white trash is white-hot!

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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12389715/

according to ^^^ this article next to my hotmail acct - yeah i know we discussed the racist classist bullshit of 'white trash' before (not to mention hipster co-opting - no 4 real plz NOT TO MENTION) but wtf-

To illustrate the growing white trash cachet, witness “My Name is Earl” (a postmodern “Roseanne”) or the budding movie career of “Blue Collar” comedian Larry the Cable Guy. (An “Ernest” for the new millennium?) Someone tell “The Simpsons”: Between the rise of NASCAR and Dick Cheney’s hunting accident, white trash ain’t just for Cletus and Brandine anymore.

― -+-++-+, Friday, 28 April 2006 19:45 (twenty years ago)

also 'a postmodern roseanne'??? roseanne wasnt postmodern?>? my name is earl is postmodern??????

― -+-++-+, Friday, 28 April 2006 19:46 (twenty years ago)

trife have you ever met anyone named brandine? cuz i haven't. and i think we might be the two most white trash people on this board (top 10 at least).

― j blount (papa la bas), Friday, 28 April 2006 19:47 (twenty years ago)

my name is earl is pretty good, jaime pressly well cast finally. giovanni ribisi got some work last night.

― j blount (papa la bas), Friday, 28 April 2006 19:48 (twenty years ago)

Do they even share any qualities aside from being about poor white people?

My Name Is Earl is the aforementioned hipster co-opting, isn't it? The scientologist-skateboarder-Kevin Smith muse isnt' exactly telling it from the heart.

― milo z (mlp), Friday, 28 April 2006 19:49 (twenty years ago)

i knew alot of brandys in h.s. but nah, cletus neither unless u count cledus t judd

xpost i have never seen it!!

― -+-++-+, Friday, 28 April 2006 19:49 (twenty years ago)

i don't even know what post-modern means anymore...isn't it just more a classy way of saying "neat-o" now?

i grew up on a farm, so i guess i'm white trash too.

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Friday, 28 April 2006 19:49 (twenty years ago)

i dunno dude i think jason lee is probly really from the south just like every other nyc myspace hipster dude who uses 3 years spent in florida as a toddler to excuse a career's worth of smug mockery

― +-++-+, Friday, 28 April 2006 19:50 (twenty years ago)

haha trife have you ever seen when nro gets all tut-tut unhappy with working class whites (basically when one of them ends up on a dem prez ticket) and starts tossing around the phrase 'peasant class' around in all seriousness?

― j blount (papa la bas), Friday, 28 April 2006 19:51 (twenty years ago)

only current things 'get' to be postmodern.

and, uh, maybe its not translating over here, but is my name is earl meant to be white trash? it just seems kind of suburban? or, is everything 'anyplace' white trash, because its not in a recognisable/bigcity location?

― charltonlido (gareth), Friday, 28 April 2006 19:51 (twenty years ago)

see diplo, david cross

― +-++-+, Friday, 28 April 2006 19:51 (twenty years ago)

yeah i always gotta remind 18 yr old anti-bush types & europeans how all their same redneck white trash hillbilly rhetoric was thrown at clinton when they were in diapers

― -+-++-, Friday, 28 April 2006 19:52 (twenty years ago)

i mean, whats white trash about earl exactly, his hat?

― charltonlido (gareth), Friday, 28 April 2006 19:52 (twenty years ago)

They were playing up white trash signifiers hard in the lead-in commercials. Old beat-up American car, getting a can of Bud at 8 in the morning, cheesy facial hair. And then they cast Jaime Pressly.

― milo z (mlp), Friday, 28 April 2006 19:54 (twenty years ago)

The only TV show I can think of where white trash is accurately represented is Cops.

― josh in sf (stfu kthx), Friday, 28 April 2006 19:55 (twenty years ago)

basically i dont wanna see yankees use their half a year's kindergarden in tennessee as an excuse for nyc trucker hat culture any more than some army brat who was born on a base in berlin gets to walk around talking like dieter from sprockets

― -+-+-+, Friday, 28 April 2006 19:56 (twenty years ago)

yeah jason lee's probably more white trash than marietta raised georgia tech alum jeff foxworthy (who to be fair doesn't really paint himself as whitetrash - 'you just might be a redneck' is very much poking fun at skeletons/non-college graduate relatives in new south yuppies closets - but to bloomberg yuppies who think hank hill is a redneck there's no difference between foxworthy or larry the cable guy)(cf. josh in sf for standard yuppie classism), i think he's from jersey though i'm probably just assuming that. he does seem a bit florida though.

― j blount (papa la bas), Friday, 28 April 2006 19:56 (twenty years ago)

"between 'The Beverly Hillbillies' and The Band's 'Up On Cripple Creek', blah blah blah"

― Tracey Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 28 April 2006 19:56 (twenty years ago)

hey now trife no need to call tracer out now!

― j blount (papa la bas), Friday, 28 April 2006 19:57 (twenty years ago)

His moustache i think

xpost

― Thermo Thinwall (Thermo Thinwall), Friday, 28 April 2006 19:57 (twenty years ago)

What does being a yankee have to do with it? Trucker hats are rural working class, not southern. They don't have truckers in Maine or Washington?

― josh in sf (stfu kthx), Friday, 28 April 2006 19:58 (twenty years ago)

between lbj and the ballad of the green berets....

― -+-++-+-, Friday, 28 April 2006 19:58 (twenty years ago)

trucker hat culture was a stand-in for 'new york white trash parties' - where i grew up they called them fishing hats anyway

― --+-+++-+-, Friday, 28 April 2006 19:58 (twenty years ago)

basically my stance on the south is prodigy's on qb - no matter how much loot i get im stayin

― -++-+-+, Friday, 28 April 2006 19:59 (twenty years ago)

Roseanne was pretty accurate about working-class family life about 75% of the time (the other 25% were dream sequences and shocking lesbian kisses).

xp: Every summer when we went fishing as a kid, I got a new Texas Rangers mesh cap - if it fell in the lake and got wet, who cared?

― milo z (mlp), Friday, 28 April 2006 20:00 (twenty years ago)

how painful does this shit look?

http://www.videovista.net/reviews/may04/ronnie.jpg

― gear (gear), Friday, 28 April 2006 20:01 (twenty years ago)

jaime pressly well cast finally -- actually one of the things I've always found strange about her is that she's always been cast almost exclusively as "white trash," stretching all the way back to her being in that Jerry Springer movie. And then I feel bad thinking it but I can see why, because she somehow just has that kind of look, face-wise.

I don't like the term "white trash" maybe even more for reasons have nothing to do with white people. But it seems to have stuck in deep, especially among the people it's pointed at (who one supposes have more need of a word for it, for the purposes of their own self-definition, whether it's proudly reclaiming it or using it to make critical distinctions between themselves and their neighbors or whatever). Which is to say that the only people I know who really use the term in any meaningful way are people who on some level know from white trash. I mean, the term only has real function in spaces where there are "white trash" and non-"white trash" and people believe in and care about cultural distinctions between the two.

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 28 April 2006 20:02 (twenty years ago)

milo i think shocking lesbian kisses fall under working class, in my experience at least

― -+-+-+++-, Friday, 28 April 2006 20:02 (twenty years ago)

what's a "yankee"?

also, what's a "bloomberg yuppie"?

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 28 April 2006 20:04 (twenty years ago)

like, can you be a yankee bloomberg yuppie if you root for the Mets and vote for Freddy?

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 28 April 2006 20:04 (twenty years ago)

oblig. 'white trash with money' note

― j blount (papa la bas), Friday, 28 April 2006 20:05 (twenty years ago)

yeah a yuppie rooting for the mets is pretty far fetched gabbneb stop blowing my mind

― j blount (papa la bas), Friday, 28 April 2006 20:05 (twenty years ago)

anybody north of KY/TN/NC

― -+++-++-, Friday, 28 April 2006 20:05 (twenty years ago)

yankee i mean i dunno bloomberg yuppie

― +-+-+-, Friday, 28 April 2006 20:06 (twenty years ago)

young white ppl from new york w/ jobs?

― -+-++-+--, Friday, 28 April 2006 20:06 (twenty years ago)

haha i was going to ask blount to find out what he was talking about before talking shit, but why start now? happy friday, motherfucker

― Tracey Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 28 April 2006 20:07 (twenty years ago)

it is cute when yankees get all offended by yankee - boo f'n hoo!!

― -+-++-++-+, Friday, 28 April 2006 20:07 (twenty years ago)

i mean, does Yankee have any meaning beyond "person from the North"? why don't we get a special word for Southerners? not fair.

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 28 April 2006 20:08 (twenty years ago)

kings of crunk

― -+-+-+-+--, Friday, 28 April 2006 20:08 (twenty years ago)

anybody north of KY/TN/NC

wait, i thought KY was north of TN?

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 28 April 2006 20:09 (twenty years ago)

"white trash" is a bullshit phrase that is, for some people, a cathartic punching bag. you can't hate on anyone else and be PC, but you can bash on poor, backwoods white folks!

― gear (gear), Friday, 28 April 2006 20:09 (twenty years ago)

KY/TN/NC are a lump

xpost yeah not to mention distinguishing 'white trash', not like just plain trash which we all know is non-white

― -++-++++-+, Friday, 28 April 2006 20:10 (twenty years ago)

i was just gonna say TN/NC but then i remembered some KY fam who are appalachian as fuck

― -++-++++-+, Friday, 28 April 2006 20:10 (twenty years ago)

Oh and so Ethan, with this term it seems that things like ironic "white trash parties" (which is more like a private-university fraternity activity) aren't at all what gives the term its power -- in some ways that's a total side-issue. The actual structure and use of the term seem way more informed by really minor-distinction uses among people who are pretty much similar -- say, people identifying wings of their own families as white trash, or calling out people in their own socioeconomic bracket on it. ("My next-door neighbors are total white trash, they do XYZ with their dogs and XYZ with their yards.") I dunno, maybe my experience is off -- does that seem accurate? I feel like it gets used to establish cultural-background stuff between people of the same economic class, more so than used as a full-on explicit thing between classes.

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 28 April 2006 20:11 (twenty years ago)

kings of crunk

http://www.pensitoreview.com/images/photo-ralph-reed.jpg

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 28 April 2006 20:11 (twenty years ago)

same economic class maybe but that doesnt make it non-classist, class doesnt just = income

― -++-+-++-, Friday, 28 April 2006 20:12 (twenty years ago)

kings of crunk

hahaha!

I don't use yankee to mean anything other than "northerner". Now whether or not that designation is negative is another story.

― Miss Misery xox (MissMiseryTX), Friday, 28 April 2006 20:12 (twenty years ago)

many times i've heard the phrase white trash being used as an excuse to bash minorities, too. "i'm not a racist or anything, but just like there's white trash, there's black trash".

― gear (gear), Friday, 28 April 2006 20:13 (twenty years ago)

hahaha gabb you shoulda seen the atl free weekly's hilarious ralph reed comic book a couple months back

― -+-++-, Friday, 28 April 2006 20:13 (twenty years ago)

nah it's definitely a class divider nabisco. again jeff foxworthy (or who he speaks for) is in a decidedly different income bracket/educational background than the trailer park.

― j blount (papa la bas), Friday, 28 April 2006 20:14 (twenty years ago)

Skipping 34 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

haha wasnt nude spock/scaredy cat a big anti-white trash crusader

― -+-+-+, Friday, 28 April 2006 20:30 (twenty years ago)

and lord custos!!!!

― -+-+-+, Friday, 28 April 2006 20:31 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, the vocational-versus-prep angle seems dead-on. [Ha: at my second high school, "white trash" pretty much specifically meant that either (a) you brought your hunting gear to school or (b) you graduated through the cosmetology program and not the school itself.]

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 28 April 2006 20:31 (twenty years ago)

shit i can remember when i was the only southerner on ilx

― -+-+-+, Friday, 28 April 2006 20:31 (twenty years ago)

tracer i was just screwing with you a bit, just a bit of fun dawg

― j blount (papa la bas), Friday, 28 April 2006 20:31 (twenty years ago)

Get ahead of the curve. In 2005, white trash was the new gay. In 2006, wireless technology is the new white trash.

― Fluffy Bear Heats The New Gay (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Friday, 28 April 2006 20:32 (twenty years ago)

and you got earnest white trash strivers sweating out the college prep route

See I don't think you're being specific enough with the term. I think 'white trash' is a choice. The minute someone is striving through college they aren't white trash anymore. They come from that background, but WT is a choice. The word is interchangeable with "lowlife".

― josh in sf (stfu kthx), Friday, 28 April 2006 20:32 (twenty years ago)

dunno bout vocational vs prep - i never took a college prep course in my life but im pretty sure alot of 1st generation off the farm dixie girls at the presbyterian college in my hometown would get the white trash slurs before me

― -+++---++, Friday, 28 April 2006 20:33 (twenty years ago)

those dumb lowlifes and their retail jobs.

― gear (gear), Friday, 28 April 2006 20:33 (twenty years ago)

i mean isnt one of the places where youre likeliest to hear 'white trash' jokes at a southern college aimed towards some rural student who dont know no better?? same with bama/country at spelman or whatever, college hardly absolves you

― -+-+-+, Friday, 28 April 2006 20:34 (twenty years ago)

Eh, fair enough. I realize there are some really depressed areas in this country where people are lucky to get an entry-level retail job at 35 years old. The key phrase in my sentence was the 'bouncing around' part. Meaning they can't hold down a retail or fast food job.

― josh in sf (stfu kthx), Friday, 28 April 2006 20:36 (twenty years ago)

Josh, aren't you just moving the goalposts? For a yuppie, the farmers and mechanics who don't have the right tastes or might talk funny or struggle with money become 'white trash.'

And you're of that social class, basically, so you create a new white trash based on the categories you see and want to disassociate from. And then that group finds someone else to pick on.

(ie it's exactly what Gareth was talking about)

― milo z (mlp), Friday, 28 April 2006 20:36 (twenty years ago)

reading this thread has made me feel very tired. don't even feel like beers now!

― Miss Misery xox (MissMiseryTX), Friday, 28 April 2006 20:37 (twenty years ago)

haha cue that dubya 'grapes of wraith' story jode posted the other day

xpost - yes trife i was listing exceptions reread my post dude

― j blount (papa la bas), Friday, 28 April 2006 20:37 (twenty years ago)

yeah but blount you think i'm a "trucker hat party" guy just like ethan does, i know you do!! maybe i look like it on in the picture threads?? for the record, the last nylon mesh adjustable cap i owned was "clinton-gore -- '92", which i had from the campaign. the last time i wore it was in 1998, during the height of the lewinsky stuff, to the longbranch on the UT strip. i got free beer because of that hat! that was the day those kinds of hats stopped being cool, by the way. lord knows why everyone else was so misinformed afterwards (cf. pharrell williams). ok ok i have lived in williamsburg but i swear by 1998 i'd already moved out! then i went back home and got drunk and jumped into quarries all summer i swear!!!

aw, wrinkleblount

― Tracey Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 28 April 2006 20:37 (twenty years ago)

Really, Ethan? I must totally not know the Southern nuance of this one: I've always seen the term specifically not used for people who were too rural (that would be some other issue of "hillbilly" or whatever), and more for town and edge-city poor. Like if you're really rural you get a pass for not knowing any better, but if you're near some other people then you're trash. (Cf trailer parks -- the park's on the outskirts of town!)

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 28 April 2006 20:38 (twenty years ago)

while it's a crap phrase,
"white trash" does not mean "southern".
DON'T GET IT TWISTED

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Friday, 28 April 2006 20:38 (twenty years ago)

haha i just remembered some party i DJ'ed about three years ago and i closed out the night with some johnny cash and this girl came over to my setup and asked, "what is this?!" and i said, "johnny cash, he's pretty good, trust me". she replied with, "yeah if you're 60 yr old white trash!"

― gear (gear), Friday, 28 April 2006 20:40 (twenty years ago)

blount did they ever make yall go to those job fairs where dudes fuck around with car jacks & welding masks & females play w/ hair & makeup??

xost trace doth protesteth too much - dude i didnt even know you were from tenn!!

― -++-++-+, Friday, 28 April 2006 20:40 (twenty years ago)

even I knew that ethan.

― Miss Misery xox (MissMiseryTX), Friday, 28 April 2006 20:41 (twenty years ago)

nitsuh nobody in GA or SC says hillbilly

― -+-+-++++, Friday, 28 April 2006 20:42 (twenty years ago)

"hee-ull-bee-leeee"

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Friday, 28 April 2006 20:42 (twenty years ago)

in chicago, where my family is originally from, there's this definite unwritten rule among some of the upscale wrigleyvillers/wicker parkers that northsiders are alright whereas southsiders are "trash". whenever my mom's side of the family mixed with my dad's side, there was this definite tension that had a lot to do with the perception of "class", looking back at it now. or maybe it had more to do with the white sox/cubs split.

― gear (gear), Friday, 28 April 2006 20:42 (twenty years ago)

haha i knew trace was from knoxville, dude's a huge vols fan. i'm djing a party at my sister's tonight btw trife if you're in town, on nacoochee off of nanathala, expect a diplo/krush girls/'the dj wants a bj so you're goddamn right i'm pandering' vibe

― j blount (papa la bas), Friday, 28 April 2006 20:43 (twenty years ago)

unless i just dont know enough white folks - 'redneck' is really the most popular inwardly critical/narcissism of small diffs term, 'white trash' has the taint of aristocracy & nobody i knew ever used it

― -+-++++-, Friday, 28 April 2006 20:43 (twenty years ago)

Ethan I said "I've always seen," and since I've never lived in GA or SC I was talking more about the midwest and Rocky Mountain areazzzz.

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 28 April 2006 20:44 (twenty years ago)

hahaha sorry blount its final fridays @ django & theres no way im missing dylan from da band embarrass himself

lol @ dj wants a bj tho - break a leg dude

― -++-+++-+, Friday, 28 April 2006 20:47 (twenty years ago)

trife i was in south carolina a few months ago and the billboards said 'hardees voted best burgers in nw south carolina' in the anderson courier-journal or whatever paper and i'm thinking 'o god that can't be true can it?' also how long has south carolina had jack-in-the-box and how come georgia don't and what's yr take on that movement to get rid of sex shops and is this gonna wipe out like 70% of the business along I-85 in south carolina and do you ever call the carolina panthers the south carolina panthers like this one dude i knew from south carolina did?

― j blount (papa la bas), Friday, 28 April 2006 20:50 (twenty years ago)

gear, it's funny you mention it because I grew up on the south side of Chicago. My whole extended family still lives there. When we moved away from Chicago after my dad got a good job in the midwest, we all became Cubs fans. It was mostly because my dad followed Harry Carey from the Sox to the Cubs, but your post makes me wonder if it was a sign we were movin' on up.

― josh in sf (stfu kthx), Friday, 28 April 2006 20:51 (twenty years ago)

white sox fans are fucking crazy! totally awesome

― j blount (papa la bas), Friday, 28 April 2006 20:52 (twenty years ago)

hahaha i still lived in NC when the panthers got started but all my fam down in the lowcountry were super fuckin hyped & when i moved there to start 7th grade my panthers sweatshirt allowed me some degree of assimilation immediately cf 'south carolina's team'

btw thats the anderson independent-mail - never seen those billboards & i was just back home last month!

― -++-++-, Friday, 28 April 2006 20:54 (twenty years ago)

fun fact- devlin thompson is from anderson & visits it frequently (or used to, at least)

― -++++-+, Friday, 28 April 2006 20:55 (twenty years ago)

i'm a cubs fan too, but i like going to white sox games more. besides they were actually a pretty good team and not a bunch of mascots in the '90s.

― gear (gear), Friday, 28 April 2006 20:55 (twenty years ago)

they lost me for about five years between maddux taking off and sosa hitting 66.

― gear (gear), Friday, 28 April 2006 20:56 (twenty years ago)

newspapers i remember- anderson independent-mail (republicans), abbeville press & banner (henry green represent), greenwood index journal (real 'cow gets loose' type stories), due west village observer (my great uncle writes this - one page every 2 weeks)

― -++-++-, Friday, 28 April 2006 21:01 (twenty years ago)

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000002A69.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

Social D, ahead of the curve...

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Friday, 28 April 2006 21:16 (twenty years ago)

Well for Chicago north/south is also black/white, totally and completely, at least for the city part. Josh, I'm guessing you're talking a little bit about suburban and outlying neighborhoods, right? Like "ethnic" post-working-class south burbs versus comfy north burbs, Cicero versus Winnetka, Oak versus Downer's?

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 28 April 2006 21:19 (twenty years ago)

This is such manufactured news. The Simpsons has been around how long now? When was Roseanne on the air? How old is King of the Hill? When did the trucker hat thing START (let alone get played out, which it has been for quite a while)?

Mainstream America popular with Mainstream America shocker.

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Friday, 28 April 2006 21:24 (twenty years ago)

nabisco - yup. Blue Island, Calumet, Alsip, Riverdale.

― josh in sf (stfu kthx), Friday, 28 April 2006 21:24 (twenty years ago)

Well, Mainstream White America anyway.

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Friday, 28 April 2006 21:24 (twenty years ago)

I was a junior in high school when I watched the pilot of the simpsons. Am I old?

also, racial fights on Ilx = so played out. yet I stil participate. . .

― Miss Misery xox (MissMiseryTX), Saturday, 29 April 2006 03:11 (twenty years ago)

you know, I don't think I ever got it until now. i've always found the particular construction of that "love a neighbor" line Bush was fond of (during the campaign, at least) to be really bizarre, but only now do i realize just why it felt so weird. it's because he really, truly, deeply does not believe one word of what he's saying here...

My call to people in this area is see what you can do to make Buffalo a more compassionate, decent place. See, societies change one conscience, one soul a time. All it takes is for citizens to hear that universal call to love a neighbor just like you'd like to be loved yourself, and mentor a child, or feed the hungry, or provide shelter for the homeless, or love the lonely. And by doing so, you serve our nation, and you really show the world the true compassion of a great nation

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Saturday, 29 April 2006 03:22 (twenty years ago)

so did the dj get a bj?

― Tracey Hand (tracerhand), Sunday, 30 April 2006 21:01 (twenty years ago)

two years pass...

"sarah palin is white trash" comments - c or d?

― velko, Friday, 12 September 2008 05:35 (seventeen years ago)

true or not? haven't been following to closely.

― darraghmac, Friday, 12 September 2008 10:38 (seventeen years ago)

this term is racialist(ic)

― the pinefox, Friday, 12 September 2008 10:45 (seventeen years ago)

sarah palin is the postmodern roseanne

― ♠♣♥♦¾ (max), Friday, 12 September 2008 10:50 (seventeen years ago)

sarah palin is white btw

― Assault! Assault! (King Boy Pato), Friday, 12 September 2008 11:11 (seventeen years ago)

yo is it true obama got sonned by a wite mom after a community organizer beef??????

― the internets ideal (velko), Friday, 12 September 2008 14:58 (seventeen years ago)

four years pass...

http://www.engrish.com/wp-content/uploads//2012/09/best-freiends-are-white.jpg

― Brian Eno's Mother (Latham Green), Friday, 14 September 2012 19:54 (thirteen years ago)

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