WHITE FOLKS

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When white people are faces with racism they always say "Hey my best friend is a black guy!" Why do they always use that line?

― low, Monday, 26 April 2004 16:10 (twenty-two years ago)

they can't think of his name.

― hstencil, Monday, 26 April 2004 16:13 (twenty-two years ago)

it gets them out of trouble.

― RJG (RJG), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:13 (twenty-two years ago)

Because he can run faster than you and beat you up.

― Dean J Peretz (deangulberry), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:14 (twenty-two years ago)

I have never encountered a racist white person say this.

perhaps culturally isolated white people who wish to appear a little more diverse than they are.

― Ask For Samantha (thatgirl), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:16 (twenty-two years ago)

because we can't dance

― The Huckle-Buck (Horace Mann), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:16 (twenty-two years ago)

What if the white person in question is Lenny on The Simpsons?

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:21 (twenty-two years ago)

wait, isn't lenny the black one?

― Ask For Samantha (thatgirl), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:22 (twenty-two years ago)

White Trash is an acceptable cultural stereotype: discuss.

― Orbit (Orbit), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:24 (twenty-two years ago)

we all know that people are the same wherever you go--there is good and bad in everyone

xp: that's Carl

― mookieproof (mookieproof), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:25 (twenty-two years ago)

i don't like the "white" in front b/c that implies that all other races are trash by default.

(i knew it was carl just being simpons' funny. they are often confused on the show)

― Ask For Samantha (thatgirl), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:26 (twenty-two years ago)

NONE of my best friends are black or gay. that means i'm definitely not a racist or a sexist. (and why does "racist" seem to exist as a noun and "sexist" doesn't?)

― Robbie Lumsden (Wallace Stevens HQ), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:26 (twenty-two years ago)

robbie, good point. (re: racist vs sexist)

― Ask For Samantha (thatgirl), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:27 (twenty-two years ago)

I love it when straight guys find out you're gay and they say "I love lesbians! Some of my best friends are lesbians." Like, what? Now are we supposed to automatically be pally? Give a secret handshake? Talk about how awesome pussy is?

― Jeanne Fury (Jeanne Fury), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:27 (twenty-two years ago)

i don't like the "white" in front b/c that implies that all other races are trash by default.

Explain pls?

― Dean J Peretz (deangulberry), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:27 (twenty-two years ago)

I've never heard that. Interesting. What kind of trash? White trash. I always interpreted Trash as an economic/class slur.

― Orbit (Orbit), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:28 (twenty-two years ago)

why must the insult "trash" be qualified by "white"? To me, it sounds like the thinker saying trashy folx who are white are the exception.

― Ask For Samantha (thatgirl), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:28 (twenty-two years ago)

http://www.blackpeopleloveus.com/

― DV (dirtyvicar), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:28 (twenty-two years ago)

That's just what I've always understood it to mean. A class-based slur, specifying a white person.

― Orbit (Orbit), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:29 (twenty-two years ago)

I have always interpreted it as a trashy way of being white.

Either way that is not cool, racists! Not cool.

― Dean J Peretz (deangulberry), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:30 (twenty-two years ago)

yay! blackpeopleloveus. it's mega. and the guy in it looks just like my friend roger...xpost

― Robbie Lumsden (Wallace Stevens HQ), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:30 (twenty-two years ago)

why does "racist" seem to exist as a noun and "sexist" doesn't?

Ummm, "sexist" does exist as a noun. I'm not sure I follow...

― martin m. (mushrush), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:30 (twenty-two years ago)

Racism?.
When is racism racism?
words that have been successfully ?reclaimed?
Redneck exploitation films

― hstencil, Monday, 26 April 2004 16:30 (twenty-two years ago)

omg that is the funniest website evah!

― Orbit (Orbit), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:32 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah, what's the sexist thing about, please?

― RJG (RJG), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:32 (twenty-two years ago)

There is a book called White Trash in America that is pretty good.

― Orbit (Orbit), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:33 (twenty-two years ago)

is that the Jim Goad one?

― hstencil, Monday, 26 April 2004 16:35 (twenty-two years ago)

The Toast of Jim Goad,

― Robbie Lumsden (Wallace Stevens HQ), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:37 (twenty-two years ago)

martin, he's asking why 'sexist' doesn't exsist as a noun.

― Ask For Samantha (thatgirl), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:37 (twenty-two years ago)

No it has nothing to do with Jim Goad, who I do not respect.
You can get it at Amazon etc.

― Orbit (Orbit), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:38 (twenty-two years ago)

okay, I couldn't remember what his book was called.

― hstencil, Monday, 26 April 2004 16:38 (twenty-two years ago)

what i mean is you would say "that guys a sexist" very much, but you would say "that guy's a racist" more readily...

not really a big point...

xpost

― Robbie Lumsden (Wallace Stevens HQ), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:39 (twenty-two years ago)

I think you just don't hear people talk about 'a sexist' as much as 'a racist' because 'misogynist' is often used instead. I don't know why that is.

― Cathy (Cathy), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:40 (twenty-two years ago)

goad's book was The Redneck Manifesto,

― jack cole (jackcole), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:40 (twenty-two years ago)

....but 'misandrist' is rarely used...

x to the motherfuckin post

― Robbie Lumsden (Wallace Stevens HQ), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:41 (twenty-two years ago)

but 'misogynist' brings up another interesting point since that term refers specifically to sexism towards women.

Which brings up another term I really hate "reverse racism". THERE'S NO SUCH THING.

― Ask For Samantha (thatgirl), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:42 (twenty-two years ago)

I hate 'reverse racism' too. so sttoooooooppppid!

― Robbie Lumsden (Wallace Stevens HQ), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:43 (twenty-two years ago)

Samantha OTM re: "white trash." Especially because in most other cases, nobody specifies "white" because it's seen as the default. For example, a TV listing of Lethal Weapon might refer to "a cop and his black sidekick," where we're to assume that the cop is white, because we're not told otherwise. "Black" is used to describe "sidekick" because that's seen as notable or unusual somehow. Therefore, "white" gets used before "trash" in the same way; it's seen as notable or unusual that either a white person would be trashy, or that trash would include a white person. I mean, why don't we ever say "black trash"?

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:43 (twenty-two years ago)

WAIT WAIT WAIT In what universe is Danny Glover the sidekick in the "Lethal Weapon" franchise???

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:44 (twenty-two years ago)

I actually wouldn't be surprised if some black people called others "black trash."

― hstencil, Monday, 26 April 2004 16:45 (twenty-two years ago)

true. in lethal weapon the roles are reversed. mel gibson the CRAZY one while danny glover is the responsible one.

― cutty (mcutt), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:45 (twenty-two years ago)

Okay, Dan, maybe not the best example! I was actually pulling that directly from a book about whiteness I read five years ago, in which that was an actual TV listing in the UK.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:46 (twenty-two years ago)

!!!

(hstencil: I would!)

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:47 (twenty-two years ago)

'Misandrist' not so common, 'man-hater' fairly common. Again, I don't know why that is.

x-post x a few

― Cathy (Cathy), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:47 (twenty-two years ago)

xpost to jaymc: I think your assumption of "we" is a bit faulty.

― hstencil, Monday, 26 April 2004 16:47 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah Dan I think it would be a mistake to say that "white trash" is purely racist terminology when it also involves class. I would imagine that among "well-to-do" black folk "black trash" is an acceptable ephitet.

― hstencil, Monday, 26 April 2004 16:48 (twenty-two years ago)

I love it when straight guys find out you're gay and they say "I love lesbians! Some of my best friends are lesbians." Like, what? Now are we supposed to
automatically be pally? Give a secret handshake? Talk about how awesome pussy is?

B-b-but, pussy is awesome, isn't it?

― The Huckle-Buck (Horace Mann), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:49 (twenty-two years ago)

As in "why don't we ever say..."?

You may be right. I've never heard the term, but I guess that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

It's definitely not part of the common culture, though.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Cathy - 'Lesbian' even more common.

!JOKE!

― Robbie Lumsden (Wallace Stevens HQ), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:49 (twenty-two years ago)

also two weeks ago in Shelbyville, Kentucky I heard both black and white people exclaim their dislike of Mexicans as well as use the term "Oriental." Amazing, though not unlikely since these were all people older than 55.

― hstencil, Monday, 26 April 2004 16:50 (twenty-two years ago)

hstencil, jaymc is way more OTM than you are. I would argue that a well-to-do black person is far more likely to use "nigger" than "black trash".

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:50 (twenty-two years ago)

jaymc, asking what makes up "the common culture" might help.

― hstencil, Monday, 26 April 2004 16:51 (twenty-two years ago)

I've heard African Americans use the term "country" to refer to their rural, hick-ish brethren.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:51 (twenty-two years ago)

you think so, Dan? I can't see it myself, but I wouldn't know.

― hstencil, Monday, 26 April 2004 16:51 (twenty-two years ago)

I would argue that a well-to-do black person is far more likely to use "nigger" than "black trash".

Chris Rock deals with this issue extensively. Or at least he did about 8 years ago.

― The Huckle-Buck (Horace Mann), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:51 (twenty-two years ago)

"'Bamma" is also used to some degree.

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:51 (twenty-two years ago)

I have never heard a black person say "black trash"!!!!! Or anyone else, really.
I have heard both black and white people say "White trash" however.

― Orbit (Orbit), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:53 (twenty-two years ago)

well what about pre-gangsta rap? Does anyone else not think that "nigger" has become more acceptable in the black community than it would've been, say, 20 or 50 years ago?

― hstencil, Monday, 26 April 2004 16:53 (twenty-two years ago)

People be hating!

― The Huckle-Buck (Horace Mann), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:53 (twenty-two years ago)

There was a massive con-tro-ver-sy about Chuck D using the word nigger in "Fear of Black Planet" and that was in 1990!

― Robbie Lumsden (Wallace Stevens HQ), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:54 (twenty-two years ago)

"Fear of a Black Planet" isn't pre-gangsta rap. Ice Cube guests on it, and he'd already split from N.W.A. by then.

― hstencil, Monday, 26 April 2004 16:55 (twenty-two years ago)

Musi ques
I sews on bews
I pues a twos on que zat
Pue zoo
My kizzer
Pous zigga ay zee
Its all kizza
Its always like
Its all kizza
Its always like
Na zound
Wa zee
Wa zoom zoom zee

― white folks ft ludicrous (nickalicious), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:56 (twenty-two years ago)

the massive controversy over that album has to do with anti-Semitism, specifically the lines "So called chosen, frozen/Apology made to whomever it pleases/Still they got me like Jesus" in "Welcome to the Terrordome."

― hstencil, Monday, 26 April 2004 16:57 (twenty-two years ago)

but that's what I mean: in 1990 even after gangsta rap had started Public Enemy still had to defend themselves in the press over the use of the word. can U see that happening now?

xpost

― Robbie Lumsden (Wallace Stevens HQ), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:57 (twenty-two years ago)

Huckle-Buck OTM- "Black People v Niggers"

― Donna Brown (Donna Brown), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:58 (twenty-two years ago)

it depends on what side of the issue you are on.
some people find it offensive, others reclaiming, others use it unreflectively.

― Orbit (Orbit), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:58 (twenty-two years ago)

also, "Black Trash" is the name of a Sticky Fingaz album.

― hstencil, Monday, 26 April 2004 16:59 (twenty-two years ago)

no if black people are acting trashy we say damn thats a Ghetto mutha fucker!

― low, Monday, 26 April 2004 17:00 (twenty-two years ago)

but which press were they defending themselves in?

NWA didn't invent their particular usage, they took it from private (or better perhaps "in-culture") to public (or "cross-culture")

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 26 April 2004 17:00 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm not saying they invented it, but they popularized it.

Also, a British movie called "Soul Patrol" from 1980 was released in the States as "Black Trash."

It may be less common now than "nigger" or "ghetto," but I don't doubt it was used, and may still be used.

― hstencil, Monday, 26 April 2004 17:03 (twenty-two years ago)

popularized it? what?!!! maybe they made it "acceptable" for suburban white boys but it was used in-group and out-group before that!

― Orbit (Orbit), Monday, 26 April 2004 17:06 (twenty-two years ago)

yes but the controversy wz that they were popularising it (in that specific sense) as acceptable "out-group" speech, not that it wasn't widely used before in-group

(not that it wasn't controversial before: also my hunch wd be that some ppl STOPPED using it "in-group" in that sense after the gangsta rap intervention, so that while they popularised it in public, they - somewhat - depopularised it in private) (but not to the extent that the two changes cancelled one another out)

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 26 April 2004 17:10 (twenty-two years ago)

orbit otm

I actually wouldn't be surprised if some black people called others "black trash."

i have also never heard this uttered by any black person.

the word 'nigger' used by blacks has always been around. always. recent pop culture has only brought it's use to the attention of the mainstream.

― Ask For Samantha (thatgirl), Monday, 26 April 2004 19:53 (twenty-two years ago)

again, I wasn't claiming that N.W.A. invented the word.

― hstencil, Monday, 26 April 2004 19:59 (twenty-two years ago)

I also can't claim definitive knowledge of what an entire race of people may or may not say. I was just saying that based on prior examples, it's more than likely that the phrase "black trash" has been used in a way similar to that of "white trash."

― hstencil, Monday, 26 April 2004 20:00 (twenty-two years ago)

is this a c/d? 'cus I'd have to go with dud.

― The Second Drummer Drowned (Atila the Honeybun), Monday, 26 April 2004 20:04 (twenty-two years ago)

No it's just a troll who starts these types of threads all the time.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Monday, 26 April 2004 20:57 (twenty-two years ago)

b-b-b-but Jeanne, isn't that the ENTIRE BASIS of our friendship? ;-)

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Monday, 26 April 2004 21:01 (twenty-two years ago)

five years pass...

k. sanneh on whiteness and stuff. sort of interesting. cannot at all tell how sincere his compliments to glenn beck are. (considering that he also was so admiring of michael savage.) but i guess the gist is this:

Roediger and Painter are right to remind us that whiteness was built over centuries on a foundation of deceit and confusion and disguised political imperatives. But neither seems fully to grasp the ways in which this artificial category has, over the years, come haltingly to life. Yes, whiteness is a social construct, and not (as race scientists used to think) a biological essence—but then so, too, is every collective identity. It’s getting easier to talk about “white culture,” maybe even white politics, without knee-jerk sarcasm or, for that matter, knee-jerk sympathy. And it’s getting easier to imagine an American whiteness that is less exceptional, less dominant, less imperial, and more conspicuous, an ethnicity more like the others. In the Obama era—the Tea Party era—whiteness is easier to see than ever before, which means it’s less readily taken for granted. If invisibility is power, then whiteness is a little less powerful than it used to be.

― women are a bunch of dudes (tipsy mothra), Tuesday, 13 April 2010 21:16 (sixteen years ago)

haha reading that article i kept thinking abt (former?) ilx poster nabisco who wld bring that idea up all the time - that there is a "white culture" that was distinct from "absence of culture" & how impt a distinction this is

― Lamp, Tuesday, 13 April 2010 21:19 (sixteen years ago)

white people are ok i guess

― max arrrrrgh, Tuesday, 13 April 2010 21:55 (sixteen years ago)

So we should probably stop thinking of whiteness as an error, and start thinking of it, instead, as a work in progress. Historians have sometimes framed the treacherous history of whiteness as the slow death of an idea. Perhaps it’s time we start viewing it, instead, as the slow birth of a people.

Congratulation on the birth of white people!

― velko, Tuesday, 13 April 2010 21:57 (sixteen years ago)

maybe we can have like a big white people birthday

― goole, Wednesday, 14 April 2010 04:25 (sixteen years ago)

congratulation WHTPPL

― GREAT JOB Mushroom head (gbx), Wednesday, 14 April 2010 04:31 (sixteen years ago)

congratulation k. sanneh for moving away from ~~ripping off ilm threads~~ music crit

― like david lee roth (haitch), Wednesday, 14 April 2010 05:19 (sixteen years ago)

I'm not all that gaga in general for the "X is a social construction" meme, but "white people" is one very weird social construction. It's like a ghetto with gated access, built by rich people for a certain class of poor people, and called "Better Than Blacks Heights".

― Aimless, Wednesday, 14 April 2010 17:36 (sixteen years ago)

xpost He's been writing non-music stuff for the New Yorker for two years.

― HOOS zing-steen (jaymc), Wednesday, 14 April 2010 17:37 (sixteen years ago)

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