White trash is an American English pejorative term referring to poor white people in the United States, especially in the rural South, suggesting lower social class and degraded living standards. The term suggests outcasts from respectable society living on the fringes of the social order who are seen as dangerous because they may be criminal, unpredictable, and without respect for authority whether it be political, legal, or moral. The term is usually a slur, but may also be used self-referentially by whites to jokingly describe their origins.
Read more about White Trash: White Trash Versus Cracker, Hillbilly, Okie, and Redneck, History, White Popular Culture, Black Popular Culture, In Literature
Famous quotes containing the words white and/or trash:
“Other men wear white suits in summer and it doesnt seem to bother them. But my white suit seems to be a little whiter than theirs. I think also that it may have something written on the back of it, although I cant find it when I take the suit off.”
—Robert Benchley (18891945)
“Thought is a garment and the souls a bride
That cannot in that trash and tinsel hide:
Hatred of God may bring the soul to God.”
—William Butler Yeats (18651939)