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Summary: white but without the privilege.
FTA: Open contempt fotr this class: a huge swath of white people mimicking trends that had begun decades earlier among African Americans: out-of-wedlock births and male joblessness rising sharply. A surge in opiate addiction (and meth and marijuana) among white Americans. Shocking reports of rising mortality rates (including by suicide) among middle-aged whites.
And then, of course, came the 2016 presidential campaign....
Thanks for that great article.
Makes the point —subtly, between the lines—that “white trash” had in many ways a more hardscrabble life than slaves.
Slaves were sought out and considered valuable commodities in building the agrarian economy of early America, and even though the concept of human beings as commodities presented a moral conundrum, plantation slaves, at the very least, had their material needs provided.
Many slaves were in fact far more materially comfortable than the bottom-rung whites, who, as Isenberg points out, were landless, couldn’t get land other than by squatting, and had their rough cabins burnt down and meager gardens destroyed whites who did own the land.
Nobody wanted the white trash around. They were on their own.
Isenberg dismisses any possibility Scots-Irish-Celtic roots of Appalachian hillbillies. Many others disagree, and so do I.
The connections can be heard clearly in the hillbilly and bluegrass music of the poor whites of that region; the music’s Celtic roots has been the subject of various scholarly studies.
Sounds like a good book, though. Isenberg hails from my alma mater, LSU.
Thanks for posting!
Thomas Sowell, in “Black Rednecks and White Liberals,” makes the case that the culture we now call “urban” originated with lower-class rural whites.
As a historical question, it’s of some interest. However, it’s a matter of present fact that the culture often described as “trash” by others generally results in poor life outcomes.
Attacking and stereotyping poor white rednecks is actually psychological displacement of liberal racist impulses toward a safe, white target. When the MSM and liberals scorn Billy Bob and LouAnn, they’re really attacking NuShawn and LaToya by proxy.
What’s an Irish 7 course meal?
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When the Progressives have destroyed the “white working class” where is the welfare money going to come from?
who was it that said, no profit in keeping them alive and no loss if they are gone...In the white culture, we tend to call the different groups “Rich dad / poor dad”.
I have $80,000. Rick has $80,000.
I buy a parcel of land somewhere and slowly build a little vacation spot or SHTF plot or something.
Rick buys a 2016 Ford F350 Lariat.
All around town I bump into people who make more than I do (Tons more) and I also bump into hard working guys who do as their dad’s did and said: “Work hard and you’ll succeed”. These are great guys.
They have a nice truck.. but it’s a damned truck and I have a 16 year old used car.
Yeah, “they need it to...... haul / tow / work / blah blah”
But White Trash in my book is just “poor dad” stuff. I have the oldest car in my area, I wear used clothes from the salvation army and I rent a house. But I also own a software company and invest feverishly. Ya look at me, and I fit the description for white trash.
if I were smarter I woulda bought a pile of gold.
What the white underclass is missing is culture and, in some cases, a reasonable share of raw intelligence.
The two are not totally unrelated.
There have been a few liberals like Sargon of Akkad criticizing social justice warriors for saying all whites have privilege, demanding whites accept discrimination and guilt tripping for being white - and that the ones making these demands tend to be upper class elites who aren’t white men telling often poor lower class whites to shut up and be good little dhimmi/untouchables.
But unlike Islam, the lower class can’t change religions to get full rights, only self-flagellate a lot to gain tolerance of the new elites.
All based on an assignment of collective guilt for something few whites did (less than 2% had slaves), while denying the collective achievement of white men ending slavery for both blacks here and everyone else around the world.
I’m drinkin’ grain alcohol mixed with Coca Cola as I read this and, I’m a veteran.
Yeah, education not withstanding, I’m WT through and through.
Go Trump!
A guy I know received a White Trash Barbie for Christmas some years ago. Funny little sayings came with it, something about “I’m drinkin’ for two.”
Primal scorn against the elite describes a great swath of America, particularly poor and lower middle class whites who have seen the door to enrichment at almost any level barred and locked.
Extremely good and important article about the calculated psychodynamics behind the isolation and persecution of whites by the Rats. The evil runs deep.
Thanks for posting.
Many years ago I bought a copy of Jim Goad's The Redneck Manifesto. The book is a mixed bag. The author is apparently an atheist whose condemnations of liberal hypocrisy, however satisfying they sound, ultimately have no objective basis (since only G-d can serve as the basis of morals and ethics). The book is unbelievably obscene. It is disrespectful, if not hostile, to the Founding Fathers, and in addition gives forth an odor of sympathy for both the "palestinians" and the Irish Republican Army (like many right wing racialists who hate Jews and excuse Communist nationalist movements that work for white groups). But still, it is impossible for me to read without becoming filled with anger at the liberal hypocrites Goad lampoons, especially in the age of Obama when race has replaced class as the Left's obsession.
Goad is now a full-fledged "palaeo" (yuck!) who writes from The American Conservative--the organ of Israel-hers like Pat Buchanan. I really can't recommend the man or many of the sentiments implied in the book, but I do recommend people who can take it to read it to learn about the plight of poor American whites and the hypocritical hatred of them evinced by the "compassionate friends of the downtrodden."
Just because I might tell you that I’m from Mississippi right before I punch you doesn’t mean I’m trashy. It means you will have more respect for Mississippi in the morning.
1) Kevin Williamson
2) Gibbet
Some assembly required.
Ping for all of the obvious reasons.