Random Gripe of the Day

[drangelo]

I have issues with the term "white trash". I find it offensive and racist. To me, having to qualify a particular piece of trash as being white implies that normal trash is not white, which in turn sort of implies that not white = trash. I am aware of the logical fallacy, so please don't bother to point that out. I am also aware that perhaps I

Comments

[perkyshai]

To me, the concept of people=trash is awful. But I beleive in the redemptive power of education in almost all cases, and hold out hope for the rest
Regardless, it's an awful term. Almost as bad as referring to an article of clothing as a 'wifebeater' Ick ick ick.

[drelmo]

I gleefully use white trash. It's almost a compound noun for me.*

I would not normally utter or expect to hear "He's just trash", and the implication I take from your reaction is that you would.

I think that I would require a complementary modifier like black, brown, or Irish to get the same metaphorical sense of trash, absent contextual preparation, so the implications that bother you are absent for me. That is, there is no "normal" trash, in this sense, for me, distinct from white trash.

*It's not, though. English compounds are diagnosed by stress patterns: BLACKbird v. a black BIRD. I don't say "WHITE trash". But it is a fixed phrase, and that tends to block constituent parsing for me.

[la_directora]

I hadn't ever thought of this phrase this way before. I'm not sure yet if I completely agree with you. I'll need to think on it more. But I can see how someone could take it this way. As such, I'm going to remove it from the post I recently used it in, which may have inspired you to make this observation. Even if I didn't mean the phrase the way you're taking it, I'd hate to think it could come across that way.

Interesting observation.

[anonymous]

I was under the impression that the original idea of "white trash" came from the fact that many poor southerners went around barefoot and therefore had hookworm, which made them lethargic. During the period when that phenomenon persisted, and when the term was more specific than it is now (poor white southerners as opposed to any whites who shop at Wal-Mart) and it was widely accepted that non-whites were trash.

Wikipedia claims it's ok now because of the stress pattern. But wikipedia didn't even know about the hookworm thing, so what good are they?

[jpmodisette]

That was me.

[auspeople]

Oh ug. I'm white. And I shop at Wal-Mart now. It's the most convenient place in Stillwater, OK. At least I go to the new one, which more resembles a Target. And I feel guilty every time I walk in. I hope this exempts me somehow.

hopeshopeshopes

[follybard]

You and I had this conversation some years ago, and I have since switched to the more equal-opportunity-insulting "trailer-trash".

What I generally mean is "people who use their economic disadvantage as an excuse to remain willfully ignorant and behave accordingly, for example by hatin' on Yankees, hardworking Mexicans, people who believe in the scientific method, women with better-paying jobs than they've got, homosexuals, art films, and/or tofu", but that's not sufficiently pithy.

[la_directora]

Oh, I like this. And I've known trailer trash of varying skin tones, so it works well.