White trash is a derogatory term with a classist component targeted almost exclusively at non-Latino white people and connoting low social status or poor prospects (i.e., downward mobility) or lack of education. To call someone white trash is to accuse a white person of being economically, educationally or culturally bankrupt. This steotype is very similar to that of chavs in the UK.
Contents
1Elements of the stereotype
2Origins and contexts
3White trash in the arts
3.1Literature
3.2Music
3.3Food
3.4Film
3.5TV
4Radio
5Other terms
6See also
7Bibliography
Elements of the stereotype
People described as white trash consistently have similar characteristics:
Particular clothing, such as heavy make-up, blonde hair (dyed or otherwise) and skimpy clothes for the females, and checked flannel shirts, wifebeaters, and scruffy jeans or work trousers for the males.
Portrayed as being small-minded, often racist and sexist, with a dislike of "minorities" (who may not actually be minorities at all) such as immigrants and homosexuals
Typically live in very cheap accommation (due to their economic status) such as trailers, without indoor plumbing, and with car parts and debris in the front yard.
High incidence of pregnancy out of wedlock at a very young age
Despite these often unfavourable characteristics, white trash are usually portrayed as kind-hearted and caring, subjected to their circumstances through no fault of their own.
Origins and contexts
The origins of the term may come from a racially segregated past, but modern usage of the term places emphasis on the word "trash" or the labeling of certain categories of whites as socially worthless.
"White trash" first came into common use in the 1830s as a pejorative used by upper-class United States southerners of all races against poor non-Latino whites. 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. The term is widely used across the United States, not only in rural areas of the South, Appalachia, and Midwest, but also in major cities like New York and Los Angeles.
White trash is also a term that offends, insults, humiliates, intimidates, threatens, disparages and vilifies a white person on the basis of that person's color and ethnic origin, similar to any vile slur for blacks or Asians. It can also be seen, however, as a term that is a backhanded slur of non-white people. By specifying that these "trash" are "white", there is a tacit implication that such mannerisms and social status are aberrations among whites, but default status for members of other racial groups.
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" (Wray and Newitz 1997, introduction).
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 might be genuinely offended if called "white trash." "White trash" is a more pejorative, geographically different term.
Permissive attitudes toward this phrase have softened somewhat in recent years and recently some have self-described themselves as "white trash", similar to racial slurs against other groups that are permissible only when self-directed, similar to black musicians referring to themselves in what might otherwise be considered pejorative terms.
In Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel, and later the movie by the same name, Gone with the Wind, the term is used several times, always perjoratively, by both the black and white characters. Neighbor Emmy Slattery is described by Mammy as "poor white trash" when Ellen O'Hara goes to midwife her illegitimate baby.
Steriogram have a song called White Trash. The video for this song shows Tyson Kennedy, the lead singer of Steriogram, wearing a wifebeater with the term "Fat and proud" written on the front.
Bad Religion has a song called White Trash (Second Generation) on the album 80-85
The Dixie Chicks' 2002 song White Trash Wedding is bluegrass sendup of Billy Idol's White Wedding.
Jermaine Jackson, formerly of the Jackson Five, and a black American contestant on Celebrity Big Brother told fellow Indian contestant Shilpa Shetty that a white contestant is "just White Trash". Subsequently thousands protest both Shetty's subsequent treatment and Jackson's unrelated remarks as racism.[1]
Roseanne was a popular U.S. sitcom about a working class, Midwestern family in the late 1980s and early 1990s, in which the characters often billed (and sometimes prided themselves as being) white trash. In one episode, Dan was arrested, and, when he returned home from jail, Roseanne said that the family was now officially poor white trash and began to dance.
Trailer Park Boys is a highly rated Canadian television program produced by Showcase that features young adult males living in a fictional trailer park. It is a popular example used when referring to "white trash" culture.
Some consider The Simpsons to be a white trash family, though others argue that they seem too economically well-off to be considered white trash. In one episode Bart Simpson was referred to as "Yellow Trash."
Kenny McCormick from the adult animated series South Park comes from a characteristically white trash background.
In one episode of the sitcomFriends, Joey and Chandler are robbed of all their possessions. When Joey finds rusty patio furniture for them to live with, Chandler asks him, "Could we be more white trash?"
In the episode of The Apprentice "Life In The Luxury Lane" (6-7), Derek got fired for using this term to describe himself.
The Apprentice, a recent season 6 canditite refered to himself as white trash in front of Donald Trump in the boardroom, causing him (the candite) to get fired from the show.
Radio
Russ Martin, a top-rated Dallas, Texas radio host, describes himself as "white trash with money."
Berger, Maurice (2000). White Lies: Race and the Myths of Whiteness. ISBN 0-374-52715-6.
Wray, Matt and Annalee Newitz, eds. (1997). White Trash: Race and Class in America. ISBN 0-415-91692-5.
Goad, Jim (1998). The Redneck Manifesto: How Hillbillies Hicks and White Trash Became Americas Scapegoats. ISBN 0-684-83864-8.
Hartigan, John Jr (2005). Odd Tribes: Toward a Cultural Analysis of White People. Duke University Press. ISBN 0-8223-3597-2
Mickler, Ernest Matthew (1986). White Trash Cooking (Spiral-bound). Ten Speed Press. ISBN 0-89815-189-9
Sullivan, Nell (2003). Academic Constructions of 'White Trash' , in: Adair, Vivyan Campbell; Dahlberg, Sandra L. (Ed.) (2003) Reclaiming Class. Women, Poverty, and the Promise of Higher Education in America. Temple University Press. ISBN 1-59213-021-6
Webb, James (2004). "Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America". Broadway. ISBN 0-7679-1689-1
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