From: gtoal@IBMPCUG.CO.UK (Graham Toal)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.words-l
Subject: sticking up for my friends
Date: 6 Nov 92 00:21:55 GMT
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
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Comments: To: words-l@uga.cc.uga.edu

Oh well, as suggested I forwaded your comments on trailer parks (I managed
to find the article again with the rather runic ^-$/trash/hr:= command in rn)

Hope no-one minded.  I removed yur names in case it engendered any nasty
flames and didn't say which group...

Just for the record:

] SURE. Pat "Himmler" Buchanon was allowed to spew his
] poison in front of the convention, the media, and the
] world with the full knowledge and collaboration of
] your scumbag candidate George Bush along with the
] rest of the party leadership, because they thought
] a little race-baiting would pick up some support
] from the white-trash/trailer park sector of the
] electorate.

I passed that comment on to some of my friends in another group, and
I thought you'd like to see their comments... (The second one lives in
a trailer park by the way)

G
=========
Graham, it's hypocrisy from some elitist academic who thinks it's OK to
demean and marginalize people who (a) have little influence and (b) he
disagrees with.  <Just one of our dirty little secrets>.  "White trash" refers
to white people with little education, low incomes, poor family values, a
tendency to illegitimacy, spouse abuse, buying too many cigarettes and lottery
tickets and too much booze.  (People of color with those characteristics, on
the other hand, enjoy "protected category" status and preferential admission to
colleges.)  Whether or not such people are more likely to live in trailer parks
I don't know.  The comment on trailer parks is demeaning and stereotypical.  In
the States, trailer parks are low cost, owner-occupied housing.  Often such
parks are located in the paths of tornadoes, so residents of trailer parks get
to own their own homes at even lower prices than conventional homes, because
they bear a higher risk of damage or death from tornadoes.  Poorer people
therefore live in such parks.

The comment is excessively emotional and mean, but probably not untypical of
attitudes held by many members of my country's chattering classes.

SK

Not PC.  Never was.


================
S says something like "...trailer parks are often located in the paths
of tornadoes".  Steve, were you being facetious?  Did not know one could
predict a tornado path, and can't imagine anyone deliberately building in
harm's way.  Otherwise, pretty accurate profile of "trailer parks", but you
did omit one segment fairly common here in Florida.  There are some rather
nice "upscale" parks with people who probably could afford much better, but
do not want to.  They no longer want the expense and work involved in
maintaining a large home.  Of course, cannot deny the vulnerability of
manufactured homes ....they are NOT as substantial as traditionally
constructed homes.  Still you can't label many of the trailer park
inhabitants as poor, second class, under-educated, whatever.  In several
parks there are mobile homes with disguised garages containing motorhomes
worth 2 to 300 thousand ....hardly poor inhabitants.  I have belonged to
a number of RV clubs, with members owning very expensive rigs, but living
in modest homes...their life is no longer concerned with their fixed home,
but their mobile one!
Just a little different viewpoint.

                            Peace,
                                  D


==============

You knew someone had to make this posting, didn't you?

In south Texas, the trailer parks are vacation havens for "Winter Texans,"
the above-average-income, but middle-to-lower-class retirees from the
midwestern United States who return here each year as soon as it gets cold
up north. Trailer parks often feature luxury mobile homes that are much
nicer than the hovels that populate the "colonias" around here. We have
some white trash parks, too--everyone does. But some of our parks are in
the <nice> part of town, and have pretty lawns, immaculately kept mobile
homes, and the most anal-retentive people you'd ever want to meet.

-a
============

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