Last week, yet another
argument broke out in one of the Facebook groups I'm in,
specifically, “You Know You're From Buckhannon WV If...”
Because you know you're from
Buckhannon, WV if a fight breaks out every time you open your mouth.
Ha ha ha.
What happened was, someone
made a remark about racist rednecks, and everyone else leaped up to
say things like,
“Not all rednecks are racist!”
“Being a redneck
has nothing to do with being a racist!”
“No, it's YOU that's
racist!”
“No, I'M not a racist, you are!”
“No, YOU are!”
“No, YOU are!”
...and so on and so forth.
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I guess that's what you get when you use the R-word out in public. |
Anyway, during the course of
the argument it was pointed out (by one of my aunts, no less), that
the term “redneck” comes from the red bandannas worn by the
newly-unionized miners in the 1921 Battle of Blair Mountain. I must
have been asleep that day in history class, because I don't remember
hearing about this.
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I was either asleep, or drawing mustaches on the Presidents in my textbook. |
I thought I'd go ahead and
blog about it, for the following reasons:
- People, particularly people of a non-American persuasion, keep asking me what the term “redneck” means, and I don't know what to tell them. So far I've been spitting out whatever dumb sh*t pops into my head. “Oh yeah, all our babies are born like that, it's a special type of birthmark that fades over time,” gets some weird looks.
- I'm sick of people having no f*cking clue about the place where I come from, including its actual geographic location, and I thought this post might remedy that somewhat.
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It's here. Right here. Right f*cking here, you dumba**. |
- It's late, and I'm running short of ideas.
So I did a bit of research,
and I found out that – Gasp! – my aunt was wrong.
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Now I've got to publish this, and then she's gonna kill me. |
1) The term “redneck”
actually originated in Scotland in the 17th century, among
Scotts who preferred the Presbyterian Church over the Church of
England. These people were called Coventers and they loved
Presbyterianism so much that they signed their manifestos in their
own freaking blood, man. Eww.
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And ouch. ~ Debs |
To
identify themselves as f*ckin' heathens, they wore red scarves
around their necks.
Naturally,
there was a war over it – The Bishop's War (which was actually two
wars, since it looks like they needed a break in the middle). On
account of all this warring, some of those Scotts said “To hell
with this,” and went as far away from England as they could, to
America! They settled down in the mountains of the western frontier,
in what is now known as...West Virginia.
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Ta-daaa! |
At
this point I should probably say that, according to my Mamma, who is
not at all reliable, our family is somehow descended from those
original Scottish rednecks. So that makes me a redneck twice, I
guess, whether I like it or not.
I'll
have you know that I do not like it. I prefer the term “hillbilly.”
It sounds gentler, and more barefoot. It sounds like I might chew on
hay from time to time, and wear a floppy hat.
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Like this one. |
2)
The term “hillbilly” also comes from the Scots, specifically, the
Scots-Irish, who, I have learned, should be correctly termed the
Ulster-Scottish.
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Well lah-dee-dah. |
These
were the supporters of Protestant King William of Orange in the
Williamite War (1689-1691) against Catholic King James II, because
there isn't a war in history that doesn't involve religion somehow.
They
started off calling themselves “Billy's Boys” and then “Billies”
and then “hillbillies” after they said “To hell with this,”
and scarpered off to West Virginia, where they had heard there were
these other guys being Protestant like you wouldn't believe, like, all over the place, man, and not getting killed at all.
3)
Now, let's fast-forward a couple of centuries. Many of these
“rednecks” and “hillbillies,” along with plenty of other
immigrants, found themselves working in the West Virginia coal mines.
No, we don't grow tobacco. Does that look like tobacco to you? Idiot. |
West
Virginia miners lived in company-built houses, in company-owned
towns. They paid rent to the company, and weren't offered luxuries
like heat, electricity or running water. Families of more than a
dozen lived in tiny homes where they were forced to share beds, if
they had beds. Otherwise they shared the floor.
Miners
weren't paid in currency. They were paid in company script, which was
supposed to be equal to currency in value, but could only be used in
the company shop. The companies kept rent and retail prices so high
that miners couldn't break even, but found themselves
deeper and deeper in debt. Generation after
generation were forced into the mines to pay the debts of their
fathers. If a worker died in the mines, his family were on the
street that very day.
Many of them did die, cause who needs safety regulations?
Not us! |
4)
Which brings us back to the Battle of Blair Mountain, in 1921. It
lasted from 25 August to 2 September (hey, that's today!) 1921, and
was the second-largest civil uprising in American history. (The largest was the American Civil War).
15,000
unionized coal miners (West Virginia miners were among the last to unionize) rose up against strikebreakers, police and the
coal companies themselves to demand safe and comfortable living and working conditions for themselves and their families. They
fired off more than one million rounds, and didn't back down until
the motherf*cking Army
showed up.
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Cause that's how we do things where I come from. |
And yes, they wore red scarves.