{"id":6964,"date":"2018-09-12T08:00:02","date_gmt":"2018-09-12T13:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/?p=6964"},"modified":"2018-09-10T17:41:54","modified_gmt":"2018-09-10T22:41:54","slug":"how-the-term-white-trash-reinforces-white-supremacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/2018\/09\/12\/how-the-term-white-trash-reinforces-white-supremacy\/","title":{"rendered":"How the Term \u201cWhite Trash\u201d Reinforces White Supremacy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo of a Trash Bin in Washington D.C. by David Lisbona, Flickr CC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Today, the term \u201cwhite trash\u201d is used colloquially to identify white people who do not conform to the established ideas about what it means to be \u201cwhite,\u201d usually indicating they are poor, uneducated, unemployed, or backwards. This term emerged as a racial slur for white indentured servants — poor whites from England and other European countries that came to the United States in search of citizenship in exchange for labor. In a recent <\/span>segment<\/span><\/a> on NPR’s<\/span> podcast <\/span>Code Switch<\/span><\/i>,<\/span> sociologist <\/span>Matt Wray<\/span><\/a> discusses why \u201cwhite trash\u201d remains a powerful insult against poor whites and people of color alike.<\/span><\/p>\n

Wray argues that although the term is meant to disparage poor whites, it simultaneously demeans other races by maintaining that there is something about being white that is superior to other racial groups. This is why the modifier \u201ctrash\u201d is used. <\/span>Code Switch<\/span><\/i> news assistant <\/span>Leah Donnella<\/span><\/a> sums up Wray\u2019s argument well: <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c. . . \u2018white\u2019 is the only racial group that needs a modifier for it to become a slur. There’s no \u2018black trash\u2019 or \u2018Hispanic trash\u2019 or \u2018Native American trash,\u2019 \u00a0presumably, because for most of American history, those people were assumed by those in power to be poor, uneducated and criminal.\u201d <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Wray also suggests that the term is used to reinforce the long-standing idea that poor whites are more racist than middle class or white elites. This allows affluent whites to escape criticism as racists, while stereotyping poor whites as representative \u00a0of \u201creal\u201d racism. Accordingly, Wray states:<\/span><\/p>\n

“Whites who use the term are saying, ‘Look, I’m not racist. The person down the road is racist. The one who drops the N-word, or has the Confederate flag flapping off the back of their truck. That’s real racism.’ “<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In short, Wray\u2019s research shows how the term \u201cwhite trash\u201d reinforces ideas of white superiority, today and throughout history. \u00a0Since it first emerged in the colonial era, the term symbolized how important the intersection of race and class was — and still is — for personal belonging and worth in the United States.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today, the term \u201cwhite trash\u201d is used colloquially to identify white people who do not conform to the established ideas about what it means to be \u201cwhite,\u201d usually indicating they are poor, uneducated, unemployed, or backwards. This term emerged as a racial slur for white indentured servants — poor whites from England and other European […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2020,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,13,14],"tags":[39112,123,39110,339,119,3312,39111,4225,105180,82,727,38830,19021,407,507,23055],"class_list":["post-6964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-inequality","category-race","tag-culture","tag-ethnicity","tag-inequality","tag-language","tag-poverty","tag-privilege","tag-race","tag-racial-inequality","tag-racial-stereotypes","tag-racism","tag-social-class","tag-socioeconomic-class","tag-socioeconomic-status","tag-stereotypes","tag-white-privilege","tag-white-trash"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2020"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6964"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6967,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6964\/revisions\/6967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}