Shove it where the sun don’t shine, Mickey. 
I’ve got a gassed up steamboat with your name on it. Don’t fuck with the mouse.
Is this where I point out one of my best friends is African-American? He’s my height, blond haired, blue eyed… South African…
Or, that technically, Colin Powell isn’t African-American.
I knew a South African person as well. I used to think I could tell them apart from English people, because it seems to me that S.Africans, black or white enunciate more then the English. Offtopic, does that seem to be the case to you?
According to wiki, while his parents are Afro-Caribbean, he was born in N.Y. Am I being whoosed?
I don’t recall the topic being “bashing white trash,” though that has long been a pillar of American comedy and is usually entertaining. I thought it was “bashing ‘white trash,’” the term, which is always a boring and pathetic waste of bandwidth.
As far as I’m concerned, a term ought to be banned as hate-speech when it’s got a solid history of being used in conjunction with violence directed against the target of the term. I don’t much like the term white trash, and I don’t use it, but it’s got nowhere near the violent connotations of other race-based terms, and so I find it nowhere near as objectionable.
Daniel
Perhaps, at the end of the day, the solution is to evolve(?) to the point where nothing is funny anymore.
I refuse to believe that Saturday Night Live is the solution to anything.
Daniel
That’s exactly the argument that I said I don’t buy. Since you offered it after I said that, without supporting reason, I repeat: waiting for other terms to become as charged with violence and hatred as “nigger” before disdaining them is Neanderthal in its conception. It sets violence as the only criterion for rejection, thereby encouraging more subtle and more insidious manifestations of hatred and bigotry, such as the aforementioned “fair game” label pinned on the helpless and hopeless underclasses in rural isolation. At least when a man is violent, you have ethical recourse to defend yourself. A man who is condescending is merely a visitor to that plane.
You said it was Neanderthal, but offered no substantiation of that claim, so I didn’t pay it much mind. And yes, frankly, I am a big supporter of not limiting speech until the spectre of violence enters the picture; I think it’s a damned good criterion for rejecting a term.
Is hatred and bigotry great? No, it’s not. But as long as it’s not tied to violence and oppression, I’m not that worried about it.
The nice thing about a man who is merely condescending is that I don’t have to defend myself against him. I’m free to ignore him.
Daniel
Liberal, how about we let each group decide for themselves what is hate speech rather than deciding on their behalf?
It seems to me that it is a matter of perception. The majority of white people (in my mind) would not find the term “white trash” offensive and/or racist, whereas the majority of black people would find the term “nigger” offensive and racist.
Just to stir the pot a bit…IMO, white trash are trifling–a term I would never use to describe a black person, because of its racist overtones (like shiftless).
When someone says white trash, depending on the context, I picture either someone along the lines of the prospective in-laws in the movie “Sixteen Candles” or the Hilton sisters(they fit more the Eurotrash image to me) or Roseanne–although late noc used car salesmen/weight loss aides/home shopping network ads are also good. Anyone on Jerry Springer of Judge Judy automatically qualifies.
It’s a classist thing, not a racial thing. As I said before, trash comes in all colors and genders and sizes. Yep, I’m a snob.
I really don’t understand the righteous indignation to have it banned. Are those agitating for its removal (or the free for all posited by lifting the ban on “nigger” and “kike” etc) just dying to use these perjoratives? Is “white trash” really interfering with someone’s ability to live a full life here? Wth?
Not racist, but the hell we DON’T find it offensive! It’s supposed to be offensive and if people are going to take away a perfectly descriptive and offensive term or gussy it up until it’s cute, like Foxworthy did to “redneck,” I’m going to get grumpy. “Ofay” just doesn’t have the same flavor.
But white trash comes in only one color. 
And, if it’s a classist thing, why not “prole trash” or “dirty poor people” or “welfare trash” or “trailer trash”? That way, it’s more clear that it’s the proletariat whom you’re contemptuous of.
But there are many perfectly respectable poor people and “white trash” is not used to describe perfectly respectable people. And we are not using “class” in its economic usage, but in its lifestyle usage, as in “Kate Hepburn was a classy dame” or “Paris Hilton has no class.” In fact, claiming we are contemptuous of the “proletariat” (does ANYBODY say “proletariat” anymore?) shows how little you know of the term “white trash,” who it describes, and who (mostly) uses it.
No, you most certainly are NOT. The term “white trash” unambiguously denotes “class in the socioeconomic sense.” Wikipedia cites the OED as the word being used to describe poor working-class white people as far back as the 1830’s.
If you don’t think the term “white trash” is fucking LOADED with class overtones, you’re delusional.
I wasn’t claiming you were contemtuous of the proletariat. I was addressing that to the person whom I quoted, who explicitly said she was a snob.
Actually, according to Wikipedia and a couple online dictionaries, the term is used to describe poor working-class white people. You’re the one who’s talking out your ass here.
And people do still use the term ‘proletariat’. It’s a good word for describing the poor, working lower-classes without pussying out and using terms like “blue collar” that try to white wash over the massive class divisions existing in American society.
But “proletariat” doesn’t roll off the tongue that way white trash does.
And plus it sounds vaguely political–should I say hoi polloi instead?
It may have started out as a term to describe the working white poor, but that doesn’t mean its connotation didn’t change over time.
I don’t use it to describe an entire SES of people. There are many, many, poor, white people of taste and discrimination (not the racial kind). There are many many poor white people who are well read and know how to act in public, and know how to have their kids act in public.
And then there are those…who don’t. I don’t use the term to distinguish its objects solely in terms of economics–I know many white trash people who belong to country clubs. To me, it’s an attitude, a selfishness, a sense that the world owes you something 'cause you’re here that typifies the term.
Poor taste in clothes, home furnishings, flashy cars, ostentatious displays of “wealth” or status are all WT to me. Heck, they are also NQOKD (not quite our kind, dear). And there are layers and levels of trash-but I think we all know that. It’s all subjective and when parsed, seems silly to get upset about. Maybe I should admire the high and fine principles of those outraged instead?
I think that some may feel the need to delineate white-so as to avoid being misunderstood and the assumption made that they are referring to a possibly present minority, who is NOT the object of the didain. So, in an ironic way, the descriptor, “white” is an attempt to be PC!*
*warning-tortuous logic used.
Pluto?
He’s Caribbean-American, then, isn’t he? I remember him making the point in his biography about not being african american, and thinking about how affirmative action helped him anyhow.
And yes, his parents do, but he’s been here since he was three and he’s at least as sloppy as I am.