White trash
Encyclopedia
White trash is an American English
pejorative term referring to poor white people in the United States, suggesting lower social class and degraded living standards. The term suggests outcasts from respectable society living on the fringes of the social order who are seen as dangerous because they may be criminal, unpredictable, and without respect for authority whether it be political, legal, or moral. The term is usually a slur, but may also be used self-referentially by whites to jokingly describe their origins. In the humorous book The White Trash Mom Handbook: Embrace Your Inner Trailerpark, Forget Perfection, Resist Assimilation into the PTA, Stay Sane, and Keep Your Sense of Humor by Michelle Lamar and Molly Wendland (2008) is one such example.
(regarding Georgia and Florida), hillbilly
(regarding Appalachia), Okie
(regarding Oklahoma origins), and redneck
. The main difference is that "redneck," "cracker", "Okie", and "hillbilly" emphasize that a person is poor and uneducated and comes from the backwoods with little awareness of the modern world, while "white trash" emphasizes the person's moral failings.
, an English actress visiting Georgia, noted in her journal: "The slaves themselves entertain the very highest contempt for white servants, whom they designate as 'poor white trash'".
In 1854, Harriet Beecher Stowe
wrote the chapter "Poor White Trash" in her book A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin
. Stowe tells the reader that slavery not only produces "degraded, miserable slaves", but also poor whites who are even more degraded and miserable. The plantation system forced those whites to struggle for subsistence. Beyond economic factors, Stowe traces this class to the shortage of schools and churches in their community, and says that both blacks and whites in the area look down on these "poor white trash".
By 1855 the term had passed into common usage by upper class whites, and was common usage among all Southerners, regardless of race, throughout the rest of the 19th century.
Autobiographies sometimes mention white trash origins. Author Amber L. Hollibaugh says, "I grew up a mixed-race, white-trash girl in a country that considered me dangerous, corrupt, fascinating, exotic. I responded to the challenge by becoming that alarming, hazardous, sexually disruptive woman."
American English
American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....
pejorative term referring to poor white people in the United States, suggesting lower social class and degraded living standards. The term suggests outcasts from respectable society living on the fringes of the social order who are seen as dangerous because they may be criminal, unpredictable, and without respect for authority whether it be political, legal, or moral. The term is usually a slur, but may also be used self-referentially by whites to jokingly describe their origins. In the humorous book The White Trash Mom Handbook: Embrace Your Inner Trailerpark, Forget Perfection, Resist Assimilation into the PTA, Stay Sane, and Keep Your Sense of Humor by Michelle Lamar and Molly Wendland (2008) is one such example.
White trash versus cracker, hillbilly, Okie, and redneck
In common usage "white trash" overlaps in meaning with crackerCracker (pejorative)
Cracker, sometimes white cracker, is a pejorative term for white people. It is an ethnic slur that is especially used for the white inhabitants of the U.S. states of Georgia and Florida , but it is also used throughout the United States.-Etymology:One theory holds that the term comes from the...
(regarding Georgia and Florida), hillbilly
Hillbilly
Hillbilly is a term referring to certain people who dwell in rural, mountainous areas of the United States, primarily Appalachia but also the Ozarks. Owing to its strongly stereotypical connotations, the term is frequently considered derogatory, and so is usually offensive to those Americans of...
(regarding Appalachia), Okie
Okie
Okie is a term dating from as early as 1907, originally denoting a resident or native of Oklahoma. It is derived from the name of the state, similar to Texan or Tex for someone from Texas, or Arkie or Arkansawyer for a native of Arkansas....
(regarding Oklahoma origins), and redneck
Redneck
Redneck is a historically derogatory slang term used in reference to poor, uneducated white farmers, especially from the southern United States...
. The main difference is that "redneck," "cracker", "Okie", and "hillbilly" emphasize that a person is poor and uneducated and comes from the backwoods with little awareness of the modern world, while "white trash" emphasizes the person's moral failings.
History
The term white trash first came into common use in the 1830s as a pejorative used by house slaves against poor whites. In 1833 Fanny KembleFanny Kemble
Frances Anne Kemble , was a famous British actress and author in the early and mid nineteenth century.-Youth and acting career:...
, an English actress visiting Georgia, noted in her journal: "The slaves themselves entertain the very highest contempt for white servants, whom they designate as 'poor white trash'".
In 1854, Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Beecher Stowe was an American abolitionist and author. Her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin was a depiction of life for African-Americans under slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the United States and United Kingdom...
wrote the chapter "Poor White Trash" in her book A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin
A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin
A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin is a book by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. It was published to document the veracity of the depiction of slavery in Stowe's anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin...
. Stowe tells the reader that slavery not only produces "degraded, miserable slaves", but also poor whites who are even more degraded and miserable. The plantation system forced those whites to struggle for subsistence. Beyond economic factors, Stowe traces this class to the shortage of schools and churches in their community, and says that both blacks and whites in the area look down on these "poor white trash".
By 1855 the term had passed into common usage by upper class whites, and was common usage among all Southerners, regardless of race, throughout the rest of the 19th century.
White popular culture
Ernest Matthew Mickler's White Trash Cooking (1986) enjoyed an unanticipated rise to popularity. The cookbook, which is based on the cooking of rural white Southerners, features recipes with names such as Goldie's Yo Yo Pudding, Resurrection Cake, Vickies Stickies and Tutti's Fruited Porkettes. As Inness (2006) notes, "white trash authors used humor to express what was happening to them in a society that wished to forget about the poor, especially those who were white." She points out that under the humor was a serious lesson about living in poverty.Autobiographies sometimes mention white trash origins. Author Amber L. Hollibaugh says, "I grew up a mixed-race, white-trash girl in a country that considered me dangerous, corrupt, fascinating, exotic. I responded to the challenge by becoming that alarming, hazardous, sexually disruptive woman."
Black popular culture
It is used among blacks as an attack against whites. Use of "white trash" epithets has been extensively reported in the African American culture. Black authors have noted that blacks, when taunted by whites as "niggers," taunted back, calling them "white trash," and the black parents taught their children that poor whites were "white trash". The epithet appears in black folklore. In it, slaves (when out of earshot) would refer to harsh overseers as a "low down" man, "lower than poor white trash," "a brute, really."In literature
- Evelyn Greenleaf SutherlandEvelyn Greenleaf SutherlandEvelyn Greenleaf Sutherland née Baker , was an American journalist, author and playwright.-Early life:A sixth-generation Bostonian, Sutherland was born on September 15, 1855, at Cambridge to James and Rachael Arnold Greenleaf Baker...
's play Po' White Trash, published in 1900, exposes complicated cultural tensions in the post-Reconstruction South, at the heart of which is the racial status of poor whites. - Zora Neale HurstonZora Neale HurstonZora Neale Hurston was an American folklorist, anthropologist, and author during the time of the Harlem Renaissance...
's Seraph on the Suwanee (1948) explores images of 'white trash' women. Jackson (2000) argues that Hurston's meditation on abjection, waste, and the construction of class and gender identities among poor whites reflects the eugenicsEugenicsEugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...
discourses of the 1920s. - Jim GoadJim GoadJim Goad is an American author and publisher. Goad co-authored and published the cult zine ANSWER Me! and The Redneck Manifesto. Known for his controversial political and socially charged viewpoints, Goad's work has been described as "compelling", "brutally honest" and "original" by author Chuck...
's Redneck ManifestoThe Redneck Manifesto (book)The Redneck Manifesto:How Hillbillies Hicks and White Trash Became America's Scapegoats is the title of a 1997 book by author Jim Goad, in which he delineates some of his views about what he sees to be the disenfranchisement of lower-class white people, and how certain aspects of American society,...
(1997) explores the history of the pejorative term "White trash", as well as details the history and class issues related to the impoverished European diaspora in North America.
See also
- CrackerCracker (pejorative)Cracker, sometimes white cracker, is a pejorative term for white people. It is an ethnic slur that is especially used for the white inhabitants of the U.S. states of Georgia and Florida , but it is also used throughout the United States.-Etymology:One theory holds that the term comes from the...
- HillbillyHillbillyHillbilly is a term referring to certain people who dwell in rural, mountainous areas of the United States, primarily Appalachia but also the Ozarks. Owing to its strongly stereotypical connotations, the term is frequently considered derogatory, and so is usually offensive to those Americans of...
- RedneckRedneckRedneck is a historically derogatory slang term used in reference to poor, uneducated white farmers, especially from the southern United States...
- YokelYokelYokel is a derogatory term referring to the stereotype of unsophisticated country people.-Stereotype:In the US, it is used to describe someone living in rural areas...
- Trailer trashTrailer trashTrailer trash is a derogatory North American English term for poor people living in trailers or mobile homes, especially in trailer parks.-Television:...
- Hatfield–McCoy feud
- The White familyThe White familyThe White family is a family living in rural Boone County, West Virginia. The family has a reputation for anti-social behavior, and, indeed, some members of the family are quite proud of it. The family, especially Jesco, is infamous in Boone County, but celebrated by some...
- The Jukes familyThe Jukes familyThe Jukes family was a New York hill family studied in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The studies are part of a series of other family studies, including the Kallikaks, the Zeros and the Nams, that were often quoted as arguments in support of eugenics, though the original Jukes study, by...
- The Kallikak FamilyThe Kallikak FamilyThe Kallikak Family: A Study in the Heredity of Feeble-Mindedness was a 1912 book by the American psychologist and eugenicist Henry H. Goddard. The work was an extended case study of Goddard's for the inheritance of "feeble-mindedness," a general category referring to a variety of mental...
- BoganBoganThe term bogan is Australian slang, usually pejorative or self-deprecating, for an individual who is recognised to be from a lower class background or someone whose limited education, speech, clothing, attitude and behaviour exemplifies such a background....
and HoonHoonHoon is a derogatory term used in Australia and New Zealand, to refer to a anyone who engages in loutish, antisocial behaviour. In particular, it is used to refer to one who drives a car or boat in a manner which is anti-social by the standards of contemporary society, that is, fast, noisily and/or...
, in Australian and New Zealand English slang - List of ethnic slurs