Talk:White trash/Archive 1

message: Hope I'm posting this in the right spot.  Didn't want to post it under the "Archives" heading, because I didn't think that was appropriate.  If that's where it belongs, please feel free to move this. Anywho:
this article was in need of some proofreading, which I did some of.  I made other changes, which I’m not going to review, but I think the most major is (although really rather minor) what follows. We had:
* In Jim Goad's 1997 in literature Historical Outlook The Redneck Manifesto, "Through relentless exposure to images of lowlife undesireability, we are led to sniff disdainfully at the sour stench of retrograde Eurosweat." quotes Goad.
I’m going to review what I changed point by point, so even if someone disagrees, at least they know where I’m coming from.  First, the link was to Wiki:1997 in Literature, and the text displayed the same, so it basically said the year his book was published was “1997 in literature,” which is absurd.  Next, I took the liberty of changing “Historical Outlook” to “social commentary.  One, these words shouldn’t be capitalized.  Two, nothing I find online (ie Amazon) gives me the idea  that it refers to history whatsoever.  It seems more current.  Also, “historical outlook” seems like a weird way to describe a book, but that’s just me.  This is the edit I made that is least important to me, but I think it’s more accurate.  Nontheless, if you disagree, I won’t be party to an edit war .  Finally, the sentence ended with “quotes Goad.”  First, quotes implies he’s using someone else’s words.  If he is, this needs to be established…but I doubt he is, so I replaced it with “he says.”  I also put it before the quote, because it serves as a good transition into the quote, and there wasn’t one.
Thanks for listening to me blabber.  I know it’s just a sentence, but we should all strive to make Wikipedia the best it can be. Also, agreement from the majority is important to me, so I figured I’d present my reasoning.  The sentence, rewritten, looks like this:
* In Jim Goad's 1997 social commentary The Redneck Manifesto, he says "Through relentless exposure to images of lowlife undesireability, we are led to sniff disdainfully at the sour stench of retrograde Eurosweat." 
Hope this issue hasn't been reviewed, I skimmed the talk page archive and saw nothing about it.
Thanks again. Cheers!
-"Yes...It's Raining" 00:55, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Explaining my edit about Jim Goad 

message: This unsourced statement sounds dubious to me. How many upper class non-white Southerners were there in the 1830s? Melaena (talk) 21:50, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  "The term white trash first came into common use in the 1830s as a pejorative used by upper-class United States southerners '''of all races''' against financially disadvantaged caucasians" 

message: I just wanted to clarify the fact that this term is racist.
If you call a black person "black trash", there would be no doubt that it was racist.
The same standard has to apply for White trash and it will. 
:You can't really base your argument by comparing the word to "black trash" because there isn't such a word, and we could never know the real connotation of the term. What if, hypothetically, middle class black people started to use the term "black trash" to describe lower class blacks. Would it still be racist? 68.193.52.220 (talk) 00:07, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: "White Trash" hardly remarks on a person's race. The label might be limited to white people, but the term makes fun of someone's social class and economic status. 68.193.52.220 (talk) 00:07, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

text: Anonymous, I think you may misunderstand what "neutral" means on Wikipedia.  Please read WP:NPOV and WP:V.  We should be trying to characterize published arguments, not arguing the issue ourselves, as you seem to be doing above. --Allen 03:29, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  My edits dont contain original research. My justification contains argumentation, but so does yours. Classifying a term "racist" is not original research - I did not define racism or create the term. 85.82.195.131 18:16, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Please take a look at WP:NOR#Synthesis_of_published_material_serving_to_advance_a_position. My edits on talk pages contain all sorts of argumentation, but hopefully my additions to articles don't contain unsourced argumentation, at least not beyond the most trivial and uncontroversial.  While I agree that "white trash" is a racist term, it seems that others do not.  Perhaps there is consensus among experts that "white trash" is racist; if we had sources we could say so.  --Allen 20:39, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, so I admit that again, I lost the battle against the racial double standard. It annoys me, but I acknowledge that I have no power over this. The fact that non-whites also use "white trash" should be enough. Black trash, the black version, would be on a level similar to the N-word. I just wish racial equality and justice could prevail, but thats not the will of the people apparently. 85.82.195.131 15:24, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: How can it be racist when it refers to a socioeconomic bracket specifically. White trash != all whites as causation of ethnicity. Further, we have similar terms for blacks, gangsters, hoodlums, etc. These are also not racist because they are not predicated on the inherent inferiority of a given ethnicity. Vrlak (talk) 19:39, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I see this is an OLD comment thread, but in case anyone is still contemplating this, I wanted to talk about it. I don't think it's a racist term at all.  What you have to realize is that the words aren't really linked to each other.  White trash means someone is white, and they are trash.  Black trash would mean someone was black, and trash.  I can understand objecting to something ridiculous, like n****r trash, but that's only because the descriptive word is racist. White is not racist.  Black is not racist. White trash is not racist.  Racism implies superiority of one race over another. I surely don't think "white trash" implies all whites are trash.  It'd be like if "Chinese jerk" were a term - no, it does not imply "Chinese people are jerks," just that the particular person it is directed at is Chinese, and a jerk. Secondly, does it matter to the article?  Is there a section saying it's racist, or do you want to add one?  If the first, I'd say let it go, and if the latter, I disagree on the basis of the above points.  Just wanted to throw in my two cents.  Thanks!
-"Yes...It's Raining" 01:08, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clarification: this term IS racist 

message: 21 Jan 2007: the current version of this page has been edited to read 'since all white people are racists....' - is there any way of perhaps banning further postings from this IP address?
--
If "white trash" is considered a racist slur, would calling an Asian "yellow trash" or a Black "Black Trash" be a slur also? I've had public school teachers who used the term openly and loudly in class to refer to less-than-educated-and-well-behaved people in their class. Nobody considered it racist. And many people I know use "white trash" to refer to other Caucasians they consider their inferiors in terms of education, class, or profession. It has nothing to do with race. It's a deragatory term, yes, but not racist.
Oh, and the "Jerry Springer" analogy is extremely accurate, especially within the Chicago area. It's a general stereotype that not only does "white trash" appear on this show, but that its audience is also white trash.
re: i definitely see a big chunk of that racist, and removed it. it would have been acceptable if it was "racist" in an academic manner. however, it sounds alot more like just plain slander against white people in general. things like "because non-whites are generally more aware of racial issues" especially. they aren't even presented as theories or possibilities, but plainly as fact.
:Re: The term "white trash" is not in the least a derogatory term that refers to the white race. It does not refer to the race in its entirety, but to a subset of it. It is a derogatory term it is true, but it is typically directed towards a subset of whites: working class uneducated whites. The term “white trash” is akin to “redneck” it connotes a subset of white that is typically, poor, uneducated and because of this irrational in their behavior.
::Public school teachers are racist often enough, as well as imperfect in other ways, and just because no one notices something doesn't mean it doesn't happen. If it had nothing to do with race, why would race be included in the term? Why would the term itself, and its users, bring up race if they weren't saying something about it? Hyacinth 05:04, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  The term White Trash is much different than the word Nigger. It's true, many African Americans use the N word to describe each other, but in that context, the term is being used affectionately. When someone who is not black uses the word, it is almost always derogatory. Now white trash...well that's always derogatory, even when being used by whites against other whites, because few whites would ever consider themselves white trash. Though the term is limited to white people, the term is derogatory because it insults the poor. It's not insulting anyone for being white. The term really isn't racist. It's classist. 68.193.52.220 (talk) 00:01, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is this racist??? 

message: Perhaps I'm being over-cautious, but I'm somewhat leery of the picture of 3 people being called "white trash". That might be a personal attack on real people. Besides, I don't see what's "white trash"y about them, except for the fact that they're white and poor. If poor qualifies as "trash", then a lot of people are (unfairly) being thrown into that category. Mike Church 21:18, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Picture 

message: I think the link to The Jerry Springer Show I added was unfairly deleted. As it is, this article hardly says anything about what it is to be white trash. I wanted to build it up a little, and The Jerry Springer Show is the first thing that comes to mind when most people hear the words white trash. I'm going to add the link again, hopefully someone will want to write about the definition of white trash instead of just the so-called controversy surrounding the term. -- CPS 03:39, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Jerry Springer