DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

The Stigma Against Poor Whites

 

As I had mentioned previously, there exists a stigma about poor whites that may also abet the misrepresentation that exists between race and poverty. The term often used to describe whites living at or below the poverty line is one of an inimical and derogative context; “redneck” or “hillbilly” signifies a rural intruder of the urban scene. The term’s rise “intersects with a substantial social and political effort to channel public and private resources to specific metropolitan enclaves and that the concept has helped justify the severe neglect of vast parts of the country under the banner of ‘progressive growth’” (Jarosz, Lawson 17).

 

To put it simply, the term “redneck” serves as a sharp distinction across class and urban/rural lines. It is not correct – it is tabooto be white and poor, because it does not fit the racial hierarchy, thus this group is literally exiled and this segregation creates the comfortable distance the majority of white people want. The rural reconstruction and social polarization produce differences that are understood only in cultural terms in which the rural poor are characterized often in pejorative ways.

 

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.