> It also depends of your tolerance of rednecks, prudes, puritans, and ignorant people (which exist everywhere in the world, but have particularly large concentrations there).
FYI, using "redneck" as a pejorative, as in this context, can be interpreted as pretty offensive, and maybe this is unintentional. I for one consider it offensive.
>According to Chapman and Kipfer in their "Dictionary of American Slang", By 1975 the term had expanded in meaning beyond the poor Southerner to refer to "a bigoted and conventional person, a loutish ultra-conservative."[20]
If the OP was using it in this way, I don't see the issue. If he/she was using it to just describe laboring, rural whites, I agree; it's offensive and inappropriate. Given the context of the statement, I assumed the former.
On the topic, Randy Newman's song "Rednecks" is a scathing critique of Northerners and their "hidden" racism and hypocrisy on the subject.
>Yes he's free to be put in a cage
In Harlem in New York City
And he's free to be put in a cage
On the South Side of Chicago
And the West Side
And he's free to be put in a cage
In Hough in Cleveland
And he's free to be put in a cage
In East St. Louis
And he's free to be put in a cage
In Fillmore in San Francisco
And he's free to be put in a cage
In Roxbury in Boston
They're gatherin' 'em up from miles around . . . (apologies for the formatting)
When Jeff Foxworthy does his (incredibly unfunny) "You might be a redneck, if..." bits, the crowd is not laughing and nodding and saying "That's so true, I too am a bigoted and loutish ultra-conservative!"
To many people, redneck simply describes a particular rural lifestyle. If the OP wanted to call out bigotry, they should have called out bigots.
(This, admittedly, might have been a difficult sell given that it was immediately followed up an attack on a religious group)
FYI, using "redneck" as a pejorative, as in this context, can be interpreted as pretty offensive, and maybe this is unintentional. I for one consider it offensive.