The white working class now is the last group it is possible to demonise without breaking the rules of modern racial etiquette. Why do people tolerate this? If the person was a poor black or asian working class social group, we wouldn’t be allowed to demonise them in the same way for the stigma of being labelled ‘predujice’ Why should poor White people be singled out as the only group that is allowed to be made fun of?
And I know, you can give me the argument of ‘but Ryan, we oppressed them and their cultures for hundreds of years and discriminated agasint them’ Even if that was the case, there’s no need to make fun of people who were born in the situation they are in and to blame them for what their ancestors did generations before hand.
The typical name calling involves the following
Has a load of kids and is a single mother who works/ doesn’t work
A person who wears bad clothes and smokes and drinks alot
lives in a trailer park and or community housing
generally uneducated and has no desire to work or advance themselves.
One thing I want to know is why this is allowed to be tolerated, and not dealt with in ways in which black discrimination was. (I know the fact that white working class people will never have been in the same situation and never will be, but the case remains that this can’t be just allowed to continue)
Because the people that make and play by the rules are generally just as stupid as the people that break them.
On another note, I don’t see anything wrong with making fun of people who have a load of kids, drink and smoke a lot, have no desire to work or advance, are uneducated, and are just plain lazy. This isn’t a communist country. It’s their fault and they should feel morally obligated to give their kids a better life.
Part of it is simply that if you [a nonspecific white person] make fun of a non-white person who exhibits the following traits:
there’s always a suspicion (and not an unreasonable one) that you’re actually making fun of them because of their skin color/ethnicity. Whereas if you’re white and they’re white, that isn’t a factor. Note that many prominent black comedians (Eddie Murphy, Richard Pryor, Chris Rock, etc) have successfully mocked the same sorts of failings amongst poor blacks.
As for why these things are acceptable to mock, well…certainly the second and fourth items on that list are things which the person in question has direct control over, and the first as well (you forgot to add “has loads of kids each with a different father”) to some extent.
Poverty is a bitch and not usually the fault of the person in question. We don’t laugh at them because they’re poor. We laugh at them because they revel in their squalor and ignorance, and take pride in their worst qualities.
Come to think of it, smoking and drinking too much, wearing ugly clothing, sleeping around and being wilfully idle and ignorant are the same traits we laugh at in some segments of wealthy society – see any National Lampoon film for support. Or the Republican National Convention<rimshot>.
in the context that they’re taking the piss out of white trash for doing things considered ‘lower’ but are doing it themselves even though it would make them just as bad as them.
Example
What did you do last night? (Rich guy to the poor guy)
’ I drank and smoked all last night ’
Pisshead, go get a better job, stop thinking lifes one big party (Rich guy)
Yeah yeah, anyway what did you do last night? (Poor guy to Rich guy)
‘The same’
See? This sort of hypocrite which thinks its justifiable that he can go out and have a good time, and the poorer one can’t because he doesn’t earn enough as him.
Ryan_Liam, the above post is a straw man. You’re attacking Gyrate for your perception of the attitudes of a persona in your own imagination.
You say it’s only poor whites who can be mocked - but you’re seeing the world through white spectacles. Do a bit of a search and see if you can track down Chris Rock’s absolutely brilliant “I hate niggers” sketch, which I reckon is what Gyrate is alluding to. This will give you a perspective from a non-white POV.
Sure, it isn’t nice to mock people merely for their way of life. However, there’s a line to be drawn between forgiving someone for the accident of their birth, and being negatively affected by their behaviour.
I don’t care how someone else lives their life as long as it doesn’t impinge on me. I live in one of those deprived white trash areas. If I percieve that by burning down my local store, or endangering my and my neighbours’ lives by driving at 70mph in a stolen car in a narrow residential street where children are playing, or by breaking into my house, or (controversially, perhaps) by claiming welfare when they could get employment, then they are having a negative effect on me, and fuck yeah, I’m going to mock them and the rest of their lifestyle.
As for drinking, smoking, and wearing bad clothes, may I introduce myself…?
As a native-born peckerwood who resides in a manufactured housing community (the preferred term), I am in a position to take your remarks personally. If I’m ever sober enough to give a shit, I may very well resent it. Can I hire a lawyer to sue you with food stamps?
Basically you’re complaining that political correctness is such that there’s nobody else we can make fun of. The truth is that most people think political correctness is stupid and should be ignored. Meanwhile if you watch comedy on TV or elsewhere, you’ll find other groups being made fun of. So I think this whole argument is erroneous.
Along with men, fat people, crackheads, the indigent, stutterers, midgets, the mentally ill, grown men who live with their mother, southerners, Canadians, ugly people, ghetto dwellers, alcoholics, fundamentalist Christians, atheists, fetish people, celebtities, flat-chested women, etc.
White working class does not equal white trash. Not any more than black working class equals ghetto. White trash and ghetto describe specific maladaptive traits and behaviors. They span income brackets.
I think your offense is from the usage of “white” and the application of “white trash” to white people. There is no “black” trash, true. But it doesn’t take a genius to figure out why this is so. Clue: It has nothing to do with “anti-white” racism or PCness.
“Ghetto” is a analogous term to “white trash”. A ghetto person is usually a black individual who has a number of out-of-wedlock children, regularly partakes in illicit substances, spends all of their disposable income on garish clothing and accessories whilst living in decrepit housing, is not interested in education or uplifting themselves, regularly commits petty crimes, speaks unintelligently (especially on the six o’clock news or on Judge Judy), sports gold teeth engraved with fonts, and puts down people possessing any sign of self-worth. A ghetto person does not have to live in the ghetto or actually be poor. A poor person living in the ghetto is not necessarily “ghetto”.
It would be unfair and racist to call a person “white trash” if their only crime is being white and poor. It would be mean but not racist to call a person “white trash” if their crimes include being loud and dirty, ignorant and crude, and irresponsible and lazy. For convention’s sake, a white person who fits the above description would be called “white trash”. But that doesn’t mean a non-white person who’s like that would get a free pass.
If we can’t insult bad-behaving people, who can we insult?!
Do you think it’s acceptable for the mentally ill to be insulted? How about celebtities*? Out of all the things in my list, why are you keying in on men but not the other groups?
It was an accident, honest! Even though it got put next to “flat-chested women”.
PC is getting so bad these days that you can’t even insult fat gay European lesbian straight thin black dwarf able-bodied transgendered tall female white American men in wheelchairs. It’s political correctness gone mad!
Seriously though, the boundaries are elastic, and standards change (check out Bernard Manning and Jim Davidson and their odious ilk from the 1970s), but overindulging in offenderati really hampers comedy.
There’s a different way of approaching the subject though. Heard of Jerry Sadowitz? He came on stage in Cardiff when I was living there, and the first thing he said was:
“Lenny Henry. He’s a black bastard, isn’t he?”
The audience got really pissed off with him, started booing and jeering and throwing stuff, and then Sadowitz just killed them by saying:
"Hold on a minute. Lenny’s a mate of mine. And let me tell you… first, he’s black. And secondly, he’s a fucking bastard. So he’s a black bastard.
