What the heck is a "frog"?

I looked back to see what Amy said that seems to have caused such an uproar. It was in her first post on page 1 of the topic, about 2/3 down the page:

quote:
originally posted by batwomanamy:

I'm not sure if I think it's what's wrong with America, but I both like and dislike it. I like that I can go in and buy stuff like toiletries, music, and DVDs cheeper than at SuperK or Target, but at the same time, the one by my house is over flowing with white trash. My sister makes cracks about them from time to time, but it's true. Another thing I don't like about them is their clothes, I think they use the cheepest material, and you can get a better quality at Kmart, or better yet, Target...
My response is... that's it?

I don't see anything outrageous here. "White trash" is not a phrase in my vocabulary, because it does imply superiority of the person using the phrase.
But I don't see it being used maliciously in the context she used it above. It's too ambiguous in the way she used it.

And based on the nonspecific way she used it, I think this lengthy controversy over it is a bit overblown, the level of challenge she's getting over it.

"White trash" is kind of a non-specific pejorative, with a slightly flexible meaning. I think it generally means "white people without manners or class". It can also mean "white people without education". It can also mean "white people who live in a trailer park". Or probably a thousand variations of that basic idea. Including "redneck".

"White trash" could also be a wealthy white person who cheats on their spouse, or gambles, or drinks, or uses profanity. Or who just isn't attractive, or has an unkept appearance, despite their material status.

Ultimately, "white trash" could be applied to any white person.

There are other variations, such as "Euro-trash". Which presumably has the same wide array of connotations about white people from Europe.

Bill Maher said about 2 years ago on Politically Incorrect that "Rednecks are about the only ethnic group you can still safely make fun of in this country".
I guess that's no longer true.

My chiropractor and I discussed the term about 10 years ago, about the time I first heard the term being used. He had an interesting perspective, he felt that it was an insult to other races, implying that a person is so trashy, they might as well not be white.

Conversely, I most often have heard the phrase uttered by black and hispanic co-workers. One time when they (minority co-workers) said it around me, I thought to myself that, my being white, I wondered if they were aware that the phrase was potentially offensive to me. Since it was essentially making fun of white people, which I am, and the "trash" part of the phrase is in the eye of the beholder.

My grandparents on my father's side are from West Virginia (Appalachia) and they were very poor and not well educated. My grandfather began work as a coalminer, and also worked as a baker, traveling salesman, and other trades until he became a delivery milkman, and moved up in the dairy management over his 35-year career there. They both dropped out of high school at age 15, got married, and worked hard all their lives to get ahead.
So I guess they'd qualify, being Appalachian (although "Appalachian isn't a race, it's immigrants to the U.S. from all over Europe who just happen to live in the Appalachian mountain region), as "white trash" if someone chose to look at them that way. Although my grandmoter is part Cherokee, so I guess that disqualifies her for that pejorative.

But they're very kind and good people, very sincere and polite, worked very hard all their lives, and raised 4 children who all went to college, my father being the first in his family to do so. And as I've often told them, they're the best grandparents a kid could have asked for.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is, although I'm certainly a college-educated professional person, depending on how one chooses to define "white trash", I could still choose to be offended by the term.

And since I'm not offended, I think we can all assume that batwomanamy didn't mean anything, that she better understands the potential offensiveness of the phrase, and won't use it again. That's good enough for me.

I think she was focused on something else in the paragraph where she used it, and just meant that she doesn't like dealing with people who are rude and lack manners, which seems to be the crowd she runs into at Wal-mart, and tried to make a joke about it, and while not intentionally being offensive, she unwittingly made a word-choice that can be taken the wrong way.


I don't want this to derail the topic, I think it's already been given more attention than it warrants. Hopefully we can move on.