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 Š Barack Obama, Mark Warner in southwest Virginia.
This is real redneck, sort of bordering-on-Appalachia countryŠ."
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.