As somebody who’s used it and had it applied to him/his family more than once, it’s just not on par with other racist and or racial epithets. There’s never been a movement to move “white trash” to internment camps, they’re not an oppressed ethnic group, there’s never been a move to exterminate them (unless you count tornadoes), and as I define the term it’s mostly behavior and [at least to a large degree] chosen lifestyle. Whitetrash is not just a socioeconomically “poor” white person but an uneducated, shiftless, egregiously tasteless, and morally challenged if not downright amoral person. It’s not even religious or geographic necessarily: Roseanne Barr (who’s from Utah and who’s Jewish= two things not usually ) has referred to herself as “America’s worst nightmare: whitetrash with money” and I would agree with her (at least at that time [the Tom Arnold years]- she’s cleaned up a bit since then).
What I do find offensive is the conflation of the terms redneck and whitetrash. I blame this mostly on Jeff Foxworthy, whose You Might Be a Redneck routine is really far more about WhiteTrash (and he should know better). A redneck, as I define the term and as it’s used in vulgar parlance Dixiana, is a southerner or midwesterner of any socioeconomic level who has at several of the following:
1- a strong rural & regional accent
2- traditionally blue collar interests (Country music, bottled beer, NASCAR, etc.)
3- is politically conservative
4- is more outdoors than indoors
5- is somewhat but not militantly anti-intellectual
6- is usually Protestant
7- has roots in the farm class (though they themselves may have grown up in downtown Atlanta, they’re close enough to the fields that they know the last generation born there)
8- often romanticize the South (including that damned flag)
9- often opt for simple answers on complex questions (“those towelheads just need to be bombed”)
Basically, if Archie Bunker had been born in Sparta, Mississippi instead of Queens, NYC, he’d have been a redneck, but instead he was their version. Since trucks and farms and the rebel flag aren’t a part of their culture they weren’t a part of Archie’s just as rednecks don’t give much of a damn about most northeastern bluecollar things like bowling leagues or hockey or St. Patrick’s Day parades or the like.
Like Archie, rednecks can be irritating to liberals or intellectuals but they are usually law abiding (speeding tickets and the like not counted) and moral and responsible as most would define the term (may sleep around a bit before/between marriage but they take care of their kids, don’t do hard drugs, etc.). Rednecks can make and in fact usually are good neighbors, and while they may have and express somewhat racist or homophobic thoughts they’re not likely to commit a hatecrime.
Whitetrash are NEVER good neighbors, tend not to take care of their obligations (family, bills, etc.), are often in trouble with the law, are tacky and militantly anti-intellectual (intellectual whitetrash is an oxymoron), can be any or NO religion (for many years the two most likely people to be openly atheist in white southern society were the most educated and the least educated- reference Flannery O’Connor’s Good Country People) and while a whole family is often whitetrash it can be overcome, or good people can become whitetrash.
was correct in the “Jap” posting. Not that a gentle reminder* would have been wrong- in either case. 