Rosie's ching-chong comments

[cliffdweller]

Originally Posted by sparky

In my view it's not even close to the same thing.

White Trash is just a phrase for low class, sloppy living, uneducated white people. My hometown was full of them. I use that phrase all the time. I think it's funny. It's a whole way of life, being white trash. I don't find it loaded at all. It's like redneck to me. In fact, sometimes when I go back to Oregon my pals and I have white trash parties - cheap beer, bad hot dogs, greasy potato salad, Molly Hatchet and Lynyrd Skynrd on the stereo, and TV in the front yard. What that has to do with a slur against black people...I have no idea.

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