How many of you know what White Trash Means?

Question

Please explain your definition!

Please dont look it up first! I know what it means!

Answer 1

Exactly what it says you are a white person and your rubbish

Answer 2

'cappyhapp' seems to have covered it as well as it can be covered, I haven't looked it up myself, but I don't like the term at all!
I especially don't like the term 'trailer trash' I had never heard this term in the UK, I did look that up and found a lot of very amusing USA sites relating to this term , they did have me rolling about laughing !
But I know a lot of people ( retired ) who have moved into a trailer (caravan) park and visited a few myself, they are happy decent folk.
I have of course read all about the UK 'gypsy ' or 'diddycoy' some thing like that! Their outlook on life is completly different to ours , they think the land was God given to all people , not just to those that can afford to buy it (silly idea that is'nt it)??
Now my idea of 'white trash' is that it is a definition given to underprivalged white folk probably by other ethnic races ? most of who are likely better off financially than these 'white trash'!
But whatever, it's not very nice is it?

Answer 3

White trash is an American ethnic slur with a social class component. The term is usually considered interchangeable with trailer trash. It is comparable to "honky" in that it is targeted toward white people, but it also connotes low social status and poor prospects (i.e., downward mobility). To call someone "white trash" is to accuse that person of being culturally bankrupt. "White trash" is not a demographic group recognized by sociology.

Answer 4

White trash is an American ethnic slur with a social class component. The term is usually considered interchangeable with trailer trash. It is comparable to "honky" in that it is targeted toward white people, but it also connotes low social status and poor prospects (i.e., downward mobility). To call someone "white trash" is to accuse that person of being culturally bankrupt. "White trash" is not a demographic group recognized by sociology.

Attitudes toward the phrase have softened somewhat in recent years, to the degree that some people describe themselves as "white trash", and there is a genre of rock music known proudly as "white-trash rock", but the phrase is still never found in polite contexts. "White trash" is usually associated with poverty; lack of education can also play a role.The orgins of the term may come from a racially segregated past, but modern usage of the term places emphasis on the word "trash" or the labeling of someone as socially worthless. It is often used by lower class white people to stigmatize others within their class who are perceived to be more backward than the norm for their class. "White trash" are perceived as having crude manners, abnormally low moral standards, and lack of cultured behavior and/or education. Swearing, smoking, promiscuity, drunkenness, overly loud and animated behavior in public, and gambling (especially the copious purchase of scratch-style lottery tickets), and owning expensive cable television packages are examples of "white trash" vices. The label might be applied to a household that, for example, lives in a decrepit apartment or trailer, has a large family, lacks indoor plumbing, and has a yard strewn with debris or perhaps a non-functioning vehicle.

This group is "America's poorest and most disparaged and despised category of whiteness" (Berger 2000, p. 284). By the Fussell categorization of social class, most of these people would rank in the low and middle "prole" class. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, "white trash" first came into common use in the 1830s as a pejorative used by the slaves of upper-class Southerners, often plantation aristocrats, against poor whites, below even the status of yeomen, who worked in the fields; at the time, it was synonymous with the slurs "sand hiller" and "clay eater"; "white trash" were (hyperbolically) assumed to farm ineptly on poor land and therefore resort to eating clay in order to survive. The term involves both behavioral characteristics (such as mannerisms, lifestyle) and overt racial characteristics (whiteness). The term is widely used across the United States, not only in the South, Appalachia, and Midwest, but also in East and West Coast cities like New York and Los Angeles, as a shorthand to deride others, especially those from surrounding rural regions. On the West Coast, however, the term is often used colloquially in its abbreviated form: PWT (Poor White Trash).

Answer 5

It means White Rubbish.

Answer 6

A white person who is poor and low-cultured in a way deemed inappropriate for his race. Not good enough to be a proper white man.

Answer 7

it originates in the deep south in usa where people who live there that dont have historical ties would be deemed white trash as you can gather they view outsiders as this

Answer 8

Here in the US, it refers mostly to poor whites with little or no education living in the ghetto or trailer park.

Answer 9

an offensive term for White people who are poor, lazy and ignorant

Answer 10

It is a description of Jade Goody. Exceptionally stupid, no class, no manners and a gobshite.