I’d love to know the origins of white trash fashion; wallets with chains, black t-shirts with airbrushed depictions of wolves and Indians and the like, among other things. It seems to be enduring; it’s not as if airbrushed wolves are in one year, and airbrushed 14-point bucks become fashionable the next. If you bought your white trash wardrobe in 1987, it’s still quite up-to-date today, unlike Members Only jackets and Zubaz. (Well, outside of Buffalo anyhow.)
Are there white trash fashion shows, where buyers for Petro, Pilot, Travel Centers of America and county fair concession owners gather to check out the latest in bandannas and flannel?
I personally think chain wallets are cool, and they go back to the “greaser” style of the 1950s (think of rockabilly hoods with sideburns, pompadours, and bowling shirts). Then again, the flamboyant zoot suits of the early 1940s also had long, thin chains that hung down, usually connected to keys or wallets.
The wallet on chain actually goes back to biker culture. Think about it, if you are in a car and your wallet falls out then no matter when you notice it it is still somewhere in your car. If you are on a motorcycle and it falls out, by the time you notice you could be many miles down the road.
Suggest an alternative term, please. I’ve seen the offenderati on the SDMB get upset over the use of “redneck”, and saying “working class Caucasians of a rural Confederate cultural orientation” just sounds silly.
When I was a kid and teen in the 70s it seemed that only old men (anyone over 50 was very old to me then) wore their large wallets on chains. My stepfather (1914-1999) would have had a heart attack had he known (I’m assuming the above poster is correct) this style came from bikers.
I see a lot of wolves on t-shirts being worn by wannabe hippies and pseudo new agers who claim to be spiritually akin to this or that tribe becuase they “have Indian blood from my great-great-great-grandmother,” or some-such.
Yet that’s never stopped you from using that, either.
My take on “white trash wear” is, it’s just the antipode of every yuppy/preppy wearing Land’s End or Ralph Lauren and feeling superior because they do.
It also seems to endure because it’s sold to people who can’t afford to follow fashion. It costs money to stop wearing perfectly wearable clothes and buy new ones because they’re ‘in’, and these folks don’t have the cash to waste.
Personally, I think that reflects worse on the fashionable people than it does on the Walmart shoppers.
I agree that the use of overly-cumbersome terms in the interest of being politically correct come off sounding stupid. At one time I’m sure there seemed no better alternative to “negro”.
To answer the OP thinking of the good folks I have known who tend toward animal print shirts and the like. It seems to be a statement saying “I’m a down to earth outdoorsman.” or something like that. If you asked them about their clothes they would probably tell you they don’t give a damn about clothing/fashion.
Clearly you’ve never bought clothes at Wal-Mart because they DO make some effort to follow current fashions, and other stuff is just “basics” like sweatpants in solid colors. I have bought some cute stuff there – it doesn’t hold up well but it is not unfashionable.
The OP is talking about the odd love of air-brushed t-shirts featuring wolves and galloping arabian horses – most of these ARE rather expensive for what you get – and maybe certain other styles that are excessively tight/revealing/unflattering. IMHO, I think most of the women on “The Sopranos” dress kind of “white trashy” even though they buy very expensive clothes.
Some consider it ungenerous to call people “trash” just because they are poor, and the term has an additional racist angle in its treating “trashy” whites as exceptional as opposed to the situation with other races (when’s the last time you heard of “black trash”?-- you haven’t, because the not-too-subtle implication is that black people are trash to begin with).
I think the term “white trash” is certainly derogatory, but I am not offended by it. I don’t think it applies to all poor people who are white, or all rural people or whatever. To me I think it defines a pretty narrow and specific subculture, one that tends to be uneducated, often racist, and tacky. I don’t see why it’s offensive to apply a derogatory term to a group of people whose values, behavior, and lifestyle you find objectionable.
The term “gang bangers” is derogatory, too, because most people think poorly of people in gangs. Does that mean we should all be offended by the term?