Redneck

In modern usage, redneck predominantly refers to a particular stereotype of whites from the Southern United States, Western United States, and Appalachia. The word can be used either as a pejorative or as a matter of pride, depending on context.

Related terms

North America

The term farmer tan is sometimes used to refer to a sunburn, particularly when the sunburned area covers the neck and arms of the person only.

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South Africa

In South Africa, the Afrikaans term rooinek (meaning "redneck") was derisively applied by Afrikaners to the British soldiers who fought during the Boer Wars, because their skin was sensitive to the harsh African sun. The phrase is still used by Afrikaners to describe English-speaking white people.

Related Topics:
South Africa - Afrikaans - Afrikaners - British soldiers - Boer Wars - African - Afrikaner

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Ironically, the term "redneck" is also used by the English to describe very conservative Afrikaners because of that group's historic support of apartheid, a system of white, minority power and privilege and black and "coloured" exploitation and disenfranchisement, possibly by analogy to the American usage described above.

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Barbados

"Poor whites" in Barbados (descendants largely of seventeenth century English, Scottish, and Irish indentured servants and deportees) were called Red Legs. Many of these families moved to Virginia and the Carolinas as large sugar plantations replaced small tobacco farming.

Related Topics:
Barbados - English - Scottish - Irish - Indentured servants

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Brazil

The term Caipira is used to define inhabitants from the countryside of São Paulo State (chiefly rural, and descendents of Japanese, Portuguese and Italian immigrants), which are considered the brazilian counterparts of american rednecks. Depending of how the word is applied, it can acquire pejorative conotation. However, the most pejorative ways to call a Caipira are "capial" (kha-pee-aw), intentionally mispronounced "capiar" (kha-pee-arr), as a Caipira supposedely would do, and Jeca (zhe-kah). Although the correct definition of Caipira is applied only to inhabitants from the countryside of São Paulo State, Caipira is used by many to tag anyone who comes from the countryside of any southeastern brazilian state.

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