Talking Trash
My father was Polish, so I've always been very sensitive about Polack jokes. As a result, I've always tried to avoid racial and ethnic jokes in general. That said, however, I must admit that I have, on occasion, indulged in some wise cracks against poor white trash, usually of the "uncle-daddy" variety. You can well imagine my chagrin when I learned that I shared that indulgence with Vice President Richard Cheney. Gregory Rodriguez had some very interesting things to say about Mr. Cheney's recent comment and what in fact lies behind such humor in his column in today's Los Angeles Times.
Things are getting complicated. In the same week that a black man clinched the Democratic nomination for president, the current white, Republican vice president was forced to apologize for making a crack that played on the myth that poor white folks like having sex with their cousins.
It probably wouldn't have been a big deal had Dick Cheney not singled out West Virginia, the bluest of the red states. He was talking about having Cheneys on both sides of his family and, he said, "we don't even live in West Virginia." As director John Waters said in 1994, talking trash about "white trash" is "the last racist thing you can say and get away with." ...
It turns out that West Virginia officials did protest the vice president's remarks. Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd lamented Cheney's evident "contempt and astounding ignorance toward his own countrymen." But he and other politicians were clearly more offended by the targeting of their state than with the fact that Cheney was propagating the old canard that poor white Southerners were biologically tainted by inbreeding. That a generally humorless vice president would dare make such a joke in an election year shows how acceptable it really is to disparage lower-class whites from the South and beyond. But why?
Rodriguez then proceeds to give a brief history of the term and what it actually reflects.
The term "white trash" seems to have emerged in the 1820s in Baltimore. It was slang, used by both free and enslaved blacks, to put down the poor whites with whom they sometimes found themselves in economic competition. Middle-class and elite whites then borrowed and popularized the term for their own purposes, one of which was to solidify their racial dominance. ...
In other words, in order to maintain the idea of white supremacy, white elites had to de-racialize their poor -- remove them from the group. They were "white" in skin color only. Just as the one-drop rule -- which held that any person with any amount of African blood would be considered black -- kept the white racial category "pure," so did the creation and disowning of "inferior" whites. "The term 'white trash' gave a name to people who were giving 'whiteness' a bad name," said Matt Wray, a Temple University sociologist and the author of "Not Quite White: White Trash and the Boundaries of Whiteness." "It meant that they were behaving in ways that didn't suggest that they were the master race."
The linkage between the pejorative "poor white trash" and racism certainly does make sense in light of this history, but I think there is something else going on, something this country still hasn't had the courage to face. Mr. Rodriguez agrees, and points it out in his conclusion:
Cheney was probably not fully aware of the whole sordid history he conjured. But his casual joke suggests not only that political correctness does not apply to all groups equally but that there are corrosive, nonracial social divisions in this nation that are easily ignored and even tolerated. For too long, we've spoken of social tensions almost exclusively in terms of race. Perhaps the nomination of a black man for president will let that story line fade so that we can finally focus on the ever-present, easy-to-miss issues of class. [Emphasis added]
Almost from the start this country has been guided by the tenets of the Protestant Ethic, which stated that those who worked hard would prosper. Those who didn't prosper were obviously not working hard enough, and therefore were defective, were less valuable members of the community. This is also the unstated proposition behind the move to 'reform' welfare and to limit it so drastically that it helps no one, and behind the reluctance to extend unemployment benefits beyond 26 weeks, even when the economy is in such a slump that joblessness increases by the month.
That such as Dick Cheney would find nothing wrong with his throwaway statement and the premise which underlies it is certainly not surprising. However, when such assumptions guide national policy and people suffer as a result, then the issue has to be confronted, even if the Cheneys of the nation call out the accusation of class warfare.
In the meantime, no more cheap and easy "uncle-daddy" jokes from me.
Things are getting complicated. In the same week that a black man clinched the Democratic nomination for president, the current white, Republican vice president was forced to apologize for making a crack that played on the myth that poor white folks like having sex with their cousins.
It probably wouldn't have been a big deal had Dick Cheney not singled out West Virginia, the bluest of the red states. He was talking about having Cheneys on both sides of his family and, he said, "we don't even live in West Virginia." As director John Waters said in 1994, talking trash about "white trash" is "the last racist thing you can say and get away with." ...
It turns out that West Virginia officials did protest the vice president's remarks. Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd lamented Cheney's evident "contempt and astounding ignorance toward his own countrymen." But he and other politicians were clearly more offended by the targeting of their state than with the fact that Cheney was propagating the old canard that poor white Southerners were biologically tainted by inbreeding. That a generally humorless vice president would dare make such a joke in an election year shows how acceptable it really is to disparage lower-class whites from the South and beyond. But why?
Rodriguez then proceeds to give a brief history of the term and what it actually reflects.
The term "white trash" seems to have emerged in the 1820s in Baltimore. It was slang, used by both free and enslaved blacks, to put down the poor whites with whom they sometimes found themselves in economic competition. Middle-class and elite whites then borrowed and popularized the term for their own purposes, one of which was to solidify their racial dominance. ...
In other words, in order to maintain the idea of white supremacy, white elites had to de-racialize their poor -- remove them from the group. They were "white" in skin color only. Just as the one-drop rule -- which held that any person with any amount of African blood would be considered black -- kept the white racial category "pure," so did the creation and disowning of "inferior" whites. "The term 'white trash' gave a name to people who were giving 'whiteness' a bad name," said Matt Wray, a Temple University sociologist and the author of "Not Quite White: White Trash and the Boundaries of Whiteness." "It meant that they were behaving in ways that didn't suggest that they were the master race."
The linkage between the pejorative "poor white trash" and racism certainly does make sense in light of this history, but I think there is something else going on, something this country still hasn't had the courage to face. Mr. Rodriguez agrees, and points it out in his conclusion:
Cheney was probably not fully aware of the whole sordid history he conjured. But his casual joke suggests not only that political correctness does not apply to all groups equally but that there are corrosive, nonracial social divisions in this nation that are easily ignored and even tolerated. For too long, we've spoken of social tensions almost exclusively in terms of race. Perhaps the nomination of a black man for president will let that story line fade so that we can finally focus on the ever-present, easy-to-miss issues of class. [Emphasis added]
Almost from the start this country has been guided by the tenets of the Protestant Ethic, which stated that those who worked hard would prosper. Those who didn't prosper were obviously not working hard enough, and therefore were defective, were less valuable members of the community. This is also the unstated proposition behind the move to 'reform' welfare and to limit it so drastically that it helps no one, and behind the reluctance to extend unemployment benefits beyond 26 weeks, even when the economy is in such a slump that joblessness increases by the month.
That such as Dick Cheney would find nothing wrong with his throwaway statement and the premise which underlies it is certainly not surprising. However, when such assumptions guide national policy and people suffer as a result, then the issue has to be confronted, even if the Cheneys of the nation call out the accusation of class warfare.
In the meantime, no more cheap and easy "uncle-daddy" jokes from me.
Labels: Class Warfare
posted by Diane at 10:07 AM
2 Comments:
Class warfare or racism against the "not actually white" or the "tainted white" was a major factor in the Democratic primaries this year. It isn't Cheney alone, it's the upper middle class and their need to be actually and untaintedly white. It's the need of the well educated to look down on the less educated, the well off to feel superior to the poor.
I still hear lots of anti-Arab and fat people jokes. Both of those seem to be given a pass by a lot of people. I had to give up Polish jokes a long time ago because I married someone of Polish extraction and having some Lebanese ancestry makes me keenly aware of the ethnic slurs against Arabs that pass for jokes in this country. The "White Trash" sort of fell into that category too because it seems not too focused on anyone group in particular (maybe Southerners?) but it always leaves a bad taste in one's mouth after it's uttered.
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