white trash

[W. Kiernan]

Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
>
> Perhaps "white trash" was not the best choice of words.  But what
> alternative term would you use to describe the group of
> self-righteous, arrogant whites, predominantly males, who feel that
> they are entitled to the life style and consumption level they have,
> holding disparaging views of any other ethinic group (including
> other "whites" such as Europeans or Jews) and women, ethnocentric
> (or "patriotic"), deferential toward authority figures, ignorant,
> displaying philistine attitueds toward culture and learning, 
> favorably responding to the most debased calls and causes, and
> deriving thinly veiled pleasure form suffering inflicted on others?

Wojtek, you mean "U.S. trash who are whites."  "White" is merely
descriptive, and "trash" is good.  But "white trash" is an established,
specific American derogatory idiom meaning "uneducated poor white people
with bad teeth who live in trailer parks."  The way the idiom is used, a
guy with income at, say, the 55th percentile, who owns a house in
suburbia (rather, make mortgage payments) and drives a recent-model SUV
is NOT "white trash" even if he conforms in every detail to your
description.  Neither are any millionaires at all ever described as
"white trash," not even for example Bill O'Reilly, who happens to be
white and who definitely _is_ trash.

You described a subset of U.S. voters in that quote, and as the name you
chose for this subset is already taken, for lack of a better term in
this discussion let's call them "jerks."  "Jerks" are not co-extant with
"white trash"; also I think they make up only maybe a quarter of the
electorate overall, not half.  I don't even think the percentage of
"jerks" among "white trash" is any higher than their percentage among
people in the 40th through 80th percentiles of income.  The proportion
of "jerks" is alarmingly high among the very wealthy too, who lack the
excuse that they've been too poor all their lives to get educated. 
True, "jerks" are under-represented in academia, so you in your career
can be more uniformly fortunate in your acquaintances than I, a
construction worker, am.

As "white trash" have the most to gain from any increase in socialism
(hey I can dream can't I? single-payer health care, yeah!), they are
also an American socialist orator's most natural audience.  Also, some
of them are actually not completely stupid!

Yours WDK - WKiernan at concentric.net