White trash
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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.
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[edit] Elements of the Stereotype
People described as white trash consistently have similar characteristics:
- Lack of education, i.e. school drop-outs, supposedly often due to teenage pregnancy, drugs or crime
- Anti-social behaviour in public, such as drunkenness, heavy smoking, swearing, being loud and crude
- Particular clothing, such as heavy make-up, cheap jewellery, 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. Both sexes are portrayed as chewing gum much of the time
- 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; and their social betters
- 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. Drive pickup trucks and/or deal in other poor-quality cars
- Are involved in petty crime, such as shoplifting and dealing in stolen goods, and are also fans of NASCAR, and the scratch-card lottery tickets, gambling and get-rich-quick schemes
- 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.
[edit] 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.
[edit] White trash in the arts
[edit] Literature
- In Sherwood Anderson's 1920 novel Poor White, a Southerner who thinks of himself as "poor white trash" makes his way as an inventor in a small Midwestern town.
- 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.
- In Harper Lee's 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird, the Ewell family are referred to as "white trash."
- In Jenna Jameson's 2004 autobiography How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale, she is accused of having sex with her best friend Vanessa's dad; when Vanessa confronted Jenna, she called Jenna "white trash".
[edit] Music
- White Trash was an American heavy metal band.
- White Trash Beautiful (2004) is an album and song by Everlast
- Edgar Winter has a 1971 album called Edgar Winter's White Trash.
- NOFX has an album called White Trash, Two Heebs and a Bean.
- 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.
- Hardcore punk band Blood for Blood has a song called White Trash Anthem.
- White Trash with Money is a 2006 album by country music artist Toby Keith.
- Cake and Sodomy is an industrial rock song by Marilyn Manson that critiques what he considers "southern Christian white trash".
- White Trash is an acoustic performance of Marilyn Manson's Cake And Sodomy by Tony Wiggins, the busdriver of the metalband Danzig
- Social Distortion has an album called White Light, White Heat, White Trash.
- Southern Culture On The Skids contributed "White Trash (Don't Call Me That)" to the soundtrack for Beavis and Butthead Do America.
- Danish band Junior Senior have a song entitled White Trash.
- White Trash Hell was an EP released by American rock band Everclear in 1997
[edit] Food
- White Trash Cooking by Ernest Matthew Mickler (ISBN 0-89815-189-9)
- White Trash Cooking II: Recipes for Gatherin's by Ernest Matthew Mickler (ISBN 0-89815-892-3)
- More White Trash Cooking by Trisha Mickler & Ernest Matthew Mickler (ISBN 0-89815-927-X)
[edit] Film
- 2000 Poor White Trash
- In Gone with the Wind, the maid played by Hattie McDaniel warns Scarlett O'Hara and her peers not to do certain things as it may associate them with "white trash."
- In Bring It On: All or Nothing, Winnie accuses Britney of being "White trash".
- Gummo
[edit] TV
- 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.
- On the King of the Hill episode "Keeping Up With Our Joneses", Peggy tells Bobby that only trailer trash smoke. Luanne, overhearing this, angrily explains that she does not smoke, implying that she identifies with the label.
- 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.
- Chester McBadbat in the cartoon series The Fairly OddParents exemplifies the white trash stereotype.
- Al Bundy and his family from the long-running Fox Television sitcom Married with Children have often been described as displaying certain White Trash traits.
- Earl J. Hickey and all other main characters from the sitcom My Name Is Earl are based on white trash stereotypes.
- In one episode of the sitcom Friends, 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.
- Larry the Cable Guy, seen on Comedy Central
[edit] Radio
- Russ Martin, a top-rated Dallas, Texas radio host, describes himself as "white trash with money."
[edit] Other terms
- WT
- Bubba
- Cracker
- Chav
- Hick
- Hillbilly
- Honkey
- Hoosier (especially in the St. Louis area)
- Joe Dirt
- Pea-pickers
- Peckerwood
- Poor White
- Redneck
- Trailer trash
- Yinzer
- Yokel
[edit] See also
- Lumpenproletariat
- Chav (England)
- Coatto (Italy)
- Pikey (UK)
- Naco (Mexico)
- Dres (Poland)
- Ned (Scotland)
- Scanger (Ireland)
- Bogan (Australia and NZ)
- Bonnläpp (Sweden)
- Hesher
- Feral (subculture)
- Mullet
- Social stratification
- Yobbo
[edit] Bibliography
- 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
- Apprentice L.A. (2007) contestant | Derek calls himself "white trash" and immediately gets fired (YouTube)
