No no, you haven’t been paying attention. It means white. And it refers to white people. It’s just that nowadays when people say white trash they are unaware of it’s racist origins, and therefore they really don’t mean anything by it.
I must admit I feel vaguely ill defending what is admittedly seen by a lot of people as a fairly nasty insult, but I am speaking up out of honesty, as I have clearly different mental definitions for both those terms, even if I try to avoid using either one.
I’ve already mentioned what I consider merits the insult “white trash” (a post which, along with its brethren, appears to have been completely skipped over). It’s classless behavior, in the sense of propriety rather than social caste, that earns it. I don’t necessarily see it as dehumanizing; it’s an insult in the manner of “asshole” or “attention whore.”
“Trash,” on the other hand, is indeed dehumanizing and quite vicious. I would never use it myself, as I would feel my own self worth drop the moment I did so. There’s no extra connotations as with “white trash;” it’s simply describing a person as worthless. It’s also not an insult that sees a lot of use, so it’s possible that I’m simply not desensitized to it as I am to insults like “scum.”
The short of it is that, in my mental dictionary, “white trash” has different connotations over “trash,” which also have nothing to do with race or caste. Class, but not caste.
Perhaps meanwhile you’ll make do with someone responding to “A salesman gypped me at the store” with, “what ethnic group was he?”
A racist etymology for a word or idiom is a fairly good reason for avoiding that word/idiom. It does not indicate that the word/idiom’s current usage necessarily reflects racist intentions in the speaker’s words.
Daniel
who doesn’t use “white trash” or “gyp,” but who wants to keep the distinction straight
I understand the argument, I just don’t believe it.
How can they be unaware that they are including race in the insult, when they are specifically saying “white trash”?
It’s like saying “whigger” isn’t racist. Or “black bastard”, or whatever. If you mean “trash”, you say “trash”. If you mean to specify the race of the trash in question, you say “white trash” or “black trash”, and everyone knows what you mean.
If someone refers to the “yellow peril”, everyone knows it means Asians, and not some generally dangerous group of people regardless of race. If I call somebody a “queer bastard”, does that mean I am innocent of bigotry because the word “queer” originally had nothing to do with homosexuality?
You folks are straining at gnats to try to deny the obvious. The bottom line is, racism doesn’t count except if it is aimed at certain groups.
You want to assume that people who make racist remarks don’t mean anything by it? Fine - if I ever decide to call somebody a “dumb nigger” I will expect a consistent application of the principle.
Regards,
Shodan
But not “brown?” Apple brown betty is ambrosia and, were a woman of color named Betty, I would happily let people believe I invented it. 
Hell’s bells, we’ve adjusted through colored, Nego, black, and African-American as each had its years as the correct term followed by being totally wrong, though folks seem to have grown sick of it by the time African-American tried to kick out black. I tried reviving “gentleman of color” a couple decades back, figuring nobody would mind being call a gentleman, and was shocked (were people actually following my lead?) when other people actually started using “person of color;” I guess they didn’t want to be seen as sexist. (As a fat guy I prefer “gentleman of substance” over “fat guy,” though I’m no gentleman.)
The thing is, I can’t believe a person with all the characteristics of “white trash” wouldn’t be insulted to be called that. I know the terms kike, nigger, spic, and slope will get me a punch in the snot locker if I use them, and I presume the same of white trash. You may not WANT to think it’s insulting, but it is.
Well, I don’t recall who might’ve said “white trash” is NOT supposed to be insulting. All I know is that I have said several times in this thread that it IS insulting, is SUPPOSED TO BE insulting, and that I rue the day that it gets Foxworthied into respectability. It is a phrase one should only use when one is positive that nobody around him shares any of its associated characteristics and, as we have learned in this thread, not everybody agrees on those characteristics. Ignoring political correctness as well as common courtesy, it is a term no one should use unless he wants a punch in the nose. In other words, don’t use it.
Nobody’s saying that it aboslutly has no racial connotations, just that it apparently has lost the connotation for some people.
Point is, the “white” part of “white trash” has become so ingrained that it’s said automatically. Like it or not, you are to “white trash” what Derleth is to “hacker”. Pressing to get it changed to something else is an exercise in futility.
Not quite–the “white” part has simply become superfluous. It’s still there because it’s been there for so long–some 170 years–that it’s become ingrained.
Yellow Peril
Jap trick
Buddha head
are all terms you can call me. I’ll just laugh!! 
Oh, and Happy Birthday, Zoe!
Regards,
Shodan
Sorry. Irony does not transmit well in print sometimes. Check the rest of my posts in this thread. I am the OP, after all. 
:smack:
Regards,
Shodan
I assume you are Asian? It’s all well and good that these terms are not offensive to you; however, I strongly doubt that the hate speech prohibition concerns what does not offend. Rather, it concerns what does offend. I daresay we could find a Jew who is not offended by “kike.” Would that be sufficient to get it off the list?
Very close. Racist language doesn’t count for nearly as much if it’s not language that has a history of close proximity to racist violence.
The consistent application involves looking at the history of the word “nigger,” evaluating whether it has a history of close proximity to racist violence, and responding accordingly.
Daniel
What other kind of proximity is there?
Smartass! “Close” is an emphasizer in that sentence; and if you want to analyze English as if it’s a computer language, be prepared for a Daniel-and-Excalibre tag-team assault!
Daniel
You are right, I was being a smartass.
I doubt it would take both of you.
But since you’re here, ye of the “words mean what the speaker and audience agree”…
If a speaker calls a black man a nigger and does not mean it to be racist, is it?
Mu.
Words themselves aren’t racist, anymore than a noose is racist. In your example, if the speaker genuinely does not mean it to be racist, then the speaker genuinely has not racist intentions within the word: it’s a tautology.
Will the black man intepret it as racist? It’s very possible; but if he interprets the speaker’s intent as racist, he’s mistaken.
Is the speaker a fool? Quite possibly.
Daniel
If words themselves are not racist, is not a prohibition against “hate speech” incoherent? Is it not a de facto assumption that certain words necessarily have a specific meaning attached to them?