If I may, “high yella” is the mirror opposite of “white trash”. In other words, someone of black heritage but “looks white” and uses their lighter skintone to an advantage.
Rejecting something I have not said is hardly respectful.
Please note, again, that I have never claimed that the phrase is not insulting. Never.
What I have pointed out is that for a very large number of American speakers of English (IMO, a majority, but I do not have the numbers to assert that), the phrase has lost its racism.
Clearly it is insulting. Clearly it is offensive and objectionable.
However, if some large number of speakers use the phrase in a stock manner without considering race in their insult, then the racist aspect of the insult (note, it is still an insult) has faded.
See now, to me, the phrase “white trash” implies more racism towards blacks than whites, at least regarding its original intent. AFAIK, the phrase began as an insult directed from high or middle class whites to their lower class brethren. Why’d they qualify “trash” with “white” at all? I’d guess because of their nasty, unspoken but widely regarded belief that by default, all trash were black. (You never hear “black trash.”)
In short, I believe the use of the phrase was originally intended to bring a lower class white person down to the level of a black person – you know, the ultimate form of debasement. :rolleyes: Disgusting but that was the common mindset.
So that’s why I don’t like using the phrase. I’ll stick with “trash,” thank you very much. Or, if the person happens to live in a trailer, “trailer trash.” But even then I hardly mean to imply that all folks who live in a trailer are trashy.
That said, I still don’t think “white trash” is really hate speech. Intent and context are extremely important in determining hate speech, IMHO. And as far as I’ve seen, most people who use the term “white trash” on the SDMB a) don’t recognize or agree with the unspoken connotation I mentioned above, and/or b) aren’t trying to make any blanket statement about either poor people, poor white people, or poor white people who live in trailers. Usually they’re referring to a specific person or group of people they know. Like, cousins with badly dyed blonde hair, too much makeup, beer guts, five kids from five different fathers, unspayed pets roaming the streets, and at least one arrest for disturbing the peace, perhaps due to drunken arguments with next door neighbors that resulted in gunshots being fired into a roof.
YM, as always, MV.
Exactly, which is why phrases like “That’s mighty white of you” and “Hey, I can do what I want: I’m free, white and 21” are still racist.
So when I plan a party I probably shouldn’t say I’m “doing it up brown,” eh?
I hate those phrases.
Really, really hate them.
Yeah, even I find them a bit oogie.
I agree that they’re awful phrases–and to me, “white trash” is exactly the same thing. I can’t for the life of me understand how, IF a hate speech rule is going to exist* and which presumably is at minumum intended for racial/ethnic (& possibly religous–I seem to remember a Stormfront type getting beaten with the Ban-Stick for using “kike”) insults, those could possibly be acceptable.
Fenris
*and I’m not really interested in whether there should be one or not…just that if one exists, it should be consistantly applied.
What about the distinction I drew, between words with a historically violent context and words lacking that context?
While I’m sure there’s been at least one person who’s been beat up for being “white trash,” I’m guessing the violence associated with the word is far less than the violence associated with the word “nerd” or “dork”. Yet if we ban the word dork, I’m in serious trouble.
Left hand of ness
OK, I really want to be open-minded here as (for the most part) I like to go through life not insulting people (the OP excluded, don’t ask why I just think that he is a douche bag) but are we saying that the term white trash is, in fact, a racial slur because it is insulting non-white people in a back handed way? I guess that I can see the logic, but it seems a trifle tortured.
So I got to thinking. Say I am with a racially diverse group of people and we are watching Cops or Jerry Springer or something. I, upon seeing the events on screen, comment “what a bunch of white trash losers”. Is the black guy going to get offended? Has anyone seen this reaction from a source other than the undergrads holding a bull session in a cheap apartment set?
What if I use the term “honkey trash” Oh! Oh! how about “cracker crumb”? would that work?
The OED (by way of Wikipedia) says that the earliest known usage is the 1830s, by (presumably black) slaves in reference to white field workers.
(embarassing confession) I hang out at the SDMB because I miss those stupid undergrad bull sessions. And they were extremely stupid, inconclusive, pointless, and full of people looking for a reason to be offended, no matter how torturous the path.
The best part was laughing at them afterwards. Feelings of personal superiority are not limited to race or economic class.
Yeah. Those were the days.
Two answers:
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In “meatspace” (aka the real non-internet world), you certainly have a point. If I walk up to a black woman and call her a “nigger”, she would rightly be afraid of physical violence. A white woman so accosted by a black guy and called “white trash” would have less fear (although I’d argue that they would still have some fear–more than, say, “jerk” would elicit) from the word/phrase.
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But on the SDMB, there’s NO fear of violence. No one is going to reach through the monitor and beat anyone, so I believe that the violence test, while useful in the real world, doesn’t apply here.
I’d suggest that the “No Hate Speech” rule is on the SDMB is not intended to keep people from fearing violence, but rather to maintain a degree of civililty. I’d propose that that test, should the decision to keep the “No Hate Speech” rule stand* be simply “No racial/ethnic/religous** slurs”
Fenris
*and I’d be open to it being abolished or standing. Whichever. Actually, I’m starting to belive that a laisse faire approach would would better than the current rule–let’s face it. Does anyone take a poster using “rePUGnican” or “DUMBocrat” seriously regardless of the rest of their argument? How much more contempt would a poster get here for dropping the N-bomb?
**Yeah, “religous” opens a can o’ worms, ("What about “Christian loonie”?) but “raghead” and “kike” are religous and verboten currently.
Fascinating. Insightful analysis. Thanks, Choie.
I have no strong feelings about what should be on the banned list. But I will never understand why it is allowable to trash talk one group of people (usually with stereotypes, thus promoting ignorance) and not allowable to do that with other groups.)
Personal insults are one thing. Passing judgment on a group of people you don’t even know is something else.
Anything that promotes a negative stereotype of a group of people hurts them in some way, but it’s not always their feelings. Everyone deserves to be seen as an individual. They know they’re looked down on and laughed at. The strongest woman I’ve ever known would probably fall right into the white trash category for the way that it is most often used. But she is strong enough not to give a white hot damn what you call her.
She knows people aren’t trash.
Actually, I’d like to see the rule dropped altogether. For one thing, it’s nice to know a person’s true colors. Secondly, as has been said already, there is no threat of violence. These boards are an exchange of ideas, and to sanitize it is to censor those ideas…at least to some degree. I guess I don’t understand why there would be a ban in place to begin with. Because those terms are offensive? Hell…there are *so many * ideas on these boards that I find offensive. To escape offensiveness is to drop out of the scene completely.
And people call me touchy.
OK, I reject your assertion that the phrase has lost it racist stigma. Clearly that is my premise. I simply fail to see how dropping the word “white” robs it of it’s sting, as you seem to be arguing here. And I really fail to see how it can be applied to anyone who is not white, and make any sense at all.
You are certainly allowed to do that. It doesn’t make it true, but you are allowed.
It shouldn’t. It would just rob it of any claim to the racist stigma you claim.
You mean calling a non-white “white trash?” Yeah, it can seem nonsensical unless you and the person both subscribe to the “white trash means people like those who appear on Jerry Springer” usage. Anybody who is respectable and upright who found himself compared with them would surely feel offended, but I cannot imagine it being used that way to describe a non-white except lightly between friends.
Man: “It seems that my new girlfriend and I are related through a second cousin I never knew existed.”
Friend, laughing at him: “Man, you are such white trash!”
Not being from Cincinnati, I cannot say just how the term is used there. But I do know that I am not from any German stock–family’s been here since the founding of Rhode Island on one side and the other side emmigrated from Scotland and settled in KY and VA. Again, I know several upper middle class people who “deserve” the moniker–because of their boorish behavior. I see where to most people it is tied to SES and region–but not eveyone uses it that way. This is probably the root of the problem-some use it one way and others, another.
It’s a term. It’s not a nice term. It is not used every day or to refer to everybody. It’s an insult, used to delineate and condemn a person’s behaviors or attitude (this holds true for my use). It has nothing to do with comparing whites to blacks (or even equating a white with the “lowly” black)–not for me, anyway. I can see the logic, but it seems strained to me.
There was a time where I thought that if only people could be educated and supported that surely bad choices would no longer be made–Jerry Springer and that ilk has shown me that may not be possible; it would appear that the people depicted are not only content to NOT better themselves, but think that others could benefit from their approach to life’s journey. I most certainly do NOT want their short term gratification approach and thirst for drama-so what do you all suggest?
If we are not to use terms that delineate unacceptable behavior/character traits, how will we treat such? I realize this is a very slippery slope and that the first sentence of this paragraph could be used by any racist out there to rationalize hate speech. I abhor hate speech and racist terms. Since I am white-I don’t see how judging another white person is racist.
So, how does one describe this?
choie
This is exactly what I am talking about. The above should be in the dictionary as the definition of the term. I could go you one better-the members of the country club invite us to dinner: the husband of this couple makes sexual innuendos to the waitress serving our meal. White trash? You bet–although I would add that if this was his only lapse in judgement that he is more of a pig or a boor (or acted like a pig). If this is a pattern–yup, WT, no matter his high 6 figure income. Money doesn’t save you from WT, it just changes the manifestation of it.
Perhaps it would be better to use the term “trashy”. I never gave the term a whole lot of thought. Then agan, why shouldn’t whites have a perjorative? Honkey is just plain silly and reminds me of JJ Walker-I laugh when I hear it. It’s too silly a word (the phonetics of it) to be insulting. “oily bohunk” is too Long Duck Dong for me. 
Lace curtain Irish is a wee dated. Yankee only works down south or out of the country.
I agree with whoever said that “trash is trash”–it comes in all colors, genders, religions. It’s a part of the human condition, but I see no reason to make it noble.
I have now given more thought to this than it’s worth. I will be more judicious of my use in future, but will still use the term as I see fit.