Talk:White trash 

But you are right, HWR. There isn't an easy answer, even if WASP bashing seems like it should be so true. Most abolitionists were WASPS. And even if Henry Ford was a fascist and desperately afriad of all of the "colored" people of the world, be they black or Italian or irish or german, his son and grandson established some of the most progressive and powerful charities in the western world.

So, I say again, what is your alternative? And more generally, how should we deal with these entries that are so clearly not about fact in the sense that we normally imagine in an encyclopedia. 100 years ago, they would have pretended or not been aware that a controversy even existed. I can't count the number of antique encyclopedias I have read which talk of the "five races of man" --the black, the white, the yellow, the red and the brown-- with a complete sense of authority and "factuality". I mean, how do we construct useful, factual entries about important concepts which are, by their very existence, controversial and opinionated? I personally reject the quasi-journalistic minimalist approach of saying only what is absolute fact as being both too dictionary like and generally useless. Rather than dealing with a problem, I feel that such an approach just avoids it. And avoiding these issues, letting them fester, is its own kind of action and therefore judgement. By saying noth we are expressing an opinion and affecting the debate.

But what should we do? --trimalchio

Debate that was in this space has been moved to racism/racial and ethnic slurs

My biggest beef with the article right now is that it refers to a previous Wikipedia article as such, which isn't likely to be regarded as having much significance to anyone but Wikipedians. The same point can be made by referring to a "stereotypical" account of white trash, or something like that.

I think it would be great if we could get that Berkeley dissertation writer, or someone similar, to comment on the article now. --LMS

Change made... though the original entry is preserved (and could use some cleaning up I guess) it is contextualized as a common definition. I have tried to remove any other Meta-Wikipedia commentary from the article. Please point out any more errors if you see them. My writing style can tend toward the stylized, and that is problematic for an encyclopedia article. Thanks, Larry. --trimalchio

Yeah, the new entry is overblown. Reads a lot like someone who has ever actually met any white trash. Or at least never drank a case or two of Texas Pride with any white trash. I might change it later. Too busy right now. Oh yeah, since cunctator doesn't like hyperbolic prose, here it is in plain english: the new entry sucks.

Very good points. I think the whole issue boils down to a simple definition of white trash: "I know it when I see it". Obviously, this won't hold water outside a church social. Perhaps a good compromise would be to briefly explain the difficulty at the beginning of the article, then provide "high brow" (academic) and "low brow" (colloquial) definitions immediately. The academic definition will need to be heavily wikified to allow non-academic sociologists, anthropologists, whatever some insight into the material, and will need to explain the unavoidable bias in the material. The common definition can be condensed from the existing work. Jimbo nails it pretty good on the Old Talk page. The current page is heading this direction, but not there yet. The previously material (that sucked :) should certainly be kept, somewhere else.

I am working on integrating White trash/context into the main page. There's good here, but it won't be easy.

Yep. Lots of chaff to winnow.

The term gained wide popularity during the nineteenth and early twentieth century because of the much narrower (compared to modern late twentieth century) definition of "whiteness". During the early years of the Republic, a white person could more accurately be defined as a white land holder, usually of Anglo-Saxon heritage and always protestant. Because of this narrow definition whiteness, a sizeable portion of the country was, in some sense, considered non-white.

It is incredible. I left it as a possible future example of academic study of white trash, but it seems kind of ridiculuous to me. No one seems to have stepped in to pick up the slack. Now I will be interested in seeing what Larry comes up with.

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA97/price/biblio.htm

A good bibliography on the subject, and also an interesting introductory site on the issue.

And John Ibson's WILL THE WORLD BREAK YOUR HEART is a good book exploring the nineteenth century assimilation of Irish immigrants into white america. Also, Irish-Americans and Anglo-American Relations, 1880-1888 by Joe O'Grady explores the complexities of "whiteness" in the 19th century. Here also is the OED on the linguistic history of "whiteness" (attached below):

Note 1726 where Portuguese are at first identified as white, but then that identification is qualified somewhat. These people are "caucasian" but they are only considered white by virtue of the fact that there wren't any "whiter" people there.

Also note 1896 where "poor whites" are "explained" by being descended from Dutch and French immigrants, in effect distinguishing them as an almost distinct racial class from the well-to-do whites.

Clearly, as written the "context" article steps out a bit and too agressivley approaches its target, but I think that the linguistic and scholarly research opens up a lot of questions. The main point is that a clear understanding of "whiteness" was not monolithic either way, and in fact created many more confusions and abuses then clarifications.

Anyway, it isn't fact that "white" was used so narrowly by all people in the nineteenth century. But it is fact that the term was a fluid term, and that it at times was used that narrowly. It frequently depended on the situation of the speaker and the people being observed, as with the case of the Portiguese people being white, but only when compared to Blacks, and only in the sitaution that there were none who were "whiter" at the time of observation.

• 13. A white man; a person of a race distinguished by light complexion: see white a. 4.

• • 1671 Charante Let. conc. Customs Tafiletta 10 After him raigned his Brother Muley Elwaly, who was a White, his Mother a Spanish Moor.
  • 1726 Adv. Capt. R. Boyle (1744) 155 There may be about 20000 Whites (or I should say Portuguese, for they are none of the whitest,) and about treble that Number of Slaves.
  • 1819 W. Faux Jrnl. 28 July in Memorable Days in Amer. (1823) 118 The poor white, or white poor, in Maryland,..scarcely ever work.
  • 1826 J. F. Cooper Last of Mohicans xiv, Red-skins and whites.
  • 1833 in Maryland Hist. Mag. (1918) XIII. 338 The poor whites at the South are not as well off in their physical condition as the slaves, and hardly as respectable.
  • 1879 Sir G. Campbell White & Black 163 A large number of very inferior whites, known as `mean whites', `white trash', and so on.
  • 1886 J. A. Froude Oceana xviii. 326 When he dies, the Maori and the poor whites in New Zealand will have lost their truest friend.
  • 1888 Churchward Blackbirding 7 Having been longer in Samoa than any live white in the place.
  • 1896 R. Wallace Farming Industries of Cape Colony 406 The so-called `poor whites' are chiefly the descendants of French protestant refugees, and, in some districts, of early Dutch settlers.
  • 1934 A. N. J. Den Hollander in W. T. Couch Culture in South xx. 414 In discriminating southern speech, it was not used to include all white persons who were poor... The `poor-whites' were those who were both poor and conspicuously lacking in the common social virtues and especially fell short of the standard in certain economic qualities.
  • 1958 L. van der Post Lost World Kalahari iii. 56 All who worked for my grandfather no matter whether Griqua, Hottentot,..Cape-coloured or poor white, were ultimately held in equal affection.
  • 1974 J. le Carré Tinker Tailor i. 9 Jim Prideaux was a poor white of the teaching community.

Whut?

This is one of the most offensive, social-class-prejudiced articles I have seen in the wikipedia, if not the only one. Whatever was taken out must have really been putrid if this is what is left. A few points:

• Huck Finn's Pap was white trash. The term was originally coined in less enlightened times to describe white people that even oppressed and despised black people looked down on.
• People originally put their washing machines on their front porches because they were proud of them. They put their sofas on the front porch because they sit on their front porches and want to be comfortable. Imagine that.
• Poor people spend a higher proportion of their income and attention on their cars than rich people do. So what?
• The people being ridiculed here hate people like the authors of this article, and with good reason. I do too. The country song about "my red neck, my white socks, and my Pabst Blue Ribbon beer" is a clever compression of how some ordinary patriotic American white working class people feel.
• The list of "examples of white trash in media" is ludicrous. Where's the Dukes of Hazzard[?] and the Beverly Hillbillies? How about Billy Carter[?]? Mimi, Karla, the Bundys?
• No one ever called Italians or Portuguese white trash. Should there be articles on guineas, dagos, wops, kikes ... geez, my skin crawls just writing this.
• There's about two paragraphs worth having in here, that would be the last two. The rest is just repulsive, ill-thought-out, junk. Sorry if that offends some birkenstocker, well there it is.

We should all be embarrassed that such an ignorant, prejudiced, smug and hateful article appears in the wikipedia. Ortolan88 12:04 Jul 23, 2002 (PDT)

PS--(Gee, I can take it out, can't I? Well as soon as I save this, out it goes. Let him who would have it put it back and I'll take it out again. Can't let the Poles and the Germans have all the fun.)

If not, I'd prefer to limit the article to:

1. definition of the term, i.e., it's a put down
2. description of the stereotype, i.e., people who use the term white trash have in mind a group of people with certain characteristics

It is probably beyond the scope of the 'pedia at this point to discern to what extent the stereotype actually does apply to any real group of people. Ed Poor 12:47 Jul 23, 2002 (PDT)

We're writing an encyclopedia. Part of NPOV is that we can be neutral about words like "nigger", mention them, discuss how they are used (or not used) and their connotations. We should not be using euphemisms like the "the n-word" ourselves -- Tarquin 13:39 Jul 23, 2002 (PDT)

Just before all this happened, I had a cortisone shot in my thumb and the doctor told me to rest it. Then I saw the old white trash article and whammed out a reply and deleted what is now gone, but doing it made my thumb sore and I had to splint it and now I'm typing two-fingered for the first time in 35 years and will be for the rest of the week. Ortolan88 18:13 Jul 23, 2002 (PDT)

So, make it better. Every article in wiki is open to revision. This one has just had some extraneous and non-contributive elements pruned from it, but it isn't set in stone. If you have something to add, add it, and if it lasts, it will be in the article forever. If not, try again.

The problem is that while nigger has a concrete meaningful social existence, as the second-most potent word in the English language, and the most potent in terms of its meaning and impact on those who use it and hear it, white trash is just another entertaining and insulting construct, like upper class twit or clueless geek or smarty-pants (my category). It may be more offensive than some of those other categories, but it is't any more meaningful as it stands.

It may be fun to make fun of people like that, but it doesn't make an encyclopedia article. That was what was wrong with the stuff that was deleted from this article. Jokes about bad taste and low income are not enough. If you, or JHK, or maybe me, can come up with some more information ("that which informs") on white trash, then we should add it.

Some possible lines of inquiry about the white underclass in America, which is what we are talking about here.

• Do people really self-identify, as in the "red neck, white socks, Pabst Blue Ribbon beer" example above?
• Does this self identification have any political meaning?
• How much of this status is imposed by the dominant culture and economy? To what ends?
• Why have the white underclass and the black underclass never been able to get together in their common interest? That would be an answer to the "To what ends?" question in the previous bullet.
• How has the concept of white trash changed in the past 150 years? Has it really gone from "poor white field hands" to "pellagra-ridden poverty-stricken southerners" to "white people on Jerry Springer"? And, getting back to the black and white question above, just how do the black people on Jerry Springer differ from the white? Would you dare call them black trash? I don't think so, which pretty neatly encapsulates the problem here.

Ortolan88 08:43 Jul 24, 2002 (PDT)