Customer Reviews

The Redneck Manifesto: How Hillbillies, Hicks, and White Trash Became America's Scapegoats

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Jim Goad, The Redneck Manifesto (Simon and Schuster, 1997)

Three years before the publication of The Redneck Manifesto, Jim Goad was self-releasing the magazine ANSWER Me! on his own press, Goad to Hell Publications (who also published Peter Sotos' first collection, one of the only books I know of that was actively suppressed before being challenged through official channels), and standing trial for obscenity for issue #4. Fast-forward to 1997, and he's getting a hardback first-printing for a book I wouldn't have thought a major publisher would touch with a ten-foot pole.

Maybe there IS some small hope for the world.

That, ultimately, is what The Redneck Manifesto is about-- hope. Most people probably won't figure that out from reading it, though.

The Redneck Manifesto is a two-hundred-fifty page rant, I grant you, but it is a savagely intelligent, well-researched, and downright laugh-out-loud funny rant, and like all the best rants throughout history, it has at its core both a simple truth, that the redneck is the last subsection of American society against which it's permissible to be prejudiced, and a solution to that truth, which in this case is that the rednecks, and the people who oppress the rednecks, have a common enemy who has manipulated them into being enemies.

This is nothing new, of course. The power elite have been manipulating segments of the great unwashed against each other throughout human history. They're still doing it. (The Israelis and the Palestinians, anyone? The Orange Irish and the Green Irish? Shiites and Sunnis? The Tutsi and the Hutu? We could keep going like this all day.)

Goad has a plan to get everyone clear-headed, but to say it's confrontational would be understating the case somewhat. His thrust in the first segment of the book is to make you aware that the word "redneck" is as much a slur as are many other words that we recognize as slurs now (and are thus unprintable in an Amazon review), and he does so by using them. A lot. For most people, there's going to be a shock factor, though it's surmountable-- especially if you're paying attention to what Goad is driving at.

From there, he launches into a very well-researched history of the redneck, which further clarifies a point he made in the beginning: that the modern redneck, contrary to popular wisdom, is not the architect of American race-hatred; quite the opposite. It's the book's most "scholarly" section, but it still reads like a rant, and that's a wonderful thing.

After that, three chapters on the culture of the redneck. It should be no surprise to those who know Goad's work that they come off kind of like a rapper telling N-word jokes; "it's okay, because I'm a member of the oppressed group." There's more to it than that, though; Goad is a misanthrope more than he is a redneck, and you can't just turn off the jaundiced-eye filter. This, ultimately, is what gives the book its highest street-cred marks; Goad doesn't make the same mistake other oppressed-minority writers do in confusing a desire for equality with a desire for revenge. He's not talking about the redneck rising supreme to put its boot on the neck of any other oppressed minority, he's talking about all of them, with all their many faults, rising up as one to overthrow The Man.

The book concludes with a strenuous, energetic dissection of those groups who really need to be brought down with extreme prejudice. If you don't get fired up after reading the chapter on the banking industry, pal, check your pulse.

This is an important piece of work, and it's especially relevant in the post-2004-election atmosphere of restless natives presently pervading the country. If you're breaking your back for The Man, be you white collar, blue collar, no collar, redneck, black neck, white neck, jobless, homeless, whatever, read this book. It is, potentially, a life-changing experience. *****

If you decide to read this book, you are in for a major treat. This is a book unlike any other. As I read the book, I kept wondering how it ever got published. Jim Goad is one angry redneck, to be sure. His goal is to show how poor white trash has become the only acceptable scapegoat left in this country. Along the way, he rides roughshod over every type of politically correct supposition known to man. Goad doesn't care a whit about whiny blacks or liberal do-gooders. He doesn't give a fig about conservatives with their big-business loving mentality, either. Goad is concerned with one thing: the mistreatment of people, regardless of their skin color.

Goad reduces the ills of poor white trash to one simple formula: economic exploitation by the wealthy. Goad believes that the rich, throughout history, have consistently played off classes against each other in order to maintain their privileged status. The recent black vs. white warfare is just the latest incarnation of this exploitation. Goad disproves the widespread belief that blacks suffered alone. The majority of whites in America got here as indentured servants, many of whom were kidnapped and tossed on a boat against their will. America also served as a dumping ground for poor white criminals. The indentured servants were often treated worse than black slaves. Owners of indentured servants knew that they only had a limited amount of time to exploit these white slaves, so they worked them to a frazzle. Goad cites statistic after statistic to show that the vast majority of whites had it as bad, if not worse, than blacks.

Most of the book concerns razor sharp insights into white trash values. Goad looks at Elvis, Bigfoot and snake hugging Christians and sees within them new religions of the trash class. Militias and conspiracy addicts are also examined and shown to have somewhat of a basis for their paranoia. Probably the best part of the book, in my opinion, is when Goad describes a night out on the town in a poor white bar. His observations on the denizens of this bar are hilarious and sad at the same time. Most of the time that is the charm of this book: it is thigh-slapping funny. I would love to quote to you some of the witty aphorisms contained in this book, but I can't because they are so obscene. If you are not a fuzzy-wuzzy liberal, you'll laugh at this gem of a book too. After reading this book, I'm sure my reparations check is only a trip to the mailbox away. Highly recommende

This book is a scathing critique of political correctness and a spirited defense of the white working class. I believe the main points of the book are: 1. Lower class white people, especially from the south and Appalachia, are being scapegoated and made to take the blame for all of America's sins. 2. America's "dirtiest little secret" is not racism but classism, and 3. Multiculturalism and political correctness are upper class philosophies which serve the interests of the upper classes by keeping the lower clases divided. Despite the biting, caustic nature of the book, I believe Mr. Goad presents an effective argument. He has done a thorough job of research and marshalled much evidence in support of his position. The book will be considered outrageous and offensive by some, but the truth sometimes is offensive. The book is uneven in some ways - I believe his argument defending hate groups will be considered unacceptable to many. However, I believe the book contains enough truth to make it necesary reading for anyone truly concerned about the problems facing America today

...basically, I think Goad's put his finger on something very real and important; being a working-class white male myself, I must confess to turning one or another shade of crimson (and not just on my neck) whenever I hear some rich, Harvard-educated, brownstone-dwelling, cigar bar-frequenting, cappucino-sipping (and usually lily-white) "limo-lib" lovingly preserving his (or her) most cherished Archie Bunkerian stereotypes about us blue-collar slobbereenies. But I think there's a huge difference between pointing out the hypocrisies and rhetorical excesses of overclass pseudoradicalism and making a sweeping dismissal of the entire liberal enterprise. Goad has hit upon one of the most neglected truths in American society: racism, sexism, homophobia, and other leftist bugaboos notwithstanding, class is by far the biggest and most entrenched of social dividers. But rather than use this insight as a springboard for a more class-conscious approach to positive social change, Goad chooses (and seemingly encourages his readership to choose) to retreat into a world of political apathy, unrelenting self-pity, and perverse "pride" in some of the more tragic manifestations of trailer-park poverty. He sees his earlier attempts to improve his socialeconomic footing as not only futile (which may or may not be true) but also as somehow a betrayal of his heritage (which, I'm sorry, is just plain pathetic; it's like the ghetto-dweller who attacks his "overachieving" neighbors as "acting white.") The last thing the poor of any race need, however, is to embrace their poverty as a badge of honor. For a more thoughtful (and far less vitriolic) consideration of many of the same issues, I would suggest "The Revolt Of The Elites" by Christopher Lasch.

Jim Goad, in his "Redneck Manifessto" assumes a role most white-bread middle Americans would probably never cast him in. For a self-proclaimed piece of "white trash", Mr. Goad proves not only unusually insightful, but extremely articulate in a manner those same middle Americans would not expect from a "hillbilly". The actual topics of conversation are ones that have suffered from a terribly long run of having been either ignored, repressed, or completely mis-handled and misunderstood by people in general. Mr. Goad deftly brings many subtexts to the surface regarding American race issues and convincingly sets them in a clear light; a light that makes far greater sense than the pablum the American people have been spoon fed for many decades. Perhaps the greatest message radiating from the pages of his work is that race is not the significant factor in so-called "race relations", but rather power; money power and the political power that it buys; the tendency to preserve power at all costs, no matter who gets hurt. The real enemy lies elsewhere, but you will have to read for yourself and see how we have been lead down the garden path and sold a bill of choicely rotten goods. Black, white, or otherwise, any American interested in the truth about race relations owes it to themself to take up this volume and read carefully. In fact, black Americans might profit more from the reading than any others. I promise you will not be disappointed.

Goad speaks very directly and colorfully, and I will say that all his strong language is offered in the best spirit of honest inquiry into the issues addressed therein and I believe the volume would actually be diminished in value without it.

I've got an awful lot of education in me, and this might be the most important book that I've read left off of every syllabus ever....

In haute culture and academia, the only acceptible slurs allowed are against those poor and white. Whereas a person raised impoverished in Harlem (where I live...) or South Central L.A. might be given compassion, a person raised in Boone County, West Virginia or Paducah, Kentucky would be derrided as "ignotant" or "white trash". The ways in which the poor are portrayed/exploited on Jerry Springer for the entertainment of the masses would be attacked by the Cornell Wests of the black community if the people shown were generally African-American (and rightfully so...) The rich and white just view the people on them as scum, beneath them, and not worth neither time nor pity.

Jim Goad searches for a reason why in this book. It's humor betrays some of the bitter points that it makes; if it was a strictly academic book, it would have never been published outside of Appalachia and then, only read by the small subgenre of people into Appalachian studies (read: the study of poor white people and the black people who live near them.... there aren't people of any other color...) As it is, it's found a rather marginal audience.

It's a really important book. Everyone should read it: especially those who've read out the Fanon, and W.E.B. du Bois, and Malcolm X... and the people who don't read at all.... and search for an answer WHY the last person who did any meaningful work on the problem of poor white people was Karl Marx..... (betcha someone is going to write me on that point...)

PLEASE read this book!!!

I recently re-opened this book after first reading it in 1997, and dammit, it sure has aged well. Jim Goad is one of the few brave souls in this world willing to risk total ostracization for speaking of truths that many refuse to acknowledge. I would never go as far as to saw that the man's work is flawless, but when he hits the mark, he sure packs a wallop. There's a line in the film The Usual Suspects 'The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled is convincing people that he doesn't exist' that could aptly be applied to the content in this book. The greatest trick that ANY government or feudal lord or king has ever pulled is to have people focus on petty b.s., like racism, homophobia, child abuse and other social-humanist issues, thereby having people blame and turn on one another, distracting them while the people on top go about doing their dirty business. Goad brilliantly touches upon all these things in this book. The greatest perpatrators of slavery were rich plantation owners, mostly in the South. That's a given. Somehow, over time, the redneck, hillbilly, Johnny Reb loving, toothless, sister-loving, POOR Southerner has become responsible for hundreds of years of slavery. The redneck is now society's pariah. The guys who, to this very day, are only half a step above Southern blacks on the socio-economic scale, are now viewed as the 'enemy' 'the evil ones' the ones that are to blame for preventing us from reaching a 'Utopian' world. Of course, everyone, from Oprah Winfrey on down, has a hard time grasping the possibility that MAYBE people in power perpetuate these conflicts between races and genders and such, so as to keep the focus away from THEM. The NAACP gets up in arms over the Confederate symbol still being on the Georgia and Mississippi state flags, but lost amid all the history books is the fact that President Abraham Lincoln didn't want equality for the black folks, he just freed the slaves to destroy the economy of the South. Jim Crow laws and segregation in the South was horrible, but so is herding blacks in northern cities into ghettos like cattle. More facts that may have been lost in the quagmire that is popular American history is how Arabs were some of the first slave traders in Africa, and how many African leaders WILLINGLY traded and sold their OWN people into slavery. It wasn't JUST white people responsible for the world's ills, and there's even less of a chance that it was the white lower classes, be they from America, England or wherever. I mean, no serf owned a ship that could carry that many slaves across the Atlantic. For that you needed MONEY: What becomes evident then, is an insatiable need for people to believe that they are good and righteous and for their country and its leaders to also be representative of that. Simplifying history to soothe someone's conscience is a ghastly thing and it is people like Jim Goad who are there to throw a monkey wrench into the machinery. Goad does a brilliant job at pointing out that the black and white underclass really ARE in the same boat. One part of the book I found especially insightful was Goad's theory of why the black and white underclass seem to engage in self-destructive behaviour. In 'Party Hard' Goad points out the rampant drug use and reckless alcoholism that lead to the troubles that become fodder for TV shows like COPS. Basically, the point is that all these people do is work hard...of course they're gonna play hard as well. When there's really no hope for tomorrow, why not party that way? Survival only means going back to a dead-end job anyway, so why not risk death while letting loose? Goad has a knack for pointing out things in such a way that it all comes across as general common sense. Thankfully, Goad never panders to redneck chic but recognizes that, by current standards, he too comes from a long line of ''hicks from out in the stix.'' Basically, every society needs someone to dump their sewage on, from blacks back throughout American history, to barbarian hordes in Roman times, to gypsies throughout Eastern Europe, to the uncivilized masses from time immemorial in Western Europe to this generation's 'white trash'. Of course, people always find reasons why these people somehow 'deserve' to be mistreated. The only problem I had with is his sometimes juvenile tendency to get into scatological humour, but that's easily overlooked. With a small mountain of references and resources to back him up, it's very difficult to discredit or dismiss Goad. Imagine if you will, people of all races, colors and creeds uniting against their common oppressor. That's what this book hints at, the possibility of people putting everything aside, except for economic status and class distinctions, and the power that would be contained within that one united front. Then again, if the Slavs could put aside all their petty hatreds and religious differences and the weight of history, they'd be the most powerful people on the planet. Of course, life doesn't mirror fantasy and this book may really just be another trickle of information that'll be lost in the uphill battle against the forces that control and dominate the mainstream's sources of information. Still, its a worthy read and a valuable addition to any history buff's library.

Author Jim Goad fills his book with words rarely used in daily conversations. In fact, if all of them were removed, we would get a very thin volume . . . one that would bore us to tears. He wants to get our attention. He wants to get in our face. And, he succeeds brilliantly.

To think of Goad as a country hick barely able to string two words together would be a grievous mistake. His thirteen pages of notes at the back of the book and his six pages of bibliography should be adequate warning to anyone but the most obtuse that we are dealing with a first rate intellect. He has a message to deliver - using the redneck image and gutter language is his way of doing it. If you want to negate the message by getting rid of the messenger, come prepared . . . but first, put your professional affairs in order.

Where is Jim Goad coming from? Turn to the last chapter and read, "Some people probably assume I was born a shit-kicker . . . presume I've never pondered the liberal platform's glorious wisdom . . . Funny thing, I used to identify myself as a liberal. I used to be one of THEM. I'm a recovering liberal. That's what makes me such a slippery eel. If I seem unnecessarily angry with American liberalism, it's because I feel betrayed by it. I'm mad at white liberalism like I'm mad at Christianity - because it's a lie that I once believed in."

A person may wander, seemingly aimlessly, if they get their religion and politics knocked out from under them. Jim is all over the landscape, lashing out at this and that and everything else. He seems to be an equal opportunity hater and basher. But, again, appearances can be deceiving. My view is that, inadvertently or not, he has taken a necessary first step to get us out of the messes he relates in such detail.

I recently wrote, "Taking the masks off is the first step to finding out what causes our social ills and what might cure them." Jim Goad has taken our masks off and it's not a pretty sight, just I suspected. I contended, "Wearing masks is essential for civilized societies," but removing them from time to time is essential for political progress.

Medical progress depended on someone doing the dirty work of dissecting human bodies and finding out what was really there. Likewise, someone has to dissect our political bodies and find out what is really there. The first human dissections were pretty crude and didn't yield that much information, but they progressed over the centuries to where Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564) could publish beautifully illustrated drawings of the human body based on meticulous dissections. Someday, a new 'Vesalius' will give us the beautifully illustrated drawings of political bodies needed for political progress. But first, we need the crude drawings, and that is what Jim Goad has provided in "The Redneck Manifesto."

A couple of reviewers have called this book (and Goad) "conservative." It's anything but. For one thing, current conservatives in this country cater to the Religious Right. Goad is an atheist, or at least, irreligious-witness his chapter "Prayin' Hard." In addition, he is certainly no fan of big business; in fact, it becomes perhaps his major target in the book, even outpacing "limousine liberals" for the honor.

Goad is both anti-government (which may have led some to call him conservative) and anti-business. And for the same reason: he is anti-oppression, and pro-little guy. If he holds with any political philosophy, it would be anarchy. His history chapters list the continuing oppression of poor whites and blacks alike by the combined forces of government and business.

The difference between blacks and poor whites is that blacks organized and got most of their rights from the government. Poor whites have never done so. But maybe organization is not their strong suit. Blacks have made us conscious of the manifest injustices done them by both slavery and segregation. Poor whites have never made us conscious of the injustices done them.

Even before reading this book, I recoiled at the phrase "trailer trash." For one thing, I've seen double-wides I wouldn't mind living in. And I've know several good people who live in trailers (mobile homes).

I agree with one reviewer here that Goad should have dealt with Steinbeck's GRAPES OF WRATH, with its sympathetic treatment of Okie tenant farmers and sharecroppers. And then there's the sympathetic treatment of backwoods prophets and evangelists in Flannery O'Connor's works like THE VIOLENT BEAR IT AWAY-all the more remarkable because O'Connor is a Catholic. And also the works of Ellen Glasgow, And a novel THE TIME OF MAN (whose author I forget).

One point Goad makes is "The working class doesn't write a lot of history books. The working class doesn't produce many movies or radio shows. The working class doesn't tend to hire media consultants or theatrical agents. The working class has played an itty-bitty role in fashioning its popular image." Maybe this is the real silent majority.

Another point he makes is that the combined force of black poor and white poor would constitute a powerful bloc in national politics (but it probably won't happen).

Basically, Goad deals with people whom others say are lacking in ambition. That is, they don't feel compelled to get ahead at any cost. But if they just want to work and live a decent life, isn't that enough?

Make no mistake: 'The Redneck Manifesto' is a rant. It's also the most direct, honest rant ever written. Goad is the most uninhibited and courageous writer ever and he's definitely not in it for the money or approval. Goad smacks people upside the head with raw truth and strips away all their irrational ideas in order to open up real intellectual thought. There are few, if any, books that can match the depth of the cultural analysis. Goad is too intelligent to focus on historical figures or political policy to fully support his ideas; he looks toward the age-old system. The book is very important to the academic community and what colleges teach. The burned out, embittered, ex-hippy college professors are teaching tomorrow's leaders a completely irrational and emotional view point, which will ultimately create deeper cultural division and a new wave of destructive pity for the black community.

'The Redneck Manifesto' maybe a more powerful read than the 'The Communist Manifesto' by Karl Marx. The other great quality of this book is that it's absolutely hilarious. It takes a pure genius to write a book with a rock solid argument and a sense of humor at the same time. Chapters like 'Playin' Hard' and 'Prayin' Hard' had me laughing to the point of tears, but that chapter still had very valid points. Goad's humor may not be for everyone, but for those that get it, the humor alone makes the book worthwhile. The author also does an in depth investigation of redneck culture and gives it a rarely seen look at an embarrassed community. I have almost memorized the story 'Freedom Rider'. Goad closes the book just as furiously as he opened it. When he talks about shocking and offending people toward the end, it's not really the point of the book, however, it's a desirable side effect.

I've never bothered to read the positive reviews of 'The Redneck Manifesto' (I already know why I like the book), but I have read the negative reviews. Personal attacks on the author are the most common. It's great that these people have their own opinion about Goad, but they give little reason to not read his book. Some people feel he has given a one-sided argument and think he should consider other ideas and information that have been beaten into the ground. Goad assumes the reader is already familiar with the well-known history of racism. There are also those who completely missed, intentionally or unintentionally, his sense of humor. There are plenty of people who have a lot to gain from 'white guilt'. Some say the book is full of 'vulgar dismissals', focusing on the delivery rather than the package. It's not a nice book. Goad is out destroying false, popular myths. It's a healthy type of destruction.