Interesting. It’s kind of interesting, but in the battle of Blair mountain, there’s definitely some hints that there were already communist and anti-communist sentiments at work. I wonder if the red bandanas were a nod to communism.
A citation from 1893 provides a definition as “poorer inhabitants of the rural districts … men who work in the field, as a matter of course, generally have their skin stained red and burnt by the sun, and especially is this true of the back of their necks”.[12] … By 1900, “rednecks” was in common use to designate the political factions inside the Democratic Party comprising poor white farmers in the South.[14]
Coal miners
The term “redneck” in the early 20th century was occasionally used in reference to American coal miner union members who wore red bandanas for solidarity.
I mean to have an actual citation from 1893 that provides a written out definition is huge. These things are around for a good bit before making their way into documentation.
Reading through the talk, many people say coal and then provide links that come far after 1893.
The Wikipedia article doesn’t link to a 1893 citation. It links for a single paywalled article to make that claim. This sounds like an urban legend loop that seems to make sense until examined.
This was an extension of that. Unionist coal miners didn’t have red necks (because they work under ground) so they would wear red handkerchiefs to show solidarity with farm hands.
This is the history that capitalist removed from history books. That and white washing The Black Panthers, American Indian Movement and The Rainbow coalition.
Kids out here learning the basics of life on social media.
Kids, remember the vast majority of mortgage payments are in interest alone. Also “mortgage” means “death contract”.
And beer before liquor, never been sicker.
Yeah, I feel most people my age remember things like $1 or less beers and cheap bar food like 25 cent chicken wings? And just generally being able to hang out with couch change, like look we pooled $10 we can go out. The youth now have $12 cocktails and $7 french fries at the sketchy af “dive bar”, $20 drinks and $20 entrees if they dare step into a real place or heaven forbid an applebees.
Well, it’s also interesting for non native speakers who never thought about it, or just didn’t make the connection. I always assumed that was the reason for the term, but it’s nice to have confirmation.
honestly its less about mixing and more about the quantity you drink. at the end alcohol is alcohol, its just that the prior consumption of it makes you more likely to get overconfident and take things too far.
anyway, its one those you have to live to learn what your limits are, so the point is moot anyway. finding the sweet spot and managing to stay there takes a bit of experience.
I have this printed out in my classroom. I teach adults at a trade school and I feel it’s especially important for all adults to know it’s ok to learn new things.
I live in a part of America where it’s repeated constantly to school kids. Also, that’s not actually the origin; the red necks were militant unionists who fought for collective bargaining rights in the Coal Wars, the part of American history that never gets taught.
Other sources were already posted in the comments showing that “redneck” referring to farmers predates its usage to refer to coal miners/communists. Definitely agree there’s a lot of stuff conveniently left out of our history books, though.
That doesn’t make sense, you get sun burn like that if you go from no sun exposure to lots of sun exposure. People working in the fields would not have been constantly sun burned unless they were albino.
Most white people are not able to get a proper strong tan. And even when they do it compares to SPF 5, which is not nearly enough to protect you from working in the field for the entire day.
So, yeah, you’ll have a tanned neck, but also it will be red very, very often.
Farmers also wore hats and covered their necks. My point is that if you saw a red neck 100 years ago it would more likely belong to someone who works indoors, is groomed to expose their neck, and spent the day outside as opposed to a farmer. A farmer would know better, they’re not stupid. This is just one of those explanations that sounds logical until you dig a tiny bit.
…child of ulster scot farmers, here: yes, we tan a bit, but working outside leaves our necks perpetually red nonetheless, even with long collars and hats…
Modern farming isn’t really comparable to folks working the land 100+ years ago. My point is that farmers 100 years ago weren’t stupid, they would have protected themselves when necessary and would have earned an impressive base tan.
I don’t think it’s a particularly far fetched idea to imagine that people spending their days outside before the invention of sunscreen would develop more sunburns than the general population regardless, even if only once or twice a year on unexpectedly long or sunny days…
It doesn’t seem far fetched which is what makes this urban myth appealing. But this red neck theory makes loads of assumptions, like these farmers didn’t know how to protect themselves from the sun, these farmers were groomed in a way to reveal their necks, etc. In reality, they would have had solid base tans, worn hats, and probably kept their neck and ears covered with hair.
I am British by decent and lived on a boat for a year. First few months I was burned a few times but after a short while I was fine. Even when I was in places like the Bahamas. That was the same for all the other white folks, only the tourists were sunburned.
Yep. Irish descent here. Burn once in the spring, it turns into a tan and then I’m fine till next spring. (Obviously I’m not the glow in the dark type)
Ironically, this was played for the Class of 98 at our Senior Prom and the lyric for the song was Class of 97, the version from the album before they re-released it for that money grab with Class of 99.
The song was just a retelling of the original ‘Wear Sunscreen’ written by Mary Schmich, a columnist for the Chicago Tribune in 1997.
Medical organizations such as the American Cancer Society recommend the use of sunscreen because it aids in the prevention of squamous cell carcinomas.
As of 2021, only zinc oxide and titanium dioxide are generally recognized as safe and effective (GRASE) by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) since there is currently insufficient data to support recognizing petrochemical UV filters as safe.
Some people have great trouble splitting words into their component parts, as if their internal GPT just stores everything as single token like “redneck”, so they never split it semantically or conceptually into red+neck.
I guess Germans do need to be particularly good at this, based on the mega words they can have.
On the other hand, when listening to American Youtubers read something onscreen, it seems like they use some internal rainbow table to look up prefixes of words, and then just autocomplete the word based on probability.
I say this because during reading they often substitute words with some that sound similar, but are not semantically close to what is written.
The point isn’t that it’s a mystery, but that it’s a word people usually don’t really think about.
No one’s reacting to it with “Hussa, finally this mystery that’s been plaguing me for ages has been resolved for me”, they are reacting to it with “Huh, never really thought about it. Makes sense”
They took a negative and turned it into a rallying cry.
Same as with “Yankee Doodle.” Yankee was a derogatory term for Americans, because many were of Dutch origin. “Jan” was a popular Dutch name. Doodle mean, well doo-doo.
Funny how some derogatory terms get embraced and others don’t.
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