Is "Hayseed" a Racist Term of Endearment for Notre Dame's Harrison Smith?

Affectionately known by Irish players as "Hayseed," Harrison Smith brings a toughness and grit to the Notre Dame defense that reminds everyone of former Irish great, Tom Zbikowski.

Smith is slowly becoming a fixture not only at his unique safety/linebacker hybrid position, but also in the minds of Notre Dame fans across the country who have adopted the same affectionate attitude the team has already embraced.

"Hayseed" embodies that affection as a single, unique identity defining the Knoxville, Tennessee native.

Smith grew up in the shadow of the University of Tennessee's Neyland Stadium but shunned Phil Fulmer and the Vols to attend a school three hours from the Canadian border.  By attending that school, Smith made a choice to attend a school that is culturally different from his roots in East Tennessee.

While Notre Dame is a school that embraces the cultures of the entire nation, the majority of its students come from cities north of the Mason-Dixon line.  Everything from Smith's accent to his attitudes is unique in South Bend and at the university he represents on the football field.

Is calling Smith "Hayseed" racist?  It's obviously based on the physical traits and character traits inherent of a Knoxville native, but what are those traits?

Hayseed implies that a person is simple and uneducated.  Wordnet defines a hayseed as a yokel, someone who "is not very intelligent or interested in culture."  Why is it fair to classify a white kid from the South as a hayseed, but not a kid from another class as any other demeaning name?

Personally, I don't take offense to calling someone a name in fun, but I do take offense to the hypocrisy of a culture that says it's unacceptable to call a minority an offensive name but says it's acceptable to call a member of the majority an offensive name.

I really hate to mention this topic, but as a member of the majority, we shouldn't be subject to the hypocrisy of our culture simply because we are slow to offend.  Something has to be said.

Recent examples show that society says it's acceptable for a member from the Jewish minority to say "F... Jesus," but it's unacceptable for a member of the majority to call Louisiana folks "coon asses."  It's acceptable for a minority to call one of its members who sides with the majority an "Uncle Tom," but it's unacceptable to call a minority "that one." 

I don't mind calling Harrison Smith "Hayseed" because it’s a term of endearment, but there needs to be some uniformity and less hypocrisy.  Smith comes from the South, a minority region that has been the brunt of many of the nation's jokes.

For a region historically oppressed and punished for its past wrongs, calling one of its members simple-minded and feeble upholds the cultural pillars that create glass ceilings and maintain other prejudices that reinforce ideas of inferiority and the inability to achieve more.

Smith, as a Southerner, is no less a minority than one who is Jewish, Black, Mexican, Northern, Catholic, etc.

The race issue needs to be uniformly dropped or uniformly applied.  To steal from Peter Griffin, "You know what really grinds my gears?"  Racial hypocrites! 

I support Hayseed and am excited to see him unleash his full potential on the field, but I also understand what it's like to be a Southerner transplanted in the North.  Best of luck to him and best of luck to the team.  Go Irish!