Redneck

I was reading this article (via Volokh) because I wanted to check out the GLBT gun club. But I was drawn to another part of the article - the use of the word "Redneck."

Here are the first two paragraphs:

"The basement of John Sahady's Cleveland home is his little piece of heaven: Brooks & Dunn posters. NASCAR paraphernalia. Confederate-flag bandanna signed by fellow service members. Even a pellet-gun shooting range.

"'Oh yeah, I'm a redneck kinda guy,' says Sahady, bespectacled and round in his motorcycle T-shirt. 'I don't take that to be no insult.'"

Should redneck be an insult? Is it an insult? Really, I don't know - I'm asking. Many people have been overly-sensitive about their ethnicity or sexual orientation when it comes to non-members discussing them. In the last few years we see that it's commonplace in the black community to say "the n-word." But I, as a white guy, am too afraid to say it even in this context for fear of backlash from our thousands of African-American readers. Things like that can come back to haunt you in your political career.

So where does "redneck" fall in this category? Send us your emails! Obviously in this artible the redneck liked being called reneck - but Non-rednecks seem to toss it around a lot, should they be forced to issue public apologies?