End of ADS-L Digest - 26 Aug 1994 to 27 Aug 1994 ************************************************ There is one message totalling 28 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Racist terms--white trash ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 28 Aug 1994 22:56:12 -0500 From: Dennis Baron Subject: Re: Racist terms--white trash I haven't been following the discussion closely but I thought someone mentioned _white trash_ last week. At our potluck for new TAs Friday night someone from Arkansas said something like "white trash and proud to be." So I asked him about the term being used self-referentially in a positive sense and he said he (age 41) and his Arkansas friends did so routinely, though they all came from families he classified as lower middle class who would be horrified if they knew their children used that term of themselves, and had done so for 20 yrs or more. And he admitted there was some irony in the term as well. -- debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uiuc.edu (\ 217-333-2392 \'\ fax: 217-333-4321 Dennis Baron \'\ __________ Department of English / '| ()_________) Univ. of Illinois \ '/ \ ~~~~~~~~ \ 608 S. Wright St. \ \ ~~~~~~ \ Urbana IL 61801 ==). \__________\ (__) ()__________)