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White trash

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White trash is an American ethnic slur with a social class component. It is comparable to "honky" in that it is targeted toward white people, but also carries an allegation of low social status. To call someone "white trash" is to accuse that person of being bankrupt of cultural endowment. "White trash" is not a demographic group recognized by sociology, and the phrase is offensive. Attitudes toward the phrase have softened somewhat in recent years, to the degree that some people describe themselves as "white trash", and there is a genre of rock music known proudly as "white-trash rock", but the phrase is still never found in polite contexts. "White trash" often carries associations with poverty, but not always.

"White trash" are perceived as having crude manners, abnormally low moral standards, and lack of cultured behavior and/or education. This group is "America's poorest and most disparaged and despised category of whiteness" (Berger 2000, p. 284). By the Fussell categorization of social class, most of these people would rank in the low and middle "prole" class. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, "white trash" first came into common use in the 1830s as a pejorative used by the slaves of upper-class Southerners, often plantation aristocrats, against poor whites, below even the status of yeomen, who worked in the fields; at the time, it was synonymous with the slurs "sand hiller" and "clay eater"; "white trash" were (hyperbolically) assumed to farm ineptly on poor land and therefore resort to eating clay in order to survive. The term involves both behavioral characteristics (such as mannerisms, lifestyle) and overt racial characteristics (whiteness). The term is widely used across the United States, not only in the South, Appalachia, and Midwest, but also in East and West Coast cities like New York and Los Angeles, as a shorthand to deride others. On the West Coast, however, the term is often used colloquially in its abbreviated form: PWT (Poor White Trash).

A related stereotype is that of the redneck, though they differ considerably. A rural middle-class person may proudly characterize himself as a redneck (for example, the comedian Jeff Foxworthy uses his "redneck" persona as part of his schtick), but could be genuinely offended if called "white trash." "Trash" is more pejorative, and geographically different. So-called "rednecks" tend to be exclusively rural, whereas "white trash" are just as likely to live in semideveloped or suburban areas.

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Details

The nature of the term "white trash," the people to whom it has been applied, and the motivation of people applying the term are studied in connection to popular culture. In full historical context, the term is difficult to define, and any definition must be considered with respect to the context in which the epithet was applied.

Following is a partial list of stereotypes associated with the "white trash":

Health

Work Social life Living environment Transportation Personal care Education

Culture

Wardrobe These stereotypes are very similar, if not identical to, racist stereotypes, and the idea of the inherent inferiority of poor white people shares a common intellectual history with the idea of the inherent inferiority of poor non-white people.

Some people argue that "white trash" is racist, not because it includes the word "white," but because it implies that trashiness is the normal state for non-white people and thus when a white person is trashy it must be specified that the person is white. Others argue that the term is derogatory to whites, since trash is usually preceded by "white," in such contexts.

A stereotypical view of activities that most associate with "white trash" are:

Related terms

The terms "Wigger" and "White Nigger" have gained some currency in recent years. While Wigger is a portmanteau of White Nigger, the terms are not synonymous. Wigger suggests a white who has rejected his "whiteness" and attempted to adopt the cultural attributes of African-Americans. White Nigger appears to be a direct synonym for White Trash. Use of either term remains controversial.

On March 4, 2001, an interview with FOX News Sunday host Tony Snow was aired. In the interview West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd was asked about race relations: "They are much, much better than they've ever been in my lifetime," Byrd said. "I think we talk about race too much. I think those problems are largely behind us ... I just think we talk so much about it that we help to create somewhat of an illusion. I think we try to have good will. My old mom told me, 'Robert, you can't go to heaven if you hate anybody.' We practice that. There are white niggers. I've seen a lot of white niggers in my time. I'm going to use that word. We just need to work together to make our country a better country, and I'd just as soon quit talking about it so much."[link]

Discussion

Some commentators argue that the use of the term is provoked by the "confusion of racial identities and stereotypes", and that some white people may use it as a result of a stereotypical comparison with non-white people. However, according to Annalee Newitz, it is "not simply that white 'renters' or 'trash' are acting black. Rather, by behaving in a manner considered indecorous...these...(white trash) are disrupting implicit understandings of what it means to be white". The term "designates ruptures of conventions that maintain whiteness as an unmarked, normative identity" and is used "in racialized contexts where class and race differences become conflated, overlapping rather than remaining clear and distinct". The term "materializes a complicated policing of the inchoate boundaries that comprise class and racial identities in this country" (Wray and Newitz 1997, p.46, 47).

However, since the term is the only "white identity which does not view itself as the norm from which all other races and ethnicities deviate" and "because white trash is, for whites, the most visible and clearly marked form of whiteness," this confusion may "perhaps help to make all whites self-conscious of themselves as a racial and classed group, to bring...us one step closer to a world without racial division, or, at the very least, a world where racial difference does not mean racial, symbolic, and economic domination" (ibid, introduction).

White trash in the arts

Literature

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Similar terms

See also

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