[sparky]

Originally Posted by cliffdweller

Well, it's obvious that we don't agree on the basic premise of this argument so there's no going forward with it.

We probably don't agree on the premise. I just don't take it as seriously. I don't allow words that kind of power anymore in my world.

I'll just say that white trash is not a good phrase, and to me, it's the equivalent of the n-word, or calling Mexicans "wetbacks," or Italians w.o.p.'s, etc. They are all racial and or ethnic slurs, it's just that white trash happens to hit most squarely at the socio-economic level than mere race or ethnicity. To call someone white trash is descriminatory and classist, it's just that people (mainly whites) tend to be very de-sensitized and or just generally unbothered by the term.

The reason I think it is different is that it's just as much about not having good taste. It's a little about being lazy and a little about being sloppy, and a lot about not giving a ****. It's really not about being white. Being poor doesn't mean you can't dress in clean clothes, wipe your kids noses and faces, and keep garbage out of your front yard. Or take down your Christmas lights. You can have a junk piece of crap car, but at least wash the damned thing and take out the fast food bags. I knew plenty of people growing up who came from families without much money. Not all of them had cars parked in the front yard, a dog tied to the front porch, dead lawns, screen door half off the hinges, empty beer cans littering the living room, newspapers piled up, etc. And the ones who didn't were not always from families of more means.

I know that certain people in the past called others white trash as a put down that had the subtext of implying they were "beneath their race". Kind of like whites who live like poor blacks - a thing born of old school mostly southern race talk. But I don't look at it that way. Never did. And no one I know means it like that.

But to throw hands in the air and claim that you can't see the parallel that exists between the term "white trash" and other racial/ethnic/socio-economic slurs is just plain ridiculous. I'm sure that you can imagine why one would make such an argument. If not, really, forget it.

It's not ridiculous. I can see that some people in the past spit the term out that way, but I think we are in a different era. I have never heard it uttered with contempt the way I have heard the standard issue "slurs." In fact, the other night, I was talking to some people at my house and they asked me where I grew up. I told them I grew up in Oregon, in the suburbs of Portland. And that I grew up in an area where I damn well could have been white trash but I rose above it. We all laughed and they said they were the same. So, I may see how you can make your argument, but I just don't think it's all that valid.