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| "The Garbage Picker" (1888) by Georges Seurat |
Do you consider the term "white trash" to be offensive?
Is it less offensive (or not offensive) if the person using the term is referring to him or herself?
Is this a phrase you have heard people use with much frequency? When you've heard it used, has it been offensive?
If you were telling a stranger from another country how to recognize "white trash," what would you tell them to look for?
Upon first reading the passage in which a group of people called themselves “white trash”, I was astonished. Generally, I would consider the term to be offensive; the word “trash” alone is not something that I would relish in being called. I believe that the group of students took the word for themselves to make it less offensive, as people have done with other terms in recent years that could be considered derogatory. Although I do not hear this phrase on a day-to-day basis, I have heard it repeatedly throughout my lifetime. Furthermore, in the instances that I have heard the phrase, it was used with a negative connotation in order to make fun of someone.
ReplyDelete-Payton Hodges
I believe that this term can be offensive, but when used in a joking demeanor or talking about oneself, it is not that rude. I will admit that I have used the term myself, but I was not using it to be harsh towards anyone. I have heard this term since I was an infant... maybe that is why I do not find it very offensive. I do believe, however, that those with the intention to offend someone can use this term to do so.
ReplyDelete-Abigail Fowler
I also understand that this term can be seen as offensive. I have never taken offense to it because it is a phrase that is commonly used where I have grown up in Southern Oklahoma.
DeleteI also have been hearing this phrase my entire life which is probably why it has lot it’s offensive affect. If someone is using this term to hurt someone, they could do so, but can we do that with every we say? Overtime, the more we use a certain term or phrase, it generally loses its initial meaning. This is why I believe it is important to realize that some have different opinions on how we use different phrases. Sometimes we need to use caution with what we say because, obviously, nobody wants to be offended.
DeleteI I find this term very offensive, but in todays society, I would say the one on welfare, the person who can't clothe his or her children, the one who chooses drugs and alcohol over their family, lives in the apartments or a trailer house that looks like it is barely standing. I think it is sad that others don'f find this word offensive as if it has been normalized, as if it's okay to judge people based on their financial abilities.
ReplyDeleteGrowing up the term "white trash" was never used to describe poor people. I have been called white trash because I am white and live in Oklahoma. I do think it is an offensive phrase nowadays, but when I was younger I didn't completely. My parents would never had allowed me to call anyone that, but it didn't stop me from thinking, "oh that is what people consider white trash." Back then when the term would come into my mind, it would be people who were "mooching" off the government, which I paid nothing and had no part in, by using welfare and refusing to work when I knew deep down they could at least work part time job or find a low stress job to help out just a little. I would never call them that, but that was what "white trash" was to me. I would tell someone from a different country to look for people who can get to the store for alcohol, cigarettes, pain pills, and have the capability to work, but choose not to.
ReplyDeleteThe phrase “white trash” is much like any derogatory word/statement found in today’s society. Much like other offensive slang, “white trash” is considered negative when used by people who are outside the definition of the phrase (i.e., people in wealthy, non-rural communities). It is not as offensive when used by someone who falls into that category. I have heard my parents use the term to describe people who do not have a good moral compass and who pick selfish wants, such as indulging an addiction, over the needs of their children. Hearing that term used to describe such a hopeless situation made me grow to find that phrase to be seen as something completely undesirable and something I want to avoid ever being called.
ReplyDelete-Aislinn Beak
Even though the phrase in inherently hateful, it is being used to describe oneself. This means a bystander may hear it get offended but most likely won't react to it because it wasn't being used in a hateful way. Self-deprecating jokes or phrases are often seen as offensive by some, but in all reality if it's a person talking about themselves most people won't care after initially being shocked by hearing the unflattering phrase. I don't consider the term "whit trash" as offensive because I wouldn't think of myself as white trash, so it wouldn't really bother me if someone else did. Anybody can be offended by anything if they choose to be. I choose not to be.
ReplyDelete-Justin Chitty
I do consider the term “white trash”, among other racially based phrases, as offensive. “White trash” is only used as a means to provide extra separation between financial classes. And to add more insult, race is also added into the phrase in order to associate a people group with poverty. Demeaning slurs that associate a characteristic with an entire population are never appropriate. The term “white trash” needs to be completely abandoned along with other insulting comments on class or ethnicity.
ReplyDelete