What's in a Word?
I don't think Senator Joe Biden would have had much of a chance in the presidential race if he had put his best foot forward, but his slam of Senator Barak Obama and the subsequent publicity surrounding his stupid comments will probably be the first time a candidate entered and exited a race simultaneously. The New York Times ran a great story yesterday that very "articulately" explained why Biden's comments were offensive. Anna Perez summed up the situation quite accurately as the "soft bigotry of low expectations."
I was really drawn to this article because it helped me articulate why I'm uncomfortable with other sayings that seem to go unnoticed as being racially charged. For example, in Detroit we use the phrase "white trash" a lot when making distinctions among social classes. Most folks in the city would be sociologically classified as poor, working class, or lower-middle class. In reality, though, the gradations are finer. People struggling for economic security use subtler measures of success, including material goods (e.g., living in a home vs. a trailer) and cultural markers (e.g., clothing, speech, make-up). "White trash" is the term used for the lowest of the pecking order. But why not just "trash"? Why do we need to clarify it with the adjective "white"? Because we operate with the unstated assumption that non-whites are already "trash." It's a given and does not need to be clarified with an adjective. We expect whites to be better than that, but when they are not, we have to articulate their position relative to the other trash.
Another example has popped up a few times since we've been in Albany. One of the major grocery chains here is Price Chopper. One of the branches is referred to as the "Ghetto Chopper" because it's located in a poorer section of town.* This name is used casually by everyone I've met at the university, but if you ask them why the store is called that, you get an awkward pause in response. The customers of the Ghetto Chopper are typically poor and black, unlike the average customers at many of the other branches. We're too PC to call it the "Black Chopper" or the "Poor Chopper," but apparently "ghetto" conveys the right message (i.e., if you're white and middle class then you don't want to shop there) but sounds less offensive. I wonder, though, if anyone ever calls it the Ghetto Chopper to someone who is poor and/or black?
* By the way, "ghetto" is a relative term. I have yet to see a part of Albany that even remotely looks like a ghetto in Detroit.
I was really drawn to this article because it helped me articulate why I'm uncomfortable with other sayings that seem to go unnoticed as being racially charged. For example, in Detroit we use the phrase "white trash" a lot when making distinctions among social classes. Most folks in the city would be sociologically classified as poor, working class, or lower-middle class. In reality, though, the gradations are finer. People struggling for economic security use subtler measures of success, including material goods (e.g., living in a home vs. a trailer) and cultural markers (e.g., clothing, speech, make-up). "White trash" is the term used for the lowest of the pecking order. But why not just "trash"? Why do we need to clarify it with the adjective "white"? Because we operate with the unstated assumption that non-whites are already "trash." It's a given and does not need to be clarified with an adjective. We expect whites to be better than that, but when they are not, we have to articulate their position relative to the other trash.
Another example has popped up a few times since we've been in Albany. One of the major grocery chains here is Price Chopper. One of the branches is referred to as the "Ghetto Chopper" because it's located in a poorer section of town.* This name is used casually by everyone I've met at the university, but if you ask them why the store is called that, you get an awkward pause in response. The customers of the Ghetto Chopper are typically poor and black, unlike the average customers at many of the other branches. We're too PC to call it the "Black Chopper" or the "Poor Chopper," but apparently "ghetto" conveys the right message (i.e., if you're white and middle class then you don't want to shop there) but sounds less offensive. I wonder, though, if anyone ever calls it the Ghetto Chopper to someone who is poor and/or black?
* By the way, "ghetto" is a relative term. I have yet to see a part of Albany that even remotely looks like a ghetto in Detroit.
posted by Janet | 8:16 PM
1 Comments:
I love your expose of the not-so-subtle racial connotations of the phrase "white trash." This phrase insults everyone: the people we use it to describe, along with everyone who isn't white and who don't "need" to be called "trash" because it supposedly goes without saying. I have actually heard people say that there is something wrong with any white person who still lives in Detroit because, as a white person, they "should" have the gumption to leave. This statement, of course, implies an inherent white superiority -- black people aren't expected to want to make their lives better by leaving a blighted city.
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