A weekly look at
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Deep down, we are all the same
No excuse for trashy tendencies
It’s in there. You just don’t want to
admit it
You can try to hide it, fight it or
ignore it but it’s there.
It’s an innate longing buried in the
depths of your being... to eat greasy
fried chicken in a wife-beater on your
porch, with your feet in a kiddie pool.
Just like original sin, it’s congenital.
It’s white trashiness. We have it at birth,
and no actions of our own can get rid ol
it. No posh environment we’re put in
can mitigate the effects of this illness.
I truly am convinced that with
enough scientific research, a white trasl
gene will be found. But all the fetal cell
research in the world can’t stop this dis
ease. So it’s time we embrace it
t The most important thing about
white trashiness is that, because it’s
genetic, it breaks all societal barriers.
Contrary to popular belief, you don’t
have to be white to have a little
white trash inside. Caucasian skin
helps to provide a better contrast
between tanned body parts and
ordinarily hidden body parts
(for example, upper butt crack
or lower calf). But people of
all races, creeds and back
grounds can be white trash.
It’s an equal opportunity
disease.
And you don t really \
have to be trash to be white
trash. I wear a suit and tie
every day, but I’ll eat a
bucket o’ gizzards at Eagle
Raceway just like those guys
in die Jeff Gordon jackets
(Usually part of an ensemble
including thick mustache, GM
Good wrench hat, tight jeans and
L>Tiyrd Skynyrd ’82 tour T-shirt).
Chances are most of you have a
little bit of trashy desire inside, too. It
may not be in the form of consuming
unknown chicken parts while watchinj
cars hit each other, but the need for W"
is inside of you.
So the tag “white trash” is just an
unfortunate, derogatory label cast upoi
die lower classes of our society. I really
don’t think you have to be white or trai
to be white trash. If we’d all let our ind
vidual white trashiness out, we’d all be
white trash. Let me explain.
Practicality
White trash are renowned for their
extraordinary ability to be thrifty and
economical. For example, if they have
an appliance that ceases to function,
they simply fill it with dirt and place ik
in die yard. Voila! The planter and for
mer toilet is a two-in-one miracle of
modem technology.
Or take the porch, for example: It
serves as an entry way, storage room for
extra furniture and recycling center.
(The cluttered beer cans may seem hap
hazard, but there is a method to the
madness.)
White trash also took the inventions
of cement blocks and duct tape and
brought them to the masses.
We all strive to cut comers and be
fiscally responsible; white trash just do
it much more obviously than we do.
The only exception to this rule may be
their excessive lottery playing.
Clothing
You have to get tired of putting on
your Nautica khakis and Tommy
Hilfiger polo shirts every day. Have you
ever even used that hammer loop?
Don’t you love that feeling when you
put on an old ratty T-shirt and worn-out
jeans? White trash get to live this sifSS§"{
pie dream every day. Imagine living\\ *1
world where dressing up is putting \\
on a shirt with sleeves. Glorious. \\
Musk
Country western is the defining
music of white trash as we know them.
It is unmusical, simplistic and unimagi
native. But the standard lyrics are tried
and true. These songs’ subjects are
more than relevant to our lives: Women
leave, dogs die and life is painful. The
music of the white trash is about the
fundamental dynamics of life. Add to
the basic country a little bit of Southern
rock, and you’ve got quality music to
go with the inspirational lyrics.
Simplicity
Similar to the lyrics in their
music, the lives of the white
trash are very basic. When
they want to relax, they’re
happy just watching
V
“Usually trash is dirty, but some
times it comes out white.”
- A Baker family motto
J When my editor and I started talking
about white trash, he had a journalistic
vision of investigative reporting with
startling facts and figures in which I
would blow the top off one of America’s
biggest mysteries yet again.
He wanted me to talk about “the seri
ous underlying currents of classism and
oppression” - something I’ve never
associated white trash with before.
h So I borrowed a book from a radical
’"“en . friend of mine entitled “White Trash:
want to Race and Class in America,” written
*iave ™TP“| _ (with intimidating back-to-back multi
I syllabic abstractions) by a respected
I cultural critic, so I could get
■ ■ ■ informed on what academia has to
« mm '' say about my peeps.
I’ll be the first to point out
B^^B classism and racism in
B A B. ^k^B B America and its institutional
B B B workings, but I’ve had a
Bi BB B B BB ^B ^Bl^^ gm very hard time placing
/a. ■■-> ril JL a. ba a. baa ba X white trash under the ban
(and tenements) OT ~$k- endency
to sympathize with the
poor and downtrodden,
I almost bought into the
book’s libertarian
dogma, until I went
back to Texas over
spring break to visit my
white trash kin.
'-—•This trip reminded
me that I come from a
long line of undistin
guished trash.
My grandparents not
only raised most of their chil
dren in a trailer park, but also
allegedly had some of the first
models of mobile homes named
after them.
They had 13 white trash children,
all of whom married or knocked up (but
rarely in that order) pure blood white
trash, which begot my generation of
f - white trash. I was able to escape this gen
sh twL . erational cycle of white trash by moving
i- l k Uanie s' to Nebraska and cleaning myself up, so
When they want to show affec- to speak.
uon iu men sigmi lcaiu uuiers, uiey
give them a plastic rose wrapped in
plastic from the local truck stop
(panty rose given for special occa
sions).
Like the Amish, white trash live
simple lives. Except for the intermitter..
police visit for domestic violence, the
lives of white trash are relaxed and
enjoyable because of their simplicity.
It has nothing to do with racial,
economic or social status. White
Trashiness has to do with who we are
inside. They are the ones who write on
their bellies at football games. They are
the ones who keep the National
Inquirer and Soap Opera
Weekly at the checkout stand.
They are the ones who gorge
themselves at the all-you-can
eat buffets, grow rattails, put
Astro Turf on their porches (or
yards) and make the trailer pari
what it is today.
White trash are the lifebkxx
of America. And we’re all just a
tie white trash at heart.
So indulge yourself in the n
ral desire of your humanity. Dri
Pabst Leave your Christmas lig
up ’til March. Find out which E
a better NASCAR driver. Give
the white trash feeling.
And God bless the WTUSA.
Maybe the best way to summarize
white trash is to look at its vanguard fig
ures. While my parents’ generation was
ruled by velvet Elvis murals, my genera- -
tion was ruled by Warrant and now Kid
Rock.
But being white trash is about a lot
more than just butterfly collar suede
impsuits, sexual innuendoes to cherry
lie and trailer park rap.
What is pure-blood white trash? It
has nothing to do with biology or
blood type at all. It’s more of a culture,
a type of low-brow society with various
unique behaviors and aesthetics.
You may find some of my following
characterizations of white trash offen
sive, but if you do, remember that I come
from white trash and therefore have full
authority jto generalize and stereotype
my own people, even if I am reformed.
White trash are some of the poorest
people in America. While that normally
would give one the impetus to improve
his or her condition, white trash can be
distinguished from simply poor whites
in their utter lack of work ethic and cul
ture of failure.
Rednecks in western Nebraska and
hillbillies in the Appalachian
Mountains are quite different from
white trash, who tend to live in rundown
N
Liman or suburban settings.
Moreover, they don’t have the tradi
tional “moral backbone” found in Bible
belt Appalachia, nor the puritan punctu
ality of simple redneck farmers.
Allow me to give you a brief tour of
a typical derided white trashville.
A trashville often has an overabun
dance of rusted-out Chevys on blocks
propped up in the front or side yard -
which, after sitting for several years and
being surrounded by weeds and bushes,
conveniently double as lawn ornaments.
The El Camino (a rare half-car, half
truck) seems to be the model of choice.
Another surefire way to confirm
you’re in a trashville is to visit the local
convenience store (one of the few where
the “no shirt, no shoes, no service” poli
cy actually is enforced) and listen to the
calls of mothers to their children.
From my experience, it is always
only a minor variation on, “Dammit,
Junior, I done told you three time we
ain’t buyin’ no more bubble gum or beef
jerky! Now shut up and go get your
Mom a six-pack of Old Milwaukee!”
The main variations on the call
above are to replace these food items
with either microwaveable hamburgers
or the five-pound family size of Doritos.
PBR or a white can named “Beer” can
replace Old Milwaukee on occasion.
If visual contact is possible, look for
the cigarette centered in the mother’s
mouth bobbing up and down with each
word.
Convenience-store dining also has
given true white trash serious weight
problems; they’re either obese or fam
ished, with few exceptions. The oddest
medley of ribs and fat rolls results.
For the males, a dead giveaway is the
“short in front, long in back” hair cut
(ask for the SFLB at the local barber for
the real experience).
The younger children sport a slight
variation to die SFLB with a short front
and long rat tail in the back.
White trash children rarely are cute
and can be quite disgusting. They were
never taught hygiene (to which their
advanced tooth loss and cavities, lice and
ear infections can attest), not to mention
the permanent dirt and snot caked on the
upper lip.
And under the guidance of their par
ents, they like to pick their noses a lot
too, all the way through adolescence.
My dad called me “booger “ until I
was 12.
Family events normally revolve
around the TV dinner (on the TV dinner
pop-up tray, likely another invention of
the Baker family) and professional
wrestling. After that sixer of beer is put
down, the wrestling can turn real. Half-,
step- or full brothers and sisters, newly
weds, parents or children can turn on
each other in a bloody mess of domestic
disputes.
Check your next airing of “Cops” for
further documentation of this behavior.
Men wear the wife-beater white tank
top (regardless of ribs or rolls). Women
prefer to wear blue jeans cut off just
below the buttocks, with a bikini top if
they’re less than 100 pounds; when more
than 300 pounds, they slip on tent dress
es.
A nice crank and speed habit can
help maintain that 100-pound figure.
It’s exactly these kinds of behaviors
that turn poor whites into white trash.
I’m not denying that there is a clas
sist construct that creates poverty, but by
using and selling drugs and practicing
such deplorable hygiene habits, white
trash only exacerbate classism and leave
no one but themselves to blame.
It’s repeated stupid human errors and
failings that create and define white
trash, not any form of social disempow
erment or discrimination.
And in this land of wealth and oppor
tunity, while American classism explains
the existence of poor whites, there’s still
no excuse for white trash; despite how
many syllables are used to describe it
J.J. Harder is a senior political science and broadcasting
major and the Daily Nebraskan opinion editor.
David Baker is a senior African studies, anthropology and
sociology major and a Daily Nebraskan columnist
