I Get to Slam Wing Nuts With a Theory From One of Their "Darlings?" Excellent!

I get to say, when ever some wing nut or tea bagger plays the blame game, specifically the what's wrong with America game, that,"Ya know what? I agree with Thomas Sowell."

And they should ask what he said. And I get to reply,"Blame the rednecks."

How I got to this nugget, today, stems from my reading about some stupid appearance Mrs. Palin made on FNC last night. And I got to thinking about Jeff Foxworthy's definition for redneck; lacking in any sophistication. And I got to thinking that if that's America's most famous self-described redneck's definition of the term, then Mrs. Palin is the poster child.

And I did some net jumping, and finally stumbled on first a discussion about Sowell's redneck theory, and then, his own article: Redneck culture to blame for lack of intellectual development.

Turns out (and I knew it but forgot, as I never read it) that is the subject of an essay in, and the title of a book he wrote a couple, few years ago: "Black Rednecks and White Liberals."

Honestly, his core theory is nothing new. I've been saying it for years -- trash is trash, and poor is poor, and people on the bottom of society (all of them not necessarily trash, I must say plainly) do, as a practical matter, have more in common with each other than they have historically admitted, no matter their color. * (For the sake of the point, forget about institutionalized slavery and legally mandated inequality. That's a different point.)

I would bet that de Tocqueville figured that one out, nearly 200 years ago!

Anyway, the following, from the wiki art. about the book:

Black Rednecks and White Liberals

The title essay is based on Sowell's thesis about the origins of the "black ghetto" culture.

Sowell argues that the black ghetto culture, which is claimed to be "authentic black culture", is historically neither authentic nor black in origin. Instead, Sowell argues that the black ghetto culture is in fact a relic of a highly dysfunctional white southern redneck culture which existed during the antebellum South. This culture came, in turn, from the "Cracker culture" of the North Britons and Scots-Irish who migrated from the generally lawless border regions of Britain.

Sowell gives a number of examples that he regards as supporting the lineage, e.g.,

an aversion to work, proneness to violence, neglect of education, sexual promiscuity, improvidence, drunkenness, lack of entrepreneurship,… and a style of religious oratory marked by strident rhetoric, unbridled emotions, and flamboyant imagery.[1]

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.


Instead of making my own observations, here, I will go for the joke, instead. Yes. I finally got around to watching that movie Eminem did a few years back, 8 Mile. Now I know why he comes across as so 'authentic.' But there is no explaining that Vanilla Ice guy!

I'll leave it there, for now.

(*Side bar here. Back when I was still wasting time fighting with wing nuts on a message board, the enigma there, a black bisexual conservative redneck used to give me shit for my inauthentic ghetto trash talk. I told her I took that as a compliment. She and some of the other wing nuts there also criticized me for my believed to be authentic "Elitism." Like wise, I took that for a compliment, whether intended or not.)