That Part of the Population

I had another post planned for today, but that’s just going to have to wait. Thank the guy that sat next to me in class today, because this is alllllll about him.

There are a number of reasons why I didn’t like Clemson. One of those reasons is that I don’t like the way that they (certain students and fans of the school) talk about other people. You can take “other people” to mean whatever you want—socioeconomic status, race, different fraternity/sorority; whatever. I still don’t like the way they talk.

Take the guy that sat next to me. He’s an older man, mid-to-late 40s; white guy, looks like he’ll probably vote for Mitt Romney (was that last part mean? My bad). While talking to the guy in front of me, he mentions one of his employees. This guy apparently has been working really hard, so he asked him to take a trip up to do some activity that they have in common on an upcoming weekend. Sounds like a cool dude, right? I thought so too.

Until he started talking about dude’s wife. Admittedly, the wife sounds a little cray-cray (jealous, possessive, etc.), but instead of saying, “That chick is cray-cray,” or, “She’s really controlling,” he says, “And then his redneck wife calls me[…] There’s always trouble out of that part of the population.”

To be honest, I was expecting him to call her a bitch. He didn’t, which is good because oh Lord I might have gotten kicked out of class. It could be argued that redneck is more acceptable than bitch because it’s like ghetto only without the Black connotation so it’s alright. But this bro, he didn’t mean the Larry the Cable Guy/Jeff Foxworthy type of redneck—you know, the kind it’s fun to laugh at on TV/in the mall/that you go to Wal-Mart after 10 o’clock at night or watch Honey Boo Boo to see. Judging by the way he said three words, he meant the kind that is gum underneath his shoe.

I know I already said she sounds insane. In all honesty I would avoid her at all costs (the description got worse after that). The problem here is that we’ve moved from talking about one individual to an entire group.

What exactly do you mean, that part of the population? Are you talking about the poor? Uneducated? The country, the simple-minded? People who drive Lexuses (Lexi?) instead of Acuras? What exactly is your criteria for “that part of the population?” Is there anything that may be on that list that’s not too shallow for a worm to drown in?

I didn’t think so.