http://www.whiskeyandgunpowder.com
Greg’s Note:
Jim returns with the second part of his
personal pastiche of his recent experience
with “rednecks.” He quickly answers the
predominant reader question and then goes on
to tackle the redneck (or white trash )
stereotype. Then, he makes postulates that
rednecks power the economy more than the white
collared folk – and rallies some anecdotal
facts to bolster his case. Please read on and
send your replies to your ruddynaped managing
editor here:
greg@whiskeyandgunpowder.com
Whiskey
& Gunpowder
September 15, 2006
by Jim Amrhein
Towson, U.S.A.
Rednecks, White Trash, and Blue Collars, Part
2
WHEN I WROTE the first
installment of this series about my own
personal experiences with that
shunned-by-the-establishment (yet majority)
segment of American society pegged by the
mainstream as “rednecks,” I figured I might
hear from a few of you with similar stories or
impressions…
However, I was stunned at the
enormous outpouring of reminiscences,
anecdotes, support, and agreement from the
Whiskey & Gunpowder readership, or those
who received the article from other sources.
To these fine folks who wrote in or spoke up
to me personally, I give my heartfelt thanks.
I’d honestly expected to get
slammed with tons of mail claiming that I’d
oversimplified or romanticized my portrayal of
these folks -- or that a personal affinity for
them was coloring my judgment. But I can count
on one hand the number of such responses I
got. Of course, I thank these people, too --
often as not, their criticisms lead me to new
and even more persuasive ways to make my
original point…
Along those lines, I want to
address one such comment with another personal
anecdote I’d forgotten to mention in the first
part of this essay series. I offer it in
response to the person who suggested that
maybe the “rednecks” were more receptive to
helping me on those many occasions I’ve ended
up stranded on the roadside because I somehow
looked or seemed like them -- the inverse
reason being why the yuppies and soccer moms
didn’t stop for me.
This is a good point -- one
that speaks to both the nature of humans to
classify others in relation to their own
self-images, and also to people’s natural (or
forced by society) tendency toward
stereotyping.
But interestingly, the
reader’s assertion doesn’t hold water in my
own lifetime of experience with “rednecks.”
Here’s what I mean…
Image Is Everything
-- Except When You’re Hitching
The notion that people are
generally more likely to assist others who
look/seem most like them is probably a sound
one. I’m not a psychologist, of course, but
I’m sure there are studies that would more or
less bear this out. It makes a most basic kind
of sense. Oddly enough, though, I’m pretty
sure that this is NOT the reason why I’ve been
rescued from my own “fuel-ishness” so many
times by “rednecks” and ignored by others.
The fact is, I have hardly
ever run out of gas while I was out hunting,
fishing, shooting, or dirt-biking (and thusly
attired more like a stereotypical “redneck”).
Rather, I’ve tended to coast to a stop while
dressed up and on my way to some special or
important occasion. A pair of factors
contribute to this: One, I tend not to fuel up
until the tank’s almost empty, and two, I tend
to cut things close, time-wise, forcing me to
gamble on gas when I’m in a hurry…
At the risk of revealing too
much about my own inability to grasp one of
life’s most basic truths (cars need fuel),
I’ve run out of gas on my way to birthday
dinners, family events, at least one wedding,
at least two job interviews, on my way to or
from bars or parties -- and before or during
an astounding number of dates. I’m telling
you, it’s a sickness of mine. It’s even worse
because for years, I made my living as a car
mechanic! For real.
My point is this: I’ve almost
never LOOKED like a “redneck” when I’ve been
thumbing for a ride to the nearest gas
station. In fact, most times, I must’ve
appeared exactly like the bulk of the drivers
passing me by -- right down to the vehicle I
was leaning against at the time. By and large,
I’ve drained European imported cars (I’ve
owned 12 of them)…
Yet it’d still be the
“redneck” who rolled up and said, “Need a
lift, son?” Every time.
Another quick one: For years
in the late 1980s, my uncle and I would take
an annual canoe trip somewhere in West
Virginia or Virginia -- sometimes quite a ways
out in the boonies (like the south branch of
the Potomac River). This presented a bit of a
logistical problem, since we’d need some way
to get one or the other of us back to the car
at the put-in point after we pulled out of the
river 20 or 30 miles downstream…
How’d we do it?
My uncle would simply flag
down a few consecutive cars or trucks on the
nearest road. Every time, within just a few
minutes, some kind country soul going back up
toward our car would offer one of us a ride.
Depending on these folks was our M.O. for
these trips. We counted on them, and they
always came through. It’s called kindness, and
most “rednecks” have it in spades.
But enough anecdotes. I’ve got
a point or two to make, so I’ll get on with
it…
A Rube by Any Other
Name
As we explored in Part 1, the
term “redneck” is difficult to define. But in
order to even approximate “rednecks’” impact
on American life, we have to have a working
definition of who these people are…
Anyone with two eyes, ears,
and half a brain already knows what the term
means to the N.Y./L.A. bicoastal hipsters of
mainstream political discourse -- folks like
Bill Maher, Jon Stewart, Keith Olbermann, etc.
To these guys, their contemporaries, and no
doubt a good many of their listeners/viewers,
“redneck” seems to apply to just about anyone
living in the great flyover interior of our
nation, with the possible exception of
Chicago…
Of course, this is far too
broad a definition. But in my view, it isn’t
far from what many in the mainstream media
seem to think. Listen to them talk and you can
tell. They see anyone who’s not lunching at
Elaine’s, summering in the Hamptons, or
invited to the Playboy Mansion on weekends as
some kind of barefooted rube…
So what is a “redneck”? By
almost any definition, “rednecks” are white --
and the vast bulk of them are working class
(blue-collar). Comparatively, few are college
degreed, though some are. In my opinion, based
on the overall tenor of the mainstream as best
as I can judge, the contemporary American
media’s definition of “redneck” also includes:
· Any white male who hunts
(around 15-20 million Americans are licensed
hunters, according to the National Shooting
Sports Foundation)…
· Most any white male who owns
a pickup truck for personal use (38 million
Americans own pickups, per the 2000 Census)…
· Any white NASCAR racing fan
of either sex (around 75 million Americans,
per the San Francisco Chronicle )…
· Most any white male who owns
one or more guns (65-80 million Americans own
guns, according to the NRA)…
Of course, not all gun owners
are hunters, not all hunters and gun owners
are NASCAR fans, and not all stock car
enthusiasts are gun owners or hunters -- or
even pickup owners. But of course, there’s
some crossover.
But I’d bet that if someone
really wanted to quantify how many “rednecks”
there are in the U.S., these four criteria
would be common to quite a few of them. Mind
you, I’m not trying to define what “redneck”
means, just trying to give a sense of how many
people fall into the category as invented by
contemporary media/political standards, so I
can begin to draw some conclusions about their
impact on American life…
In light of the above data,
I’m confident that the number of Americans
that most in the media/political mainstream
would consider “rednecks” is at LEAST 75
million. That’s more than 1 in 4 Americans,
and more than 1 out of every 3 whites living
in the U.S.
Together, these folks
represent an incredible economic force, both
from a productivity standpoint (more on this
later) and a consumer spending one. This is
important for a few reasons. Stay with me
here…
Now, in the interest of full
disclosure, I’ve been unable to aggregate any
conclusive data on the assertion I’m about to
make (it would probably take months to compile
without shamelessly ripping someone else off),
but using good ol’ fashioned seat-o’-the-pants
logic, I’d be willing to bet my
Harley-Davidson on this:
“Rednecks” spend a far greater
percentage of their income on hard goods and
big-ticket items (like vehicles and tractors)
-- especially those that are made in the USA
-- than their more affluent city-dwelling
cousins…
This is vitally important, as
you’ll see if you keep reading.
A Tale of 2 Citizens
Here’s my reasoning behind
this assertion, illustrated using a fictional
(but based on fact) “tale of two citizens”
approach. Let’s say you’ve got two cousins:
Larry, a stereotypical “redneck,” and Barry, a
stereotypical white “urbanite.”
· Larry makes around $40,000
per year as a carpenter to support his family
of four. Barry provides for his own wife and
two daughters with the $100,000 he pulls down
as a political consultant for the Green Party.
(According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the
national average income for a white household
was $48,000 in 2004)...
· Larry lives in Fort Ashby,
W.Va., where his 1,500-square-foot brick house
on 2.6 acres of land (with detached two-car
garage and an 8x12-foot shed) cost him
$139,000 in 2003. His 6% mortgage is $860,
including taxes and insurance. Barry lives in
a second-tier neighborhood in Washington,
D.C., where his 1,500-square-foot brick
rowhouse on one-third of an acre was a bargain
at $399,000 in 2003. His total mortgage
payment is $2,945, also at 6%...
· Larry’s take-home pay after
his modest state and federal taxes amounts to
around 78% of his gross income --
approximately $31,200 per year, or $2,600 per
month. Barry’s take-home pay in his higher tax
bracket, but also minus D.C.’s heavy local
taxes, amounts to barely 71% of his income --
around $5,916 per month…
· Larry sends his two young
boys, Bo and Luke, to the local public school.
It’s clean, safe, and tests in the top third
of schools in the state. Cost: $0. Barry would
never send his two daughters, Hillary and
Chelsea, to the local public school. It’s
disgusting and scored terribly in standardized
testing, plus two kids got shot there last
year. He sends his girls to a private prep
school, Our Lady of the Everlasting Payment,
to the tune of $5,000 a year. Each…
· Larry’s new Ford F-150
pickup cost $27, 500. His wife’s ’01 Jeep
Cherokee Sport cost $12,000 used. They put a
good chunk down, so the combined payment on
them both is $579 a month. And because they
live in the country, where traffic is light
and vehicle theft and vandalism virtually
nonexistent, and where they have a driveway
and garage in which to park, full coverage on
both their vehicles is just $960 per year.
Barry and his wife have just one car (it’s all
they can park on the street outside their
house), a new Volvo XC90. It cost $46,000.
They financed almost all of it, though, for a
payment of $768 a month. And because they live
in a high-traffic, high-theft “transitional”
neighborhood, it costs $1,700 per year to
insure…
· Larry’s wife Linda buys
groceries, toiletries, and sundries at
Save-a-Bundle in town for around $220 a month.
Barry’s wife Bridget spends over $400 a month
on their groceries at the neighborhood Uber-Fresh
Farms Gourmet Grocery within walking distance
of their house. She would go someplace
cheaper, but she’s afraid of losing their
parking space in front of the house…
· Larry gets his morning
coffee at the Main Street Diner on the square
in town. It costs 75 cents -- an even $4 gets
him eggs, sausage, hash browns, and toast,
too. Barry waits 20 minutes in line every
morning to give that same $4 to the clerk
behind the counter at Starbucks for a cup of
latte, grande, mochaccino something or other,
and a whole lot of marketing, too. He doesn’t
eat breakfast…
So let’s see here: Larry
started with $2,600 a month, and after
mortgage, car payments, insurance, and a
hearty breakfast every day, he’s got $781 left
for utilities or entertainment or to save,
invest -- or even to buy some new “toys” for
himself and his boys (by far the most
important thing he could do, as you’ll
discover in a minute). That’s more than 30% of
his income to do whatever he wants with.
Barry, on the other hand, who
makes 2.5 times as much money, has only $748
left over every month. Not only is this less
money in absolute terms, it’s a far smaller
percentage of his actual income -- a mere
12.6%!
The Tangible
Benefits of “Redneck” Living
Bottom line: Even though he’s
a lowly “redneck” and despised by the
enlightened bicoastal media, Larry can afford
to fill his home and garage with a few
luxuries -- some sporting equipment, a new
Harley motorcycle, a John Deere tractor, maybe
even a made-in-the-U.S.A. Ranger bass boat to
take his boys fishing in. Barry, on the other
hand, not only couldn’t afford these kinds of
things, he couldn’t even keep them anywhere if
he bought them!
My point is twofold:
First, that American
“rednecks” are pumping a huge amount of money
into our economy by buying second vehicles,
motorcycles, tractors, trailers, bass boats,
fishing gear, dirt bikes, four-wheelers, power
tools, guns, ammo, and on and on and on --
tangible hard goods that translate into jobs
for American citizens in the critical
manufacturing sector. Second, a lot of
far-richer-on-paper “urbanites” are shoveling
their money into not only exorbitant taxes,
but also the coffers of mortgage companies,
insurance firms, and purveyors of overpriced
consumables.
Sure, there are jobs supported
by these spending streams, too -- retail,
clerical, and loan processing, mostly. But
keep this in mind: Nobody’s “making” anything
with money given to mortgage companies as
interest or to insurance companies as
premiums. No one builds any tangible assets
anywhere in America when an urbanite signs a
mortgage on an overpriced house or pays
through the nose to insure an overpriced car…
And as any Austrian School
economist will tell you, a strong
manufacturing and industrial sector is the key
to real, lasting economic stability. This is
something America used to do better than
anyone -- yet now we’re faltering in this
slave-wage, outsourced world.
See what I’m getting at when I
say the “rednecks” wield a huge amount of
economic clout? Their disposable income often
goes into tangible hard goods that keep
American industries healthy, prosperous, and
providing jobs. Their overlooked,
taken-for-granted contribution to our economy
is its very lifeblood. I shudder to think what
would happen to our nation’s bottom line if
Bill Maher, Jon Stewart, or any of the other
bicoastal media pundits got their wish…
An America without the
“rednecks” they see as “white trash,” instead
of the great drivers of our economy.
And in the final installment
of this series, I’ll show you exactly why
America would REALLY be screwed without our
glorious “rednecks.” Stay tuned…
Seeing the dollars -- and the
sense,
Jim Amrhein
Contributing editor, Whiskey & Gunpowder
