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father’s alma mater, although he eventually left school to go to work for
IBM himself. Hence, some have accused Foxworthy of exaggerating his
working-class pedigree, and in his autobiography, we can see attempts to
recuperate and defend some of that ethos. Foxworthy notes early that his
parents divorced when he was young and that he, along with his mother
and brother, moved in with his maternal grandparents, James and Mary
Camp in Hapeville Georgia, “a small lower-middle-class town eleven
miles south of Atlanta” (6). Despite locating the Camp home within a
middle-class setting, Foxworthy’s next move is to mitigate that
distinction with physical markers of the back yard:
Our backyard was mostly dirt, but we filled it with
interesting stuff like a beat-up basketball backboard and
rim through which I could never sink a shot. [...] The
backyard also had a pile of concrete blocks, a barrel to
bum trash in, and a double kitchen sink turned upside
down. My grandfather kept crickets underneath to use as
fish bait. (7)
Hence, in the depiction of his young life, Foxworthy evokes some of the
trappings that have traditionally marked individuals as redneck or even
white trash. At the same time, absent are any references to any specific
economic challenges. The author would seem to suggest that one does
not need to be economically disadvantaged or even working class to be a
redneck. Perhaps being a redneck, for Foxworthy, depends more on a
state of mind, a way of viewing oneself in relation to the outside world.
One can be blue collar or a redneck “at heart.”
None of this is to suggest that Jeff Foxworthy has never felt the
sting of class-based derision. He recalls, “I first heard the term ‘Redneck’
when I played baseball and football for Hapeville High. When we’d
compete against teams from Atlanta’s north side - the money side they’d always call us ‘a bunch of Rednecks’” (24). Immediately, after
evoking this example of redneck as class slur, Foxworthy counters.
“Then, the term was still something of an insult. Now it just means a
glorious absence of sophistication. Naturally, we found ways to make the
high-society boys pay - with compounded interest” (24). By fashioning
himself as blue-collar “at heart” and by redefining “redneck” on his own
terms, Foxworthy invokes a redneck identity that is not based on
deprivation or depravity and that is not steeped in shame, but rather can
be wielded with pride.
This pride mns throughout Foxworthy’s autobiography as he
relates stories of solid family relationships, idealized male friendships,
and praise of southern women. “I’m still proud of where I come from,”
he writes. “We may have words nobody’s heard of, but we also have