By: Bjørn Stærk

Bjørn Stærk — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 17:23:38 +0000

Yeah, I found the VDare review when I wrote this. I agree that Powell’s theory is speculative, but in an interesting and valuable way. From now on I’ll read histories that involve these groups in a different way, looking for examples for or against the theory. Even a wrong theory can be useful if it provokes the right questions.

Anyway, his overall message here is not about rednecks, but a conservative/libertarian message about the causes of success and failure for groups and individuals. All of it interesting, without being something I agree with entirely.

Btw, what’s wrong with being a “pansy lefty liberal”?

By: Petter

Petter — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:41:38 +0000

I am familiar with Sowell but have never read him. However, reading your synopis of his essay on the growth of black ghetto culture, it didn’t seem quite right to me, at least from what I’ve read of both redneck culture and the black underclass,(not that I’ve read that much) but I have read among other things, Nicholas Lehman’s masterly piece in the Atlantic, later made into a book, The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America.
Anyway, Steve Sailer (not exactly a pansy lefty liberal) wrote a critical review of the book for VDare, again, not a lefty PC site by any means, which addressed my disquiet -specifically the connection between the Scot-Irish of the Appalachian highlands and black culture as mediated through low class, lowland whites. Sailer then goes on to dicuss a non PC view -that the problem with black ghetto culture can be traced back to the culture of the West African tribes from which they came, combined with failed American social policy.

http://vdare.com/sailer/050515_redneck.htm

Favorite redneck: Joe Bageant, author of Deer hunting with Jesus:Dispatches from America’s Class War.

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/

Rednecks on Obamarama:

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2009/05/a-redneck-view-of-the-obamarama.html

Comments on: Are Jews electric?

By: Bjørn Stærk

By: Petter