends, NONE of them have a kitchen garden and they see it as this bizarre, eccentric thing that I do, maybe worse but not to my face. I even can green beans and they look at me in horror fearing that I'm about to break out in spontaneous knitting. I don't know why I do it. I have memories of being out in unbelievably hot, humid, bug riddled garden where my grandmother insisted on dragging me, despite my best efforts to the contrary. With the sun beating down in that torturously stifling heat, she would show me how to prune tomatoes and pick beans without damaging the stalk. She made me wear this horrible straw hat because having a tan meant that you were not a proper lady. Oh GOD THE HORROR THE HORROR! I also really wish I had listened better, I've having no success with watermelon and I think it's because we've had too much rain.
Eventually you have to accept your family for what they are if you expect them to accept you for who you are. This is longer than your post, I'm turning into Yidele.
Submitted by dasteve (user info) at 2003-06-29 07:16:29 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I understand your pain. I grew up in Kentucky, but my mom's family was from the east coast (maryland) and I can relate on many different levels. I have lived in MD, NJ, KY, OH, FL, ID, CA, and HI. There are many, many rednecks I have known and loved. They are no better or no worse than anyone else. It's quite simple really, there are good and bad people everywhere. Some of those ignorant rednecks were some of the nicest people I've ever met.