Am I a wiuss for being offended by this term?

In My Humble Opinion
1

That term being white trash.

It’s thrown around a lot on this and other boards. Go to the Pit and you’re bound to see it sprinkled in at least a quarter of the threads. When paired up with the descriptor “overweight”, people will chew out the OP for talking bad about fat folks, but no one will blink at an eye at the use of “white trash”, which historically has carried a lot more social baggage than fatness has.

Personally, I avoid the term “white trash” just as strongly as I avoid the term “nigger”. There’s something distinctly uncouth and wrong about it, and I consider it a slur, something that needs to be phased out of contemporary vernacular. When I hear people use it (and more times than not, it’s white people using it), in the back of my mind I have to wonder what’s ethically preventing them from calling black people niggers and Jews kikes. As soon as I hear someone I once respected use WT to describe someone, I start viewing them as unenlightened, small-minded, and elitist. Maybe even racist, given the racial overtones that WT carries.

It makes me feel uneasy, the flippant way that white trash is applied to any white person who deviates from the way that “white people are supposed to act/be”. Being black, I could emphathize with a white person who’s been branded as white trash by the white elite.

But it clearly seems like I’m in the minority with this view.

So what do you think? Am I being hypersensitive? Does my strong distaste for the term “white trash” make me a wuss? Have I been carried away by a runaway PC train? Or are there other people who share my view?

2

This is a very interesting question you’ve brought up you with the face. I’ve used the term “white trash” and never really stopped to consider it’s racial implications. I would never use the words “kike” or “nigger” and shun racial epithets in general but hadn’t really given a lot of thought to this one.

Maybe it’s because I’m white that I never gave it much thought. In the same way that because I’m a woman I feel perfectly okay telling PMS jokes but might feel a little uncomfortable hearing the same from a man (depending on the situation, of course.)

In response to your question, I don’t think this makes you a wuss or hypersensitive, it’s a valid point you’ve made. I think now I’ll just refer to my upstairs neighbors as trash and leave it at that. :slight_smile:

3

I don’t think you’re a wuss. I’m uncomfortable with the term as well, so I don’t use it.

As for whether or not to judge people by the words they use, it’s a dilemma. I don’t know the answer. There are certain people in my family who say rotten things about races (mostly blacks), and whenever it happens I go through this whole thing where I’m trying to ignore it and just get along, but I can’t stop thinking about it and then I feel bad for the rest of the day. I make excuses for them in my mind, I try to convince myself that they really meant something harmless and not at all offensive, I wonder if I should say something… etc… When I was younger I used to express that I didn’t like hearing these things, but nothing changed. I guess they just don’t care.

So I guess it’s easy to look down on somebody for the things they think and the words they use, until you remember that it could just as easily be your cousin or grandfather. This is some world we got here.

4

Using the term “white” trash implies that it’s OK to bring race into any insult, i.e., the “N” word or the “K” word or the “S” word. Now, I have used the word hillbilly before, and although I KNOW it’s insulting, it doesn’t seem to be on the same level as racial insults. But I’ve been told that the “H” word is a no-no, so I don’t use it anymore.

5

I’ll think about it while I’m having no problem catching a cab in the middle of the city. Then I’ll get back to you.

6

I use the term trailer trash to refer to a white person fitting my idea of that description. I also use the term ghetto to describe a black person fitting that description. I don’t see the term white trash or (as I usually say) trailer trash tantamount to saying nigger or kike.

The difference is, in my opinion, when people (usually bigots) use the term nigger or kike, they use them to refer to all black or jewish people, respectively. White (or trailer) trash isn’t applied to all white people.

7

When white people use the term “white trash” I do think it is meant to downgrade those who don’t perform up to white standards. What do I mean by white standards? Good grooming, good manners, clean yard, decently maintained home, etc. If you see someone with a tattoo, a mullet and unkept clothing at Wal-Mart, you are going to look down on them. You almost can’t help yourself. “Get a haircut and do some laundry” you say to yourself. Why? They are breaking the rules of conformity. I use the term “white trash” to criticize my own race. I do not use any other racial term to talk about others.

8

If will and discipline is strong, anything that resides in the mind is governed by choice. Taking offense at any particular word is also a choice. Slurs lose their power if you refuse to take offense at their use. Instead, it is better to direct your energies towards adjusting your opinion of the person who uses the slur and just leave it at that.

Being offended by one particular word over another is ridiculous. If someone tries to insult you by calling you an armadillo, you would not be insulted in the least.

9

The phrases ‘white trash’ or ‘trailer trash’ or any such terms cause me to see white flames. This is one thing that I just cannot let go by on most occasions. I can remember friends using those terms about people and I’d ask them how they knew those people well enough to stick them in that category. And of course they didn’t they just went on the basic outward appearance. Sometimes people can’t help where they are born or the conditions they are born with. I know many people try to better themselves, but to get slapped in the face with terms like that when they are doing all they can do to better their positions in life is just low. Maybe they just have poor taste in hair color and clothing, but that’s no reason to slap them down. I always thought that it was a ‘southern’ thing, but there have been other people on the board that live in the south that doesn’t bother them to use or hear those terms. So I guess it’s a ‘me’ thing. But I totally agree with you.
You know, if we keep hardening ourselves and joking and laughing and making light of things like this, soon it will be acceptable to society, and you know that it isn’t.

10

It’s less the specific term white trash (to which you might add redneck and cracker and honky and ofay or others of that ilk) but the singling out of the lower class of white people who don’t deserve a more specific Caucasian putdown name for some other aspect of their “class” as would be the case with Italians, Jews, Irish, Germans, White Anglo-Saxon Protestants, Catholics, etc., that I objec to.

It seems the last group of people who can be ridiculed without the PC police jumping up and down are those whites who either lack the ability to form some meaningful alliance and to protest, or don’t see the threat of being singled out and mistreated as a result of their inaction.

There’s an interesting book (Race, Rock, and Elvis by Michael T. Bertrand) that attempts to relate the poor white Southerner’s plight with that of the poor black Southerner and it manages to stress that while the African-American has had his/her color to single him/her out from the crowd, that the white has had no such easy identification for the casual observer. This has allowed many of the poor whites to suffer even greater indignities than their black counterparts.

The thing I personally object to is for any individual to be judged by the class he/she is easily identified as being a member of. Even when there are characteristics of groups (mode of dress, speech mannerisms, food preferences, musical tastes, and so on) it’s just plain mental laziness to ascribe to individuals in that group much more than surface similarities.

The “trash” characteristic can be seen in all groups, regardless of skin color. Making it seem that only Caucasians have that ability to live in sub-human conditions and to display Neanderthal levels of social graces is to indicate that one doesn’t pay attention to the details.

When I see/hear someone using the term “white trash” as if it meant anything of value in communicating much more than that some person is white and doesn’t have the standard of living that would elevate him/her to the level of deserving an even more belittling label, I just put a little mark by that person’s name in my mental notebook that indicates “this person’s opinion means little to me” and move on.

As for your being a “wuss”? If you are then I am, too.

11

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard white people, when called on their use of the word “nigger”, respond with something like “Hey, I’m not talking about just plain black people. I mean niggers! You know the ones I mean, with the gold chains and the pants hanging down and the crackpipe in the blah blah blah…”

Like I said, I don’t know what the right thing to do is, I’m not the Jesus of anyone. I only know that people who say nigger all the time make we want to go find someplace to lie down and take a nap. White trash, not as much, but still.

12

by JuanitaTech

Well, I think of it like this: If I overheard a white person calling a black criminal a nigger, my offense wouldn’t be much allayed by their assurances that the slur is only reserved for certain black people, not all black people. It still would bother me that they went there with that word.

Maybe words like “ghetto” and “hillbilly” can be seen as milder euphemisms for “nigger” and “white trash”. But the connotations of the former words don’t sting as much as the latter ones. In theory at least, anyone who exhibits the stereotypical traits that come with living in inner-city projects can be labeled “ghetto”. I’ve seen several ghetto-acting white people, who sport the gawdy gold jewlery, talk loud and curse a lot, have several “baby daddies”, etc. They’re ghetto, and it doesn’t have anything to do with race.

I haven’t met any “hillbilly” black folks, but at least in theory, just by virtue of geography and socioeconomics, there could be black people out there who could qualify as hillbillies.

So I guess that’s why “ghetto” and “hillbilly” don’t chap my hide as much as “nigger” and “WT”.

13

Controvert, in theory what you say is true. It is entirely within our power to be offended (or not) by the things people say and the words they use. If (for example) I didn’t mean to offend and you took offense to something I said, that would just be a miscommunication and it could be cleared up fairly easily. The difference occures when something is said with every intent of being offensive and hurtful. Your example of armadillo seems innocuous, but if that word became associated with being stupid (or a hillbilly, or ghetto) the intent of the user couldn’t be denied.

My son used to use the word “gay” to mean that something was dumb or lame. When I corrected him and pointed out that there was nothing wrong with being gay and using the word in that way was wrong he just didn’t get it–until I said “what if everyone started saying ‘oh, that’s so David (his name)’,” to mean something was stupid. He got my point–which is that if something is meant to cause pain and offense, you can try to control your reaction to it but it doesn’t change the intent of the person saying it–and at some point you may have to address that.

14

by The Controvert:

So what am I supposed to do? When a supposedly educated veterinarian that is supposedly in the position of treating his clients fairly and ethically, without dissing them in front of his staff because “they’re nothing but poor white trash…look at how pitiful their mutt looks”, I’m supposed to pretend that they are actually in the right? That their blunt characterization of another human being is something that shouldn’t factor in how I assess their character? Is it wrong of me to assume certain things about someone when they seem to take so much relish in using 19th century terminology?

Perhaps it is wrong of me to make assumptions based on that, but why the use of “white trash” should be exempt from judgment and other words shouldn’t has not been explained to me yet. If I call Rosanne Barr a fat cow, people will label me an insensitive bitch and rightfully so. If I call Rosanne a loud piece of white trash, there will be a chorus of agreement. Something’s not right about that.

by EvilOne:

This is exactly why white trash sticks in my craw so. White standards? Ascribing basic hygiene and etiquette to whiteness is a backhanded insult to everyone who is not white. I actually believe in good grooming and manners, and I studied hard in school, too. Am I trying to be white?

15

But, hey, “white trash,” is such an economical insult! You get to offend everyone who isn’t white, slim, attractive, sufficiently wealthy, or possessing of a constellation of “tasteful” qualities known only to you–all in one fell swoop.

16

I always thought the term was racist in origin. It implies these white people are so degraded, they might as well be trash, in other words, not white. But this implied insult to other races seems to have been lost.

Regardless, I think dismissing any class of people “trash” is offensive. A term doesn’t have to be racist to be dehumanizing.

On preview I see that you with the face has kind of preempted me, but I think it’s worth repeating.

17

In my opinion, you should simply adjust your opinion of the person using the slur and leave it at that. Taking offense from words is a waste of time. This does not mean you should ignore actual actions that affect you, but for the most part words are just words and people are free to use them.

18

It is. “White Trash” refers to people so low on the social and economic scale that even black people look down on them.

19

Well, here we’ve moved beyond whether “white trash” is a particular kind of insult to how should we respond to others who use the term. That is a slightly different situation.

As a couple of people have noted, “white trash” is racist in origin, originally meaning whites who were either “as bad as” blacks or who were only saved from being the scum of the earth (on a social scale) by being white.

However, that meaning and origin are not universally understood. I am not sure that I would immediately judge a person who used the phrase without knowing their background and understanding. Many people grow up hearing phrases, then using them, without ever considering the origins or underlying meanings. (This is behind many of the middle school and high school kids’ use of “gay.” They hear and repeat the phrase without making the association. Similarly, with the verbs “gyp” and “jew” (as in to drive a hard bargain). A lot of people simply do not pay attention to the words they use.)

Among people who do not realize the racist background of “white trash,” I would think that it remains a classict insult, but I try not to judge a person based on the use of that single phrase. If it is accompanied by a general pattern of disparagement, of course, I am less likely to think very highly of them.

20

It’s OK for David Allen Coe to say “poor white trash”, it’s not OK for Chris Rock.

It’s OK for Chris Rock to say “nigger”, it’s not OK for David Allen Coe.

I think it’s a dumb rule, but seems to be the way things are now-a-days.