Ain’t privilege grand?
Sing whatever you like; just understand that doing so in the wrong company can lead to unwanted consequences… like unintentionally offending people who may not be very magnanimous in their response to your decision.
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Enjoy:
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“I would never refer to it as his ‘white trash cabin’”
Lots of people think it’s okay to refer to things as “white trash”.
Because class is also a thing, and because people suck.
“White trash” is not an expression of racism against white people; it’s an expression of classism against poor people.
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Again, I love the fact that he brings it back to context, which is the thing I keep trying to hammer into people- That context matters, and that in America, it is all but impossible to remove anything related to being black from it’s context.
Yes, if you’re teaching a college level English Literature course, feel free to use the word in a discussion of Huckleberry Finn. If you’re writing a book about the Civil War and Reconstruction, yes, you can include quotes that use it. If you’re a linguist or etymologyst, nobody expects you to describe how a word came into being without actually using the word itself. Outside of the isolating bubble of those very specific academic situations, though…
Sure. Use it if you want- But don’t for a split second pretend that it is just a word, somehow removed from 500 years of very bad blood. Understand the context that it will always be connected to.
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True, but context matters. Coates respects his friend and if he were to ask to use his cabin he is respectful enough to not call it a white trash cabin. He is also aware of the importance of the words he uses and would not lightly use such a term, the people that do not care about the consequences of their actions and words would not bother asking themselves how they’re communicating with others and how that reflects on themselves.
On a personal level i do not have a problem with saying white trash and some other terms, but that doesn’t mean that i can’t be mindful on how it might come across to someone else. Some years back i might have used some hurtful words more freely and i try not to do so now as an adult… i still curse like a sailor but its good to know when and how to censor yourself.
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What’s wrong with white trash?
But seriously, I always considered it racist as well as classist.
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It’s also an expression of racism against minorities through the implication that the default color for “trash” people is non-white.
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On this forum, we seem to have a much larger problem with the M word. “■■■■■”
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There’s certainly racism involved; the root meaning of “white trash” is something along the lines of “a white person so degraded that they’re no better than a black person”.
But I wouldn’t call the term racist in itself, as it doesn’t fit in the “racism = prejudice plus power” understanding of the issue that I prefer.
The “white” in “white trash” is the modifier, not the core. It’s you-are-trash-that-is-white; the trash is the insulting part, not the white.
I’ll occasionally use white trash in a reclaiming working class pride sense, but not often. Used outside that context, the appearance of the phrase is usually a warning flag that some heavily classist bullshit is about to be dumped.
I’ve no urge to restrict the language of others, but I do often wish that people would put a bit more effort into analysing their use of it. “White trash” is a concept used by the wealthy to sow division between the middle class and the working class.
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You mean ■■■■■?
Still can’t figure that one out; must be people who prefer dry cake and turkey that cannot be consumed without a metric fuckton of gravy slathered on it.
Anyone ‘can’ say anything. Whether they should is another matter all together.
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His book “Between the World and Me” and his recent run as the writer for Black Panther (Marvel Comics) are not to be missed!
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I don’t know… Her lack of outraged reaction might signify privilege. Aren’t woke people supposed to be reactionaries? /s
Wait wait wait wait!
We can’t say ■■■■■, but we can say cum-dumpster?
I’m so confused.
Censorship, lol?
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I’m sure I don’t know why anyone would feel OK about using that term.
And… it does contain racial implications that I feel it would be indelicate to go into.
One of the admins explained it in the BBS at one point but i forget who. They said they added the word to test the commenting system and see how it would handle censoring words, they added ■■■■■ as part of that test and just never bothered to take it off. Because of lulz.
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That’s an in-joke on the part of the staff; because so many people are oddly weirded out by the word “moïst.”
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Boy am I behind in this thread, I brought this anyway…
Yeah, try not to miss it.
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