Yes, in my first post I was preoccupied with insults based on bigotry. Hence the “ANY”. This was the gist of the OP if I’m not mistaken. I don’t think insulting someone due to bigotry is anything to be proud of. I posted while still preoccupied with the bigotry and totally overlooked all the other perfectly acceptable situations in which insults could be used :rolleyes:
In my second post, I wrote a clarification in my second sentence.
Maybe this makes me an idiot. Fine with me. That’s a descriptive insult I can live with.
I’m not a big fan of the whole PC movement, so it’s hard for me to understand why it’s OK to use insulting phrases in regards to one group, but not another. I’m beginning to get a clearer picture thanks to the enlightened posters of this board.
Another PC device I’m not to keen on is hate laws.
Ask yourselves this…
If I grabbed a guy coming out of Wal Mart (from what I gather in other threads, this is a favorite white trash hang out) and killed him while yelling, “I’m gonna KILL you, you white trash motherfucker!” would this be a hate crime? I killed him for no other reason than he was wearing a mullet and a wife beater shirt and was coming out of a store where I had heard a large percentage of the shoppers were white trash.
Why is this any different than killing a guy just because I thought he was gay?
I didn’t kill the guy because he was white, I killed him because he was white trash.
Big difference
And lezlers, yes I have read the entire thread. I realize there is a quest for better descriptors. I merely questioned the need for descriptors at all, this in my second post.
Read monstro’s post again, because that pretty much explains the need for a common descriptor. Ghetto doesn’t work as a descriptor for the white trash “style”.
Catching up here…Seems like the PC police decided that it was uncouth to use the term “bum” any more. Now the proper term is “homeless person”.
This appears to be a lifestyle/behavior issue, yet PC has issued the proper term to be used.
Fascinating that moving only slightly up the socio-economic ladder opens people to derogatory insults, although not entirely applicable since all bums aren’t white. I mean all homeless people aren’t white.
And re monstro’s post. That’s all well and good, I still don’t know why “poor folks” won’t work.
I guess if people absolutely need to call others names in order to feel better about themselves, they will do it no matter what my opinion.
It doesn’t mean I have to.
And I have no idea why the double post. I got the “cannot find server” message and just logged off. I didn’t think it posted at all.
Are you being deliberately obtuse, Duke? The difference between poor people and white trash people has been discussed in this thread, and in many others.
For someone who’s actually read the thread, you’ve sure failed to pick up on a lot of important points.
Care to explain why? If someone is honestly trying to hurt me with words (which hasn’t happened since, oh, 7th grade, who do you people associate with?), then I’m not going to be angry with the word, I’m going to be angry that they’re being a jerk. I could care less if the word was racist or bigoted or hebrew or pig-freakin’-latin.
How many “let me prove that I’m not a racist by showing how incredibly, stupifyingly, insultingly, condescedningly tolerant I am” parties do we have to have on these boards?
I must have been unclear. That is exactly what I was saying. I was making it clear that there are many things I would not say to someone’s face unless I was spoiling for a fight. White trash is one of many of those terms.
The fact that I wouldn’t say a word to someone’s face doesn’t mean that I think the word is racist. It just means I generally avoid trying to act like a jerk.
This is a mighty lofty debate, considering the topic’nall. I mean, think about the “white trash” target audience to which we are referring here: educationally challenged, uncouth, poorly coiffed, poorly raised and possibly even poorly bathed. :rolleyes:
I’ve been ruminatin’.
I think the distinction lies in what the epithet means to the recipient, not all of us out here in the ether. fruitbat, you make a good point – in an admirably egalitarian way – you call me a shitstain and from where I sit I’ll think you’ve lost your argument and/or marbles. But on the other hand, you call me a “slow-witted amnesiac” and I’ll be angry and hurt. Call me that yesterday and I’m not quite so hurt. You call me that now and you’re using something against me that you know hurts my feelings.
Epithets are deplorable because they are like trawling for sore feelings. Epithets are such delicate snares, yet still manage to grab onto something that people loathe about themselves, or they just happen to nick a characterization that impossibly lumps them in with a group that even they think is of a lower class.
I’m just sayin’, I used to work as a bartender in a bowling alley. One night, our fry cook had a little altercation with a group of drunk conventioneers. Marie was a little ahemterse about several fried food returns and two refunds. As one of the customers was leaving Marie’s counter, the customer sneered white trash bitch and walked off to the lanes. You know, I heard the woman say it (my service bar front was 10 inches down from the food counter), but didn’t at the time realize she was saying it at Marie. It was only while we were closing that Marie confided in me. “White trash” really hurt her feelings. She’d never been called that before.
I’m whiter than white, and have been poor too. And I’m with Audrey here.
While others may think of the term “white trash” to mean poor white, to me the term describes the “Springerite” type. That is, the toothless, classless, purposefully ignorant, loudmouths one sees on the Springer show.
If a person behaves in a socially unacceptable way, he/she is not going to have sweet adorations poured upon his/her head. In other words, if a person behaves in such an idiotic way, then they shouldn’t be surprised when they get called on it.
I guess the term COULD be dropped to just be “trash” but that sort of person IS white, and they do act trashy (or would that be trashily?).
Anyway, as a white, I’m not offended by the term. As far as I can see, it’s not even in the same neighborhood as a “racial slur”. And I certainly do NOT think it’s in any way comparable to the “N” word.
I’m sorry, but this is just fucking moronic. “White Trash” is a term applied to how a group of WHITE people act, talk, behave and choose to live. This distinction alone is enough to make it a racist term. Is it as bad as “nigger”? Not in my opinion but that was never the point of the thread. Racist bigotry is racist bigotry and while there may be a spectrum of offensiveness, use all terms included in this spectrum should be frowned upon as the act of an individual deeply lacking in class and human decency.
Racists have always rationalised their bigotry by claiming their ethnic slurs only applied to the dregs of the group they dispised. Hence, “nigger” was generally only applied to those blacks who were “uppity”. How, in any important respect, does their slackwitted rationalisation differ from Weirddave’s?
Actually, you completely misapprehend the meaning of the phrase. It is not a putdown of all white people as the n-word is a putdown of all black people, but only a subsection of white people that behave in such a way that it puts them outside the bounds of civilized society.
Not so. It is a blanket term used for all black people. I urge you to read Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word, by Randall Kennedy, and cease calling people names until you know what you are talking about.
Nigger is a derogitory term based on who people are without knowing anything about them. White trash is based on how people act and chose to live. I said this in the post you quoted. Big difference. Interesting how you seem to be implying that I am racist against people of my own “race” as well, that’s a very provocative concept, look everybody, I hate myself! In any event, while white trash usually denotes people in the lower economic classes ( I wouldn’t call them the dreggs of white folk, but you aparently would ), it is by no means a requirement. I’ve met people who were textbook examples of white trash, yet had comfortable upper middle class incomes.
Then why the "white" in “white trash”? (Why the "trailer" in “trailer trash”?) Why not just “lowlife scum”? rather than referring to race (or living quarters)? Does not "trash’ live both in and out of trailers? Is there something THAT specific about "lowlifes’ that live in trailer parks rather then projects, cheap apartments or shacks?
Would I not be condemned for saying “nigger gangsters”? Even though I was only refering to Crips and such scum gangbangers? Why not just “scum gangbangers”?
Why bring in “white” at all? Are “white folk” who are “lowlifes” somehow “special” because of their race or skin colour?
I don’t think so. I think & beleive that “scum is scum” and “lowlifes are lowlifes” despite their skin colour, religion, ancestry- or even what sort of home they choose to live in. You can be “scum” living in a million $ home, or a great human being living in the meanest trailer park in the nation.
The term “white trash” or “trailer trash” is a descriptor for a certain style of living. Need me to say it again? Okay.
The term “white trash” or “trailer trash” is a descriptor for a certain style of living.
It’s a style more specific than “scum.” Scum can cover anyone from the gangbanger on the corner to the lowlife living in the crackhouse to the trashy guy in the trailer. Not much of a descriptor.
That is why people look for a more specific term. Such as “ghetto.” Gangbangers work because that’s a very specific description of a certain lifestyle. If you just called them scum or trash, that wouldn’t be very specific, would it?
Honestly, this isn’t a very difficult concept to grasp.
