Rednecromancer

White Trash

don't call me that

This bit of text is a continuation of our exposition on the various names, labels and epithets used to describe members of the traditional Appalachian culture and diaspora. We previously took a look at Appalachian, hillbilly and redneck. But before we delve into new terms, I would like to share a new item that I have found that is related to the term “redneck”.

 

In Adams county, Ohio in the Ohio bluegrass region against the physical Appalachian foothills is the small community of Cherry Fork.  This village is north of Manchester, Ohio where in 1790, Col. Massie, a Virginian from Goochland county began the settlement of the Virginia Military District.  Among the soldier-pioneers were men from Goochland and Rockbridge counties as well as men from other states, especially Pennsylvania.  Many of these men were Scotch-Irish. 

 

Fourteen years later and a year after Ohio became a state, a group of Coventanters from Rockbridge county, built a church in Cherry Fork.  This is the same group of folks who had been known as rednecks in Great Britain.

 

White Trash

The history of this term is fairly well documented and we know that at least by the Civil War the term was in wide use.  The entry in Wikipedia is just about as good as it is going to get as far as an etymology.  The term originated in Baltimore, Maryland in the 1820s and was used by Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1954 to title a chapter in her defense of Uncle Tom's Cabin. She quite rightly pointed out the slavery degraded poor whites as well as blacks.

 

The term was mostly used in the south and Appalachia by anyone who was not at the very bottom to describe those white folks who were.  In my area we seldom use the term “white trash” but “trash” or the adjective “trashy” to mean the same.  A locality would often be combined with “trash” such as holler trash or Jackson street trash or Farley Square trash.  A related term would be “trailer trash”. 

 

Today the usage of the term has become national while the power of the insult has somewhat softened.  Many folks will use the term in a self deprecating attempt at humor.  But the term still has a unique sting that perhaps comes from the dismissive nature of the epithet or the pity that is inherent in the term when used with less hate.  The song White Trash from Southern Culture on the Skids seems to capture the view of most of us hillbillies in regard to the term white trash.

 

White Trash, don't call me that

you know I love you baby
don't you think just maybe
the way you talk down to me
would send a chill right through me

 

Most folks have a bit of fear or trepidation for hillbillies, rednecks and briars but not so much for white trash.  If we are going to be hated I reckon we would also liked to be feared too.

 

Briar

The term briar brings us back to terms that are specifically for Appalachians.  According to Wikipedia, a briar is a term for a migrant worker from Appalachia.  The Wikipedia also states that the term is most used in Ohio and directed at Kentuckians and West Virginians.  This would indeed be my personal experience growing up along the Ohio River. It may just be my view, but the term briar also has a connotation of “someone you don't want to mess with.”

 

In the 1989 film, Next of Kin  staring Patrick Swayze, the character played by Liam Neeson is named Briar Gates.  The general plot of the movie involves Kentucky hillbillies terrorizing mobsters in Chicago for the murder of their brother.  I relate to this movie.  I terrorized Clevelanders by marrying their sister.

 

Hilljack

While searching the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles database of vanity plate names, hilljack was the only name that I found out of all of the possible hillbilly labels that was not taken.  I was gratified but seeing as how Hilljack is the name of a country act I didn't want folks to think I was a fan and not a hilliblly so I have the non-vanity plates still.  But while running a Google on hilljack, I learned that the term is again widely used in Ohio for Appalachians but has a wider but more specific meaning.

In common usage a hilljack is a hillbilly who may be of a slightly higher socio-economic class and thus thinks that this makes him something other than a hillbilly.  Of all the labels in this series, hilljack probably best describes me although I am now reformed.  Many of the urban areas in and near Appalachia are full of hilljacks who think that they are somehow better than their cousins who are still living in the hollers. Charleston, West Virginia is full of them.  I love Charleston and these hilljacks but they are totally deluded.

 

Hoopies and Hoosiers

Hoopie is a term widely used in Appalachian Ohio and Pennsylvania to denote a West Virginian.  I find the term to be used more by the Catholic late-comers to the area from Italian and eastern European backgrounds and in that case used for any other Appalachian regardless of their home state.

 

Everyone is familiar with “Hoosier” as the nickname for people from Indiana and as the mascot of the university, but hoosier has a longer history as a synonym for hillbilly and indeed may come from the Anglo-Saxon word “hoo” for hill.

 

Hillican

This is perhaps the rarest of all of the epithets for hillbilly but the one I heard most often as a child. I have found only one entry of this spelling and one of another spelling that is now lost to me but originated from a poster from Columbus, Ohio.  The lost post with the spelling that I cannot remember explained that the term was used by Ohio hillbillies to describe those folks of an even lower class. 

 

This other entry from an Ohio history site is a reprint of a 1902 history of Ross county, Ohio.  The text smacks of the local color writing of the era, but almost exactly captures the connotation of the term hillican as I experienced it as a child in that region in the 1960s.  Also, interestingly the piece used the term “do-less” which is a common term in our area for lazy.  I think the author has incorrectly rendered the word owing to some backward folk etymology.  This term which I know to have been used in western West Virginia is probably related to the word “due”.

 

As always we are interested in your experience with these labels and epithets.

P.S. The third part of this series will deal with the term "Cracker".  So stay tuned, Anne.

 

 

 

Black Cash and the Bad Trips

"I don't get out much now, but when I followed a link on Hillbilly Savants to the website of Black Cash and the Bad Trips, I knew that I would have to make a rare trip into downtown Richmond.  In the five or six years that I have lived in the central Virginia area I can count on one hand how many times I have been downtown.  I don't know what it is about the greater Richmond area but there is this insular vibe and indeed a lack of a true outer belt which makes it difficult for the less adventurous transplants to get from one area to the other.  That is a shame because there is a bunch of cool things to do and see scattered all about this historic hamlet.   But my own difficulties be damned this time, I was going out to see me some live music."

read the rest of the story on Hillbilly Music

The brogue's tongue

Someone called my grandparents the other day asking for me.  This would not be odd in most cases except for the fact that I live seven hours away and have not lived in my hometown for 25 years.  I became aware of the incident during one of my weekly phone conversations with my dad.  Grandpa let dad know that the person had called.  Dad said that grandpa hadn't gotten the feller's name but that he asked for me or my wife using our nicknames and asked if he as talking to my grandfather.  It remains quite a riddle as to who it could have been and to be honest I am a bit uneasy about it.

 

A week or so later I was up home for our annual alumni dinner and dropped by grandma and grandpa's for a visit.  The topic of the mysterious caller came up and we tried to figure out who it could be.  At first my dad thought that it might have been a high school friend who expected me to be home for the dinner.  The only problem with this is that everyone I went to high school with knows my family and would have chatted with grandpa and further more would have called mom and dad to look for me.

 

I suggested that it may have been one of my college buddies who would not be quite so familiar with my family but know generally where to look for us.  We agreed that that could be it but grandpa then said that he thought the guy was a “foreigner” because he couldn't quite understand him.  Not understanding folks is not a give-a-way for someone being foreign since grandpa is 89 and is very hard of hearing.  I suggested that it was one of my past college students since I have had a number who were international.

 

At this point grandma said, “to grandpa it could have been anyone from a different part of the country.”  To this grandpa said, “yes it could have been an American from a different part of the country, all I know is that he didn't have the same brogue as we have.”  “Oh then”  I said, “it could be one of my roommates from Cleveland or the like.”  It is was the most likely explanation as to why the person would use both my wife and my nicknames and not remember my dad's name so the conversation turned to other subjects.

 

“The same brogue as we have” stuck in my head as I left for mom and dad's.  Now I am certainly familiar with the term brogue as a description of an Irish or Scottish accent but grandpa had used it as a general term.  I asked dad if he had heard grandpa use the term before.  His expression was one of slight disbelief, like the look he may have if I would have asked if grandpa had ever used the word “road” or some other common term.  Dad said that it was commonly used in the place of the word accent and that it didn't apply just to Irish or Scottish accents.  Mom who was standing near by also confirmed that my other grandparents had also used the term in such a way and that it was the common word for accent or dialect.

 

Certainly I had heard my family use this term in such a way in the past but I cannot recall it from memory.  As far as I know I had always used the term in the more limited way.

 

We know that brogue comes from the Gaelic for “shoe” although no one really knows how it became used as a term for accent or dialect.  The typical folk etymologies abound.    I am familiar with the related “brogan” which is a common Appalachian term for a work boot and which was also the name of the shoe worn by Civil War era soldiers on both sides but “brogue” as a general term for accent was something new.

 

Do any of you all who speak the same brogue as me have any knowledge of this?

 

 

Six Degrees of Irritation

As I have mentioned on Hillbilly Music, my wife and I used to go see live music, a lot.  No, I mean a whole lot.  If I wasn't playing music myself, we were out to see our favorite local, regional or international groups.  We also traveled all over the western world.  Now we stay home and watch TV.  It isn't as sexy as running down the Rue Royal in Versailles, France in the pouring rain but it is all we got now.

 

She likes police dramas.  I have my concerns about why we seem so enamored with the subject and if dwelling on what can often be disturbing content is healthy for the English speaking world but I endure it.  I will even guiltily admit that I like some shows such as Xstine's favorite: The Closer.  The show is pretty good and the interplay between the characters is entertaining.  I even like the “Easter Eggs” such as the name of the coroner, Dr. Crippen.  I am fairly certain this is a nod to the notorious wife murder, Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen.  I also find it amusing that the boyfriend of the lead character, Brenda Johnson is named Fritz Howard.  Howard Johnson!

 

Last night's episode was disturbing for more than just the subject matter.  The story revolves around the abduction and murder of an eight year old girl by a child molester. As a father and a human being there is nothing more frightening in my mind and I am positive that James Madison and the founding fathers may have given the 8^th Amendment a second thought in such cases. 

 

To say that this is an emotional subject is an understatement and I am generally critical of using this sort of thing for entertainment purposes but after three seasons it is reasonable that the fictional “priority homicide” unit of the Los Angeles police department would have dealt with at least one such incident.  To  the producers' credit they have not built a show on such emotionally charged content.  As fiction or as a reality series, the subject of pedophilia is not entertainment and certainly should never be seen as humor.  I was very disturbed to see Chris Hansen and To Catch a Predator do a cameo on 30 Rock.

 

So we have established that the producers of The Closer do not over use lurid and emotional subjects like child molestation.  Why did this episode of The Closer upset me beyond that which should be expected by such a horrible topic?  The child molester had an Appalachian accent.

 

Now given that Kyra Sedgwick's character, Brenda, has a pretty horrible southern accent for an ex-CIA spook who speaks multiple central European languages, I could see where the producers may not even realize that this odious character had an Appalachian accent instead of a southern accent.  Indeed when I said, “great, the child molester had to have an Appalachian accent,” my wife said, “I think it may just be a southern thing and not necessarily an Appalachian accent.”  The problem is she had that tone in her voice.  After 26 years I have come to recognize that tone as the one that says, “I don't believe what I am saying but I just want you to feel better about an obvious slight.”    I have no idea who the actor is who plays this unfortunate role and indeed he may be a native Appalachian.  In that case I would be horribly conflicted as I would be glad that a fellow hillbilly found work in Hollywood but I would just as soon he affected a different dialect for this role.

 

I like Ms Sedgwick but as one of the producers and someone who obviously has a great deal of control over this project I would have hoped for a bit more sensitivity.  It would have been just as easy for this character to have had no accent at all.  The show takes place in Los Angeles for crying out loud.  It wouldn't be out of place for the character to have had no discernible accent given the cosmopolitan nature of southern California. 

 

My fear and suspicion is that the “accent” of the child molester just “seemed to fit” the character in the eyes and ears of the producers and director.  Of course this intangible appropriateness comes from a deeply held and seldom examined prejudice common throughout America.  This is the degenerate hillbilly.  This is the voice that haunts Ned Beatty's career.  This is the punchline in a Tarantino film.  And you wonder where the stereotype comes from?    If folks with an Appalachian accent are often portrayed in such ways it is going to rub of on the real Appalachians and make life difficult.

 

How can it be that a region that has one of if not the lowest crime rate in the nation always seems to get stuck lending a voice to any criminal who is not Tony Soprano or a South Central gang banger?  Is it that all of the folks who leave the hills become criminals and degenerates? 

 

Hollywood treated blacks pretty badly for generations.  They were either step-and-fetch-its or pimps back when being a pimp was correctly seen as a bad thing.  Morgan Freeman started out playing pimps in movies even though his television work had been in educational shows for children.  Now Mr. Freeman is God. Black guys aren't always the first dudes killed off in a movie now and they even get to be the hero.  Maybe hillbillies just have to wait their turn.

 

But while we are standing in the mercy line, I hope Ms Sedgwick will reflect on the people who are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.  She has a 19 year old son who plays in a band like his dad.  I am sure she has thought about what it would be like if he was one of those young soldiers and she is thankful that he has options that those other young folks did not have.  A lot of those young soldiers have the same accent as the child molester on last night's episode of The Closer and because of the way human beings hold on to stereotypes and how we punish groups of people because of those stereotypes there will be fewer opportunities for those people with that accent.

 

The child molester character told Ms Sedgwick's character that he had been out of work for three week since he had lost his job as a landscaper.  He said it was hard to find work when you were a registered sex offender.

 

It is often hard for people with an Appalachian accent to find work but being a hillbilly isn't a crime.

 

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