This is a term that creates a personal emotional response. I’ve heard it referred to describe “ignorant white farmers” who had their lower faces and necks burned red from exposure to the sun while working their fields. Many of my older relatives matched that description, but they were not ignorant. The “intellectuals” who characterized my relatives as “ignorant” would not have a clue how to plant and grow crops while they nourished themselves on food being produced by “rednecks.”

Regardless of my personal reactions, the term has become, according to Wikipedia, to be “…a derogatory slang term…” My relatives were poor, and they probably didn’t keep up with the literature read by “high society.”My observation is that they were hard working people who knew how to grow crops. That knowledge and skills kept the non-productive “intellectuals” from starving. Of course that didn’t stop high society from demeaning the people working in the fields.