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Revision as of 05:13, 8 May 2007

For other uses, see White trash (disambiguation).
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White trash is a racist slur 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. The term was coined by white Southerners, though it is offensive when used against white Southerners as a general population.

Elements of the stereotype

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  • 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, 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.
  • Very bad teeth due to poor dental care.
  • Most times are unemployed and live off of their parents or from welfare.
  • Are reliant upon hunting small game as their constant food supply, as opposed to shopping for meat at a grocery store.
  • Typically live in very cheap accommodations (due to their economic status) such as trailers, without indoor plumbing, and with car parts and debris in the front yard.
  • Are involved in petty crime, such as shoplifting and dealing in stolen goods, and the scratch-card lottery tickets, gambling and get-rich-quick schemes.
  • High incidence of pregnancy out of wedlock at a very young age.
  • Have lots of tattoos.
  • Have a "mullet"-style hairdo.
  • Have an affinity for Harley Davidson and often sport clothing with the company's logo.
  • Are often illiterate or poorly read.
  • Typically are fans of Nascar.
  • Eat foods of poor nutrition such as fast food regularly.
  • Often are overweight.
  • May participate in incestuous activities.
  • Predominantly listen to country music.
  • Often claim that the "South will rise again."

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.

White trash in the arts

Literature

Music

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)

Film

TV

  • Donald Trump fired candidate Derek Arteta on an episode of The Apprentice ("Life in the Luxury Lane," originally aired March 4, 2007) because Arteta jokingly referred to himself as "white trash" during the boardroom sequence. Trump considered the remark offensive and unprofessional and fired him immediately.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Squidbillies on Cartoon Network parodies white trash.
  • 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?"
  • Larry the Cable Guy, seen on Comedy Central
  • A Saturday Night Live sketch, "White Trash Bed & Breakfast," featuring Patrick Swayze.

Radio

Notes

  1. Gabor Steingart: How Globalization Is Creating a New European Underclass, excerpt from book War for Wealth: The Global Grab for Power and Prosperity

Other terms

See also

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
  • Pitcher, Ben (2007). The Problem with White Trash - Review of M. Wray (2007) Not Quite White, Duke University Press. ISBN 0822338734. darkmatter journal
  • 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)
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