Speaking as a dumb Mick, has anyone else of an ethnic or person of color

[hedgehog]

persuasion noticed that white people don't even like each other? I mean, I'm used to seeing all the nasty names applied to all of us, but I'm a little surprised to see how quickly Sarah Palin has been labeled "trailer trash". (I'm not certain how she warrants the label, she has a nice house.)

[grannie4peace]

1. it's not her color- -it's the way she acts

[Vodid]

2. White people do not have to like each other

We are free in that respect. We do not feel as if we are a "group". Of course, now I'm speaking for all of us...so there's bound to be white folks that disagree.

[Eric J in MN]

3. It might be preferable not to regard a group of people as "white trash."

If Sarah Palin is an idiot or less-educated than Obama and Biden, we can put the focus there without the "white trash" label.

There is an anti-poor element to the term "white trash."

[hedgehog]

4. "There is an anti-poor element to the term "white trash."

No kidding, really?










(Not you, just everyone that's throwing that term around!)

[JackintheGreen]

10. I'd have to agree with Warpy

having come from that stock myself - and admittedly a user of the term myself - I have to say that the element/stigma you've identified is more one of education and behavior. Bristol Palin's boyfriend comes off as white trash in the MySpace page linked her yesterday (whether it is really his or not, it typifies - for me - "white trash").

I know plenty of hunter and/or blue collar types, often without much money, who are not white trash. The linkage comes when lack of education opportunities is connected to lack of money, i.e. low property values translates into lower quality schools, etc. But it's not causal, only corollary.

[Warpy]

7. I'm not sure about that. The Bushes are white trash with money

and I think we've all met other examples of the phenomenon.

As for the anti poor element, I think we've all met a lot of people with no money who try to live as decently as possible, who value education for their children, and who try their best. We never call them white trash.

White trash implies a certain shiftlessness, an unwillingness to learn, to grow, to try to improve one's own lot while helping one's neighbors. It's a mindset, not an economic condition.

As such, it's a useful designation.

[Eric J in MN]

8. The Bushes don't value their children's education? NT

NT

[Warpy]

11. No, honey, just the appearance of it

Is Stupid educated? He's been through prep school through Ivy League grad school. He has the pieces of paper, but do they constitute an education?

Think.

[AlCzervik]

5. Having spent a good number of years growing up in the projects with a single

mom i'm sure people viewed me as trash too. Trash is a state of mind, plenty of good people living in trailer parks that aren't trash and plenty of trash living in really nice houses.

[RB TexLa]

6. You have to remember how they think.

A man who would later become a congressman from Louisiana once told a friend of mine that Louisiana would never be successful because our population had too much Black, French, Italian and Irish. He said if you don't have a good base of Anglo-Saxons there is only so far you can go. It's just how they think. And they like to separate their own that don't live up. Many suffer from a brand of racism that is different they hold no ill will toward other ethnicities but they always know in the back of their mind that they are better.

[hedgehog]

9. Here is to Boston, the land of beans and cod,:

The Adams speak only to the Cabots and the Cabots speak only to Lodges, the Lodges speak only to God.

[Wilber_Stool]

12. Obama has already said it.

It's being proud of ignorance.