This is an odd question, but it’s been bugging me. I really like the idea of redneck transformation, but I’ve been wondering, are they necessarily white Americans or could other ethnicities or nationalities become rednecks?

There’s no reason why other nationalities couldn’t become rednecks, aside from the fact that the class “redneck” is pretty much as racist as the class “gangsta” is. I’m sure that, in real life, there are plenty of people of other nationalities in poor, rural areas, but in America (especially at the moment, thanks to the redneck comedy tour and the ensuing injection into pop culture) the idea is that a redneck can only be an ignorant, lower class white guy with tattoos, poor health, and bad hygiene.

It’s about as accurate as the idea that all inner city areas are populated by “young black thugs.” It’s total bunk. Even in places where there is gang activity, depending on the region of the country you’re in, or even which part of a large metropolitan area you’re in, you might see gang members of any number of nationalities, or no gangs at all.

In the same vein, there are plenty of rural communities where Latino Americans (in the Southwest), Native Americans (fucking everywhere), and African American (deep south) communities have bottomed out and would resemble the redneck stereotypes we jack off to. If anything, the pop culture redneck serves to make those communities particularly invisible–after all, if all rednecks are white, and all rednecks like being rednecks, why should we care? By casting being lower class as a “choice” and as something humorous, it makes the entire problem of poverty into something personal, rather than systemic. It’s something I wrestle with a lot, because my writing buys into that stereotype. I do my best to mitigate it by rendering it as something hopeless and systemic and dreary, but at the end of the day, I still have to make it erotic and appealing. It’s a very strange tightrope to walk.

So, could there be rednecks of other nationalities. There are, in fact, rednecks of other nationalities that we turn a blind eye to every day because popular culture has white washed poverty for the sake of humor. 

Sorry, that got a bit more political and melodramatic than I intended, but it’s the truth.