When I entered the Navy on a 4-year hitch, everyone that met me figured that since I was from Texas, I was a bigoted redneck. Rather than get all upset over it, I even named the country specials I did on the ships' radio station "The Redneck Country Hour". Of course, as a Journalist I also did the Classical, Rock AND Soul specials as well.....yeah, even down to the "appropriate accents". It was more a point of amusement to me than anything else - I'd never even SEEN a Klansman in "real life", and many of my closest friends were "OTW" (other than white). My folks taught me that you measured the person by their actions rather than the color of their skin - so I didn't pay much attention to skin color.
Did some freelance writing after the service, often dealing with issues that some city and county officials would rather not be brought to light, so figured that a "screen name" was the best way to avoid having someone wanting to look me up.
Along comes the internet......and GEnie - and yeah, "TexasRedneck" came around again, and I've used it ever since.