BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States

Subject: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: alanabit
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 12:06 PM

I am teaching a class of teenagers, who are reading "To Kill A Mockingbird". I am preparing a presentation on the theme of "Poor Whites", which I see as one of the background themes to the book. I intend to do a lead in with Dylan's "Only A Pawn In Their Game" and a little about Medgar Evers. From what I can see, most of the extreme violence against black folks in the South was perpetrated by the "poor whites". I have been reading some horror stories of pogroms, lynchings and sundry injustice. I was shocked to read of the Greensboro Massacre, which was as recent as November 3, 1979. Perhaps unavoidably, I already have a fair bit (maybe too much) of attitude towards the theme. I do not have time to read books, as I need to have my presentation ready in a couple of days. However, I would be interested in any insights, which our American friends have on the effect of poverty on black and white people in the Southern States.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: wysiwyg
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 12:19 PM

There was a lot more unity between "poor whites" and "poor blacks," around labor-justice issues, before white textile-mill owners started to foment racist violence. Same thing goes on in Euro-American populations, for instance in mining, where ethnic mistrust issues are often harped on in mine-owner policies, propaganda, etc. In other words, it's not accidental that people don't bind together for justice around common interests when the powerbase is doing all it can to keep them apart in their smaller, less-policitally-powerful segments.

So one effect of poverty is simply that you can be desperate enough to swallow the lies the powerbase propagates, and protect what you then perceive as your own place in the system instead of changing the system. Violently, if "necessary." While the powerbase blames the violence on the inherent badness of the people, or their poorly-educated "ignorance."

I was thinking about this, just this morning, as I watched a wonderful PBS documentary about descendants of US slaves who became known for their quilting. I was thinking that it's so easy for people with apparent power to feel good about small "gains" that ease their inherited sense of guilt, when actually they are being distracted from the actual ills that have not actually changed at all.

An example-- nice white man brought their quilting to the world's attention, loves them, knows their personal and community histories, genuinely LOVES them.... very articulately sensitive on the cultural history of the area.... But the money their quilts fetch, now, that brought in electricity and plumbing, shoes, heat.... is the very thing that has made it possible for the current generation of young women to stop aspiring to learn quilting and start longing to go to the malls in cheap miniskirts and bright lipstick. But up at the art gallery where the quilts are displayed-- and in front of my my living room TV-- it feels so GOOD.... see?

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: katlaughing
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 12:23 PM

I have not read the whole thing, as I just found it on google, but according to Hatred & Profits: Getting Under the Hood of the Ku Klux Klan, in the 1920s and 30's most members of the KKK were "better educated and more likely to hold professional jobs" then the typical American. Not sure if that held true in the 1970s or not, FWIW.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: alanabit
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 12:37 PM

Thanks Susan and Kat. Susan is endorsing what I suspect was true. I shall take a look at your link Kat. I shall have to speed read everything though - I have another fifty odd papers to correct!

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: Janie
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 12:41 PM

This is not a simple subject. I hope you treat it with care and insight. Poor and working class white southerners have been subjected to nearly as much stereotyping as have their black neighbors. Heck, to be southern, white or black, is to be constantly bumping into the stereotypical beliefs of the rest of the country.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 12:59 PM

Jean Ritchie's L & N Don't stop here anymore has lines particularly relevant to this:

I used to think my daddy was a black man
With scrip enough to buy the company store
But now he goes downtown with empty pockets
And his face as white as a February snow

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: David C. Carter
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 01:06 PM

alanabit:Barbara Kopples documentary about the Harlan County,Kentucky coal miners strike might be of interest to you.
Can't do Blue clickies,but you can try:

www.criterion.com/asp/release.asp?id   Or just Google Barbara Kopples etc.
Good luck with your project.

David

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: Azizi
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 01:38 PM

Alanabit, here's some off the cuff thoughts on this subject:

I've heard {and read} that White Americans don't consider their race to be as important to them as do Black Americans and other people of color in this country.

Perhaps that is true on a conscious level. But if this is so-and I'm not sure that it is-I think that it's because White people take their race and the privileges it affords them for granted.

I believe that poor White people in the Southern USA and elsewhere-as a group-if not as individuals-may look down on Black Americans-as a group if not as individuals-because some people have to feel that there's someone worse off than they are. In that sense, some poor White people and other White people do consider their racial identity to be important.

I believe that the cultural matrix of the United States is now and has since its founding been Eurocentric. Actually, I should qualify that to say "Western Eurocentric". In this beginning part of the 21st century, most ideas, and things, and people are still measured using the yardstick of Western Europeans. Western Europe has been considered the norm {in physical beauty, way of thinking, ideas about what constitues folk music, and classical music etc etc etc}.

On the Internet for instance, it seems to me that White racial identity is the default race on the "world wide web"{meaning that if people don't mention their race, folks automatically think that they are White}. In the same way, I think "male" is the default gender on the Internet, and probably elsewhere.

Also, I think that public school curriculums are still very Euro-centric. Too little is taught about the geography, history, current events, traditional cultures, and contemporary cultures of non-Western European nations. For example, I believe that many Americans probably don't know that there were ever any kingdoms in Africa before White people came there in the 15th century or so. Some information about Western African kingdoms has trickled down into the consciousness of some African Americans as a result of the 1970s Black power {Black Nationalist} movement. At least, because of African arts festivals when some African Americans wear kente cloth sashes, and/or other African attire and African inspired attire, it sems to me that most Black people know that before European colonization, many Africans wore clothes. When I was growing up {in the 1950s} in what I call the Tarzan years {since Tarzan movies were on television quite a lot}, I think few Black people and few White people knew this.

I believe that some Black people look down upon poor White people for at least one of the same reasons why poor White people look down upon Black people {regardless of economic class}-because they feel the need to look down upon someone else. Some Black people call poor White people "White trash". I'm aware that some White people call poor White people this too. Another insulting phrase that is used is "trailer park trash". I've not heard Black people use this phrase but maybe some Black people do use this. Also, I seldom hear Black people use the term "redneck", but maybe that's because of the Black people I hang around with :o)

However, it's important to note the critical distinction that I made in that paragraph-some Black look down on "poor Whites" {and yes, there are some Black people look down on all Whites}. But it seems to me that far more poor White people look down on all Black people, regardless of our economic status, than the number of Black people-poor or otherwise-who look down on all White people.

It seems to me that since the 1960s-spurred on by the independence from colonization of so many African nations-more Black people are less likely to accept the view that we are inferior to White people when it comes to accomplishments-past and present or the ability to accomplish intellectual as well as artistic things. {I think that most Black people think that we are more innovative artistically than White people. In this way many of us look down on White people for constantly-throughout the centuries-stealing our artistic words, and music, and dance, and dress}.

But I think that making broad generalizations-such as Black people as a group are better dancers and singer and are more artistically innovative in speech or otherwise-is problematic. And I hate it when people point out an individual and say that she or he is "the exception to the rule" that they believe is operable.

I believe that when people are confident and secure in themselves they will have much less of a need to have someone or some group to look down upon. That's why I think that more poor White people than well to do White people are more prejudiced toward Black people and other people of color. But maybe that is not so. Maybe poor White people who are prejudiced vocalize and act out their prejudice on a personal/interpersonal level, and well to do White people who are prejudiced act out their prejudice through by creating and maintaining economic inequality and institutional racism.

**
Here's one example of how words are used {consciously or unconsciously in American schools and in the American mass media to teach and reinforce White racial superiority: Seldom if ever do children, youth, and adults read or hear about and see images of historical African kingdoms and African kings, African queens, or African princes and princesses. Instead we constantly read, and hear about and see images of European {particularly English, French, and German} kings and queens and kingdoms, and African {and Indian, meaning Native American} chiefs. Are things better in this regard than they were in the Tarzan years {1950s-mid 1960s} when I was in public school? Yes, but this is because of Black {amd other folks} efforts in the Civil Rights and Black Power movements, meaning it did not happen without a great deal of pressures. But imo, the public school curriculum throughout the USA and not just in the South is still decidedly Euro-centric.

This means that many Black children still have problems with their group identity and their self-esteem. Almost 40 years after R&B singer James Brown wrote & recored "Say It Loud, I'm Black And I'm Proud", I've heard Black kids taunting other Black kids by calling them "Blackie".


**

Notice that throughout this post, I'm qualifying my statements with words like may and some. I do so because I think that it's wrong to assume that everyone in any population group thinks or acts the same. For that reason, I prefer not to use terms like "the Blacks", the Whites, the Black community". Also, I grew up at a time when there were a lot of public efforts to get the "n" in the word "Negro" capitalized the same as other referents for groups of people were/are capitalized {such as German, French, Italian, Indian}. The position that many Black people took at that time, and still to this day, was that not to capitalize "Negro" implied that we were of lesser value as a population and as individuals than all other peoples whose group referents were/are capitalized. Since the 1970s, "Black" has been used as the informal referent for the people who used to be called Negro, and Afro-Americans and "African American" is the formal referent. The "As" in the group referent "African American" is always capitalized. However, it appears to me that standard practice is usually not to capitalize the "B" in Black {though I think you'll find more Black people capitalize it than White people}. All this to say, since I capitalize the "B" in Black, I think it is only fair that I also capitalize the "W" in White.

**

I wish you and your students well, alanabit.


Ms.Azizi

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 02:39 PM

As Janie says, the subject is not simple. The stereotypical views of the poor white no longer hold and the situation outlined by WYSIWYG belongs to the past. The conditions in "To Kill a Mockingbird" belong to the past.
Both Blacks and Whites from lower income strata now constitute lower level police cadres in small towns as well as cities in the South.

A few points without documentation- internet articles will fill in the facts and statistics for you.
The women and men who worked in the mills have mostly gone, as their jobs have moved offshore. They now work in Walmart, MacDonald's, Target, etc. One-mill small towns have lost the young people as jobs vanished.
Machines harvest the cotton and corn. Small family farms are disappearing. Some migrants work perishable fruits and vegetables, but they tend to work over large distances- Texas one month and Washington the next, etc. Many have been replaced by immigrants who are more easily 'controlled.'

Many poor whites, like Blacks, moved to the cities of the north and mid-west to seek employment. Problems developed- they had a hard time integrating with labor there, and they were regarded as undesirable and destructive by managers of rented premises, much more so than the Blacks who often had settled relatives to help. They became well-known in the criminal courts. This, of course, also has become problem of the past.
As late as 1970, the South had 46% of the nation's poor,* Negroes three-times as likely to be below the poverty line but were fewer in number; over 6 million poor whites in the South in 1970, some 60% outside metropolitan areas.
-Important article but out-of-date: "Some Rural Economic Development Issues in the South," The American Economic Review, vol. 1/2. 1972. This should be available from a good library.

Don't forget the military services, a major employer of young men and, increasingly, women. Education levels have improved although still not good; areas such as rural Maine are no better.

Don't forget the importance of the Military Services as an employer of young men and women from poor and rural backgrounds.

Many sociologists now maintain that the South is no longer distinctive. Scholarly books ...(recently)... make the point that "the idea that the South is exceptional, a region apart from the rest of the country, is no longer true." A lot of the regional differences have disappeared as the present day is approached. To make this point, a book being prepared by Lassiter* and Crespino is titled "The End of Southern History."
*Univ. Michigan. See the article in NY Times- "Interpreting Some Overlooked Stories From the South," by Patricia Cohen, May 1, 2007: Interpreting South

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: Ebbie
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 05:53 PM

"Many sociologists now maintain that the South is no longer distinctive. Scholarly books ...(recently)... make the point that "the idea that the South is exceptional, a region apart from the rest of the country, is no longer true." Q

I don't know whether the differences have decreased but I'm here to tell you that there is still a *great* difference between the American South and the rest of the country.

Whenever I visit the south - where I spent my teen years eons back - I'm charmed all over again at the *warmth*, the laughter, the vitalness of life itself, in the south.

I live in the north and I like it. But mostly the reason I don't live in the south is that it gets too durn hot.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: mg
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 06:09 PM

Good point about capitalizing people's name. Please also to capitalize Chinook, when referring to Chinook helicopters, Chinook winds, Chinook salmon.

I do not believe that a person, once corrected, and I mean once, would knowingly use the words redneck or trailer park trash or poor white trash without being deliberately cruel..it could still slip out of those are words you have heard forever, but we have all had to retrain our brains not to say various words previously in common use. mg

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 06:17 PM

Any country where "trash" is casually used as a word to attach to any category of human beings has a serious problem.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 06:24 PM

Ebbie, it is true that attitudes differ between the North and South- my wife is from central Georgia, and I have lived and worked in parts of it. One feels the different pace and attitudes; what you call "warmth and vitality" that are not as easily found in the North nor parts of the West. A reserve? dunno what to call it, but the feel of the North and the people is different. There is also a conservatism that differs from that of the North. Hard to express these differences. I am not referring to places like Atlanta, which in many ways no longer feels southern.

What I was attempting to bring out is that employment, mobility, income type and relationships between income levels and race are not what they were 50 years, or even 30 years ago. I was first exposed to rural Georgia in the 1950s; the change has been tremendous.

(Just noticed I capitalized North and South- yes, a difference is still evident to me).

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: katlaughing
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 06:51 PM

I remember hearing something on NPR years ago about a study done on the speed at which people speak, given their geographic regions. It was found folks in warmer climes took their time and spoke more slowly than those who lived where it was colder. It seemed the temperature made the one rather leisurely while the rushed to keep from the cold, or something like that.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: Azizi
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 06:59 PM

I just re-read my post to this thread and noticed a number of grammatical and typographical errors.

I'm sorry about that. I can't proofread my own writing worth a darn. And if I take the time to use the Mudcat preview feature, I might not submit posts like that one.

**

Any country where "trash" is casually used as a word to attach to any category of human beings has a serious problem. McGrath of Harlow

Putting aside the fact that every country has had, has now, and will have in the future serious problems that they are faced with, the problems of race relations and racism are indeed very serious. The phrase "White trash" seems to me to often be an example of in-racial prejudice. Another example of in-racial prejudice is using the word "Blackie" as a insult directed toward darker skinned Black children, sometimes-I should add-by Black children of the same or nearly the same skin color as well as by Black children who have somewhat or much lighter skin color than the person or persons that they are taunting.

See this clip from this website:http://www.bartleby.com/114/

[African American scholar, activist, and author] W.E.B. Du Bois
said, on the launch of his groundbreaking 1903 treatise The Souls of Black Folk, "for the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line"—a prescient statement. Setting out to show to the reader "the strange meaning of being black here in the dawning of the Twentieth Century," Du Bois explains the meaning of the emancipation, and its effect, and his views on the role of the leaders of his race."

-snip-

Here it is, more than 100 years later, and we haven't resolved the "problem of the color line" and all the proplems that are consequences of our failure to consider race as just a descriptor without any positive or negative valuation.   

Shame on us.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: Ron Davies
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 07:44 PM

It's not totally true that there was more unity between blacks and whites before white textile owners started fomenting racial violence. There was never a halcyon period of good relations between poor whites and blacks--as there probably has never been between any two groups which both perceived they were fighting for the same jobs.   Race is just another element that can be added to the mix--albeit a very potent one--since it allows playing on deep fears, including sexual fears--as reflected for instance in "Birth of a Nation". (Which is definitely a movie your students should see--with your guidance as to how propaganda works--unless you think they know already.)

And the economic competition aspect is not restricted to the the South. The New York draft riots were partly over the perception of the poor-- (Irish to a large extent)-- that they were being asked to fight the Confederacy on behalf of blacks who would then come north and take their jobs. This fear was heightened by the use of blacks to break a stevedore's strike shortly before the draft notices were posted. And unscrupulous politicians--not just in the South-- have always been ready to play the card of fear of competition--which is always close to the surface--thus readily available.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 07:48 PM

I have posted recipes from the cookbook, "White Trash Cooking." There are now three volumes, and a couple of auxiliaries, of this longtime favorite, all available from your book dealer. They are excellent antidotes to the uper caste Southern Junior League cookbooks which used to be ubiquitous (maybe still are).
Northerners or foreigners should not use the term because they have no knowledge of its use and evolution (like all such terms, meaning and application change with time and locale). Its old application to the poor employed white has mostly disappeared.

Trailer trash has acquired a different meaning and use since its coinage. Southern natives facetiously apply the term to northerners who come down in cold weather and congregate in trailer parks.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: mg
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 08:04 PM

I think that what President Clinton called Paula Jones is what most people at least in the north and middle would think of the definition being. mg

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: GUEST,pattyClink
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 09:33 PM

'Trailer trash' still maintains its original use, it has not mutated in meaning around here.   Unfortunately 'trash' is still very much in use, to describe people who seem to live their lives and keep their homes and yards to very low standards.

Alanabit, if you don't have a lot of firsthand info to impart to these kids, don't worry, its just as well to just let the literature speak for itself and the kids make of it what they will, and for those who are fascinated with that era, ask the school librarian for a short list of appropriate books.

"Effect of poverty on black and white people in the United States".

In those days poverty meant deprivation, ignorance, no opportunity to travel or experience other cultures, bookless or one-book (Bible) homes, field labor instead of school (or very short, minimal school years), need to work hard from dawn to dusk much of the year. Leap at the chance for a good time when it is available. Powerlessness and resentment at that, and that went triple for Black people.   Ability to live very simply and pride in doing so. Big interest in hunting and fishing, as a getaway and a food source. Loyalty to neighbors and reliance on the little church down the road for knowledge and strength.

These days, you could say a lot of it would be the same, minus the field labor (often replaced by having to work 2-3 junky jobs with no benefits) and plus drug problems, and the powerlessness has drawn much closer to even between the races.

I assume this is similar to the effects of poverty on people anywhere, no? And P.S. for our British friends, a lot of our 'po-white's are descendants of people considered human 'trash' by your 'nobility' who put them through land clearances to make room for extra sheep-grazing, and they wound up on ships to America.   I imagine you can also read deep significance into this. There is a special hostility, transience, and who-gives-a-damn-how-I-live which can develop when you are severely displaced and dispossessed.


P.S.to "Q" - I love that cookbook despite its tacky name: the cola chicken, the orange candy cake, the baloney roll-ups on the refrigerator door---and the epitome is the white-trash trifle described in the Sweet Potato Queen's book, featuring Twinkies, pudding mix and fruit cocktail. They can keep haute cuisine, we don't need it!

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: Ebbie
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 10:59 PM

"President Clinton called Paula Jones is what most people at least in the north and middle would think of the definition being." mg

Documentation please. I went looking and though I found plenty of other people who called her a variation of trash I did not find anything like that from Clinton.

So, again. Documentation please.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: artbrooks
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 11:05 PM

As has been said a couple of times, it is important to teach To Kill A Mockingbird as a novel with a historical context. If a generation is 20 years, it came out over two generations ago. I wasn't yet in high school (generally ages 15-18 in the US) when it was published and I'm now retired.

It is no more correct to use it as an examination of "the effect of poverty on black and white people in the [contemporary] Southern States" than it would be to use Sinclair's The Jungle to study the meat packing industry in present-day Chicago or any of Sayer's books to look at the relationships between the gentry and the working classes in twenty-first century England.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: Riginslinger
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 11:12 PM

"I think that what President Clinton called Paula Jones is what most people at least in the north and middle would think of the definition being. mg"


                I remember is as James Carville(sp?) who called Paula Jones "trailer trash."

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: Ebbie
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 11:17 PM

Right.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Oct 07 - 01:00 AM

alanabit, too bad you don't have time to add a few more texts to that class. And I think you'd be better served to make the discussion cover "poverty" as a whole. Help students examine their stereotypes but don't feed them first by suggesting that poor whites mostly picked on poor blacks. As others have stated, the issues aren't cut-and-dried like that.

Consider reading Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, and Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. And some Faulkner. Go Down, Moses would be good.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: Goose Gander
Date: 22 Oct 07 - 01:26 AM

An interesting book dealing with the subject (and more) is Southern Diaspora by James Gregory.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 22 Oct 07 - 02:05 AM

I don't buy the "fomenting of hate by the powers that be" argument. I agree with Azizi's statement when she said "I believe that poor White people in the Southern USA and elsewhere-as a group-if not as individuals-may look down on Black Americans-as a group if not as individuals-because some people have to feel that there's someone worse off than they are. In that sense, some poor White people and other White people do consider their racial identity to be important."
The issue in the South goes back a long way. Before the Civil War, there was no class of free blacks that did farming, labor, and industry. The grunt work and subsistence farming was done by poor whites. I believe the whites valued the meager but significant difference they enjoyed as free, if miserably poor, humans. I also believe that these poor whites evolved a culture that was as markedly different from that of the black slaves as it was from that of the monied whites. These poor whites were the cannon fodder of the Civil War, but it is a mistake to say they died for slavery or such abstractions as states rights. I believe they went to war for the simple belief that they were protecting their homes from invasion, and to keep from losing the small possessions that were theirs. When the war ended, those poor whites who survived returned to devastation, and a new competing group of subsistence workers...freed blacks. You don't need a degree in psychology to imagine the resentment that was felt.
Reconstruction, with its dose of carpetbaggers and the corrupt state and local governments that were setup, the corresponding terrorist response of groups like the Klan, the apartheid that took control as the monied whites regained control, all of this set the stage for hate and prejudice that held sway until the Civil Rights movements of the 1960s, a movement that farsighted leaders like King and Kennedy led that seemed to suggest the possibility of a new way of living together. With the integration of schools, even sports opened up to encounters between blacks and whites. On a national level, we probably now enjoy an amount of healthy interaction at least comparable between that of Australians and Aboriginal people, or between New Zealanders and Maoris.
Are their areas where ignorance and hate still hold sway? No doubt about it. But poor white trash in Mississippi are probably no more to be disdained than poor Irish in Boston, or poor Irish in Derry for that matter. However,I suppose its often easier to focus on the perceived ignorance and racism of those safely ensconced somewhere in the Old South, than it is to look closer to home and come uncomfortably close to being confronted by our own weaknesses and foibles.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: Goose Gander
Date: 22 Oct 07 - 11:43 AM

Also worth pointing out that 'Jim Crow'-type laws were first implemented in the Northern states. In the Antebellum South, economics and social relations dictated face to face interaction between blacks and whites, while whites in free states and in the West did not want to face competition from free black labor. The Jim Crow regime didn't really get entrenched until around the turn of the century, and it lasted perhaps half a century. It was actually an abberation in Southern civilation (see Strange Career of Jim Crow by C. Vann Woodward). Southern culture - whether you're looking at music, vernacular literature, cuisine, etc. - has for centuries developed through processes of hybridization (or 'creolization') between whites, blacks and (perhaps to a lesser degree but still significant) Native Americans.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 22 Oct 07 - 12:23 PM

I agree with you, Michael, that taken from the point of view of other regions, Southern Culture is a hybrid or amalgam. Bluegrass music and Jazz for that matter are good examples of what happens when black blues and gospel sentiment collide with (primarily) white instrumentation. But I still contend that white lower-class cultural and behavioral traditions were very much different at and around the Civil War than those of black slaves, isolated as they were one from another. In many cases the original tenets of those cultural traditions still hold sway, and are sources for ongoing friction.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Oct 07 - 01:04 PM

I think it's worth distinguishing between labels with a built-in insult, and labels which are only seen as insults because they used as such - for example - "White Trash" or "Trailer Trash" on the one hand and "Poor White" on the other, along with "Black" and "Brown", which in themselves are no more or less insulting than "White".

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 22 Oct 07 - 01:19 PM

In my opinion, the term "White Trash", along with "Redneck", which both used to carry strong negative class-based connotations, are used among poor and rural whites in the same way "nigger" may be used among blacks, with a strange sense of proud self-identification. From Jeff Foxworthy, whose "(if your wife doesn't have to change her last name when you get married) you might be a redneck" comedy bit is extremely popular among working class southern whites, to Steve Earle's line about Vietnam "I joined the army on my birthday/ They draft the white trash first 'round here anyway", these terms have lost the impact and stigma in this culture that they may still carry to outside observers.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 22 Oct 07 - 01:23 PM

I should also point out that Foxworthy and Earle are both southerners. Those same lines and words coming from "outsiders" are likely to provoke a very different reaction.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: pdq
Date: 22 Oct 07 - 01:30 PM

The correct quote from James "Ragin' Cajun" Carville (aka "Serpent Head" as his wife calls him) is:

                "Drag a hundred-dollar bill through a trailer park, you never know what you'll find."

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Oct 07 - 01:39 PM

Taking hold of an insulting label - either an overtly insulting one, for example "trash", or an intrinsically neutral expression referring to some physical characteristic such as colour - and using it as a kind of defiance is an timeworn practice. It makes a lot of sense when done by the targets.

But this shouldn't be used as an excuse by outsiders for using expressions what are going to be interpreted as intended to insult.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 22 Oct 07 - 01:41 PM

I agree, McGrath.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: M.Ted
Date: 22 Oct 07 - 11:06 PM

There is an idea that night riding, lynching, cross burning, and such things were acts of ignorant bigots who were acting out anger about their own poverty. The realities, to such degree that we understand them, were very different.

It may be true that these acts were frequently carried out by poor and perhaps illiterate white men, but they were approved, directed, and often led by the influential and important men in the community. The kind of people who were thought of as benevolent citizens. They were educated and religious. Most disturbing, and difficult to believe, these people thought that they were doing the right thing---

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: Mrrzy
Date: 23 Oct 07 - 10:43 AM

Q - If you think To Kill A Mockingbird's conditions are in the past, you haven't been to the Southern US in a while. There are still trashy poor white people here. There is still anti-black racism. Nothing much appears to have changed, but I wasn't here in the To Kill A Mockingbird days.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: Wesley S
Date: 23 Oct 07 - 10:50 AM

My guess is Mrrzy is that all of those things can be said about the northern United States too. And the west and the east......

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: Goose Gander
Date: 23 Oct 07 - 11:35 AM

Leaving aside Mrrzy's ridiculous assertion that "nothing much appears to have changed" in the South in the last half century, Wesley is correct that ignorance and bigotry remain a problem across the United States, and, I would add, between and among people of varied social, ethnic and economic backgrounds. But I understand that many people find it useful to blame everything wrong with this country upon "trashy poor white people" in the South.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: Wesley S
Date: 23 Oct 07 - 12:23 PM

And why limit the situation to the United States? These problems have to trouble crossing boundries - fenced or not.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: M.Ted
Date: 23 Oct 07 - 12:24 PM

"There are still trashy poor white people here."   

Thank you for demonstrating that there are all kinds of bigots, Mrzzy--

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: Wesley S
Date: 23 Oct 07 - 12:24 PM

That should have said that these problems have NO trouble crossing boundries or borders.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: wysiwyg
Date: 23 Oct 07 - 12:30 PM

People may disagree about the historical class aspects of this to which I alluded above, but if one spends any time at all learning about KKK history in the US, one fact stands out clearly. And that is that the KKK people were fomenting hate not purely for its own sake but in order to further a political and economic agenda by preying upon people's fears-- people of all colors and classess-- in the same way referenced in a recent thread about propagandizing around other present-day fears.

This is not a new and it's not an outdated phenomenon, either; memories about the underlying MOTIVES are far shorter than the memories of the movements that were whipped up, and even those memories are relatively short.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 23 Oct 07 - 02:28 PM

WYSIWYG is correct. This is digression, but it may add to the picture of pre-WW2 KKK activity.

In the 1930s the KKK was very strong, especially in western U. S. and western Canada. As implied somewhere in a post above, members included prominent men in business in the towns and cities, who became card-bearing members. In the mines, disputes rose between miners originally from the British Isles, and new immigrants from eastern Europe. Mine owners and investors fought union activity, and these two conflicts fueled KKK organizers.
This had very little to do with the earlier actions of the KKK in the South, but rose to combat perceived threats from non-English-speaking immigrants, and threats from organized labor.

I am most familiar with KKK-related activity in Alberta, western Canada, and the following relates to that smaller area.
In western Canada, even church ministers railed against foreign-born who were threatening "all British institutions." Many of the immigrants were Ruthenian, Ukrainian and others from eastern Europe and perceived as communists. It was widely believed that the Crowsnest Pass (coal-mining region) was infested with Bolshevik agents and the Anglican priest Parkington trumpeted that the coal-mining areas were "fertile soil for the athiest movement."
The KKK provided a magnet for the anti-immigrant forces, and crosses burned on the hills.
Not only in the mining areas, but in almost every facet of labour union activity, police involvement on the side of employers added to the discord (Introduction by Reg Baskin to "Alberta Labour."*).
Adding to the turmoil was the appearance of Tim Buck and other Communist leaders.
Unlike Montana, Colorado and other western areas, the violence in Alberta seldom got out-of-hand.

Large areas of farmland was being settled by "Ukes," Poles and other eastern Europeans who belonged to Ukrainian and Russian Orthodox churches and spoke very little English. There was only the most necessary communication with the English-speaking settlers and resentment was strong on both sides (at a later time, the Hutterites, Anabaptists speaking low German, were also received with distrust- and now the Muslim peoples).

In the capitol city of Edmonton, a KKK meeting in 1932 filled to overflowing the very large Memorial Hall; some prominent Albertans can be recognized in the front rows in the photograph* taken at the time. Business men agreed not to hire the foreigners and not to recognize unions.
*W. Caragata, 1979, "Alberta Labour, A Heritage Untold," p. 115.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: wysiwyg
Date: 23 Oct 07 - 02:54 PM

And I think there is a necessary distinction between organized, (organization-sponsored) violence and situational, person-to-person violence.

I think the former may indeed have an economic or political base as I've described while the latter may SEEM to be personal, but is actually and perhaps unawarely modeled after the former.

The former would be connected with at least some education/economic power and the latter would be likelier among the less educated, less economically powerful following the former's "example" and propaganda.


I know a former "company town" (mining) in our area where the ethnic
divisions among the several equally-impoverished ethnic groups still residing in the area remain strong, despite the closure of the company/industry generations ago. And another in our area that had only one primary ethnic group and that, post-industry, STILL tends to discourage other nationalities-of-origin from taking root. To an outsider, they may ALL look like "white trash," or "rednecks," but to a local person they are very obviously proud members of different cultural backgrounds who do not play well with people of other heritages without some significant relationship-building happening first. These divisions generally happen below the level of aware conversation; "We just don't KNOW them" is the usual description whether they WANT to know them or don't care to try to know them.

The lower one seems to be on the class scale, the more it seems people are affected by a non-verbal pattern of the divisive "isms" that keep them down where the sh*t rolls downhill towards. And the more scared are the powers that they'll bond, anyway, which of course they do when there is a way for them to get to know one another and build sustainable relationships.

This is common knowledge in social change work-- the relationship angle and the need to intentionally foster them-- the fact that relationship precedes anything else of sustainable value.

Here's a set of contrasting dynamics from church research that actually apply equally well to the difference between how small groups and large movements/organizations function: Church Dynamics Chart.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: GUEST,Mg
Date: 23 Oct 07 - 07:16 PM

Why did you call them trashy people? mg

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: alanabit
Date: 24 Oct 07 - 03:40 PM

Thanks everyone who replied here. At the moment I am up to my ears in correcting test papers and translating work. I shall have to delay my presentation for another week or so. However, I shall be returning to reread this thread when I do it. You have given me a number of ideas and a great deal to think about. I appreciate it.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 24 Oct 07 - 03:50 PM

I have heard - don't ask me for citations, though - that the 'Scotch-Irish' are now the poorest ethnic group in America.

Seems to me that you can most helpfully teach this by looking at how people who might be a powerful force if they worked together - for example, the working class - are neutered if they're divided by what the Irish Declaration of Independence calls "differences carefully fostered by an alien government".

You might show your students the film Ragtime - not to make them hate, but to show them how one working-class group can turn against another that threatens its tiny margin of advantage, if that advantage is so endangered that its owners are paranoid.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: maeve
Date: 24 Oct 07 - 05:05 PM

Oh dear.

"I have heard - don't ask me for citations, though - that the 'Scotch-Irish' are now the poorest ethnic group in America."

Guest JTT, I respectfully suggest that you look further into the issue rather than forward that observation without something approaching an information source. I would be very interested in your findings. There are so many ethnic groups who could be considered "winners" in any poverty contest one feels compelled to conduct here in the USA.

I appreciate the time you spent with your teaching suggestions for alanabit.

Cordially,

maeve

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: Kent Davis
Date: 24 Oct 07 - 05:08 PM

Alanabit,

You mention that you were "shocked to read of the Greensboro Massacre, which was as recent as November 3, 1979." It was certainly shocking. However, it would appear to have had little to do with the thesis that "most of the extreme violence against black folks in the South was perpetrated by the 'poor whites'." This particular conflict was not blacks vs. poor whites; it was KKK/Nazi vs. Communist/Communist sympathizer. Whether these particular Klansmen were poor, I have no idea. Those killed were, in this case, mostly white. http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.lib.unc.edu/ncc/ref/nchistory/nov2005/card1-lg.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.lib.un
See also http://www.gjf.org/index.php?page=histbro
Also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greensboro_massacre

Kent

Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
From: Ron Davies
Date: 24 Oct 07 - 10:19 PM

JTT--

I'm sure Riginslinger can regale you with all the details as to how poor the latest wave of Mexicans are. He's convinced they are a terrible drag on the US economy. After all it's usually the latest wave of immigrants which are the poorest. That would knock the "Scotch-Irish" out by a good bit. In Albion's Seed, an excellent book dealing with early British colonization of North America, David Hackett Fischer points out how in fact the largest number of presidents of the US come from that stock--including Johnson and Nixon. The connection with Johnson and Nixon (and Graham) is also noted in another excellent book about the English-Scottish border, Steel Bonnets.

If you have any actual evidence to support your notion about the "Scotch-Irish", please share it.