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The Redneck Manifesto: How Hillbillies, Hicks, and White Trash Became America's Scapegoats
Culture maverick Jim Goad presents a thoroughly reasoned, darkly funny, and rampagingly angry defense of America's most maligned social group -- the cultural clan variously referred to as rednecks, hillbillies, white trash, crackers, and trailer trash. As The Redneck Manifesto boldly points out and brilliantly demonstrates, America's dirty little secret isn't racism but classism. While pouncing incessantly on racial themes, most major media are silent about America's widening class rifts, a problem that negatively affects more people of all colors than does racism. With an unmatched ability for rubbing salt in cultural wounds, Jim Goad deftly dismantles most popular American notions about race and culture and takes a sledgehammer to our delicate glass-blown popular conceptions of government, religion, media, and history.
272 pages, Paperback
First published May 14, 1997
68 people are currently reading
2158 people want to read
About the author
Jim Goad
25 books192 followersGoad started his writing career with the magazine "ANSWER Me!" Which got connected with a triple suicide by British gothics and of the white house shooting of Francisco Martin Duran.
In 1998 he was convicted of abusing his girlfriend and was released in 2000. In prison he wrote his autobiography "Shit Magnet."
In 1998 he was convicted of abusing his girlfriend and was released in 2000. In prison he wrote his autobiography "Shit Magnet."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 140 reviews
November 12, 2016
Redneck. Hillbilly. Yokel. Have you ever used any of these terms to describe other people in your society? I have, (sorry Queenslanders!) and after reading The Redneck Manifesto I can see the classist, snobby error of my ways.
If you're easily offended, I recommend reading something else. Goad is vulgar, occasionally extreme and prone to long, enraged rants. He's also damned entertaining, and has produced a fascinating book that looks the lives, hopes and stereotypes of poor white Americans.
As much as our neo-liberal masters would like to pretend otherwise, class both exists and matters. Trump and Brexit give us a glimpse of the shocking things that can happen when you ignore the reality of what life is like for large sections of our societies. Class is very much alive in the US and Goad shoves that reality in your face, while verbally slapping you and yelling at you to not look away.
He paints an ugly picture, its lines and colors dictated by poverty, the disdain of the mainstream, substance abuse and a government that hurts more than it helps. Goad traverses a lot of territory, from history through to leisure, politics and race relations, taking up the literary cudgel in defense of that most maligned of groups- the American redneck. The Redneck manifesto is vicious kick in the face to assumptions people make about poor white folks who are seen to be outside the acceptable white middle class mainstream.
I've never read anything like this book. This is unfiltered rage put onto page, with an intellect and wit the equal of its passion. I don't know how Goad was able to see his keyboard past his personal cloud of anger-spittle, but I'm glad he did. His writing is near musical in its torrent of insults and expletives and it's a joy to read, providing you have the stomach for his deliberate provocations. The insights he provides into the real, everyday lives of poor Americans are often shocking, giving readers a glimpse into a near hopeless world where life is getting worse, not better, and everybody involved knows it.
I don't agree with some of Goad's assertions, and his tone is often needlessly (if entertainingly) antagonistic, but his point of view is not often heard in our cultural discourse. When the results came in on the 8th of November 2016, I thought of this book. In the era of Trump (the Trumpassic? The Trumpermian? The Bullshitocene?) Goad points a flashlight at a largely ignored section of American society and helps us understand why so many people are so angry, and why they feel their nation has let them down.
If you're easily offended, I recommend reading something else. Goad is vulgar, occasionally extreme and prone to long, enraged rants. He's also damned entertaining, and has produced a fascinating book that looks the lives, hopes and stereotypes of poor white Americans.
As much as our neo-liberal masters would like to pretend otherwise, class both exists and matters. Trump and Brexit give us a glimpse of the shocking things that can happen when you ignore the reality of what life is like for large sections of our societies. Class is very much alive in the US and Goad shoves that reality in your face, while verbally slapping you and yelling at you to not look away.
He paints an ugly picture, its lines and colors dictated by poverty, the disdain of the mainstream, substance abuse and a government that hurts more than it helps. Goad traverses a lot of territory, from history through to leisure, politics and race relations, taking up the literary cudgel in defense of that most maligned of groups- the American redneck. The Redneck manifesto is vicious kick in the face to assumptions people make about poor white folks who are seen to be outside the acceptable white middle class mainstream.
I've never read anything like this book. This is unfiltered rage put onto page, with an intellect and wit the equal of its passion. I don't know how Goad was able to see his keyboard past his personal cloud of anger-spittle, but I'm glad he did. His writing is near musical in its torrent of insults and expletives and it's a joy to read, providing you have the stomach for his deliberate provocations. The insights he provides into the real, everyday lives of poor Americans are often shocking, giving readers a glimpse into a near hopeless world where life is getting worse, not better, and everybody involved knows it.
I don't agree with some of Goad's assertions, and his tone is often needlessly (if entertainingly) antagonistic, but his point of view is not often heard in our cultural discourse. When the results came in on the 8th of November 2016, I thought of this book. In the era of Trump (the Trumpassic? The Trumpermian? The Bullshitocene?) Goad points a flashlight at a largely ignored section of American society and helps us understand why so many people are so angry, and why they feel their nation has let them down.
September 6, 2007
As someone who isn't too far removed from his Cracker roots, I was hoping that this book would be a "Fanfare for the Redneck Man", of sorts.
God, was I disappointed. Instead, it's pretty clear that Goad is a self-loathing Redneck, and desperately wishes that he could be part of the "bourgeois" class he claims to despise. If you think I'm lying, check out his obsessive compare/contrast essay on the beautiful lawns of the nicer neighborhoods where he grew up, compared with the squalor of his own home.
Also, he borrows an argument from Engels that the lower classes enjoy monster truck rallies and professional wrestling because it is an extreme diversion, something jolting to get them out of their dead-end lives. Personally, I thought it was because both of these things are AWESOME. I'm a big believer that anyone will try something new, given the right encouragement and the resources to do so. Nevertheless, as a whole these people aren't very wealthy and well-traveled, so rallies and matches are what they know, and what they can participate in.
After about two or three chapters, you'll get tired of Goad's bile. In fact, the only part worth reading is the section about the early days of the North American colonies. Goad argues that white indentured servants were basically slaves, and the truth is that they probably were. His portrayal of the Irish in America is also spot-on and heartbreaking. This, however, can be read in the bookstore; don't bother taking the rest home with you.
God, was I disappointed. Instead, it's pretty clear that Goad is a self-loathing Redneck, and desperately wishes that he could be part of the "bourgeois" class he claims to despise. If you think I'm lying, check out his obsessive compare/contrast essay on the beautiful lawns of the nicer neighborhoods where he grew up, compared with the squalor of his own home.
Also, he borrows an argument from Engels that the lower classes enjoy monster truck rallies and professional wrestling because it is an extreme diversion, something jolting to get them out of their dead-end lives. Personally, I thought it was because both of these things are AWESOME. I'm a big believer that anyone will try something new, given the right encouragement and the resources to do so. Nevertheless, as a whole these people aren't very wealthy and well-traveled, so rallies and matches are what they know, and what they can participate in.
After about two or three chapters, you'll get tired of Goad's bile. In fact, the only part worth reading is the section about the early days of the North American colonies. Goad argues that white indentured servants were basically slaves, and the truth is that they probably were. His portrayal of the Irish in America is also spot-on and heartbreaking. This, however, can be read in the bookstore; don't bother taking the rest home with you.
November 28, 2007
This is one of my favorite and most lent-out books. It's a very brash, no punches pulled look at race and class issues in America. As someone who has zero interest in political correctness, and in fact feels it's one of the main reasons this country is going to shit, I share many if not all of Goads opinions. However, if you can't handle offensive language and a completely fearless (and maybe tastless) inspection of these delicate issues, you might not want to sully your virgin eyes.
If you can handle Goads way of expressing himself, you will get your eyes opened to alot of things that only he has had the balls to say outloud.
If you can handle Goads way of expressing himself, you will get your eyes opened to alot of things that only he has had the balls to say outloud.
April 20, 2012
The Redneck Manifesto is a rant. The sort of rant you might hear at any number of grimy dive bars across the country on any given night. A rant that is, unquestionably, entirely more entertaining and slick that you would hear at those dive bars. It’s even a rant with endnotes! But if it’s an intelligent rant, it’s not an accurate one, endnotes notwithstanding.
Jim Goad is angry, and if you’re a hillbilly, hick, redneck, or white trash of any variety (a bit broad there, but we’ll return to that) he’s angry on your behalf. And he’s got a point in there somewhere. White and black men are much more likely to mingle in a factory than a white-shoe law firm, in a dive bar than a martini bar, and in a trailer park than a gated community. Life as an indentured servant was more than a little hard (the early, historical portions of the book are easily its best). We really should have been a bit more worried in the 90s about foreign, Arabic terrorists.
Well, yes. But American, white terrorists aren’t any less nasty. We would kindly ask people to not knock over our buildings and, failing that, not ask and not do it kindly. The portion of his rant on tidewater cavaliers would have been considered roughly accurate had he written it a few decades ago, but historiography marched on without Mr. Goad, and he would have benefited from picking up a newer book.
Therein lies one of Mr. Goad’s primary problems. He’s always got a source ready at hand, but by his standards it need merely be in support of his position. Accuracy and intellectual honesty are optional, at best. Hence the bad history above. And a ready willingness to quote Alexander Hamilton on guns that is strangely absent when it comes time to talk about banks. Would I betray my hillbilly roots as high-faluting to demand that if you use endnotes you not be completely full of BS? (And it’s not a bad bibliography. One can overlook a little A People’s History of United States for some Mind of the South and Night Comes to the Cumberlands.)
You can’t hardly rant without throwing your own biases in, but I guess this is a rant too, so I won’t shed too many tears over pointing Mr. Goad’s biases out. Mr. Goad has a very specific view of what the very broad people he is talking about are, and he’ll fit them into that square hole come heck or high water. He thinks religion is silly so he just talks about Bigfoot and Elvis instead (he’s channeling his inner Marx here, which is a bit bourgeois, to tell the truth). Well growing up in backwoods southern Appalachia we took religion REAL serious, and hellfire and brimstone flew every Sunday. Mr. Goad, Portland white trash that he is, only has a passing familiarity with my people, now doesn’t he? He commits that old sin of lumping us highland southerners with the lowland southerners (and letting a bunch of people from Lord knows wherever take up cause with us while he’s at it!). As anyone who has lived in both the highland and lowland South could tell you, David Hackett Fischer was right. They remain two very different places populated by two very different cultures.
And so Mr. Goad’s rant goes down the path of so many other lonely fools on barroom stools. He can turn a phrase or two and hit a button, yes, but that son of a gun doesn’t know his rear-end from a hole in the ground.
Jim Goad is angry, and if you’re a hillbilly, hick, redneck, or white trash of any variety (a bit broad there, but we’ll return to that) he’s angry on your behalf. And he’s got a point in there somewhere. White and black men are much more likely to mingle in a factory than a white-shoe law firm, in a dive bar than a martini bar, and in a trailer park than a gated community. Life as an indentured servant was more than a little hard (the early, historical portions of the book are easily its best). We really should have been a bit more worried in the 90s about foreign, Arabic terrorists.
Well, yes. But American, white terrorists aren’t any less nasty. We would kindly ask people to not knock over our buildings and, failing that, not ask and not do it kindly. The portion of his rant on tidewater cavaliers would have been considered roughly accurate had he written it a few decades ago, but historiography marched on without Mr. Goad, and he would have benefited from picking up a newer book.
Therein lies one of Mr. Goad’s primary problems. He’s always got a source ready at hand, but by his standards it need merely be in support of his position. Accuracy and intellectual honesty are optional, at best. Hence the bad history above. And a ready willingness to quote Alexander Hamilton on guns that is strangely absent when it comes time to talk about banks. Would I betray my hillbilly roots as high-faluting to demand that if you use endnotes you not be completely full of BS? (And it’s not a bad bibliography. One can overlook a little A People’s History of United States for some Mind of the South and Night Comes to the Cumberlands.)
You can’t hardly rant without throwing your own biases in, but I guess this is a rant too, so I won’t shed too many tears over pointing Mr. Goad’s biases out. Mr. Goad has a very specific view of what the very broad people he is talking about are, and he’ll fit them into that square hole come heck or high water. He thinks religion is silly so he just talks about Bigfoot and Elvis instead (he’s channeling his inner Marx here, which is a bit bourgeois, to tell the truth). Well growing up in backwoods southern Appalachia we took religion REAL serious, and hellfire and brimstone flew every Sunday. Mr. Goad, Portland white trash that he is, only has a passing familiarity with my people, now doesn’t he? He commits that old sin of lumping us highland southerners with the lowland southerners (and letting a bunch of people from Lord knows wherever take up cause with us while he’s at it!). As anyone who has lived in both the highland and lowland South could tell you, David Hackett Fischer was right. They remain two very different places populated by two very different cultures.
And so Mr. Goad’s rant goes down the path of so many other lonely fools on barroom stools. He can turn a phrase or two and hit a button, yes, but that son of a gun doesn’t know his rear-end from a hole in the ground.
May 23, 2020
The Redneck Manifesto by Jim Goad was published in 1997 and is still as Raw as ever. This book is extremely funny, insightful, and as stated above Raw. A breath of fresh air is to be felt while reading thru the pages. I can see why Gavin holds this book in such high esteem. Definitely worth the read and I will also add that the amount to which it opens your eyes is incredible, all of a sudden that which Goad speaks of you see and hear all around, I can’t give any examples, read it and see for yourself.
“Silent Whitey. Scared and quiet. Smile and act nervous. Shit eating albino chimpanzee. Take the blame. Swallow the pill. Apologize for the past. Sweat through the present. Surrender the future. Sack cloth and ashes for as long as you live. White people don’t make a peep. They just peck their birdseed and huddle within their cages. I can’t see how a mental diet of guilt and self flagellation would be healthy for any ethnic group. Being apologetic and meek is as unbecoming in white people as it is in anyone.”
“Complaining is bad enough. Party line piety is unforgivable. The white liberal is an unsavory hybrid of Joseph Stalin and Mother Theresa. Too many rules mixing with too much righteousness. Too little to back everything up. Sensitivity by force. Understanding through indoctrination. Brotherhood at gunpoint. The left, like the right, has drawn a clearly perceptible party line, and to wonder astray of it immediately makes you a suspect. You disagree with one factoid, and all of a sudden you are the king Kleagle. The white liberal’s ideological opponents don’t merely disagree with him, they are “sick.“ White liberals aren’t freethinkers, they are ideologues. And they don’t possess the wisdom to tell the difference.“
“Silent Whitey. Scared and quiet. Smile and act nervous. Shit eating albino chimpanzee. Take the blame. Swallow the pill. Apologize for the past. Sweat through the present. Surrender the future. Sack cloth and ashes for as long as you live. White people don’t make a peep. They just peck their birdseed and huddle within their cages. I can’t see how a mental diet of guilt and self flagellation would be healthy for any ethnic group. Being apologetic and meek is as unbecoming in white people as it is in anyone.”
“Complaining is bad enough. Party line piety is unforgivable. The white liberal is an unsavory hybrid of Joseph Stalin and Mother Theresa. Too many rules mixing with too much righteousness. Too little to back everything up. Sensitivity by force. Understanding through indoctrination. Brotherhood at gunpoint. The left, like the right, has drawn a clearly perceptible party line, and to wonder astray of it immediately makes you a suspect. You disagree with one factoid, and all of a sudden you are the king Kleagle. The white liberal’s ideological opponents don’t merely disagree with him, they are “sick.“ White liberals aren’t freethinkers, they are ideologues. And they don’t possess the wisdom to tell the difference.“
January 30, 2016
Rednecks of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your bills. Jim Goad's The Redneck Manifesto is a raucous mixture of southern pride and Marx-esque social criticism which examines the plight of working whites. Although few would take seriously the concept of white plight, in Goad's eyes 'privileged whites' constitute a minority of American whites; most are working-class slobs like himself who have been treated as miserably throughout American history as any minority, even slaves. His aim is to expose anti-prole bigotry, by shock therapy if need be, and demonstrate that America's big problems are rooted in class, not ethnic tension.
His history might echo A People's History if Howard Zinn had focused on working whites and were give nto telling the reader to "f*** off". It is a history rooted in class conflict: since time immemorial, a wealthy few have kept most of the power in their hands, and America is no different. Though our national legend involves Pilgrims seeking liberty, in the fact of the matter is that most whites who immigrated came against their wills; they were the poor pushed off the fields, scraped off the streets, and shanghaied across the Atlantic to toil as indentured servants. Volunteering or conscripting in the Revolution, they died to help create a Constitution which had no place for them, and the centuries of progress that followed brought only more of the same. The Civil War destroyed the economy of the south, but did little to displace the power-elite; industrialism proved even more lethal than the killing fields of Europe's Great War, at least for Americans, as thousands died every year from factory and mining accidents. The rest of the century was no better; homes were blown apart as companies tried to crack open the Appalachian mountains like a walnut, with no mind given to the people who lived there, and free trade agreements saw the disappearance of jobs which remained. To add insult to injury, institutions that persecuted blacks, like slavery and Jim Crow laws, were somehow blamed on the impoverished working class, despite it being just as disenfranchised by local elites. (Documents like the 1901 Alabama Constitution remain equal-opportunity oppressors of the working poor.) While the 20th century saw various populations gain media shielding and political protection, the white working class remained a common horse to beat on, a pleasure shared by both formerly-marginalized minorities and the elite.
Against all this, Goad doesn't call for sensitivity; no self-respecting working man would whine. What he does want is for everyone to leave rednecks the hell alone. Making fun of his kin on TV is one thing; everybody likes their scapegoats. What he has his sights on is excessive tax burdens; let the government be paid for by people who receive the services, or the propertied -- and the United States' foreign policy, which typically involves sending the sons and daughters of the poor to fight to fulfill the elite's ambitions. War is the harvester of the home, and nothing else. In addition to calling for an end to death and taxes, Goad celebrates the culture of the white working family, with chapters given over to "Playing Hard" and even to "Praying Hard", despite Goad's firm belief that religion and politics are both full of it.
The Redneck Manifesto may have a serious intent, but it's hard to take the delivery as such. Goad is deliberately and enthusiastically vulgar, employing racial slurs throughout to goad the reader, hopefully forcing them to see 'redneck' and 'hillbilly' as pejoratives on the level as kike, Chink, and yea, even the dreaded "N-word". That's artistic license, but his seemingly schizophrenic style -- alternating between informal if serious analysis and seemingly insane ranting, throwing in nicknames for personalities and employing colloquial spelling randomly -- can easily throw a reader off. It's surely deliberate; Goad's whole purpose in writing the book is defy conventional attitudes.
The Redneck Manifesto is a fascinating if problematic book; it's not a perspective I'm used to hearing. Class is a taboo topic now, relegated only to Marxists -- and few working men would give Marx's conflict theory of society a moment's consideration after a half-century of being assured by the TV that in America we're all one big happy middle-class family. Good luck, too, finding the self-described Marxist who would go anywhere near ethnic consciousness if they are white. As a product of the white working class with a sympathy for Marxist social critique, I had a ball reading this -- even while wading through the eccentric treatment of the English tongue. It's funny, cringingly inappropriate, and yet thoughtful at the same time; a tirade with a point. There's tremendous value in looking at an often ignored segment of the impoverished population, but considering the abuse Goad hurls out, readers other than southerners looking for a sympathetic voice -- of which Goad's is surely one -- might put it down early.
Related:
The Renegade History of America, Thaddaeus Russell
His history might echo A People's History if Howard Zinn had focused on working whites and were give nto telling the reader to "f*** off". It is a history rooted in class conflict: since time immemorial, a wealthy few have kept most of the power in their hands, and America is no different. Though our national legend involves Pilgrims seeking liberty, in the fact of the matter is that most whites who immigrated came against their wills; they were the poor pushed off the fields, scraped off the streets, and shanghaied across the Atlantic to toil as indentured servants. Volunteering or conscripting in the Revolution, they died to help create a Constitution which had no place for them, and the centuries of progress that followed brought only more of the same. The Civil War destroyed the economy of the south, but did little to displace the power-elite; industrialism proved even more lethal than the killing fields of Europe's Great War, at least for Americans, as thousands died every year from factory and mining accidents. The rest of the century was no better; homes were blown apart as companies tried to crack open the Appalachian mountains like a walnut, with no mind given to the people who lived there, and free trade agreements saw the disappearance of jobs which remained. To add insult to injury, institutions that persecuted blacks, like slavery and Jim Crow laws, were somehow blamed on the impoverished working class, despite it being just as disenfranchised by local elites. (Documents like the 1901 Alabama Constitution remain equal-opportunity oppressors of the working poor.) While the 20th century saw various populations gain media shielding and political protection, the white working class remained a common horse to beat on, a pleasure shared by both formerly-marginalized minorities and the elite.
Against all this, Goad doesn't call for sensitivity; no self-respecting working man would whine. What he does want is for everyone to leave rednecks the hell alone. Making fun of his kin on TV is one thing; everybody likes their scapegoats. What he has his sights on is excessive tax burdens; let the government be paid for by people who receive the services, or the propertied -- and the United States' foreign policy, which typically involves sending the sons and daughters of the poor to fight to fulfill the elite's ambitions. War is the harvester of the home, and nothing else. In addition to calling for an end to death and taxes, Goad celebrates the culture of the white working family, with chapters given over to "Playing Hard" and even to "Praying Hard", despite Goad's firm belief that religion and politics are both full of it.
The Redneck Manifesto may have a serious intent, but it's hard to take the delivery as such. Goad is deliberately and enthusiastically vulgar, employing racial slurs throughout to goad the reader, hopefully forcing them to see 'redneck' and 'hillbilly' as pejoratives on the level as kike, Chink, and yea, even the dreaded "N-word". That's artistic license, but his seemingly schizophrenic style -- alternating between informal if serious analysis and seemingly insane ranting, throwing in nicknames for personalities and employing colloquial spelling randomly -- can easily throw a reader off. It's surely deliberate; Goad's whole purpose in writing the book is defy conventional attitudes.
The Redneck Manifesto is a fascinating if problematic book; it's not a perspective I'm used to hearing. Class is a taboo topic now, relegated only to Marxists -- and few working men would give Marx's conflict theory of society a moment's consideration after a half-century of being assured by the TV that in America we're all one big happy middle-class family. Good luck, too, finding the self-described Marxist who would go anywhere near ethnic consciousness if they are white. As a product of the white working class with a sympathy for Marxist social critique, I had a ball reading this -- even while wading through the eccentric treatment of the English tongue. It's funny, cringingly inappropriate, and yet thoughtful at the same time; a tirade with a point. There's tremendous value in looking at an often ignored segment of the impoverished population, but considering the abuse Goad hurls out, readers other than southerners looking for a sympathetic voice -- of which Goad's is surely one -- might put it down early.
Related:
The Renegade History of America, Thaddaeus Russell
December 12, 2008
Basically looks at how poor and working class whites are the last acceptable target for hatred in the current pc mind control time we live in now and are the most exploited class in our current society. Goad is a very entertaining writer so despite the subject matter don't think this book is going to be some stiff uptight right wing conservative crap. More of a personal/real world look at anti-white racism and propaganda.
May 12, 2009
On school you are taught from many different perspectives. But there is a certain perspective of a certain people they won`t touch with a ten yard stick. That`s the perspective of the white working class.
Esspecially the American white working class. First they were fucked when they arrived as serfs on American soil.
Then after they were freed their jobs were stolen by people that don`t even wanted them.
And after that and after the civil war they were supposed to like the free black people, while the former slave holders moved to areas without any freed slaves
Esspecially the American white working class. First they were fucked when they arrived as serfs on American soil.
Then after they were freed their jobs were stolen by people that don`t even wanted them.
And after that and after the civil war they were supposed to like the free black people, while the former slave holders moved to areas without any freed slaves
February 7, 2017
Parts of the book were really good. Goad is convincing on the class contempt the richer save for the poorer, and on how the white working class is the only group in US society one can publicly look down upon in "fine company".
The first part, about white slavery (perhaps under another word, but slavery nonetheless), is sad and every bit as infuriating as other tales on slavery. And it might be a story which could be told more often: I for one had heard about it, but never much, and never so systematic.
But it gets tedious after a while. I get the point. I got the point. I GET IT!!! ... but Goad rambles on. It might still be points worth making, but more and more, the book feels like listening to a speech which will never stop, a preacher who goes on and on like Fidel Castro in his prime (eight hours without a script wasn't unheard of). I GET IT!
Also, the book is written for an American audience to an extreme, filled with cultural references you more or less have to grow up in the US to understand, with the language becoming very convoluted inside these references after a while and it's almost impossible for an outsider to get. Actually, it's like a style from Norse poetry: a ship wasn't just a ship, but a "wave-horse". War wasn't War, but "steel discussion". And one could build images within images within images like this, after a while making it quite a feat to understand. Cockney English might work the same way, thinking about it. It's alright, the book IS for an American audience, most of which would understand the parts I don't, but in my opinion, it's too much of it.
Definitely worth reading for the first 3-4 chapters, though.
The first part, about white slavery (perhaps under another word, but slavery nonetheless), is sad and every bit as infuriating as other tales on slavery. And it might be a story which could be told more often: I for one had heard about it, but never much, and never so systematic.
But it gets tedious after a while. I get the point. I got the point. I GET IT!!! ... but Goad rambles on. It might still be points worth making, but more and more, the book feels like listening to a speech which will never stop, a preacher who goes on and on like Fidel Castro in his prime (eight hours without a script wasn't unheard of). I GET IT!
Also, the book is written for an American audience to an extreme, filled with cultural references you more or less have to grow up in the US to understand, with the language becoming very convoluted inside these references after a while and it's almost impossible for an outsider to get. Actually, it's like a style from Norse poetry: a ship wasn't just a ship, but a "wave-horse". War wasn't War, but "steel discussion". And one could build images within images within images like this, after a while making it quite a feat to understand. Cockney English might work the same way, thinking about it. It's alright, the book IS for an American audience, most of which would understand the parts I don't, but in my opinion, it's too much of it.
Definitely worth reading for the first 3-4 chapters, though.
December 29, 2018
Muy crudo.
Desesperanzador.
Desesperanzador.
December 27, 2020
I don’t know what I was expecting from this but what I got was disappointing.
First of all, Goad writes the entire book in this weird southern boomerspeak dialectic, like a much more vulgar Jeff Foxworthy. And that’s really what this feels like. It feels like he’s playing a character. Which would be fine if he didn’t go to such painful lengths to convince you of his “white trash” street cred. This guy grew up in Philadelphia, got a degree from NYU and married into a Jewish family. Sorry but I’m not really buying the “redneck” routine.
He uses this persona to tackle some of the most basic talking points about race relations and PC culture ever. “If a black person does or says (X) then it’s fine, but if a white person does or says (X) then he gets called RACIST!” Ok, we get it. There’s a staggering and blatant double standard in this country when it comes to race and being able to discuss racial issues. But this is not a hot take. We all know this already. It might have been a hot take in 1997 but I doubt that too. I guess I was expecting some kind of deeper analysis. Maybe a little insight into the linguistic war on white people. A look into the WHO and WHY of this double standard. Something.
Another thing that really bugged me to the point that I almost stopped reading in the first chapter: For a guy who supposedly loves and embraces his poor white heritage, it does not come across in the language he uses when describing poor rural folks. He goes through great effort to describe them as dirty and ugly and stupid and all around vile. Talking about his hometown: “The cheap houses... always smelled like methane and rotted fruit. Toenail clippings and balled-up boogers lurked beneath the sofas. The men were very hairy and dumb, while the women were somewhat hairy and dumb.” Who talks like that about their own people? I grew up in a poor white town and would never dream of describing my town or my neighbors in such a derogatory way.
The chapter on taxation and the federal reserve lacked any libertarian minded insight and instead reads like the rantings of an angry drunk who just hates paying taxes. The chapter on religion sounds like it could have been written by an edgy seventh grader with a chip on his shoulder because his parents made him go to mass.
The saving grace of the entire book is the history of the white underclass in Europe and America. There’s some good information there. However, this part could be read in the bookstore. No need to take it home. If you want a picture of rural southern culture, read Faulkner. If you want to know about taxation and the federal reserve, read Ron Paul. If you want race realism, read Jared Taylor. I really can’t think of a good reason to read Jim Goad.
First of all, Goad writes the entire book in this weird southern boomerspeak dialectic, like a much more vulgar Jeff Foxworthy. And that’s really what this feels like. It feels like he’s playing a character. Which would be fine if he didn’t go to such painful lengths to convince you of his “white trash” street cred. This guy grew up in Philadelphia, got a degree from NYU and married into a Jewish family. Sorry but I’m not really buying the “redneck” routine.
He uses this persona to tackle some of the most basic talking points about race relations and PC culture ever. “If a black person does or says (X) then it’s fine, but if a white person does or says (X) then he gets called RACIST!” Ok, we get it. There’s a staggering and blatant double standard in this country when it comes to race and being able to discuss racial issues. But this is not a hot take. We all know this already. It might have been a hot take in 1997 but I doubt that too. I guess I was expecting some kind of deeper analysis. Maybe a little insight into the linguistic war on white people. A look into the WHO and WHY of this double standard. Something.
Another thing that really bugged me to the point that I almost stopped reading in the first chapter: For a guy who supposedly loves and embraces his poor white heritage, it does not come across in the language he uses when describing poor rural folks. He goes through great effort to describe them as dirty and ugly and stupid and all around vile. Talking about his hometown: “The cheap houses... always smelled like methane and rotted fruit. Toenail clippings and balled-up boogers lurked beneath the sofas. The men were very hairy and dumb, while the women were somewhat hairy and dumb.” Who talks like that about their own people? I grew up in a poor white town and would never dream of describing my town or my neighbors in such a derogatory way.
The chapter on taxation and the federal reserve lacked any libertarian minded insight and instead reads like the rantings of an angry drunk who just hates paying taxes. The chapter on religion sounds like it could have been written by an edgy seventh grader with a chip on his shoulder because his parents made him go to mass.
The saving grace of the entire book is the history of the white underclass in Europe and America. There’s some good information there. However, this part could be read in the bookstore. No need to take it home. If you want a picture of rural southern culture, read Faulkner. If you want to know about taxation and the federal reserve, read Ron Paul. If you want race realism, read Jared Taylor. I really can’t think of a good reason to read Jim Goad.
June 24, 2019
Amigo Jim, no hace falta machacar repetidamente la cabeza del lector con una misma idea para que éste capte su esencia. Este ensayo de tono macarra sobre la clase paupérrima blanca estadounidense tiene claros que iluminan todo un segmento de la población del próspero USA vilipendiada hasta la naúsea, objeto de todo tipo de sambenitos, puerta de atrás con acceso al contenedor de basura de la clase media y alta urbana. Diversos grupos, en su mayoría rurales y marginales, de endogámica pobreza, que jamás han gozado de populares defensores ni han sido objeto de campañas mediáticas que denuncien el trato que se les dispensa desde tiempos lejanos. Han sido, son y serán materia de escarnio, mofa y maltrato a varios niveles y de varias formas.
Jim Goad maneja fuentes y las detalla. ¿Hasta qué punto son fiables? No lo sé. Cierto destello de verosimilitud tienen, desde luego. Es decir, su tesis de fondo se apuntala con profuso detalle y no suena descabellada: la llamada "basura blanca" es el gran chivo expiatorio de la sociedad norteamericana, ganando en el escalafón a negros, hispanos, asiáticos, homosexuales, transexuales, etc. No es la raza, es la clase social.
El lector se ve en la necesidad de familiarizarse con un glosario de términos que no son otra cosa que populares motes colectivos: redneck, hillbilly, yokel, hayseed, cracker, y demás especies. Seres del inframundo rural o montañoso, de costumbres bárbaras, aislados e incomprendidos, sobre los que recaen todos los vicios y maldades.
Si no fuera por lo repetitivo que en ocasiones resulta el ensayo y por lo insistente que se muestra el autor en narrar con aire agresivo y chulesco, la lectura hubiera sido algo más satisfactoria. Con todo, merece la pena escuchar lo que Jimmy tiene que decir porque sirvió de preludio en su día a la reacción que llevó a Donald Trump a la presidencia del país.
Jim Goad maneja fuentes y las detalla. ¿Hasta qué punto son fiables? No lo sé. Cierto destello de verosimilitud tienen, desde luego. Es decir, su tesis de fondo se apuntala con profuso detalle y no suena descabellada: la llamada "basura blanca" es el gran chivo expiatorio de la sociedad norteamericana, ganando en el escalafón a negros, hispanos, asiáticos, homosexuales, transexuales, etc. No es la raza, es la clase social.
El lector se ve en la necesidad de familiarizarse con un glosario de términos que no son otra cosa que populares motes colectivos: redneck, hillbilly, yokel, hayseed, cracker, y demás especies. Seres del inframundo rural o montañoso, de costumbres bárbaras, aislados e incomprendidos, sobre los que recaen todos los vicios y maldades.
Si no fuera por lo repetitivo que en ocasiones resulta el ensayo y por lo insistente que se muestra el autor en narrar con aire agresivo y chulesco, la lectura hubiera sido algo más satisfactoria. Con todo, merece la pena escuchar lo que Jimmy tiene que decir porque sirvió de preludio en su día a la reacción que llevó a Donald Trump a la presidencia del país.
Read
October 22, 2025A sawed off shotgun blast at the moral and intellectual pretensions of the American liberal ruling elite. Jim Goad's thesis is that throughout American history, poor powerless whites have been scapegoated by powerful wealthy ones for the sin of their own privilege. Please don't let his provocative and vulgarity-laden style fool you. Goad is fanatical researcher, obsessed with accuracy and detail. He supports his claims with reams of historical and sociological data. Whether you like how he makes it, his case seems airtight. But then, as historically literate white trash myself, maybe I'm prejudiced.
Yet while I do regard The Redneck Manifesto as classic of sorts, I don't find it quite timeless. Looking back, it seems ensconced in the decade of its composition. This is a Clinton presidency/pre-internet era book, set against the backdrop of the Oklahoma City bombing, the siege of Waco, the Rodney King riots, and the O.J. Simpson trial: a book that for all of its deep reach into history seems about, and for, the 1990's. Yet its theme remains as relevant as ever. I think I'd enjoy reading a second edition, updated for our times. Goad was still half a Marxist when he published The Redneck Manifesto. Since then, his thinking has evolved (or devolved, if you will) into what might be described as Darwinian nihilism. I suspect a clash between the young and old Jim Goads would be fascinating.
Yet while I do regard The Redneck Manifesto as classic of sorts, I don't find it quite timeless. Looking back, it seems ensconced in the decade of its composition. This is a Clinton presidency/pre-internet era book, set against the backdrop of the Oklahoma City bombing, the siege of Waco, the Rodney King riots, and the O.J. Simpson trial: a book that for all of its deep reach into history seems about, and for, the 1990's. Yet its theme remains as relevant as ever. I think I'd enjoy reading a second edition, updated for our times. Goad was still half a Marxist when he published The Redneck Manifesto. Since then, his thinking has evolved (or devolved, if you will) into what might be described as Darwinian nihilism. I suspect a clash between the young and old Jim Goads would be fascinating.
February 17, 2009
Greatly enjoyed this book, informative and provocative throughout. Was utterly unaware of much of the history of indentured servitude for many of the white europeans brought to the states. Goad points out how poor whites historically have always been more likely to live in more ethnically diverse areas than the wealthy, white liberals yet are always portrayed as hatefilled racists; how they have very little actual power yet are seen as the cause of the rot in US society; and the disturbing world of Bigfoot erotica.
Not one for the easily offended but the well researched anecdotes, laugh out loud humour and fierce intelligence make it impossible to put down.
Not one for the easily offended but the well researched anecdotes, laugh out loud humour and fierce intelligence make it impossible to put down.
March 22, 2017
A bit more populist and less right wing than I had anticipated. Very interesting description of Irish slavery in US. It was eerie how this book, written 20 years ago, seemed current.
September 27, 2013
“The Redneck Manifesto” is a flawed classic; a case of a brilliant idea running out ahead of a book weighed down by the author’s own frenetic style and tackled at the five yard line by error. It’s a book everyone should read, and no one should get their hopes up about. Goad’s aim is to make a case for the “redneck”, by which he means poor and working class whites. While the book’s title might suggest to some that it is a racist screed, it is, in fact, exactly the opposite. In taking the right that any human being has to simple dignity for granted, Goad demonstrates that this right is (or should be) colorblind. Deploring the popular inclination to treat poor whites as cardboard cutout objects of legitimate social scorn he creates of this socio-racial hillbilly class a group of living, breathing human beings with real feelings, comprehensible motives and an inalienable right to respect. When he explores history, he’s brilliant. When he examines culture, he’s insightful. When he discusses ideology, however, he’s really, really smart, until he gets dumb.
While normally I wouldn’t delve too deeply into an author’s writing style, Goad’s style is such an integral part of his message that to ignore it would be an unforgiveable omission. As much shtick as it is prose, his writing style is a manic fusion of in-your-face irony and comedic rapid-fire realism that is designed to be at once shocking, funny and thought-provoking. Irreverent disregard for social taboos is a huge element of his riff. During the first third of the book, for example, he carpet bombs his pages with the word “nigger”, and yet the violation of this most scrupulously attended social taboo is to a valid point. Those who are offended by his usage will quickly put the work down, which is a shame as he’s reserved the entire last chapter of his book for them. Those who wade through it will see what he’s on about – that the power of marginalizing racial pejoratives, which can be as hurtful as we make them or as liberating as we choose to let them be, is colorblind. For me his style worked right up until it didn’t anymore. Somewhere about half way through page 132 I’d had enough…..not that I was offended so much as it had stopped being funny, and so created a barrier between his ideas and my interest in hearing them.
Perhaps the books greatest achievement is to cogently articulate the status of poor whites throughout our nation’s history and the means by which natural class allies, enslaved blacks and indentured whites, were set against each other to the benefit of the powerful. While there’s a bit more to it than what he’s letting on, his point on the whole is accurate – that England essentially made America the place they used to “take out its social trash”, and that a huge proportion of the whites who came to America in the 17th and 18th century did so against their will, were treated horribly once they got here and have lived horribly ever since. This is not to diminish the depredations of slavery, Jim Crow or our current era of post-racial oppression – these Goad takes for granted - , but rather, to acknowledge that regardless of a victim’s race awful treatment has awful consequences, and to ignore one group's suffering in deference to another’s is to blind us all to common suffering’s root cause. “It’s not about race” he declares, “– it’s about class.” For the last year or so, I have immersed myself in America’s racial history, current issues of race and the contemporary schools of philosophical thought. “It’s not about race, it’s about class” is nothing short of black philosophical heresy. In saying it, he whacks a hornet’s nest……or churns butter, depending on your willingness to abandon dogma in the search for answers.
In adopting a class view of human disadvantage, his ire is reserved not for people of different races, but rather, the people whose wealth and influence allow them to control society. Their tactics, he argues, have always been to divide and conquer; to set poor whites against poor blacks in a manner that renders each group powerless and leave them free to pursue their own financial and social interests unperturbed by plebian dissent. Anyone who has carefully studied American’s racial and social history would be hard pressed to disagree with him. Where he errs, however, is in then ascribing to “government” the inevitable role as the instrument of class oppression. He embraces the “get government off our backs” ethos which, in the fifteen years since he published the book, has been the guiding inspiration behind America’s Tea Party movement. This just doesn’t make sense to me…..and never has. If the wealthy and the powerful are inclined (by self-interest, and not necessarily malice) to abuse and exploit the poor, “government” can indeed become a tool of “oppression” when surrendered into their hands or it can be a tool of liberty when entrusted to the people. By stripping government of its power, the Tea Party and proto-advocates like Goad would strip away the only thing standing between the poor and the power of the rich. Deregulation does not help the poor, but instead, robs them of their leverage. Lower taxes do not benefit people who are one parking ticket away from financial ruin or so destitute that they’re not paying taxes anyway. Yet in, what is to me an incomprehensible irony, Goad summarily and cynically rejects the possibility of governing well, and would instead strip the last vestiges of buffer between those who have nothing and those who control everything. His answer is no answer, and is as much a dead end as the black community’s fifty year old campaign to guard some imaginary branded franchise in human misery.
The bottom line is that, notwithstanding its deliberately coarse plebian tone, the book is deeply thought provoking, While I disagreed with much of what he had to say, there is much that he has to say that is correct, and in that his thoughts are ultimately informed by a sense of fairness and social equality, they deserves to be taken seriously.....except when they're really, really dumb.
While normally I wouldn’t delve too deeply into an author’s writing style, Goad’s style is such an integral part of his message that to ignore it would be an unforgiveable omission. As much shtick as it is prose, his writing style is a manic fusion of in-your-face irony and comedic rapid-fire realism that is designed to be at once shocking, funny and thought-provoking. Irreverent disregard for social taboos is a huge element of his riff. During the first third of the book, for example, he carpet bombs his pages with the word “nigger”, and yet the violation of this most scrupulously attended social taboo is to a valid point. Those who are offended by his usage will quickly put the work down, which is a shame as he’s reserved the entire last chapter of his book for them. Those who wade through it will see what he’s on about – that the power of marginalizing racial pejoratives, which can be as hurtful as we make them or as liberating as we choose to let them be, is colorblind. For me his style worked right up until it didn’t anymore. Somewhere about half way through page 132 I’d had enough…..not that I was offended so much as it had stopped being funny, and so created a barrier between his ideas and my interest in hearing them.
Perhaps the books greatest achievement is to cogently articulate the status of poor whites throughout our nation’s history and the means by which natural class allies, enslaved blacks and indentured whites, were set against each other to the benefit of the powerful. While there’s a bit more to it than what he’s letting on, his point on the whole is accurate – that England essentially made America the place they used to “take out its social trash”, and that a huge proportion of the whites who came to America in the 17th and 18th century did so against their will, were treated horribly once they got here and have lived horribly ever since. This is not to diminish the depredations of slavery, Jim Crow or our current era of post-racial oppression – these Goad takes for granted - , but rather, to acknowledge that regardless of a victim’s race awful treatment has awful consequences, and to ignore one group's suffering in deference to another’s is to blind us all to common suffering’s root cause. “It’s not about race” he declares, “– it’s about class.” For the last year or so, I have immersed myself in America’s racial history, current issues of race and the contemporary schools of philosophical thought. “It’s not about race, it’s about class” is nothing short of black philosophical heresy. In saying it, he whacks a hornet’s nest……or churns butter, depending on your willingness to abandon dogma in the search for answers.
In adopting a class view of human disadvantage, his ire is reserved not for people of different races, but rather, the people whose wealth and influence allow them to control society. Their tactics, he argues, have always been to divide and conquer; to set poor whites against poor blacks in a manner that renders each group powerless and leave them free to pursue their own financial and social interests unperturbed by plebian dissent. Anyone who has carefully studied American’s racial and social history would be hard pressed to disagree with him. Where he errs, however, is in then ascribing to “government” the inevitable role as the instrument of class oppression. He embraces the “get government off our backs” ethos which, in the fifteen years since he published the book, has been the guiding inspiration behind America’s Tea Party movement. This just doesn’t make sense to me…..and never has. If the wealthy and the powerful are inclined (by self-interest, and not necessarily malice) to abuse and exploit the poor, “government” can indeed become a tool of “oppression” when surrendered into their hands or it can be a tool of liberty when entrusted to the people. By stripping government of its power, the Tea Party and proto-advocates like Goad would strip away the only thing standing between the poor and the power of the rich. Deregulation does not help the poor, but instead, robs them of their leverage. Lower taxes do not benefit people who are one parking ticket away from financial ruin or so destitute that they’re not paying taxes anyway. Yet in, what is to me an incomprehensible irony, Goad summarily and cynically rejects the possibility of governing well, and would instead strip the last vestiges of buffer between those who have nothing and those who control everything. His answer is no answer, and is as much a dead end as the black community’s fifty year old campaign to guard some imaginary branded franchise in human misery.
The bottom line is that, notwithstanding its deliberately coarse plebian tone, the book is deeply thought provoking, While I disagreed with much of what he had to say, there is much that he has to say that is correct, and in that his thoughts are ultimately informed by a sense of fairness and social equality, they deserves to be taken seriously.....except when they're really, really dumb.
March 1, 2018
Well this was one hell of a read. Not for the faint of heart or sensitive to incessant racial slurs. Goad proposes a less popularized sentiment regarding our use of profanity surrounding the "white-trash" of American society, and the likeness to using the "N" word. He proposes well researched historical data and statistics. However his argument is often lost due to his uncanny late late late night stand-up humor and often contradictory remarks. Do however read if you are interested in a completely biased self-centered account of how class-war from the time of serfdom to the civil war to now, has been masked by a race-war. I give it three stars for it's lack of public support, which says more about his stance than anything.
August 26, 2020
Jim Goad has your number, assholes.
January 4, 2019
Un manifiesto en forma de ensayo o un ensayo que se vuelve manifiesto. Es un mazazo brutal, políticamente incorrecto, escrito con muy mala leche. A lo largo de poco menos de 400 páginas Jim Goad expone la forma en que rednecks, hillbillys, hicks, hayseeds, yonkels o demás apelativos que se han usado para nombrar y denigrar a la Basura Blanca, han sido los chivos expiatorios y los repositorios de toda la culpa de los biempensantes respecto al racismo y todos los males de Estados Unidos.
Declarándose un redneck de cepa, Goad vocifera los agravios históricos que los blancos pobres han sufrido desde el origen del país del norte. Señalando cómo sus antepasados (los Goad y los redneck) han sido sometidos a situaciones poco disímiles de los ultrajes sufridos por los esclavos negros. Esta serie de acontecimientos sirven para justificar toda la rabia contenida y el odio acumulado por el autor en contra de las élites (políticas y económicas).
Hace evidente la eterna dicotomía entre el Cosmopolitismo Urbanita vs Paletismo Rural. En donde el blanco de ciudad, universitario, progre y con acceso a los medios de comunicación ataca, humilla y culpa de todos los males a aquella Basura Blanca que le encanta vivir en terrenos inhóspitos, bebiendo cerveza, disparando armas, practicando incesto y odiando a los negros. La argumentación de Goad se centra en otra lucha Raza vs Clase. Dice el autor que mientras unos abogan, hipócritamente, por luchar contra el racismo, poco dicen sobre la serie de desigualdades socioeconómicas en las que viven la gran mayoría de la población.
Ese enfrentamiento entre racismo vs clasismo se lleva a cabo sólo entre los de abajo. Confrontando a rednecks vs negratas obviando que, éstos tienen más en común y tendrían más motivos para unirse en contra de aquellos que, sentados cómodamente, dictan a quiénes hay de odiar.
Resulta un texto antisistema escrito por alguien que se siente cómodo con ser un bravucón que traza una reivindicación de la Nación Redneck. Sin ser marxista (Goad se encuentra a basta distancia de ello), expone una lucha de clases que parecer ser olvidada de cualquier discurso o lucha, incluidas aquellas que se hacen llamar de izquierda.
Escrito en 1997 es tan vigente y ayuda a entender los ascensos de tipos como Trump. Las izquierdas edulcoradas se han volcado al neoliberalismo disfrazado de identidades de todo tipo y de lo políticamente correcto. Mientras, la derecha (la derecha siempre es una), ha decidido tomar las desigualdades socioeconómicas de la sociedad para seguir agenciándose el poder. Ejemplo de esto es este libro “Las diferencias culturales ahogan las similitudes económicas” sentencia Goad.
Sin embargo, el autor lejos está de llamar al diálogo y el entendimiento entre los de abajo. Por el contrario, está fascinado por dinamitar los puentes que puedan unir a rednecks y negratas, a los oprimidos. Parece curarse en salud sólo por el hecho tener claro cuál es el verdadero problema.
La lectura vuelve inevitable hacer el paralelismo con otro ensayo, aunque posterior al de Goad, que también aborda la estigmatización del pobre escrito por Owen Jones (Chavs. La demonización de la clase obrera, 2013). Resultan evidentes las conexiones entre Chavs y Rednecks. Unos desde centros urbanos pauperizados; otros desde el corazón de los Apalaches se enfrentan a la ridiculización de las biempensantes. Aunque seguramente Owen Jones sería tachado por Goad como un progre Varón Blanco Culpable, sus textos pueden llegar a ser esos primos hermanos tan opuestos que terminan siendo casi iguales.
Manifiesto Redneck es un ensayo rabioso y muy peligroso que levanta muchas ampollas. Aderezado con música de Johnny Cash, Woody Guthrie y Elvis.
Declarándose un redneck de cepa, Goad vocifera los agravios históricos que los blancos pobres han sufrido desde el origen del país del norte. Señalando cómo sus antepasados (los Goad y los redneck) han sido sometidos a situaciones poco disímiles de los ultrajes sufridos por los esclavos negros. Esta serie de acontecimientos sirven para justificar toda la rabia contenida y el odio acumulado por el autor en contra de las élites (políticas y económicas).
Hace evidente la eterna dicotomía entre el Cosmopolitismo Urbanita vs Paletismo Rural. En donde el blanco de ciudad, universitario, progre y con acceso a los medios de comunicación ataca, humilla y culpa de todos los males a aquella Basura Blanca que le encanta vivir en terrenos inhóspitos, bebiendo cerveza, disparando armas, practicando incesto y odiando a los negros. La argumentación de Goad se centra en otra lucha Raza vs Clase. Dice el autor que mientras unos abogan, hipócritamente, por luchar contra el racismo, poco dicen sobre la serie de desigualdades socioeconómicas en las que viven la gran mayoría de la población.
Ese enfrentamiento entre racismo vs clasismo se lleva a cabo sólo entre los de abajo. Confrontando a rednecks vs negratas obviando que, éstos tienen más en común y tendrían más motivos para unirse en contra de aquellos que, sentados cómodamente, dictan a quiénes hay de odiar.
Resulta un texto antisistema escrito por alguien que se siente cómodo con ser un bravucón que traza una reivindicación de la Nación Redneck. Sin ser marxista (Goad se encuentra a basta distancia de ello), expone una lucha de clases que parecer ser olvidada de cualquier discurso o lucha, incluidas aquellas que se hacen llamar de izquierda.
Escrito en 1997 es tan vigente y ayuda a entender los ascensos de tipos como Trump. Las izquierdas edulcoradas se han volcado al neoliberalismo disfrazado de identidades de todo tipo y de lo políticamente correcto. Mientras, la derecha (la derecha siempre es una), ha decidido tomar las desigualdades socioeconómicas de la sociedad para seguir agenciándose el poder. Ejemplo de esto es este libro “Las diferencias culturales ahogan las similitudes económicas” sentencia Goad.
Sin embargo, el autor lejos está de llamar al diálogo y el entendimiento entre los de abajo. Por el contrario, está fascinado por dinamitar los puentes que puedan unir a rednecks y negratas, a los oprimidos. Parece curarse en salud sólo por el hecho tener claro cuál es el verdadero problema.
La lectura vuelve inevitable hacer el paralelismo con otro ensayo, aunque posterior al de Goad, que también aborda la estigmatización del pobre escrito por Owen Jones (Chavs. La demonización de la clase obrera, 2013). Resultan evidentes las conexiones entre Chavs y Rednecks. Unos desde centros urbanos pauperizados; otros desde el corazón de los Apalaches se enfrentan a la ridiculización de las biempensantes. Aunque seguramente Owen Jones sería tachado por Goad como un progre Varón Blanco Culpable, sus textos pueden llegar a ser esos primos hermanos tan opuestos que terminan siendo casi iguales.
Manifiesto Redneck es un ensayo rabioso y muy peligroso que levanta muchas ampollas. Aderezado con música de Johnny Cash, Woody Guthrie y Elvis.
June 22, 2007
not for the faint of heart, jim goad's the redneck manifesto has a fairly simple message at its core -- that most of what we attribute to "race struggles" in america are in fact class struggles, with the rich pitting the poor of different colors to inherently fight in order not to violently overthrow the class-based status quo instead. now, he expresses this opinion violently here, crudely at times, in ways that have profoundly offended lots of different groups over the years; this book isn't for everyone, to be sure. i think, though, that it's definitely worth checking out, something not quite a classic but a big step up from his old
answer me
zine days.
January 26, 2010
There's a lot to Goad's book and I hope the historical and social punch in the face it offers does not get lost in my reaction. The sources he cites run from Edward Abbey to Howard Zinn. The first third reads as an alternative history lesson, one that made perfect sense when I read it, but the implications of which probably didn't stay with me when I initially learned it because extreme leftism embraces a notion of continuous, uninterrupted white privilege that is heresy to deny. The middle third was a look at the contemporary mores of the working class/white trash culture and the last third was a sociological look at how, in America where we all wanna be rich or die trying, no one seems to get the fact that we at the bottom benefit the powers that keep us here each time we snap at each other's neck. Read the rest of the review here: http://ireadoddbooks.com/?p=276
August 18, 2007
Fuck. Okay, I think Joad's racist, sexist, and deeply troubling in many ways. On the plus side, he's written an (often) entertaining and probing book about the white lower classes. He's a good writer and has done his research, at least that which suits him. He got pretty deep into the history and implications of indentured servitude. I found this book interesting and strangely gripping, but I made a point not to let my impressionable teenage stepkid anywhere near it.
January 9, 2008
Very enlightening. My son recommended this book as a way of understanding how racism is not a red/black/religious phenomena. Anyone wanting a better understanding of what it really means to be a 'red neck' or 'hill billy' or any of the other thousand derogative terms usually applied to these folks should settle down with this book and a good cup of coffee! It will truly give the reader a better understanding of our early ancestry for those Americans not red, black, or yellow.
July 13, 2020
Por ahí va Jim Goad. ¿Ey, Jim, a dónde coño vas? Jim Goad está muy cabreado. Escribe desde las entrañas o desde el intestino, como el que escupe o arroja su mierda redneck a la progresía bienpensante. ¡Ojo! que aquí hay verdades como puños (americanos). Un puñetazo de verdades en nuestra jeta 'flower power'... Jim Goad es un hillbilly, un paleto con mala hostia, un macarra. No te acerques demasiado o acabarás escaldado.
May 20, 2011
Its a white trash thing, you wouldn't understand.
July 16, 2017
I can't recommend this book enough.
July 28, 2019
Lectura imprescindible. No pasan los años por ella.
Todos somos rednecks.
Todos somos rednecks.
August 2, 2018
Un libro con mucha información controvertida, que da muchísimo material para reflexionar, especialmente en lo relacionado con la esclavitud de blancos en Estados Unidos (traídos mediante engaños o derechamente secuestrados) y cómo se crea el concepto de "redneck" o "White Trash" (haciendo referencia a clases sociales más pobres, a fin de cuentas). La etimología de los términos como hillbilly o yockel es muy interesante y un aporte.
Read
October 8, 2016It's interesting to look back on this book given Goad's position now. He currently occupies the skeptical contrarian/nihilist end of the spectrum of Alt-Right pundits writing for TakiMag, his new writings mostly consisting of fapping to an old copy of the Bell Curve and flirting with big sloppy wet kisses with eugenics and Social Darwinist racial tribalism, expressing outrage over non-worthwhile lost causes like the Confederate Flag and stumping for the Donald. A disappointing melange not substantially different than most of Fox News and appealing to a comments section that is basically a cesspool of denizens from Men's Rights forums, Fountainhead readers and Stormfront. This book on the other hand occupied a moment in his trajectory where he was strangely close to anarcho-leftists like Howard Zinn or Noam Chomsky and to having class consciousness, writing from a perspective of working class whites as the only acceptable pariahs left in the wake of political correctness as a foil to distract criticism from rich whites who tangibly benefit the most from systematic racism. It makes one almost nostalgic for the times when blatant racism hadn't come back out of the woodwork in full force and we could pretend. Almost. Those were the times of the 1994 Crime Bill and the beginnings of mass incarceration, so let's not get all weepy eyed. But I digress. It's full of forgotten historical moments of class warfare perpetuated against immigrant workers and indentured servants from Europe. I'm sure other writers from America's past along with Zinn have made the point better than Goad, but he is a case study of how a disaffected angry hate nugget (and I mean that in a good way) can lose it's aim. This was his high point where he could have gone in a different direction. This touched on the authentic hungers that demagogues always promise to feed in angry poor whites with right wing junk food, jingoism and religion. I't s a mixed bag though. Already in this book are hints of Alt-Right talking points that would become standard red herrings to derail discussion of systematic racism (e.g. the idea that slaves overall had arguably better quality of life than indentured servants because people treat property they own better than cheap disposable rent-a-slaves), but also a nascent critique of neo-liberalism and hypocrisy that is still needed today. In his more recent writings, Goad has seemed to downplay any discussion of class and economics and focus instead on joining in the Fox chorus bashing the supposed Cultural Marxist/Frankfurt School specter to be found around very corner. There might be some stuff here to cut out of the surrounding rotten tissue for those with the patience and time to do so. Some kernel of jouissance that could be put to better use. This book, along with 'Them' by Jon Ronson should be required reading for those who want to understand the current malaise in American politics and the appeal of the Alt-Right from Alex Jones to Goad to the Militia movement. Ah, what strange bedfellows the times can slap together at odd moments.
June 5, 2019
The first thing that strikes a lot of people is how relevant a book might be after 22 years. Quite frankly, this book reads a lot better now than it would have in 1997. Jim Goad may be an unlikeable guy to many people, a convict, his rather controversial writings in his ANSWER ME! zine, his abrasive and rather vulgar prose. However, Jim Goad saw something a lot of people didn't at the time, and his blunt in-your-face style cuts through the tight Politically Correct swaddling cloths that have wrapped around common discourse to the point that even alleged dog-whistling and coded crime-thought with people making OK sign hand gestures has lead to people getting fired and publicly harassed. There seems to be a spirit of nostalgia lately for the days of the 1980s and 1990s, now that the 1950s are too far gone to ever return to. A wistful remembrance by many young adults for the childhood, where things weren't so bad as they are today. However, like the setting of a David Lynch movie, underneath the exterior of what seemed to be rather well, was a deep rot. Many people seemingly forget the beginning of the 1990s had a racially charged atmosphere, with LA burning in a race riot not seen since the turbulence of the Civil Rights Era. And while South Central was left to burn and TVs broadcasted the famous footage of Korean store clerks taking arms defending their stores from arson and looting from the roof tops, the National Guard formed a tight perimeter around the elites' mansions in Beverly Hills.
It was in this zeitgeist that Goad wrote the Redneck Manifesto. In an age where optimism seemed abound with the Dotcom Bubble and America seemed triumphant, Goad noticed a malaise lurking in the background. Perhaps all this enthusiasm was whistling past the graveyard, whites pretending that NAFTA wasn't gutting the country's industrial base, that family farms weren't being gobbled up by mega Agrocorps, that it was crazy to think that life wasn't really getting any better. And of course the canary in the coal mine was none other that the Rednecks, the white trash, the working class stiffs who fell victim first to Neoliberal Globalist economics. When a structure is in a state of collapse, it is the lowest rung that hits the ground first. Indeed, nearly 25 years later the Rednecks, Hillbillies, and working class haven't had their situation improve an iota. They've been left behind to rot away, without jobs, without hope, and with more people dying from scourges like Opioids and Meth every year than the Vietnam War. Only now, that drugs have seeped into the Middle Class suburbs has it become an epidemic, and the formerly Upper Middle Class feels the pain that the so called White trash have felt for decades. It's no longer the factory workers losing their jobs to outsourcing, but the formerly affluent white collar workers in industries like IT being outsourced or replaced by H1B visaholders and left to twist in the wind. We now see oddities like the tiny house movement, which is a glaringly obvious attempt at would be Bourgeois middle class college graduates coping with the fact that their masters degrees offer them nothing but usurious debt and can't stand the optics of living in a trailer like, "those people".
Despite all these problems, our society has chosen the Rednecks, the Hillbillies, the "White Trash", as the scapegoat to society's problems. It's their racism, their inbred stupidity, their laziness that holds us and them back. They have "White privilege", while in reality as Goad points out, they have been dispossessed from the very foundation of this country. They are often the descendants of the "Indentured Servants" (who were really no better than slaves and often abducted to be used as chattel), then replaced by African slaves and forced out to the fringes of settlement to live in abject poverty. The poor whites were left to be resentful, and the elites fostered racial animosity as a divide and conquer strategy so that a multiracial slave rebellion could never occur like the failed Gloucester County Conspiracy in 1663. Then again, it was the 1% Planter aristocracy that used the same people as cannon fodder in the Civil War (the Deep South essentially fought to the last Appalachian hillbilly, who didn't even have slaves, and when the war came to THEIR lands and burnt their plantations, threw in the towel). They were to suffer again at the hands of the Northern Industrialist 1%, who has demonized them as the scum of the earth and being backwards (which had nothing to do with the economic sanctions and rail duties imposed on the South and even loyalist areas like West Virginia, which stalled industrialization until lifted after World War II). Don't get mad at the oligarchs, get mad at the poor redneck who doesn't want the statue his ancestors built honoring the war dead demolished. The specter of the evil, racist redneck is used by the elites as a wedge, keeping people focused on ultimately pointless social conflict as they consolidate more of the nation's wealth in their hands. Without the trailer trash for people to look down their noses at, one might wonder how many people would question their own situation and become very angry that they're not making ends meet anymore?
Goad's insight as to the rage that the White Working Class feels could have predicted the election of Donald Trump, and also the ineffectiveness that such an election would have in changing the Status Quo. Living in Portland at the time, Goad also was in the opportune location to witness the rise of the hipster and the "Social Justice Warrior", who else in 1997 would have known what a hipster was? Goad himself is not a right-wing conservative in the traditional sense either, but rather an ex-liberal who has seen that the mainstream left has been bought off by Corporate Neoliberalist interests and become hypocrites. And he writes with a vitriol that only an apostate can have toward it. From the Free Speech Movement in Berkeley, to Hate Speech rules and massive online censorship. From caring about the working class, to attacking them as "White supremacist" and having "privilege". Obama once talked of these people as "clinging to their guns and religion", and nobody seemed to ask the question, "Why?". One clings tightly to that what they have and are fearful of losing. Instead of empathizing for a people who have little left to claim as their own, they are endlessly sneered at for their fervent escapism in tacky things like Elvis, Bigfoot, Professional Wrestling, NASCAR and Religion. Goad sees the poor whites in "Flyover country" as the true underdogs, and coming from a working class background himself, stands up for them in a way that not many people have. Like Cassandra, had people like Jim Goad been listened to, maybe we wouldn't be in the situation we're in with massive racial tension, political polarization, and a hollowed out middle class. But one things for sure, it's not the trailer trash who got us into this mess, but the insufferable bourgeois coastal elites who have spent decades dumping on them. We should turn our scorn, contempt, and anger at them accordingly.
It was in this zeitgeist that Goad wrote the Redneck Manifesto. In an age where optimism seemed abound with the Dotcom Bubble and America seemed triumphant, Goad noticed a malaise lurking in the background. Perhaps all this enthusiasm was whistling past the graveyard, whites pretending that NAFTA wasn't gutting the country's industrial base, that family farms weren't being gobbled up by mega Agrocorps, that it was crazy to think that life wasn't really getting any better. And of course the canary in the coal mine was none other that the Rednecks, the white trash, the working class stiffs who fell victim first to Neoliberal Globalist economics. When a structure is in a state of collapse, it is the lowest rung that hits the ground first. Indeed, nearly 25 years later the Rednecks, Hillbillies, and working class haven't had their situation improve an iota. They've been left behind to rot away, without jobs, without hope, and with more people dying from scourges like Opioids and Meth every year than the Vietnam War. Only now, that drugs have seeped into the Middle Class suburbs has it become an epidemic, and the formerly Upper Middle Class feels the pain that the so called White trash have felt for decades. It's no longer the factory workers losing their jobs to outsourcing, but the formerly affluent white collar workers in industries like IT being outsourced or replaced by H1B visaholders and left to twist in the wind. We now see oddities like the tiny house movement, which is a glaringly obvious attempt at would be Bourgeois middle class college graduates coping with the fact that their masters degrees offer them nothing but usurious debt and can't stand the optics of living in a trailer like, "those people".
Despite all these problems, our society has chosen the Rednecks, the Hillbillies, the "White Trash", as the scapegoat to society's problems. It's their racism, their inbred stupidity, their laziness that holds us and them back. They have "White privilege", while in reality as Goad points out, they have been dispossessed from the very foundation of this country. They are often the descendants of the "Indentured Servants" (who were really no better than slaves and often abducted to be used as chattel), then replaced by African slaves and forced out to the fringes of settlement to live in abject poverty. The poor whites were left to be resentful, and the elites fostered racial animosity as a divide and conquer strategy so that a multiracial slave rebellion could never occur like the failed Gloucester County Conspiracy in 1663. Then again, it was the 1% Planter aristocracy that used the same people as cannon fodder in the Civil War (the Deep South essentially fought to the last Appalachian hillbilly, who didn't even have slaves, and when the war came to THEIR lands and burnt their plantations, threw in the towel). They were to suffer again at the hands of the Northern Industrialist 1%, who has demonized them as the scum of the earth and being backwards (which had nothing to do with the economic sanctions and rail duties imposed on the South and even loyalist areas like West Virginia, which stalled industrialization until lifted after World War II). Don't get mad at the oligarchs, get mad at the poor redneck who doesn't want the statue his ancestors built honoring the war dead demolished. The specter of the evil, racist redneck is used by the elites as a wedge, keeping people focused on ultimately pointless social conflict as they consolidate more of the nation's wealth in their hands. Without the trailer trash for people to look down their noses at, one might wonder how many people would question their own situation and become very angry that they're not making ends meet anymore?
Goad's insight as to the rage that the White Working Class feels could have predicted the election of Donald Trump, and also the ineffectiveness that such an election would have in changing the Status Quo. Living in Portland at the time, Goad also was in the opportune location to witness the rise of the hipster and the "Social Justice Warrior", who else in 1997 would have known what a hipster was? Goad himself is not a right-wing conservative in the traditional sense either, but rather an ex-liberal who has seen that the mainstream left has been bought off by Corporate Neoliberalist interests and become hypocrites. And he writes with a vitriol that only an apostate can have toward it. From the Free Speech Movement in Berkeley, to Hate Speech rules and massive online censorship. From caring about the working class, to attacking them as "White supremacist" and having "privilege". Obama once talked of these people as "clinging to their guns and religion", and nobody seemed to ask the question, "Why?". One clings tightly to that what they have and are fearful of losing. Instead of empathizing for a people who have little left to claim as their own, they are endlessly sneered at for their fervent escapism in tacky things like Elvis, Bigfoot, Professional Wrestling, NASCAR and Religion. Goad sees the poor whites in "Flyover country" as the true underdogs, and coming from a working class background himself, stands up for them in a way that not many people have. Like Cassandra, had people like Jim Goad been listened to, maybe we wouldn't be in the situation we're in with massive racial tension, political polarization, and a hollowed out middle class. But one things for sure, it's not the trailer trash who got us into this mess, but the insufferable bourgeois coastal elites who have spent decades dumping on them. We should turn our scorn, contempt, and anger at them accordingly.
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