Got some news for you: “white trash” came originally from African-American speech. Check the Oxford English Dictionary.
Why can’t people understand that everybody knows the term is “inherently derogatory” and use it anyway? It’s intended to be derogatory. Get it?
THANK YOU!
Harriet Beecher Stowe has a chapter titled “Poor White Trash” where she writes that slavery is damaging to some white people even more than black people - basically, creating an economic system where poor whites can’t succeed as farmers. In her book, “poor white trash” is a level below anything a black man can stoop to.
The implication isn’t that black people are already trash, it’s that white people already have an advantage in our society by virtue of their skin color, and anyone not taking advantage of that is throwing away the American Dream with both hands - they’re acting as if their lives are trash.
I won’t say it’s not offensive, but I will say that the Dope is the only place I’ve ever heard the emphasis on the “white” part and not the “trash” part.
As for the fashions, they’re just different fashions. People wear what people around them sell, and what other people around them say, “oh, that’s cute!” about. If you live in an area where wolf t-shirts are in the stores and you wear a wolf t-shirt and people compliment it, you’ll buy another wolf t-shirt.
I think the dressing standards of ALL economic classes are in decline. Watch an old movie from the 1930’s-working class people wore suits and tie! In the early 1950’s-it was common for men attending a base ball game, to wear a jacket and tie. Now, everybody dresses ‘sloppy’ style-and this look has been taken over by the upper classes-look at paris Hilton, for example.
But the ripped jeans and wifbeater t shirt look (complemented ny long stringy haor and straggley beard0-that’s a timeless, classic look (see “DELIVERENCE”).
Appalachian American
I sure as hell hope there’s an implied smiley in there.
Exactly. It’s not a compliment or a value-neutral description. It has as much to do with behavior as with race or class.
I don’t use the phrase “white trash” myself, but whenever I’ve heard it used, the emphasis, as WhyNot writes, is on “trash,” not “poor” or “white.” There are plenty of poor, white people who are not trashy.
You don’t get those shirts at Wal-Mart. Well, obviously you can, but the correct place to get them is at a flea market.
See my previous post. There are plenty of places, Wal-Mart included, to pick up inexpensive clothes in current fashion or in “classic” fashion. Heck just Friday I picked up a nice, classic, Ann Taylor shirt for $5 at Goodwill. That doesn’t really explain the enduring love of airbrushed wolves on t-shirts.
I don’t have to. You used an offensive term, you come up with something not offensive. If you can’t then don’t start the fucking thread.
Let me see if I can shed a little light, in so far as we’ve sold a helluva lot of typical PWT (“poor white trash”) paraphenalia at the little country store my brothers and I own. For instance, at any one time we’ll have the following in stock:
- Black t-shirt with wolves, deer, Hank Williams, Jr., the Confederate Flag, or some combination of al of the above.
- Wallets with chains.
- Bumper stickers (“Hunting and Fishing - An American Tradition”)
- CAT baseball caps (or some variation of a NASCAR logo or driver’s ensignia).
- Lighters of various descriptions
The markup on all of this stuff is pretty damn high and almost all of it is bought on the spur of the moment (we lure you in with astronomically high gasonline and then seal the deal when you buy the t-shirt showing a white tail bucks ass and the saying “Look Familiar” splashed across it). It is almost all bought by white people who (at least from my experience having grown up around the community) have limited formal education (but could rebuild a car engine from an empty six pack and some bailing wire), work blue collar jobs, drink Bud or Pabst Blue Ribbon, and smoke (usually Marlboro Reds, but not exclusively). As for their reasons -
They don’t give a shit what anyone else thinks of them. They like what they like. I don’t need to know what the next fashion trend coming down the pike is. If I keep a steady supply of the above-mentioned stuff in the store, I know I have a ready market (who are also good for a couple of loaves of bread a week, a pickled egg or three on the way to go fishing, and several hundred dollars worth of lottery tickets a month) and will sell every t-shirt, cap, bumper sticker, and lighter I can put in the place.
Wait–Oakleys are trailer trash? Or just the Blades version?
That must be a regional thing–I never got the impression around here (San Jose, CA) that Oakleys were on the downward trend. But maybe that’s just me–I’m not exactly what you’d call a fashion maven.
Ah, well, no matter–I like 'em, I’ve got several pairs of various Oakleys, and I’m not gonna quit wearing them. 
Déchets blancs.
Not of the finer estates. In fact, rather common, but eminently suited for bowling and watching NASCAR. Neither ostentatious nor refined, but I think you will be amused by their insouciance.
My friend, speaking as someone who grew up surrounded and raised by your clientele, you must know that this is total bullshit.
Everyone cares, at least a little bit, what others think of them. You wouldn’t be likely to see Jimmy Ray come in in a turqoise polo shirt and Khaki’s, outside of maybe church or a job interview.
These folks, like everyone else in a particular sub-culture, help define their membership in this subculture by the clothing they wear.
Suzy Q (the female domestic partner of Jimmy Ray) wouldn’t go out dressed like a Goth, a Goth girl wouldn’t go out in a pair of tight Lee’s, ropers, and a Brooks and Dunn shirt.
There is a point where you make a choice to wear the uniform of the subculture you adhere to. It may not be a conscious decision, but it’s there. Heck, Jimmy Ray might say this is just the clothes he wears, and that’s it, but given the choice, he will pick the shirt with Elvis driving with Dale Earnhardt in a pickup truck over the shirt with the Asian characters and the slightly too-long sleeves.
Perhaps you’re right - I had never considered it from that perspective. They do have a certain “fuck you” attitude, but also toe the line pretty religiously on al things pwt.
Those aren’t alternatives because they don’t mean the same thing. Hillbilly does not equal white trash. There are plenty of “poor whites” and “country folks” and “hillbillies” who aren’t white trash.
But “white trash” is a culture people choose to participate in. It isn’t a racial slur, it is a cultural one. It just happens to mention race in it.
Gimme a break here. I’m really, really bad at insulting folks, you…silly old thing.
“If you drink Pabst Blue Ribbon non-ironically–then you may be…”
I suppose the white trash stereotype is roughly similar to the chav/charver/skanger/ned/townie/scrot/spide stereotype in Ireland and the UK?
Let me clarify, not as in the specific fashions but as in the peoples’ place in each society.
I get the impression that the “chav” culture is a youth culture, whereas the “white trash” (and I don’t know what else to call it) culture in America seems to not be limited to any specific age.