askchapo

23135 readers

159 users here now

Ask Hexbear is the place to ask and answer ~~thought-provoking~~ questions.

Rules:

Posts must ask a question.
If the question asked is serious, answer seriously.
Questions where you want to learn more about socialism are allowed, but questions in bad faith are not.
Try !feedback@hexbear.net if you're having questions about regarding moderation, site policy, the site itself, development, volunteering or the mod team.

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

PorkrollPosadist@hexbear.net

replaceable@hexbear.net

VILenin@hexbear.net

SexUnderSocialism@hexbear.net

khizuo@hexbear.net

Sulvy@hexbear.net

Wakmrow@hexbear.net

Why do people call others "white trash?" I recently discovered this term. (hexbear.net)

submitted 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) by HexaSnoot@hexbear.net to c/askchapo@hexbear.net

32 comments fedilink hide all child comments

For me, it's occasionally coming up when I listen to comedians. A year back I also heard a story about a white person who grew up poor, became financially stable with a good job, and then punched down and started calling other white people "white trash."

To me it's obvious this is poor-shaming. But I have a feeling it's far more complex than that. I'm not even white and I feel degraded whenever I come across those words. I barely know what it means, but it breaks my heart anyways to hear.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Rom@hexbear.net 40 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (2 children)

They are the lumpenproletariat. Marx wrote about them in the Communist Manifesto:

The “dangerous class”, [lumpenproletariat] the social scum, that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of the old society, may, here and there, be swept into the movement by a proletarian revolution; its conditions of life, however, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue.

Marx predicted frothingfash

[–] Evilsandwichman@hexbear.net 19 points 4 weeks ago

The 1800's were arguably (INarguably?) worse for the poor than today; it may sound like hyperbole for Marx to say society saw them as social scum, but science claimed that the poor and the mentally unwell needed to be killed or sterilized off for the sake of society; we're talking about the era that birthed eugenics.

Conditions today are less drastic, but it doesn't help that the poor and the mentally unwell have been demonized even today.

I'd say there's a combination of this and the mentality mentioned in that (Steinbeck?) quote (paraphrasing cause I don't remember it word for word): "socialism never took off in America because people envisioned themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires" at play.

[–] HexaSnoot@hexbear.net 1 points 4 weeks ago

the part of a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue

What does this mean?