Posted on 06/17/2008 9:27:23 AM PDT by rhema
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 ... Barack Obama, Mark Warner in southwest Virginia. This is real redneck, sort of bordering-on-Appalachia country...."
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?
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
How about "Appalachian American?"
It has a nice ring to it, if I do say so myself.
So what? Who cares what a media mannequin says? We Southerners know what we're made of.
I've done a little research into the etymology of the term and found that the earliest use of it was with the Scot-Irish wearing the red bandanna around their neck during the Scots-English Civil Wars.
They are descendants of the clans depicted in the movie Braveheart.
Also the term "hillbilly" has a similar etymology. Derived from a group dubbed the "Billy Boys" from northern Scotland who also fought the English.
They were all fiercely independent and valued freedom and honor. "Hillbilly" and "Redneck" have a common heritage.
Proud Redneck.
Actually, I appreciate much of Paul Greenberg's work. I just take disagree that this is condescension is not worthy of noting.
Anyone who is raised in the Appalachian hills knows how to take the hit. There's just some times that I choose not to. When we being told why the 'Post Racial, all inclusive, Messiah' is campaigning somewhere because it is "Redneck"...Well, I think that worth pointing out when we're not supposed to mention his middle name. Or his wife's loony comments. Or his shady dealings with criminal characters. Or his close association with racists. And on and on.
Don't care for this article tho.
Nice shot from Atlanta.
Barack Hussein Obama?
Most of those miners in the Blair Mountain war were of Scot-Irish ancestry.
Of course....it goes without saying.
We "Rednecks" "Crackers", and "Honkies", don't need to be defended against these insulated white north eastern types.
We know who we are, and find it amusing that while we don't look down our noses at them; For all their preconceived notions and their puffed up cultured sensibilities, they still manage to parade their self indulgent stupidity of a class A fool to the world, by looking down their's, at us.
How typical.
Ping for international caipirahood or redneckness or whatever the generic term may be.
The family loved it!
Cabin was beautiful...here's a shot with the bottle of "moonshine" we had to try. YEEHAW!
Thanks for the ping!
I've been targeted with more words and looks of disdain, harrumphing, sneering, and superciliousness than I can count. Big deal. Goes with the territory. A Man I admire and try to emulate said, "Woe to you if the whole world speaks well of you."
I know of whom you speak, and bless his name!
Hang in there brother. I believe they're astounded when we don't react as they would, when they try to label us with their derogatory names,
They are the ones who don't realize that we were all formed from the same dust; and the little bit of difference they perceive, is merely an illusion.
I live near Archie’s Knob, on the NC side, an afternoon stroll away from Claudeville. We moved here in 1998, and spend recreational time along the Blue Ridge Parkway, and the counties north and west in Virginia. Maybe after a few decades of working, worshipping, and making music with the neighbors we will get to know them better, and by the time our grandchildren are starting their families, people may start to think they are “from around here”.
I play the fiddle and sing, and crunch financial models in Winston-Salem for a living. When they put me out to pasture in a few years, I will have more time to read, write, fiddle, sing, and hang out nearby. In the meantime I do a lot of reading of local history online and, decreasingly, in the local libraries, and take my time building memories of the mountain scenery when I pass through on the way to visits to relatives in the Midwest (Iowa, Wisconsin). Over the past decade, the roads between Danville, Martinsville, and points west (58) and connectors from Abingdon north into Kentucky have been improved and widened, and I prefer them to I81 and I77, except when I have business in PA or Washington, when I cut north through Floyd County to I81, and then take 81 if it’s PA, or exit at Luray and go through Shenandoah National Park if the destination is the Washington area.
If Richmond, Raleigh, and Rome-on-the-Potomac leave us and our neighbors to fend for ourselves, the area will be even more appealing. I have my doubts that events will lead to such an outcome, though it’s possible I suppose. Meanwhile, through growing home educator networks, and access to high speed internet connections to the rest of the world, we can bypass these centers and tap into the resources needed to raise a generation of heirs who can navigate their way through the world that will grow out of the successors to the printing press and the institutions which emerged from its impact on the diffusion of knowledge. As was the case in the 15th to 18th centuries the existing institutions will probably never figure out what’s happening to them before they are superceded by whatever comes next. It probably won’t take that many centuries either, though we are only a little more than half a century into the digital age, so it’s still too early to tell.
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