BS: Redneck and trailer trash

Subject: RE: BS: Redneck and trailer trash
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Feb 03 - 07:44 AM

If I read a book and I see Papist instead of Catholic it refers to the same people, but it doesn't mean the same thing. When it's put in the mouth of a character, it tells me something about the character. When it's put in the mouth of a first person narrator, it tells me something about the narrator. When it's the author using it directly, it tells me something about the author.

Quite what it tells me might vary, but it indicates that bigotry is in the air, sometimes being expressed, sometimes being challenged.

The same with terms like "trailer trash" and "nigger" and "raghead" and all the rest of them. (Redneck is a slightly different case, which is still up for grabs.)

Subject: RE: BS: Redneck and trailer trash
From: Davetnova
Date: 05 Feb 03 - 03:37 AM

I don't know if anyone looked through all the photos on the trailer site bookmarked above, but this one shuttle is of the space shuttle taking off. I'm sure this is purepure coincidence but I hope it's not a comment on the engineering involved.

Subject: RE: BS: Redneck and trailer trash
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 04 Feb 03 - 06:10 PM

Guest Q: Old Tan Tucker? Old Beige Bailey? :-)

Thread creep

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Redneck and trailer trash
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 Feb 03 - 06:05 PM

PC is problematic. It is a bandaid on culture where often a tourniquet is needed.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Redneck and trailer trash
From: jimmyt
Date: 04 Feb 03 - 05:54 PM

Thanks for the response, SRS I am not in any way trying to be confrontational, but merely expressing my opinion that at some point, PC becomes a point of diminishing return. At the present rate, calling someone a man or woman will eventually be non PC.

Subject: RE: BS: Redneck and trailer trash
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 Feb 03 - 05:50 PM

JimmyT,

Everyone has to choose the terms they're comfortable using--my remarks above weren't meant to register in any way regarding "redneck" and it's use or disappearance from the lexicon. I simply took the word "trash" in the term "trailer trash" apart to examine how it is used in the dominant American culture. People also choose what they want to be called, and sometimes co-opting the very term that has been used to denigrate is a way to short-circuit the criticism and turn it back on the critic. It's a way of reinventing the language. Perhaps the cookbook example is an illustration of this?

I'm with Deda on the usefulness of mobile homes. I house-sat for a friend for a couple of years in her double-wide out on 10 acres of lakefront property in Washington State. It was a wonderful place, not diminished at all by the nature of the dwelling.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Redneck and trailer trash
From: jimmyt
Date: 04 Feb 03 - 03:20 PM

Let me try to clarify what I am trying to say so I don't offend anyone. I guess what I am saying is that the term itself is not offensive. It is descriptive, and if you read it in a novel, you would get an image of whom the author was discribing. It is no more offensive than saying he is a Catholic, he is gothic, he is a liberal, a conservative, etc. It is a descriptive term and that in and of itself is not offensive. In the right (or wrong) context, it could be used in a defamatory way so that it would be offensive. I have had people in these threads call me things related to my conservative politics that I feel were intended to be defamatory, and the same person would never ever consider saying redneck because it might be politically incorrect. My daughter-in-law corrected me for using the term Oriental discribing those people in eastern Asia from Japan, Korea, China ,etc. "You should say Asian", she said. Well the ability to describe gets muddied by something like that. I guess next you can't say Canadian, but must substitute another term, or no longer say Texan, but should say a person from North America. I know I am creeping or worse yet, railing on about something that I think is out of hand. I think the intent is more important than the actual word in most cases. There are lots of comedians making good livings telling jokes about rednecks. There biggest audience? You guessed it, the very people who the humor is about.

Subject: RE: BS: Redneck and trailer trash
From: jimmyt
Date: 04 Feb 03 - 02:56 PM

Stilly River Sage, I am thinking about people whom I consider rednecks. Mind you, I am not verbalizing, but in my mind, I see white bigots who are intolerant of anyone not their color, religion or lifestyle. They tend to be prejudiced against anything or anyone who is different. They have a disdain for the Arts unless it is music that they happen to like. They are not all uneducated blue color folks, in fact there are lots of folks in my home town that I would classify like this that are affluent. To me they are rednecks. I don't use the term publicly, but that is what it means to me when I hear the term. PC well, I don't know. Same with trash I don't use the term but I would beg to differ that isis based on poverty. It is based on human dignity. If someone has a couple broken down cars in their front yard, a couch on their front porch, a satellite dish or 2, I don't care if they have a million dollars, it still looks trashy.   I can't speak for anyone else but myself, but although I wouldn't use the term, I can understand exactly what it means to me.

Subject: RE: BS: Redneck and trailer trash
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 04 Feb 03 - 01:36 PM

More thread creep.
Welshy is in the OED, added in the 1987 supplement, defined as slang for Welsh. This supplement also carried Welsh- to fail to carry out a promise or to keep an obligation. This is common in the US and Canada. Is it used in England?
Same sort of slander applied to Scots and Dutch about money.

Jerry, ran across "Old Tan Tucker" in the Bodleian Collection.

Subject: RE: BS: Redneck and trailer trash
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 04 Feb 03 - 01:03 PM

I prefer the term Farmer Tan, myself. Truck drivers have a tan left arm. Just work related...

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Redneck and trailer trash
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 Feb 03 - 11:27 AM

The critical word that everything else is hanging on is "Trash." Poverty isn't a crime, but many cultures treat it as such, and when you combine poverty with ignorance you have a sub-culture that is often disfunctional, that a lot of people don't like and aren't happy being around. You'll find a classic definition of this "type" in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird in the form of the Ewell family. Characteristics of this group are clustered together under the heading of "Other" by society (making them objects instead of people), and are comfortably objectified in negative ways by those who don't see themselves as in that group.

I've resisted posting to the Racist thread, though these remarks fit there also. The GUEST who is posting argumentative religious right threads lately is setting up Mudcatters to fall into all sorts of rhetorical traps. We passed through a phase of outsiders posting links to nasty games, but Mudcat is now being targeted by smirking zealots who should be ignored. They have no interest in music, just in argument. Don't feed the trolls!

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Redneck and trailer trash
From: Lyndi-loo
Date: 04 Feb 03 - 11:07 AM

I'm from Wales and I've been called most things! I think Taffy is probably the most common as in "Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief". I don't really mind as long as it's not Anne Robinson who's insulting me

Subject: RE: BS: Redneck and trailer trash
From: JudeL
Date: 04 Feb 03 - 11:05 AM

Oops: wod = word

Subject: RE: BS: Redneck and trailer trash
From: JudeL
Date: 04 Feb 03 - 10:44 AM

Welsh is the correct term and is not derogatory, "welshy" is what is being objected to as a wod which doesn't even exist

Subject: RE: BS: Redneck and trailer trash
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Feb 03 - 10:15 AM

If the person in question is called Kim Howells, something very rude indeed.

Subject: RE: BS: Redneck and trailer trash
From: jimmyt
Date: 04 Feb 03 - 09:57 AM

Mc Grath, then what is appropriate to call people from Wales?

Subject: RE: BS: Redneck and trailer trash
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Feb 03 - 09:44 AM

Nobdy has ever called a person with a Swansea accent "welshy" that I've ever heard. Just "Welsh". There are other rude ways of referring to the natves of Wales, Welsh but that isn't one of them.

Mind, "Welsh" is in its origins fairly insulting - it's from the Anglo-Saxon for "foreigner. Which is bare-faced cheek when you think of it - I mean, even in America the invading Europeans never called the people who lived there first "foreigners".

Subject: RE: BS: Redneck and trailer trash
From: JennyO
Date: 04 Feb 03 - 08:43 AM

Did you see the inflatable church? there's supposed to be an inflatable pub and nightclub too, but no pictures yet.

Subject: RE: BS: Redneck and trailer trash
From: Bobert
Date: 03 Feb 03 - 10:06 PM

LOL, GUEST, Q... Loved the pics. Ahhh, I've got a real nice 1953 Sartantte myself (for traveling, thank you...) and my cousin, Rufus has a nice half-a-double-wid back up in them holler. Maybe he'll come around and tell ya all about it.

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Redneck and trailer trash
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 03 Feb 03 - 09:52 PM

Get a good idea of the wide variety of trailers here: Trailer trash

Subject: RE: BS: Redneck and trailer trash
From: Bobert
Date: 03 Feb 03 - 09:29 PM

Hi dar, mah name is Rufus and well Iz stopt by der Bobberz an' sinz hez up en his studeo playen on his geetar Iz figgured dat Iz jus git my two scents wort in a'fir he comez bak en. Well, okay me an my ol ladee Rether Maze, we live en der traylor up en der holler a peece. It uset to be a doble wide bud now ets a half a doble wide. Well, howz I to know dat Willie simpsin had turned on hes ankle in praktice da day befor det big game wid Hadley Hi Skool an so will I bet der haff of der doble widz on Muzzelmen winnin dat game bud they dinent win et at all. Mite of factz day loss der game and de nex day, Garree Bratford done backed up hes Chevy hearbeet of America to der haff I bet on and took et on down der rode, he did. Well, at leese der half he got dint have the bathroom en et or der Rether wood had sure nuff leff me, bless her hart, bud ol Garee got haff der bedroom so n ow I gotta sleepz on der couch. Well, ya no dat they say dat der Lord loox after foolz and kids, well den I got der dobble covrage since evrythin workz out just fine and now, wid all dat see thru plastx down one sidezs of der hald widez we get's lots more sunlites... Opps, gotta go. Hear comes der Bobberz. Don tell hem Iz been plyen wid his puddeerer thengie...

Rufus

Subject: RE: BS: Redneck and trailer trash
From: GUEST,nashville cat
Date: 03 Feb 03 - 09:03 PM

For the sake of my cousin I'll weigh in about rednecks and trailer trash as I'm well aquainted with both. While being from the industrial north I was 'raised' by southerners with southern values and traditions. Trailer trash is a relatively new term to have evolved in the American slang pool. When someone in the south would describe another whom they thought of as lazy or 'no-account'(which became no'count)the term used was often 'trashy'(like Londoners would describe a Swansea accent as 'Welshy'...same sort of thing) Often a person off ill repute would be described as 'trash'. It's not a compliment. The term 'welshy' is not 'always' derogatory, sometimes it's just desciptive. Trashy is always derogatory. It's a reference to the time-honored tradition in the American rural south to allow things to clutter up their yard areas. Old washers, cars up on blocks, a broken down lawn mower and 4-5 stringy haired young'uns with dirty feet and a magnifying glass to burn up ants are all pretty much standard 'trashy' images. Then the term 'white trash' came into prominence to delinate, racially from the same types(rural, no'count), but of African heritage rather than European. I gotta go, but will post later with more descriptions and references

Subject: RE: BS: Redneck and trailer trash
From: Deda
Date: 03 Feb 03 - 08:14 PM

I live in a mobile home in Boulder, Colorado, in a mobile home park which holds about 600 mobile homes. It's low-income housing, but then Boulder is generally a very affluent town. I live here becuase it enables me to live in the town of my choice, without being rich -- which for some reason is something I've never had any ambition or drive to be. I'm not a redneck, nor am I trash of any kind. And this isn't really a trailer, nor is it very mobile. It has three bedrooms and two bathrooms, with a little garden in th back, and my husband and I are as happy as a couple of puppies.

Subject: RE: BS: Redneck and trailer trash
From: Rapparee
Date: 03 Feb 03 - 07:01 PM

Ya know, I saw lots and lots of trailers and trailer parks up in Alaska. I guess they're not all in the South.

Subject: RE: BS: Redneck and trailer trash
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 03 Feb 03 - 06:45 PM

Easy enough to find out what "trailer trash" means. Just check out the Jerry Springer show any day of the week. The participants aren't all actors ....

Murray

Subject: RE: BS: Redneck and trailer trash
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Feb 03 - 05:52 PM

Woody Guthrie didn't see "redneck" as an insult when he wrote Ludlow Massacre:

"And the redneck miners mowed down them troopers
You should have seen those poor boys run"

I think I can imagine the kind of song he might have written about people using terms like "trailer trash" or "white trash". Here's something he wrote that seems to fit in. He's talking about songs, but he might have been talking about "jokes" as well:

I hate a song that makes you think that you're not any good. I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose. Bound to lose. No good to nobody. Because you are either too old or too young or too fat or too slim or too ugly or too this or too that. Songs that run you down or songs that poke fun at you on account of your bad luck or your hard travelling.

I am out to fight those kinds of songs to my very last breath of air and my last drop of blood.

I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world, and that if it has hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, no matter how hard it's run you down and rolled over you, no matter what color, what size you are, how you are built, I am out to sing songs that make you take pride in your self and your work."

Subject: RE: BS: Redneck and trailer trash
From: gnu
Date: 03 Feb 03 - 02:58 PM

My best friend, Roch, lives in a trailer, or "mini-home", as some prefer, and he is the salt of the earth... a true gentleman with a young family and enough bills to keep him in debt until retirement if the economy doesn't pick up so that he can make a decent wage. Hence the trailer.

Now, next door is true trailer trash. "The welfare" owns the trailer and neither of the couple work for health reasons but they start drinking every day by mid-afternoon, after they drive their welfare-bought car to the powerhouse. That's right, welfare-bought car. Hey, how else are they going to get their groceries ?

On the other side of Roch is a family with two brand new SUV's, a hunting and fishing camp back "up home" (northern part of the province), a looong new travel trailer for parking at the shore, a power boat, two ATV's, and two snowmobiles. Government employees with cushy jobs.

Roch would like to move. I don't blame him. He's a redneck, with a smile.

Subject: RE: BS: Redneck and trailer trash
From: Cornflake
Date: 03 Feb 03 - 02:47 PM

"Redneck" is mildly derogatory. With "white trash" there's no mildly to it. That's probably where "trailer trash" came from. A subset I guess.

Subject: RE: BS: Redneck and trailer trash
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 03 Feb 03 - 02:41 PM

The cookbook, "White Trash Cooking," was a best seller years back. Some people objected to the title.
I remember my Georgia mother-in-law's reaction to it. During the Depression, the recipes would have been beyond the reach of many, using as it did expensive canned goods and fruits and vegetables exotic to the area. By the time the book was printed, canned ingredients use in recipes had become a sign of a lazy, uninformed cook.

Subject: RE: BS: Redneck and trailer trash
From: Cornflake
Date: 03 Feb 03 - 02:28 PM

As a white southerner, I always understood that the term "redneck" originated with farmers and other outdoor workers who had sunburned necks. It tends to connote someone more rural than urban, not wealthy, unsophisticated and conservative. I've used the term with a smile to refer to my own heritage. It's one of those things you can call yourself or a close friend in fun but that you wouldn't call a stranger unless you're fond of fighting.

"Trailer trash" seems offensive to me and I can't imagine using it.

Subject: RE: BS: Redneck and trailer trash
From: Sorcha
Date: 03 Feb 03 - 02:00 PM

And then, there are the $100,000 triple wide "modular homes"..........

Subject: RE: BS: Redneck and trailer trash
From: Kim C
Date: 03 Feb 03 - 01:55 PM

My brother in law is definitely a redneck and Proud Of It. However... he would give you the shirt off his back if you asked for it, and would help you out if you needed it. He is a little loudmouthed at times, but without a doubt, someone you could ride the river with.

Trailer trash... well... not everyone who lives in a trailer is trashy. In my part of Nashville, though, there are some of the older trailer parks, and the trailers look trashy. It doesn't necessarily mean that the people living in them are trashy.

Subject: RE: BS: Redneck and trailer trash
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 03 Feb 03 - 01:47 PM

An article in today's local newspaper, taken from the Washington Telegraph, tells about collecting the debris from the Columbia. Much fell in rural, hard-scrabble east Texas, and the reporter talks derogatorially about the people and their trailers, dogs, tattered Battle flags and defensive attitude towards outsiders entering their property. At the end, the reporter did quote one area resident as saying that once they heard about the importance of the debris, they were trying to keep out the hundreds of people who had just come looking.

Subject: RE: BS: Redneck and trailer trash
From: jimmyt
Date: 03 Feb 03 - 10:53 AM

mmario, where I come from, it would be difficult to get the painted lines to stay on the mud or gravel!

Subject: RE: BS: Redneck and trailer trash
From: gnu
Date: 03 Feb 03 - 10:52 AM

A redneck, as I would understand it, applies to all who work at hard labour outdoors for low pay, thereby the inference that they are not well educated or from well to do families. A farmer would not be a redneck. The derogatory use of the term is mainly to imply stupidity, especially for a white racist. The opposite use is to describe a "good old boy (person)" who works hard, is essentially an honest and upstanding citizen, but who parties hard as well. It just depends on if you are smiling or not when you call someone a redneck.

Subject: RE: BS: Redneck and trailer trash
From: MMario
Date: 03 Feb 03 - 10:52 AM

no lines on the roads! *gasp*! heck - a lot of the roads 'round 'bout these parts ain't even got paving!

Subject: RE: BS: Redneck and trailer trash
From: Lyndi-loo
Date: 03 Feb 03 - 10:52 AM

Thanks. that's all I wanted to know so I don't want any "guests" coming in with offensive remarks. BTW I'd never heard the word "hayseed" before

Subject: RE: BS: Redneck and trailer trash
From: Jim Krause
Date: 03 Feb 03 - 10:47 AM

Yep. Rick got it right. One sees folks living in trailers, mobile homes, or modular homes because they are inexpensive. I live west of the Mississippi River, and we have areas of town where that type of housing predominates.
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Redneck and trailer trash
From: GUEST,Dixie Peanut
Date: 03 Feb 03 - 10:46 AM

Lyndi-loo wrote: I don't wish to be non PC or offend anybody here, but I came across a website the other day that had loads of jokes beginning with "You know you're a redneck when....." An awful lot of these jokes seemed to refer to people living in trailers. Are the terms Redneck and Trailer trash interchangable? Do they really mean the same thing? And why do people living in trailers all live in the Southern States? Are there no Northern trailer dwellers. I always thought that a redneck was just a Southern states farmer. This is soooo confusing. Can one of our American cousins enlighten me?
-------------------------------------------------------------
To answer your questions about trailers...I live in the South & I'm not sure what's meant by 'trailer trash'...but on a trip to New England a few years ago I saw plenty of 'trailers' perched near the edge of cliffs as we drove down 'scenic' rural roads in PA, NH & NY. A pipe for their toilet facilities extended out from the back of the trailer, over the edge of the cliff. I think the term 'redneck' tends to be the Northern jokester's vision of Southern farmers & country dwellers, much as 'hayseed' is the Southern term for Northeners & Westerners of the same persuasion. In NY & NH there weren't even lines on some of the two-lane rural roads we travelled & not many road signs either. The term 'redneck trailer trash' was probably coined by jokesters such as Jeff Foxworthy who for the sake of the $$ claims to be from the South, but really isn't...

Hope this helps...Dixie Peanut

Subject: RE: BS: Redneck and trailer trash
From: jimmyt
Date: 03 Feb 03 - 10:44 AM

Lyndi, I live in the south, so as much as I can enlighten you, there are lots of rednecks all over the US, not just in the south. Lots of rednecks live in trailers, but lots don't. Lots of folks that live in trailers are not necessarily rednecks. We have many states where retirement communities are predominately mobile homes (trailers) The warmer states, Arizona, Florida, etc that attract a lot of retirement folks who live there in the winter do so in mobile home communities. I have never quite understood why the southern /redneck association exists, but perhaps there are larger numbers of folks that some would classify as rednecks. This sometimes gets to be a dicey discussion, as there are lots of folks that are offended by the term. I tend to think of rednecks who are very intolerant white folks, so I don't have a problem with the term in that usage. My previous accountant was very much a redneck and was a well to do white collar guy, so it is not necessarily limited to blue collar workers. I am sure some will take exception with my views, but in attempt to answer your questions, this is a start.

Subject: RE: BS: Redneck and trailer trash
From: mack/misophist
Date: 03 Feb 03 - 10:44 AM

The definition of red neck can vary greatly. Trailer trash refers ALMOST exclusively to people living in 'trailer parks'. One inference is that they move frequently to seek work or avoid creditors. There are middle class trailer 'estates' but they don't really count.

Subject: RE: BS: Redneck and trailer trash
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 03 Feb 03 - 10:40 AM

Yep, we sure HAVE had this stuff before. Several times actually. It's generally turned into a thread (threads) where people posting anonymously get to say how stupid, dirty, drunk, violent, avaricious, and you name it, other groups are. When challenged, they claim "They were just joking". Some of the convoluted explanations ARE hilarious. (usually of the "some of my best friends are..." variety) You'd be amazed how many Mudcatters get involved. The previous threads on this kind of stuff were NOT our finest hour.

P.S. Lots of folks are living in trailer parks in Ontario. The criteria would appear to be lack of money to buy more expensive housing.

Cheers

Rick

Subject: RE: BS: Redneck and trailer trash
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Feb 03 - 10:39 AM

"Trailer trash" is a term that seems pretty offensive to me. I'd be inclined to sympathise with anyone living in a trailer who kicked the shit out of someone using it.

Subject: BS: Redneck and trailer trash
From: Lyndi-loo
Date: 03 Feb 03 - 10:30 AM

I don't wish to be non PC or offend anybody here, but I came across a website the other day that had loads of jokes beginning with "You know you're a redneck when....." An awful lot of these jokes seemed to refer to people living in trailers. Are the terms Redneck and Trailer trash interchangable? Do they really mean the same thing? And why do people living in trailers all live in the Southern States? Are there no Northern trailer dwellers. I always thought that a redneck was just a Southern states farmer. This is soooo confusing. Can one of our American cousins enlighten me?